Are the Pyramids Overrated? (Our Experience in Egypt)

After 10 days traveling Egypt it's finally happening. We're going to see the great pyramids of Giza. It is just absolutely mind-blowing to be up this close. I'm just looking at the screen of the camera. It's like a screensaver. But at this point we're actually a little nervous that they might not live up to the hype. Obviously one of if not the biggest selling point about visiting Egypt is the pyramids but we have been so surprised and found so much else to love in this crazy country that it does feel like the pressure is on just a little bit. What? I can't believe it's actually happening today. So we left Alexandria this morning at about 7am. Drove for around three hours to get to Cairo and we can confirm Cairo is still as hectic as it was when we left. It's funny reflecting back on that now. The first thing we noticed when we came out of the terminal, or the first thing I noticed was... Although to be fair I kind of feel like it's the whole country. I'll be honest this whole place is hectic. But anyway the first stop is to the Egyptian museum. The original one. By the time you're coming here if you're watching for research there might be a new one and it looks really really nice. This museum has over 120,000 artifacts or pieces on display. We'll be honest we're not the biggest museum fans but in Egypt they hit different. Especially considering what's on display just adds even more interesting history and context to the places we've already seen in this Egypt series so far. I have to say one thing that I do really like is the fact that they show inside. We haven't really had the chance to see that anywhere. So this is a burial chamber of Deshri. Now there's loads of them in here with glass like that. That one doesn't have the top but the other ones like this they do. So you really get to see a bit more of a display of the full sarcophagus like that. Remember how much we absolutely loved Valley of the Kings? I cannot imagine coming to Egypt and not witnessing this site in particular. This Valley of Kings is the most impressive thing that we have seen in this entire trip in Egypt. That's where we saw King Tutankhamun's tomb in Luxor but they only had the outer stone sarcophagus. Because all the other valuable artifacts from his tomb were on display here. The golden mask is almost 11 kilograms of pure gold guys. They are putting me in a golden sarcophagus. 108 kilograms of gold and then a bigger sarcophagus. Wood and painted gold and then a bigger one and then a bigger one and then a bigger one. Four ones guys. Do you know the Russian doll? Yeah. Exactly the same. And then the last one number four is the stone one which you saw when you were in the tomb of King Tut. One of the pieces guys which was found at this one. Can you see the throne of Egypt? It's this one guys. I didn't think we'd see this. This wasn't on my bingo card. King Tut's organs. So when they mummified him they take the organs out and put them in jars and then here they are in the museum. Here he is. We've kind of seen all of them now. To be honest it was also a really good chance to refresh our memory about the pyramids themselves before visiting. In particular the three kings of Giza they were actually built for. So this is a tiny ivory statue and Saeed was saying take a picture zoom in you'll see there's hieroglyphics. And this thing's only seven centimeters. It's tiny. It's impressive they managed to get in there. And we would never have known had he not told us like that's what it looks like. Well for context this is how it appears in the room. This is a statue of the sun 168 centimeters apparently it's to life scale. The thing that makes this so unique is that I forget the name of it but this particular kind of stone the only way that this can be carved because it is so tough is using diamonds. I don't know if they realized at the time the value of diamonds but they probably used a lot to make that happen. Well I have to say that was really interesting a little bit overwhelming considering how many pieces are in there. Yeah. I think I prefer seeing stuff in situ and I know that can't be the case for everything but I just mean in terms of going into the tombs and stuff and seeing it all there. It's more engaging in that sense. Yeah. Without Saeed who was so passionate about all this that would be very very tough. Doing it after you've traveled. Yes. It's way more interesting because he made references to things that over the last 10 days we've heard about. Yeah exactly. And then it actually made sense if he was just talking about these random people and I hadn't been to their tomb and I hadn't traveled to that location I'd just be like I don't know who that person is right now. So I actually appreciated that. Yeah me too. Also pricing at the air-conditioned cafe just opposite is not too bad at all. We've had 500 for a big sandwich. Delicious. A caramel ice latte. Delicious. And a spiced white chocolate cookie. Ordered the wrong thing. Average. Is this the moment we came to Egypt for? To watch me brush my hair? Yeah. To see the pyramids. What? I can't believe it's actually happening today. Are you worried at all that this is so hyped like a lifetime of hype for this? Oh 100 percent. Whenever you like think of something your entire life it's always a bit like ah really? But. Will it be worth waking up at 5am for? We'll soon find out. We're definitely not morning people but Saeed on this trip has said multiple times let's get up early we'll get there first right when it opens and initially everyone was dragging their feet a little bit like really that's pretty early man 4am 5am starts or wake ups at least and every single time it has paid off. It's almost like this guy's been doing it for 20 plus years. So we are on our way to the pyramids because it's a special visit guys so let's make it special. 2500 BC and they made it. Probably comes as no surprise that this is the most organized place we have been anywhere in Egypt. The car park is beautiful, the building is beautiful, there's a whole entire setup in terms of coming through and getting tickets which we've got separate tickets for something else we'll show you soon and then there are shuttle buses to get you down there. Wow. That is so nice with the sunrise. Okay all right just the drive in already my camera I thought would burn in through battery burning through memory card but I just have to capture this. Look at that look at that look at that. Welcome to the only official ancient wonder of the world that is still standing the pyramids of Giza. We are at the pyramids of Giza. This is the great pyramid right here I feel like I'm gonna break my neck just looking at the top of it. This might be the slowest walk our group has ever done because everybody's making it five steps and then going wow oh my gosh take another photo take another photo. There's no way to I know I've said this before in the past but there's literally no way to describe what it's like to be here. Nah there's a good perspective look at those two blokes there and then keep going up and keep going up keep going up and all the way up there. It is just absolutely mind-blowing to be up this I'm just looking at the screen of the camera it's like a screensaver. I mean I was expecting this but once you get close those look so small and insignificant but every single one of those stones is a couple of tonne and there is millions of them. 2.3 million in fact to make that bad boy. Wow you want to know some more numbers? Hit them with the facts. So at the base it's 230 meters long each side it is built on a 45 degree angle and it stands at 146 meters tall. Okay quick correction that was the original height this one they think is missing about 10 meters but this one you can see there's like a limestone outer. Can you see it on that one there? Yeah. That is what made the original height. It used to actually be taller but because of erosion of the limestone it shrunk. There was rumours that maybe it was originally planned to be built with all limestone that it may have collapsed and that this is where they got to but you're probably wondering how it was built. Same. And that really is the biggest question how was it even possible to build these? We're talking about millions of stone blocks weighing thousands of kilograms moved across insane distances using sleds seasonal flooding from the Nile ramps pulleys and sheer human strength. In the ancient days before building the high dam or the old dam of Aswan the Nile water guys during the flood season used to make it all the way to these places that's how they built boats and they put the heavy stones guys can you see granite this granite came to us from Aswan 900 kilometers away guys how we did not have a train we did not have a truck so boats guys brought the stones all the way to where we are so this is somehow guys like an old landing station. And that's before you even get to the mind-blowing precision the math the astronomy connections the near perfect alignment to true north and the fact that they're still uncovering new secrets inside them even underneath them to this day. It leaves more questions than answers but anyway speaking of inside did you know that was even an option as a tourist oh yeah oh this is ridiculous this is ridiculous hearing the reactions of people i know people yep i'm crouching you might want to go first otherwise you're just going to get my butt in your face there's probably a few people that wouldn't mind that maybe me all right guys this is it we're going inside and up the pyramids if you're wondering about what this looks like it's just pretty tight we're in the bloody pyramids mate. This part is super cool so this is another 1500 egyptian pounds per person some of our group didn't do it because of the size and the squeeze in there but i would say do it if you're coming here there's no color there's no beauty but the rawness and the scale is the thing there and the fact that you're inside a pyramid right i know i'll never say that again but yeah puffing a little. We made it so this is what's at the top of the stairs within the pyramids are tombs this is the tomb of the king further down was the tomb of the queen and they were all about the afterlife so anything you could imagine that you'd want to use in the afterlife they would put inside here we're talking like boats clothes food pets everything obviously when it came to the pyramids they just took the concept that we've seen around the country to a ridiculously large scale so they could fit more in they needed to put some hydration powders in there for us because we've got to work our way all the way back but this is the bonus of coming first thing in the morning one it's not too hot two there is no other people currently coming back up in the other direction and that would have sucked to be like oh yeah sorry yeah yeah we are heading up to the sphinx now carved directly out of the bedrock it's the oldest and the biggest yeah apparently that's like not been done before like yeah so basically every king had a sphinx a lot of them could be picked up and like moved not this one because it was directly carved out of the bedrock and it is 20 meters high and 70 over 70 meters just over 70 meters and because it's one site it's also a lot busier you see the size of the pyramids everybody's walking around in different directions and we were early it's a bit later in the day now so while we can get up front here there's a lot of people around kiss get those out way off way off i don't think we mentioned in our previous videos of when we saw the sphinx avenue i think it was called in luxor but the whole reason the sphinxes look the way they do is it's supposed to be the king or the god as the head and then a lion as the body looks human but also gives across this big strength and power there's one thing you've got to say i just checked the notes where's the nose nobody knows get it did you get it there is literally thousands of people right now yeah getting up early was the right thing crazy how close we are to the city like i've read about it obviously when i knew but then just to look there and then literally behind us is the pyramid those people just have pyramids yeah sun's rise over the pyramids every day but we've come to what is i guess the third and final stop i'm guessing this is the viewpoint but these buses getting us between spot to spot has been so easy this is hopefully now that the sun's a bit higher we can get some nice angles back on all three and they're looking fine oh sorry we are yeah you're all good man so the number one reason that we wanted to come to egypt as most people do i'm sure it's the pyramids then we traveled a lot of the country we saw sites we never thought we would we saw things that blew our mind more than we could have imagined there was so much beauty how did the pyramid live up to the hype? Honestly i had low expectations because of what people have told me but because of our guide because of Saeed i feel like or CEO i should say i feel like we got the best of the best experience we went early we watched the we were in the pyramid the great pyramid before everybody else and i had such good time yeah it lives up to the hype it's just different there's no color i think that's the thing that maybe i incorrectly thought it would be completely i thought it'd be like valley of the kings and there'd be color and inside and everything but we the more i researched before we actually went in today i was like just a realistic expectation yeah but that was fun thanks for traveling egypt yeah we had a blast hope you did as well