After breakfast, we packed our bags into the bus, said goodbye to Nova hotels and set out for a tour around Eilat.
Eilat is the southern most city of Israel and a busy port. It is a small city with beaches on the northern most tip of the Red Sea. There are lot of hotels and tourist activities here. We saw King's city- a Biblical theme park that looks like the Red Fort in Delhi. There is also a huge hotel named Herod's Residence. There is a small airport here but the harbour is quite big. Dead Sea products are exported from here (O!we saw a huge factory producing Dead Sea products on the way to Eilat the previous night. Its the biggest industry here). Cars from Japan, India and Korea are imported. When the Suez Canal was closed during the 6-days war, Eilat harbour was used.
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| Cars imported from India,Japan,Korea at Eilat harbour |
Just beyond the harbour is the exit point for Israel and the Taba border crossing. We got off there, took our bags and bid goodbye to our drivers. Got our bags checked, exit stamp and said bye to Hakeem. We then walked for about 5-10 mins in order to reach the Taba border. This is the entrance to Egypt. In about an hour, we were done with all the formalities and boarded the buses from Egypt that were waiting on the other side of the Immigration office.
We were welcomed by our guide-Dahlia. She kept talking non-stop. Her knowledge, clarity and confidence was good and so she was well accepted. Our bus had a toilet in it. We drove down the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea coast. The view of the Red Sea was so beautiful that no camera could capture its actual beauty. The red corals (Trichodesmium) seen in the shallow wasters is what gives the red colour to the water. We were in the Sinai Peninsula. This part of Egypt is in the Asian continent. There are a lot of resorts in this area and still many more coming up. After about 30 mins, we turned off the coast and went through the desert and mountain regions towards the city of St.Catherine. The mountains looked really different from what we saw in Israel. The temperature was also warmer.
Finally we stopped at Morgenland village-a resort/hotel for lunch. We got stuck there for a very long time cause the buses had some problem and had to get repaired. we killed time clicking pics and walking in and out of the hotel shops. We were at the foothills of Mount Sinai. After a long wait, we set off for St. Catherine's monastry which was not very far from where we were.
There is a community of people called Bedouins. They are a tribe of Arabs generally living in the desert and tend camels or sheep.We got off the bus and had to trek a little to the monastry. there were cars and small vans for rent. A few bedouins were also renting camels and I got to ride on 1 for a part of the journey. It was the bumpiest ride I have ever ever had in my life. Getting off the camel was even worse.We walked into the monastry and had to wait till 5 pm for it to open. In the mean time, Dahlia gave us some insight on the place.
This monastry is on the foot of Mt.Sinai and is known to be the oldest Christian monastries in the world. The monastry was built enclosing the burning bush chapel which was built by Helena-the mother of Constantine. She built a lot of churches in the Holy Land including the Holy Sepulchure church in Jerusalem and the Church of nativity in Bethlehem. there was a time in Egypt when Christians were not accepted. So they would either remain secret about their faith or would just move away to some other place. Catherine was the daughter of a pagan governor. Her father brought a lot of scholars to teach her. One of them was a christian and she was inspired by his faith and converted. since her father did not want to condem her in public, he tried sending a lot of sorcerors to convert her. However, she converted them to Christianity. Finally he had no other go but to kill her. She died a peaceful death. Quite a few monks in the region had a similar dream at the same time. They saw angels carry Catherine's body to the mountains. They went in search of it and saw it just as they had dreamt. Thus the monastry , that contains her remains, was named after her. The muslims used the monastry for sometime. During Hitler's reign, he increased the height of the walls and used it as a fortress.
Finally they opened the doors for us. We were told that monks are quite moody and we had to remain silent. I badly wanted to see a monk but they would'nt come outside. There is quite a bit to see in there but all we got to see was an old well of Moses and a plant that was the burning bush.There is a stone there that has the design of the leaves of the burning bush on it. Even if you break it into many pieces, the design can still be found. There was a small chapel too with a lot of old paintings but we missed seeing it.
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| Burning Bush |
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| The Burning bush design on the stone |
I could somehow imagine the Isrealites walk through the deserts and mountains of the Sinai Peninsula. We drove back the way we came and proceeded towards the Red sea coast again. But this time we were headed for the Gulf of Suez. Dahlia enlightened us on the political scene in Egypt and about Mubarak and his acts. It was a slightly long drive to Ras Sudr where we were to spend the night (around 3.5 hrs). We stopped on the way at a place that looked like a typical Indian highway dhaba! We finally reached Green Sudr resorts and headed straight for dinner. The resort had 1-2 storeyed buildings spread across a vast land and we had great difficulty finding our rooms and getting our luggages to it. I somehow did not like the place. The place looked like these dry housing colonies. We were so tired and so we hit the bed soon.
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| Green Sudr resorts at Ras Sudr |
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