Valley of the Kings (tombs) - Luxor

Wednesday, September 26
Today we visited Valley of the Kings (near Luxor) - these tombs, long ago plundered, still contain marvelous base-reliefs of human figures and instructions for the dead to pass by the sentinels guarding the way to eternal life. The scope and scale of the tombs is amazing. This is where King Tut's tomb was discovered some decades ago, still intact. I was struck by all the hieroglyphics covering the walls, and still with some color. The slaves began digging the tomb as soon as the Pharoah became king so that there would be time to finish it before he died! (there was so much work to be done for it to be ready for the mummified body).

Here are some details:
1. Usually there were “gates” inside the tomb (sometimes 12 gates) which the dead person had to pass thru before he reached eternal life

2. There were 2 kinds of responses by the dead person 1) negative response – “I didn’t lie” and 2) positive response – “I killed a man because he was an evil person”

3. The hieroglyphics were actually passages from the Book of the Dead – things the dead person would need to know for the next life

4. Mumification process took 72 days, at which time the tomb was closed and no more work could be done on it – even if it wasn’t finished

5. All Pharoah’s treasures (chariot, tools, chairs, bed, anything he used in life) would be buried with him in the tomb so that he could use them in the next life (that’s why the tombs were soooo big.)

We also visited Medinet Habu (mortuary Temple of Ramses III), then took a faluka ride down the Nile River before bed.

Pyramids and camel ride

Tuesday, September 25
Today we repacked our bags, packing clothes for the next 3 days into our small BYU bags. A short bus ride through a sea of agriculture, jerry-built homes and shops, fetid canals and general squalor is an archeological site displaying treasures from the time of one of the Ramses. The immense statue of the famous Ramses II made of polished limestone is breathtaking. Such beautiful work and flawless execution from artisans working with the most basic of tools inspires great respect and even reverence.


Our next stop was the Pyramids. Desecrated, plundered, defaced (literally!), these monuments to power, ego, and hope for eternity are still stupendous in their majestic size, precision of construction, and longevity. How the Egyptians managed the complex organization of labor and the physical movement of large stone blocks is still debatable. Pyramid construction may have involved ramps being erected around the pyramids, then blocks of stone would have been pulled up on sledges and the ramps dismantled later. It is believed that most of the labor for the construction of the pyramids came from farmers who were available during the season when the Nile River flooded and farmland was under water. It would also have been an ideal time for the transportation by boat of large stone blocks from their quarries to the pyramid sites.

The largest pyramid of all (in Giza, a little southwest of Cairo), contains approximately 2,300,000 blocks of stone, with an average weight of 2.5 tons each, completed around 2,550 BC. Some pyramids were built as burial places for kings, and others for queens. A pyramid also may have represented a stairway for the king to ascend to the heavens. A few thousand years after they were built, Arabs "quarried" the smooth outer stone off the face of the pyramids to make their own palaces and mosques. The pyramids are no longer miles out into the desert as pictures tend to portray them, but right adjacent to Cairo as the city encroaches upon them.

We walked into one of them, bending in half in order to walk down a ramp, then up again before arriving in a room – where there was really nothing to see. After coming back out, we had our first camel ride. Bob and I rode one together – such a bumpy ride – all the time I was sure I was going to slip off.







Afterwards we visited the Sphinx – another huge structure. Apparently it has been used for target practice by soldiers and it’s a shame because the nose, mouth, and other parts have been knocked off.

Next we visited a Papyrus shop, saw how they made paper out of the papyrus plant, and bought a papyrus picture. We visited another shop with more trinkets – I bargained for and bought a camel made from Alabaster (in memory of our real camel ride). That evening we took the night train to Luxor around 8:00 PM, had dinner – or tried to. It didn’t look appetizing at all so I ate our snacks instead. It was a noisy ride for the next 10 hours, but we managed to get some sleep.

On our way to Egypt

Sunday, September 23
Because there are fewer students here this Fall semester, all 4 service couples were invited to go with the students on their 8-day field trip to Egypt! We left early this morning from Jerusalem on 2 buses, headed for the Yotvata Kibbutz, where we took a very interesting tour of the grounds. Our guide, Rebecca, showed us the date palm plantation (see picture to left), mango forests, the cattle yards (the cows were some of the cleanest we've ever seen - after getting a shower, they dry off by standing in front of huge fans), and their neighborhoods. After eating dinner there, some local band musicians led us in a few Israeli songs and most of us joined hands to dance in a big circle around the food tables. We then drove to the kibbutz in Eilot – the southern most tip of Israel, close to the border with Egypt, where we spent the night.

Monday, September 24
After breakfast, we went through the Taba border crossing into Egypt, got on Egyptian buses with a guide and body guard, and drove 6 hours to the Oasis Pyramid Hotel in Giza, where we spent the night. Cairo is a city of 16 million people situated on the Nile River delta. The poor areas of town stretch for miles down the “freeway” on both sides - interspersed with lush (mostly hand-worked) farm land in the craziest jumble of red brick tenement buildings, (pictured here) dusty roads, unimaginable amounts of garbage, poverty, people hustling to make a buck, cars, buses, and donkey carts all driving on the same “freeway” together, and squalid irrigation canals that any sane man would avoid for fear of his life – yet young boys were enjoying a swim! It is one of earth's most polluted cities.

Greek Island Cruise

Friday, August 24, 2007
Bob and I, Gary and Joan Browning, Joanie and Larry Lee, and Paul and Connie Cook (all service couples here), left today on a cruise to 3 Greek Islands, taking off from the port of Haifa @ 1:00 PM. The ship had 800+ people on board, not counting the staff – every cabin was full. Most people were from Haifa and spoke Hebrew or Russian – we may have been the only 8 English speakers on board! We sailed the rest of the day, all night, and arrived in Rhodes about 1:00 PM the next day. We couldn’t believe how dark blue the ocean water was – it was beautiful. We all ate at the same table - 3 meals a day. There were always lots of salads to choose from, many fish, meat and vegetable dishes, and always big bowls full of fresh fruit. We learned the Israelis like to eat tomato and cucumber salad for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Saturday, August 25
This morning (Shabbat) all 4 couples met together in one of our rooms and shared a favorite scripture and why we liked it. It was a very nice meeting. Gary Browning has spent a lot of time in Russia and told us how the church began there. Connie Cook shared her travels in China and her church experience. Gary is currently a church Patriarch to Russia, traveling there for 2 weeks at a time, giving blessings in Russian. He was also a mission president to Finland/Russia at the time when Gorbachev was President and began relaxing the strict religious laws, allowing missionaries to enter Russia.

Rhodes is the principal city of the Greek island of Rhodes, , in southeastern Aegean Sea, with a population of approximately 80,000. Rhodes has been famous since antiquity as the site of Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonder of the World. The citadel of Rhodes, is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Europe which in 1988 was designated as a Unesco World Heritage Site. The City of Rhodes is a popular international tourist destination.

At 1:00 PM we docked at Rhodes – a Greek city with its “Old City” surrounded by a fortress-type wall. (picture) Since the ship excursions were all in Hebrew or Russian, we chose to walk around on our own. We noticed how much cleaner this city was compared to Jerusalem.

There were mazes of narrow streets, lined with shops on both sides (jewelry, clothes, art) – some stores were very expensive. Included here is a picture of one of the shops - selling glass plates in brilliant colors. We were back on board by 7:00 PM so we could sail to Santorini. That night we all met outside on the 8th deck to play cards while traveling on the sea. It was a fun memory.

Sunday, August 26

Santorini is a small, circular archipelago of volcanic islands located in the southern Aegean Sea, south-east from Greece's mainland, with an estimated 2001 population of 13,600. The name Santorini was given by the Latin empire in the thirteenth century, and is a reference to Saint Irene. The island is the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions which occurred some 3,500 years ago at the height of the Minoan civilization. The eruption left a large caldera surrounded by volcanic ash hundreds of feet deep. Santorini is essentially what remains of this enormous volcanic explosion, destroying the earliest settlements thereon and leading to the creation of the current geological caldera. A giant central lagoon, more or less rectangular, and measuring about 8 miles by 4 miles is surrounded by 984 foot-high steep cliffs on three sides. The island slopes downward from the cliffs to the surrounding Aegean Sea. The water in the centre of the lagoon is nearly 1,300 feet deep, thus making it a safe harbour for all kinds of shipping. The island's harbours are all in the lagoon. Fira, its capital, clings to the top of the cliff looking down on the lagoon (picture). The only way to reach the top is by tram, donkey or hiking the 600+ steps. We took the tram and, needless to say, the views of the ocean while going up were awesome.

We rented a mini-bus with a driver and a guide (whose name was Mercedes) for 2 hours so we could see the most important scenic sights. I had looked online and seen pictures showing blue domes atop white buildings (churches) and asked Mercedes to take us there. The blue against the white is striking. She explained the reason the domes were all blue is because the people felt the dome to be the closest thing to Heaven (blue). Several times we were struck with the beauty of the deep pink bougainvilla flowers against the white buildings, with the deep blue Mediterranean sea behind. They grow a lot of grapes there, but compared to our beautiful California vineyards, these were sad-looking.

The last view she took us to was a point looking way down to where our ship was docked – it was stunning and breathtaking!! (see picture) I bought 2 necklaces in Santorini before returning to the ship.

Monday, August 27

Today we reached Crete, and docked at Agios Nickolaus. It’s a very windy town, but had green grass and trees. Bob and I walked around town all morning – doing a little exploring and shopping. We came across one of the 24 beaches but didn’t have our suits with us so we found a flat cement walkway to sit on and dangle our feet into the ocean to cool off. We went back to the ship (which was docked very near by) for lunch, then put on our suits and returned to the beach. Bob actually went swimming, I sat in the water, and we had a nice, relaxing afternoon.

The view from the beach was gorgeous – we looked out over the deep blue, shimmering water to 3 tall purple-blue mountains way off into the distance. I snapped a mental picture of this because it was one of my favorite memories. We began to sail that night for home, sailed the full next day, arriving back at Haifa the following day on August 29th around 9:00 AM.

Tuesday, August 29
Once we got off the ship and found our car, we drove to the Bahai’i Temple for a tour. We had a very gracious tour guide and his wife who spent 2 hours showing us around the grounds. They are absolutely stunning!! Since we didn’t really want to drive home the minute we got off the ship, this was the perfect ending.

Shabbat dinner

Last Friday evening dad and I were invited to a Shabbat dinner in a Rabbi's home. Prior to the dinner we attended the evening church service in their synagogue. The men were in one big room, and the women (me included) sat on the edges of this big room, separated by a wall and thin veil we could barely see thru but heard well. They were reciting hymns and prayers from their book (I had a copy of the book which was both in Hebrew and English, but since I didn't know Hebrew, I couldn't follow the English well because I didn't know where they were).

All the men wore white shirts and dark suits, with a head covering. All the women wore variations of black, white, tan and most had their head covered. I had not brought a scarf or hat, so the man we were with gave me a scarf of his and wrapped it around my head. I hate to say this, but the scarf was so dirty and musty smelling I couldn't wear it very long. Once I saw some of the women without head coverings, I took it off.

After the service we walked to the Rabbi's house (driving or riding in a car is not allowed once Shabbat begins, but since all the living quarters are built around the synagogue, the walk was maybe 10 minutes). This particular Rabbi welcomes everyone to dinner - no matter their religious affiliation. He was very kind and welcoming to us. They had crammed tables and chairs to seat close to 60 people, and still more came. They set up more tables until they probably had close to 90 people for dinner. They passed around a bowl of water to rinse your hands before eating. Then the courses came - sweet halla bread, eggplant, chicken and carrot soup, apple/rice puddings, oven-baked chicken, then cookies. Other foods were also passed around but since we didn't know what they were, we passed. While eating, the Rabbi would talk in Hebrew and then English, and all would sing in Hebrew.. He announed to everyone that all the Jews would be learning the same lesson tomorrow (which was news to me - I didn't think they were organized enough to have that happen). He also encouraged them all to "wake up and SEE the blessings of being who they are and where they live". The dinner started at 9:00 PM and we left at 11:00 PM.

In contrast, our Shabbat was a very inspirational Sacrament meeting the following day. We had 4 students speak of their experiences here and their testimonies of Christ, and 3 musical numbers by the students (vocal duet, violin duet, men's quartet), besides the student choir singing another of dad's hymn arrangements for prelude music. They are all so sincere and talented!! When this group arrived I didn't know any of them and I missed the 1st group we had here. But after going on the Jordan trip and getting to know this new group, I will really miss THIS group now!

Youth Activity Day

August 6, 2007
Today we had another District Youth Activity. Youth from Tiberius, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem met here at the BYU Center at 10:00 AM to clean up litter and garbage from the hill outside the front gate. We then piled into cars and drove quickly to the YMCA so they could play the Carillon bells with us at Noon. We showed them the actual bells at the top of the tower, where there are also wonderful panoramic views all around the city.

After eating lunch back at the Center, they played soccer with a soft ball in the gymnasium, followed by making their own ice cream in a bag. They were pleasantly surprised at discovering this actually worked - if was a fun activity for them but quite messy (we should have done this outside where it didn’t matter if the bags leaked!). We listened to our Israel District President, Pres. Browning, talk about the importance of listening for answers to prayers. Those answers can come in many different ways as he related stories of 4 church members. Then we played pictionary on scripture stories, get-to-know you games, and volleyball with a beach ball. The activity closed with a barbecue dinner.

Because of distances, the youth don’t often get together, and the challenge when they do get together is that they come from different countries – some speak Russian but no English, some speak English, some speak Spanish. We had some translation happening, but all in all, they got along well and had great fun getting to know each other.

Jordan and Ein Kerem

July 28, 2007

Today we left with the students on a 4-day field trip to Jordan. The first place we stopped was Mt. Nebo where Moses saw the promised land but couldn’t enter. (see monument to the left). We thought the land looked pretty barren and forlorn.

We then took a 3-hour bus ride south to Petra and a hotel. The next morning we awoke early to walk to the entrance of Petra – one of the new “seven wonders of the world”, as of this very month. The walk there is down a gorge with cliffs rising straight up on both sides – it was a major trade route for the Middle East many centuries ago.

After walking for maybe 30 minutes, suddenly there in front of you emerges a magnificent temple-like structure ('the Treasury") carved out of solid rock, complete with Greek architectural details. (picture to the left) It has been protected from the elements by the overhang. The details on the capitols are still in amazingly good condition. Petra was named one of the new "7 wonders of the world" in July 2007.

The area is filled with tombs carved out of the rock, which until recently had been inhabited by Bedoins. (see picture below) As we continued walking, there were tent stalls selling trinkets, jewelry, bags and other items. It was very hot and dusty, but so memorable.

July 29, 2007
From there we drove to Amman where we met in the LDS church building with the District President of Jordan and Egypt. There we had the sacrament, and heard the President speak of the progress of the church in his area. In the last 5 weeks he has had 5 e-mails from Muslims wanting to know about the church. Two of them wished to take a Book of Mormon to read. He told them he couldn’t do that but they were welcome to visit the church to read it any time. If they were Christian Arabs already, it was Ok for them to learn about the church. But if Muslims join the church it places them in great danger. He told us the leading Islamic authority in Egypt has said it is not a crime to change your religion, and that could have important implications for the rest of the Arab world.

July 30, 2007
Next we visited the Jabbock River where Jacob was to meet his brother Esau; and then to the River Jordan where Jesus was baptized. The rest of the day was free time.

July 30, 2007
Today we visited Jerash, the most impressive and extensive Roman ruin we’ve ever seen.

We all sat in the huge well-preserved Roman amphitheatre with its stage and wonderful acoustics (similar to the Tabernacle on Temple Square). The students had Mariah Wilson get up and sing, then a male student sang something, then they asked Nate Bennion to sing. He stood and said he would sing if Sister Galbraith would join him!!

This was a total surprise to me….He borrowed Bob's straw hat and I took my umbrella as he walked with me down to the stage while explaining that I didn’t have to do anything, just be his partner as he sang. With me on his arm he began to sing the song from “Guys and Dolls” – Luck Be A Lady Tonight. I tried to act a little to the words he was singing, then we danced a little before we ended. Needless to say, it was great fun and a memory I’ll always have of Jerash. I have now made my debut on a Roman stage in Jordan!!

We looked around at the little shops there, and Bob bought a Jordanian rug made of camel’s hair. Then we took the bus to the Israeli border, got off the bus and drove a car home as the students continued on to Galilee for an 8-day stay.

August 4, 2007
Today, Shabbat, I wanted to go on a drive. We found our way to the Menachem Begin freeway and began driving. We actually ended in in Ein Kerem – a very quaint, pleasant “village” on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It is considered to be the birthplace of John the Baptist. We got out and began walking around – visiting St. John’s Monastery, and walking down some side streets. We saw several very nice homes with surrounding gardens – it was a quiet neighborhood and quite out of the way. It felt very different from noisy Jerusalem.