Feast at the Pyramids?

Ok so they're doing it for charity... and I suppose it is quite a novelty thing to dine around the Pyramids...

but honestly, you would think the Pyramids have suffered enough from modernisation, what with all the tourists, tour buses, souvenirs shops, locals selling souvenirs and ripping off tourists... what with the homes and shops that have sprouted around it and that are so dependent on the Pyramids being a famous tourist site for survival... what with that music and light show at the Sphinx...

Shouldn't the last standing Wonder of the Ancient World be left to be admired in its natural grandeur, set against the darkness and mystery of the vast desert? And not have the silence of the desert be interrupted by the clink of wine glasses, the chatter and laughter at such epicurean feasts? And not have the natural waft of the desert wind and that of camels be interrupted by the smells of exotic foods or highly expensive perfumes?


Millionaires to Feast at Pyramids
Monday March 19, 11:19 am ET
By Jocelyn Gecker, Associated Press Writer
Chefs to Prepare Gourmet Feast for Millionaires at the Pyramids in Egypt

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- From the creators of the $25,000 dinner, there's another pricey gourmet feast on the horizon.

Wealthy foodies can mark their calendars for Dec. 12, 2008, when top chefs from around the world will be flown to Egypt to cook a dinner in front of the ancient Pyramids of Giza, organizer Deepak Ohri said Monday.

This dinner will be a bargain, at least compared to the one in Bangkok last month that was billed as the meal of a lifetime and cooked by six 3-star Michelin chefs for $25,000 a head. High-rolling food lovers flew in from the United States, Europe, the Middle East and across Asia for the 40-seat dinner.

The price for dining beside the pyramids has not yet been set, but it will cost less than $10,000 per person, said Ohri, the managing director of Bangkok's luxury Lebua hotel, the event planner behind the dinners that are boldly titled "Epicurean Masters of the World."

Though cheaper, the upcoming feast is intended to be even grander than its predecessor.

"It will still be for millionaires, but this dinner will be for a lot of millionaires," Ohri told The Associated Press.

Some 500 tickets will be sold for the dinner to be cooked by 30 3-star Michelin chefs.

About a third of the chefs already have confirmed their attendance; each chef will prepare a meal for roughly 17 diners.

A kitchen half a mile long will be set up against the backdrop of the pyramids with equipment and the best ingredients jetted in from around the world.

Unlike the $25,000 dinner, which featured rare French wines and mostly French food, the next meal will be culturally diverse and paired with fine wines from around the world, Ohri said.

Just how close diners will be to the pyramids depends upon the Egyptian government and the U.N.'s cultural body UNESCO, since the pyramids are a World Heritage site.

Talks are under way with authorities, Ohri said, noting that organizers are "considering" giving profits from the dinner to an organization or charity that deals with conserving the Seven Wonders of the World. The pyramids are the only surviving structure from the traditional list of architectural marvels.

All profits from the $25,000 dinner are going to two charities -- Medecins Sans Frontieres, which will be sent a check for $15,000, and the Chaipattana Foundation, a rural development program set up by the king of Thailand, which will receive $46,000, Ohri said.

At the pyramids

Adventures in the Cairo - Day 4 (Pyramids!)

15 Feb 2007, Cairo

Today’s the day! Yes today was the day we visited the Great Pryamids of Giza… one of the most famous and most studied ancient structures of all time, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, one of those places you have to visit before you can leave the world in peace..

Ok so I exaggerate.. but you get my point… we took a cab down to the Pyramids (was about 20 mins from where we stayed) and upon getting out of the cab, we were stopped by some guys asking if we wanted a horse ride, horse carriage ride or camel ride into the pyramids.. Tabbee wasn’t up for the camel so we settled for horse carriage instead… wasn’t too bad except for the occasional bumpy roads, and the occasional farting and shitting from the horse (since the carriage was behind the horse, we could pretty much see everything)…

Anyway, we traveled the Pyramids… they looked quite small until you see the tour buses parked near it… and then when you see the tiny human figures around it, you get a sense of how huge they really are… unfortunately, due to robbers and erosion, the exteriors of the pyramids are no longer as grand as in the days they were built but to be able to stand there and see them was quite something… imagine the thousands of people who would have died in constructing these structures.. did they really love their kinds that much?

We took quite some photos of and with the Pyramids on our ride and some photos involved a camel and a camel guide… I think we were ripped off (paid 100 Egyptian pounds for 3 photos on a camel with the Pyramid in the background) but we seriously thought it was part of the package… well... tourists always fall for such stuff… we couldn’t (and didn’t know how) to refuse and cut it down… at least I was at the Pyramids, even if I was ripped off there..

So anyhow, we continued on… I stopped to get a ticket to enter the 2^nd Pyramid… the guide said it’s a waste of money cos there’s nothing to see in there but I figured I would be quite stupid to pay S$1074 to fly to Egypt, pay 10 LE for a cab to the area, pay 50 LE for entry into the compound, pay 60 LE for the carriage ride and not fork out 25 LE to go inside the Pyramids… so I did just that.. had to climb down a passage (while bent 90 degree because it was that low) which they modified with wooden pieces so you climb it like steps, and then climb up a similar passage to get to a room, which still held a sarcophagus.. it was dark, musty, warm and definitely not for the claustrophobic.. but an interesting experience nonetheless…

After that, we headed on to visit the Sphinx… I missed it at first, because I was expecting something a lot bigger and was looking too far in the distance… the Sphinx was less than 100 metres long and about the height of 2 or 2.5 floors in our Singapore HDB… it was carved out of the rock structures in the area and houses a Temple within… due to time and weather, parts of it is deteriorating, with most of its nose already gone… perhaps it was due to that, its size and the fact that there were about 500 tourists swarming around it that it just didn’t look that grand or magnificent..

Tabbee was commenting after that that she didn’t feel that much in awe when looking at the Pyramids, which is kind of true… perhaps if we could have spent more quiet time there, without people bugging us to get back to the carriage or tour bus, without people bugging us to buy souvenirs, without seeing so many people who obviously weren’t Egyptian… then the effect would have been better…

But then again, it’s hard to blame, because without the Pyramids, so many more people and the neighbouring towns wouldn’t be able to survive today… so how do we find the balance I wonder… will we find it?

(to get a sense of how dependent on tourism the area is, we visited a Papyrus Arts shop nearby… we saw a piece selling for 280 LE… and I was quoted 80 LE for a similar sized piece yesterday.. after I bought that piece, I got a free accompany piece with that purchase so it’s almost like 80 LE for 2 pieces… in comparison, that’s almost a 600% difference in price!!)