A trip to Shendi : Frolicking in the sand...

My kids were so looking forward to go to the pyramids. The funny thing was Hadi, in his mind, 'pyramids' and 'Egypt' were the same thing. During the journey, he kept asking ,"Are we in Egypt, yet?"... sigh... how can you explain to an inquisitive four year old that Egypt's very far away. Till this very day, he would refer to the pyramids as 'Egypt'!

Anyway, when we reached the site, he was very impressed. I think it fits into his image of the desert... clear blue skies and orange sand... Anyway, Aliah and Hadi went for a 'slide'... it was fun although the heat was terrible... They kept on going up for mineral water...hehehe... Amir tried to slide but he was too small...

Hadi and Aliah...sliding down...

Amir...

When the heat from the sun was too much for them, they played with the sand under the shade. Amir and Hadi were thrilled to be able to play with the sand to their hearts' content... Just look at how they enjoyed themselves...sigh...

Amir was making a lot of noise...

They were happy...

Aliah was screaming...

They were playing with so much sand that it got into their shoes, shirts and pants. They left a trail of sand everywhere they walked...sigh... When we reached the apartment, I immediately ordered them into the bathroom. I had to spray all the three of them with water. The funny thing was, Amir even had sand in his pampers...hehehe... I guess the sand was so fine that it got into the crack in his bum...hehehe... Serve him right for playing too much with the sand!!!

Amir was one happy boy...hehehe...

A trip to Shendi : The pyramids...

When we arrived around 11.45 am, I saw a group of sudanese selling trinkets and stuff outside of the gate. We were too excited to explore the pyramids to take too much notice. The plague outside gave the name of the pyramids as the royal cemetery of Meroe. Fortunately, we have among us En. Razali who could speak Arabic (he was an ex-student of KISAS). The entrance fee was 10 sdg for adults, kids free.

The trinket sellers...

The kids trying to find shade...hehehe

The plague outside of the pyramids...

En. Zainal was a bit nervous when he heard En. Razali mentioned that we're an 'usrah'... he thought that we had to be involved in an usrah before going in... hehehe... En. Razali was just explaining that we're a family (keluarga). We were laughing when we went in but looking at the little hill that we had to climb, we inhaled deep breaths...

Picture taken about a third of the walk up the hill...

The kids were already half way up the hill, while the adults inch our way up...literally, okay?!! I was with Hadi, while Amir's with my husband. I discovered that I had to walk fast in order not to be 'swallowed' by the sand... Actually, I was too heavy to stay in one place too long...hehehe... We were breathless by the time we were up there. Discovered a shady spot and the ladies took advantage of some rocks to catch our breath.

Picture was taken from our resting place...

We discovered that there were many little pyramids, not like in Egypt... I guess the technology was adopted in Egypt in a grander scale. They even used Sudanese labourers to build the pyramids in Egypt. I don't think the labourers were all that happy to be the servants of the empire... hmm... I should have read more on the subject because there was no guide and no leaflets to tell us about the pyramids in Shendi. I wish there was a guide to tell us about the history, instead we literally just roaming around the area.

After a while, I decided I'd better explore the area also... well, I did endure hours on the road not to enjoy this wonderful remains of an era. It was quite hot and we were easily thirsty. Aliah had fun with her friends while the boys kept me company.

My husband and Amir...

Amir was very cranky because of the heat...sigh...

As a family...in the shade...hehehe...

Mas and me...relaxing while watching the kids play...

After about an hour, we went down where all the camels await us... hehehe. We were delightfully surprised that Hadi agreed to ride the camel with Aliah. I was also glad that each and everyone of us managed to ride on the camels. Even the XXXL among us could ride (that includes me...hehehe). I just remembered that it was very high sitting on top of the camel and I had a scary experience when I tried to get on the camel. It suddenly lurched forward and nearly stepped on Amir. It was scary alright!!! Anyway, we felt like travellers during olden times sitting on a camel... Those single status engineers were wearing jalabiya, so they looked the part...hehehe...

Aliah and Hadi...

Amir and me...

En. Zainal with his camel... hehehe

En. Zainal was the last one to ride a camel and he was unlucky enough to get a temperamental one. The camel was making a lot of noise from the beginning of the journey until the end... from the picture you could imagine the noise the camel was making...hehehe...or was the camel protesting under his weight...hehehe... jangan mare ye En. Zainal... nanti kena jual... hehehe

Suffice to say that we had fun. We were making jokes how P.Ramlee got it right in his movie (3 Abdul)... we even recalled some lines like...'tumpuk2 tahi unta...). It was true, there were little mounds of camel s*** lying around... hehehe. After that we went to Shendi to have a picnic near the Nile river but lost our way. When we finally reached the spot, the men decided that it was not suitable for the ladies (on account of the place was where the sudanese men took their bath in the river without a stitch on...hmmm... could have make a very good entry that...hehehe).

Anyway, we finally reached a shady spot under a huge tree to consume all the food...not that we could finish everything...there were just too much food!!! We even gave some to a few sudanese sitting nearby. The only concern during the whole trip was the lack of toilets. There was one at the pyramids but nothing at all where we ate. So, we just went back to 'nature'... hehehe... imagine what you like but desperate times called for desperate measures. We used towels and even mats to cover ourselves...hehehe...

I truly enjoyed the trip... the visit as well as the company... We reached Khartoum during maghrib... Alhamdulillah...

A trip to Shendi : The journey...

Yesterday, Saturday the 22nd of November, we went to Shendi where the famous pyramid of Sudan is situated. It's one of the oldest pyramid in the world, even older than those in Egypt! I've been wanting to go there since I came but it was not advisable to go then as it was very hot during the summer months. Anyway, after a chance meeting with Aiza and family about 2 weeks ago, we planned the trip to Shendi at last.

En. Razali was kind enough to make all the arrangements with the help of En. Faatih. 4 families and 3 single status engineers ended up going in 2 vans and an mpv. The vehicles were not only laden with passangers but also with food...hehehe... Among us, we ended up with tons of nasi lemak, sambal udang, spaghetti goreng, sandwiches, karipaps, cekodok and lots and lots of drinks... well, we were going to the desert after all... hehehe... Suffice to say that if we were stranded in the desert yesterday, we won't die of hunger and thirst!

The vans...

It seemed that it was not that easy to go to Shendi. We had to abide by a few rules. First, the van should not have more than 8 passengers excluding the driver. We also need a permit to go there and we only got the permit about 3 pm the day before, on friday. As it's a long journey, we also needed to pay for the fuel and the drivers.

We were rearing to go as early as 7.30 am yesterday morning. The ladies had to wake up as early as 4.30 am to cook for the provisions...including me, okay... Anyway, we started the journey at 8 am. I was as usual, expecting the worst... but was pleasantly surprised that they have a highway out of Khartoum... Only two lanes but it was quite well maintained so the journey was quite smooth.

About half an hour into the journey, we encountered the first check point. There were 3 altogether. This is where we were asked to pay the 'toll' of only 4sdg...really cheap for a 300 odd kilometres journey... After checking our photocopied passports we were free to go...yeay...

This is the first check point...

We were also pleasantly surprised with the 'greenery' outside of khartoum. There were plenty of vegetables farms and we had fun guessing the plants. We saw cornfields aplenty plus the abundance of animal herds. Maybe it's near Eid-ul-adha, so we saw a lot of cows, khorufs and goats. We nearly met with accidents twice because the cows were crossing the road infront of a big truck ahead of us. Anyway, from my observation on the road, the trucks here are very long. Sometimes, they hooked two trailers together and it was quite difficult to overtake. Luckily, the road was so flat you could see miles ahead.

At first, we could only see miles and miles of flat lands. Maybe in geography, they were called savannah?!! (I can feel Cikgu Poyah rolling her eyes at me...hehehe)... I especially liked the 'perfect' tree... It looked like the bonsai tree which the Japanese tried to perfected, but here it's natural...subhanallah... About 2 hours into the journey, we could see the land change... we could see hills and a mountain range from afar.

Look at the 'hills'...

When we drove closer, the 'hill' consisted of a lot of rocks heaped upon each other. It was fascinating... The 'hills' were made of slabs of stones. If it was smaller, it could have been done by humans but these were natural, Allah-made, subhanallah...

The white speck was actually a pickup truck, so you can imagine the magnitude of the hills...

From flatlands to mountain range...beautiful...

Then, after about 3 1/2 hours journey we saw the pyramids. It's not just one as I imagined but many little ones. It was quite far from the road so, the drivers found a way to drive closer. Though as soon as we stopped at the roadside, we were greeted by boys on camels, willing to give us a ride. I was surprised at the speed of the camel though... it was fast...

The pyramids from the road...

One of the boys on camels...