Egypt Travelogue-6: Sight seeing trips: Day 2-Giza, Saqqara, Dashur and Memphis

PYRAMIDS TOUR
We booked the pyramids tour for 120EGP per person in a private taxi.We covered giza, saqqara, dashur and memphis city. Needless to say, it was a wonderful and memorable trip, the biggest pyramid in giza being the highlight.
Our first destination was Giza, in the outskirts of Cairo where the biggest pyramid is located. There are totally three main pyramids and many other small ones scattered here and there. We were very excited and happy beyond words to see the huge pyramid that we were seeing all these days in TV or photos. We went inside the big pyramid. There was nothing much inside the pyramid, just empty rooms. But the walk/crawl through the steep passage makes us realize how the pre historic people would have entered the pyramid to keep the mummy and the treasures. The area is very fast and we need to walk a lot to go from one pyramid to other. After seeing the other 2 pyramids and other monuments(following the rough guide book), we finally saw the sphinx. This ended our tour of giza.
We then visited the step pyramid in Saqqara. This is considered to be one of the oldest pyramids built by the famous archotect Imhotep for Djoser, a ruler of Egypt's 3rd dynasty. We had around 45 minutes to go around this place.
Our next destination was Dashur, the village where Red Pyramid and bent pyramid are located. The drive through the village reminded me of Indian villages.
Our cab stopped near the Red pyramid. We went inside the pyramid. It was same as the big pyramid in Giza, but there was a very bad smell inside the chamber. We were literally breathing through our mouth to avoid inhaling the smell. We could only see the bent pyramid from a distance as it was a bit far from the red pyramid and we did not have enough time.
On the was back to the hotel, we visited the city of memphis which is now more like a museum. There was a huge structure of I think Ramses lying flat inside a big room. Other than that there were some more statues. Memphis is supposed to be the city from where the pharoahs ruled.
We were quite content with the day's trip and it was a memorable experience to have relived history.
In the night we boarded a bus at around 10:30 PM to sharm-el-shiekh, a coastal city in the Sinai peninsula.
To be continued...