Food Hunt During Eid

The bodyguard, The godfather and the 'crook' cook.

Patiently waiting for meal to be served.

...but only get some banana crackers, kuih gasing, Fruit Plus and some citrus.

Oh yeah, lontong babeh!

Crime scene.

My ex-neighbours. They have grown a lot.

We take a photograph after successfully raiding the second house.

A few steps away, and we take a photograph again.

The third house is unfortunately on their preparing process for their food.

Nonetheless, we have take another picture to commemorate this failure.

Making snide comments against each other.

A loving couple is left behind in an area called Shaymaa'.

We're about to raid the final house of the operation.

Taking nearly 20 minutes to reach the most isolated house in the area.

The 'oyabun' is scheming an ambush plan.

"We go like this, and like this...," said the future executive-officer.

I looked at the targeted house.

Damn it! It seems that the residents have known our modus operandi. They make us wait for nearly an hour for the meal.

...and they're finally busted.

The connoisseur is always tempted by the food.

Always leave no trace.

Eid Adha 1430 Hijra

I still remember what my teacher, Mr Yusof had taught me about Eid Adha.

He asked everybody in the class, “what’s the moral of Eid Adha?”

Of course we answered with the lame answer - the willingness to sacrifice.

He said, “You’re wrong.”

“The real purpose of Eid Adha is to obediently follow what Allāh has commanded. Just obey Allāh without questioning the purpose of it. It's that simple," he added.

At Samanoudy Mosque, after Eid prayer.

Left to right: Nasi impit, kuah kacang (Nadhir's), rendang ayam (mine).

Blame the camera, not me.

Going to raid the next house.

Curry noodles at the most isolated house in Al-Manṣūrah

Fake Professorship

There have been some issues here in Egypt, shaking a group of Malaysian community in this place. But, I don’t wanna comment about those issues.

But what really intrigues me is, the way people addressing a character in the issue. Let’s look at this thing from linguistic and moral aspect.

Let say his name is Jamal, PhD. And let just say that he’s some crappy liaison for some corrupted agency from Malaysia.

Right, when he came here few years ago, people address him ‘Doctor Jamal.’ Maybe, he’s not a physician but it is still correct to call him as such as he holds a PhD.

Time passed by and all of sudden people address him as Associate Professor Jamal officially in ceremonies and working papers. And it wasn’t long before people starting address him Professor. For your info, this Jamal guy hasn’t done any dissertations, academic papers or whatever for him to be entitled for aforementioned academic titles. Plus, he’s far away from those because he’s no longer affiliated with any university or other academic institution.

I wonder, what kinda crappy secretaries and master of ceremonies are there? Don’t they know anything about protocols?

What if he does something that can lead to abomination? A professor fucking up some ceremony, or maybe work part time as a contrabandist? If you’re in your right mind, do you think he as a (fake) professor or at least a doctorate holder would do as such?

See, Malaysians here in Egypt are so unnecessarily ‘kind.’ You’re an Islamic studies student, you can be called ustaz or ustazah. You’re med student, people call you ‘duktur’ or ‘dukturah.’ I deplore the latter. Nonetheless, these people should realize that sometimes they’re overstepping border. Making up people's title sometimes is really too much, I think. It's flattering and exaggerating. I saw such screw-ups happen too many times in Malaysian med students society especially in their paperworks.

You wrongly address people with some academic title he/she doesn’t have, you’ll end up telling lies to the society. Giving too much credentials is fatal.

A Trip to Mersa Matruh and Sīwa,

First Day

12.15 am – Off to Mersa Matruh from Al-Manṣūrah.
4.30 am – Arrived at an R&R for Fajr prayer.
7.00 am – Arrived at Mersa Matruh. And we were resting for the whole morning.
2.00 pm – After Zuhr prayer, we went to Cleopatra beach and Cleopatra Bath. Beautiful. Here, we met another group of Malaysian students from Tanta.
4.30 pm – We leave Cleopatra Beach and headed to Agiba Beach to watch sunset. Agiba means ‘miracle.’
8.30 pm – We returned to Mersa Matruh and we were told that we’re gonna stop at Souq Libya. But, because the managing committee didn’t alert our bus driver because they were sleeping during the journey, we returned to our inn instead and had our dinner there. At first, our bus driver refused to take us to Souq Libya saying that he’s already exhausted. But, the managing committee tried and managed to persuade him to bring us there at eleven o’clock. At least, they compensated their mistake.
11.00 pm - Out to Souq Libya. I bought a bottle of hair tonic; the same one I got when I was in al-Madīnah al-Munawwarah. Many rare things are sold here. You can even get some fake cosmetics such as ‘Nivea for Sun’ et cetera. Usually, Malaysians love to shop for dates stuffed with chocolates or almonds. Herbs are also available. It is famous because most of the goods sold here came from Libya. We returned to our inn at 12.15 pm.

Second Day

On my way to Sīwa. Stopped in the middle of vast Egyptian Sand Sea.

8.00 am – Off to Sīwa.
10.30 am – Stopped at R&R in the middle of the journey.

I've always wanted to do this...

Where we stopped. Note the bloopers.

12.00 pm – Arrived at Sīwa. We visited first Mountain of The Dead (Gebel el-Mawta). The ticket price has been raised from LE1 last year to LE15 for students. But, our managing committee managed to talk with the guards and got all 150 of us (Tanta + Al-Manṣūrah) for LE 150. However, the guards were seemed pissed off with our managing committee and they said, “I don’t wanna see you again.” Poor suckers. Nothing much to discover here except scattered skeletons and excavated chambers. On the top of the hill, I met Matthew, an English teacher from Modesto, California. We had a little chit-chat. He told me he came to Egypt to study Arabic language. He taught English in South Korea and Turkey. He seemed to be annoyed with Cairenes because they tried to suck the hell amount of money outta him every time. And he asked whether I feel the same. Well, who doesn’t? That’s why he tried to find a quiet place like Sīwa to relieve his tension.
1.00 pm – We stopped for afternoon prayer at Sīwa Grand Mosque. After prayer, we met Sheikh Idris as-Suyuti; a local Sīwan. He received his education in al-Azhar University and acquainted with Malay students. He briefed us a little about Sīwa in simple, standard Arabic and later act as our tourist guide.
1.30 pm – I’m the only participants from Al-Manṣūrah visited the Shali. Others shopped dates at nearby shops.
3.00 pm – Moved to visit the Temple of the Oracle.
4.00 pm – Leave the Temple of the Oracle and went to Cleopatra Spring. On the way to the spring, we can see the ruins of Temple of Amun (Temple of Umm Ubaydah) but we did not stop. We had our meals there. Some of us bathed and swam at the Cleopatra Bath.

Cleopatra Spring or Juba Spring

Sīwan dates

5.45 pm – We leave Cleopatra Spring and stopped again at Sīwa town for second round of dates shopping.
6.15 pm – We leave Sīwa and returned to Mersa Matruh. However, we didn’t go to Salt Lake because of timing problem. Plus, the place is already closed.

Bus of Malaysian visitors from Tanta is leaving Sīwa

10.00 pm – Arrived at Mersa Matruh.

Third Day

8.00 am – All of us went to White Beaches. It was named as such because of their white sand. Really. You can see it by using Google Earth. There are many beaches here. We just went to White Beach (شاطئ ٱلأبيض). Doing what people usually do at beaches.

White Beach

1.00 pm - Then, we leave Mersa Matruh and headed home. Did not manage to visit Rommel Museum because we arrived too late and the museum was closed at our arrival. Lousy management.

Most beaches at Mersa Matruh are beautiful.

9.30 pm – Arrived at Al-Manṣūrah. End of trip.

Cleopatra Beach & Cleopatra Bath

Statue of Cleopatra VII, daughter of Ptolemy XII

Cleopatra Beach is just beautiful. The water is so damn crystal clear just like fairy’s tears. It’s a rocky beach.

Cleopatra Beach

Meet our model for this post. Couldn't use his camera because he forgot to charge its battery.

Crystal clear water

Wave

Rock of Cleopatra Bath

Nothing much to discover here except a hollow chamber in a ginormous rock that is believed to be used exclusively by Cleopatra when she spent her summer here. It is called ‘Cleopatra Bath.’

Our model again. The hole where sea water come inside the bath.

Water out.

The chamber has two holes that enable sea water to enter and leave the bath. Both are rectangular and man-made.

The entrance into the bath from the beach

The entrance into the bath from inside the bath

Another one more is the stone’s natural entrance to the bath. The rock also enables sunshine to enter from above. See the picture below.


Historic, but there were foul smell inside. Probably urine odour. Perhaps, some Egyptians was mistaken by assuming it for being a toilet because the place’s name in Arabic is ‘Hamām Cleopatra.’ Hamām can roughly be translated into ‘toilet.’

Wall of the Hamām Cleopatra

Our model is on the top of the rock

Another picture of Cleopatra Beach

It was rumoured that Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan shot their scene singing 'Suraj Hua Maddham' in Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham movie at this white rock. Our model was making the mock-scene.

Agiba Beach

‘Agiba’ in Arabic means miracle.

The locals call it as such because a magnificent seven different colour formation on the sea (some said on the sky between the sea and the sun) during sunset can be witnessed here.

To our dismay, we couldn’t see it because the sun was set into the nearby hill, not into the sea.

So, we just witnessed a sunset that you can see it anywhere else. But, the beach here is just beautiful. And the water is bluish and clear.