Okay, so I finally made it to Egypt. You know how it is, you see these places in books and on the telly since you were a kid, and you think, “One day…” Well, “one day” finally happened for me. And right near the top of my messy, scribbled list, maybe a bit of an odd pick for some folks, was this place they call the Mausoleum of Ramesses III. Or, well, my notes actually said “Ramessese 111” – haha, that just shows you how on the ball I am with my planning sometimes!
Getting there was a bit of a production, let me tell you. I dragged myself out of bed super early, the kind of early where it’s still dark and even the street dogs are still dreaming. Hopped into one of those little minibuses, you know the type, absolutely packed like a tin of biscuits. The driver, good on him, seemed to have a personal relationship with every single bump and pothole on that road. But hey, that’s all part of the fun of it, isn’t it? When we finally rattled to a stop, it didn’t look like much from the outside, to be honest. Just sort of a doorway cut into a dusty old hill. Not like those massive, shiny pyramids everyone’s always posting pictures of.
First Peek Inside This Old Place
But wow, seriously, when you actually step through that doorway and go inside. That’s when it properly gets you. It’s like walking straight into one of those old history books, but it’s all around you, and you can smell that old, dusty, stony smell. It was properly cool down there too, a real nice break from the sun blazing away outside. And the quiet! It was so quiet, well, until a massive tour group came clattering through, chattering away.
I just remember standing there thinking, this Ramesses fella, he really, really wanted to make sure nobody forgot who he was. The walls, I mean, every single inch from the floor to the ceiling, was just covered in these carvings. And the colors! Still so bright after all this time – reds and blues and yellows. It’s pretty wild to see. You can look at photos all day long, but it’s just not the same as being right there, close enough to almost breathe on it (though you’re not meant to touch, obviously!).
So, I was just sort of moseying along, trying to soak it all in, and I came to this one corridor. It was really long, and a bit on the narrow side. And it got me thinking, funnily enough, about this rubbish old job I used to have. Sounds a bit daft, doesn’t it? What’s an ancient Egyptian tomb got to do with working in some grim, stuffy office? Well, this office, right, we had this awful long corridor too, from the main entrance to where our little team was stuck. And every single Monday morning, walking down that corridor, I swear it felt like I was marching into my own personal tomb for the week. Utterly depressing. Everyone just shuffling along, heads down. No bright colors on those walls, oh no, just peeling paint in fifty shades of beige.
The big manager there, he was a bit like a pharaoh himself, come to think of it. Strutting about, thinking he was the bee’s knees, handing down his orders from his big fancy office chair. We used to say he was building his own pyramid, but out of pointless paperwork instead of stone. So, seeing all these actual hieroglyphs about Ramesses’s life and his big journey to the afterlife, it proper made me chuckle. At least this Ramesses fella had a bit of style about him. My old boss just had boring spreadsheets. I legged it from that job, by the way. Best thing I ever did. Sort of needed my own ‘afterlife’ from that place, and there I was, looking at the genuine article!
- Then we got to what they said was the main burial chamber. It was massive. Empty now, of course. The big stone coffin thingy was probably in a museum somewhere, I suppose.
- But you could still get a sort of feeling… I don’t know, a sense of how important it all was? Like, this was the spot. The final resting place for a king.
- I spent a good few minutes just staring up at the ceiling in one of the rooms. It was painted with thousands of stars. Makes you feel a bit tiny, but in a good way, if that makes sense.
Back into the Sunshine
Anyway, all good things come to an end, and eventually, you have to head back out into the daylight. Stood there blinking like an owl. It’s a bit of a jolt to the system, going from the cool dark back into the heat and the noise of everyone milling about. But yeah, that Mausoleum of Ramesses III – or “111” as my brilliant notes called him – it was really something. More than just a load of old rocks and carvings. It’s like a massive story, carved into the earth, and you get to walk right through the middle of it. Definitely one for the memory banks. Super glad I went. Makes all that early morning minibus-squash totally worth it in the end.
