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When JC and I made the booking for the car rental at our hotel to go to the pyramids, we were told that it would include a free visit to the Papyrus Museum which is located in Giza near the pyramids. We were quite happy to find out about this because we hadn't really thought about what we were going to do once we’re done with the pyramids and we didn't know that there's actually a Papyrus Museum nearby.
So after coming out of the Great Pyramid of Giza and taking all the “obligatory” silly photos like hand touching the top of the pyramid and me kissing the Sphinx(none of which is going to be published on this blog, if I may add, ha ha!), we jumped into our car, expecting to be chauffeured to a museum.
So after coming out of the Great Pyramid of Giza and taking all the “obligatory” silly photos like hand touching the top of the pyramid and me kissing the Sphinx
After travelling just for a few minutes, the car stopped and our driver told us, “We are here.” We got out of the car and looked for the museum but we didn't see any museum-like building around us. It's just shop after shop. So we just followed our driver into what looked to be like a papyrus shop. We asked our driver, “Where’s the museum?” to which he replied, “This is the museum.” Only then we realised that almost every big shop in the area is called either “something Papyrus Museum” or “Papyrus Museum something”. What a scam! Pfft!
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Obviously we couldn't help but felt a bit cheated. Nevertheless we still entered the museum-pretender shop and were greeted by a lady who asked if we would like to just browse around or see a demonstration on the process to make papyrus sheets from a papyrus plant. Well, we were expecting a museum, so yeah, of course we would like to see a demonstration. :)
Despite our earlier apprehension, it was quite an interesting demonstration and we also learned a bit about the differences between papyrus sheets and prints on banana leaf sheets that are sold cheaply as papyrus paintings to unsuspected tourists in markets like Khan el-Khalili. Original paintings on a real papyrus sheets are a lot more expensive obviously.
Well, at least that’s what we, two unsuspecting tourists, have been told, heh!
Despite our earlier apprehension, it was quite an interesting demonstration and we also learned a bit about the differences between papyrus sheets and prints on banana leaf sheets that are sold cheaply as papyrus paintings to unsuspected tourists in markets like Khan el-Khalili. Original paintings on a real papyrus sheets are a lot more expensive obviously.
Well, at least that’s what we, two unsuspecting tourists, have been told, heh!
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After the demonstration, we just browsed around the shop and watched some of the staff working on their paintings. Apart from the popular Hieroglyphics and paintings of pharaoh's era, there are also some paintings with traditional Egyptian sayings (in Arabic) as well as calligraphy of selected verses from the Quran.
Some of these paintings are absolute beauty we ended up spending quite some time at the shop. There was no pressure on us to buy anything although almost every interest shown in any painting would be accompanied by an explanation about the painting and a question asking if we would like to buy it. (Okay, in hindsight it does sound like a pressure but honestly, it didn't feel like that at all).
Pressure or no pressure, I’m unfortunately a sucker for beautiful stuff. I ended up buying 2 papyrus paintings there at the “museum”.
Oh well…
Some of these paintings are absolute beauty we ended up spending quite some time at the shop. There was no pressure on us to buy anything although almost every interest shown in any painting would be accompanied by an explanation about the painting and a question asking if we would like to buy it. (Okay, in hindsight it does sound like a pressure but honestly, it didn't feel like that at all).
Pressure or no pressure, I’m unfortunately a sucker for beautiful stuff. I ended up buying 2 papyrus paintings there at the “museum”.
Oh well…
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always love Egypt culture and history !
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't, you should go there someday. History overdose, haha! ;)
DeleteHaha finally bought two eh? It happened to me in Indonesia last year.
ReplyDeleteYup! Bought two! But I totally love them so no regrets, haha! :)
DeleteHi RAW..
ReplyDeleteHa..ha.. see, it was not so bad after all.. U ended up buying some paintings...:) hmmm...what a 'smart' way to attract people.... I remembered paying 2 lousy pounds to enter a 'castle' in UK (cant remember the castle's name, very long time ago...). When we entered the area, we asked the guide.."where's the castle..?" And the guide started pointing at all the stones on the ground and babbled about the history...La..mcm ni pon boleh?
Hahaha! That's crazy!
DeleteO pandai diorang pandai! Kalau kedai cakaplah kedai kan. Hehe
ReplyDeleteBut for history enthusiast, I would love to visit such shop just to browse around. It looks nice especially knowing that papyrus is something historical. And their is a font named papyrus. Hahaha.
Yeah, that's why we still went into the shop. We wanted to see how it's made. If it's a jade shop or something like it like in Bangkok, we wouldn't have bothered really.
DeleteEven me .. memang tidak ketahuan akan kewujudan Papyrus Museum tu.. alahai rugi nyerrr..
ReplyDeleteSame thing happened to me. Ended up at a "museum" and somehow left with not one but two papyrus. I laugh when I look at them now. Where am I going to put them!
ReplyDeleteHaha! Same here! I still have them in a box somewhere although the original plan was to frame and put them up on the living room wall.
Delete:)