Pet King

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

There were a few powerful people in history that had died early. One of them was Alexander the Great, one of the greatest commanders ever to live, mentored by Aristotle. Back then, after Alexander the Great entered ancient Egypt after defeating the Persians, he had personally led an army deep into the great western deserts to visit the Amun Temple and learn how to become a pharaoh whom Egyptians would follow.

Before that, the Persians had mulled over this issue too. Even though they had occupied ancient Egypt for 200 years, the ancient Egyptians didn’t agree with the legality of their rule, and they refused to recognize the Persians as their pharaohs. They had resisted them for 200 years.

To solve this issue, long before Alexander the Great had come, the Persians had sent out a troop with as many as 50,000 people to enter the great western deserts, looking for the Amun Temple in the Siwa Oasis. If they couldn’t get God’s divine guidance, then they might as well burn the temple to the ground.

The straight distance between Alexandria Port and the Siwa Oasis was about 500km. Today, it didn’t seem too far away, but in the first few hundred years of B.C., this was one treacherous journey, one which a person might never return from.

Legend says that after the Persian army entered the great west desert, they were met with a scary storm, and all 50,000 people were buried alive in the sand, none of them making it out alive… This sounded just like how the Mongolian army had all met with tragedy on the seas while trying to reach Fusang.

Despite the previous experience of the Persians, the bold and ambitious Alexander the Great was not deterred and embarked on the same journey.

His army had gotten lost in the desert, but two crows appeared before him to lead the way, as though he really had been blessed by the Egyptian gods. They finally reached the Siwa Oasis after a mythical journey. He had received divine instruction before the Amun Temple and was recognized as a Son of Amun by the priests, which is to say the son of the Sun God, and he had officially become a pharaoh of ancient Egypt.

Why was the Amun Temple held in such high regard? Because the Amun Temple’s predictions were extremely accurate. Sadly, no one knew whether Amun had seen Alexander the Great’s early death.

The road from the Port of Mersa Matruh to the Siwa Oasis was extremely boring, no views other than endless deserts and low bushes.

At the end of the plain desert, a bit of greenery started to show. Tall coconut trees had new fruit growing on them with two months before becoming ripe, turning from green to yellow and then a wine-colored brownish tone.

The calm lakes reflected the bright sunlight, the white reflections around the lakes looking like snow or frost. These were salt deposits that had collected on the sand after the water had evaporated.

They had reached the Siwa Oasis.

Zhang Zian had used a few hours to go past the desert that had buried 50,000 people and nearly claimed Alexander the Great’s army too. But that was also the end of the highway. From here on, there were no more roads to the south, nor the west. At least, there were no smooth roads, just the endless Sahara Desert.

They started to see more and more people on the roads. Other than the occasional tourist bus, the other most common mode of transport was actually donkeys. The Berber men that lived in the Siwa Oasis sat on carriages, cracking their whips to move the donkey. When Zhang Zian slowed down the car to look curiously, a middle-aged man showed him a shy smile before whipping the poor donkey to hide how shy he was before strangers.

If one were to say that there were still a few tourists who went to Mersa Matruh for its beautiful beaches, then the amount of tourists here was almost nonexistent. It was almost 700km away from Cairo and closer to the Libya border than the city center.

But that didn’t mean that there was nothing to look at here. It was, in fact, the opposite. The Siwa Oasis had been ranked 17 on CNN’s list of the World’s Top 50 Natural Attractions, and it was the highest-ranked amongst all of Egypt’s attractions.

Due to the fact that there were fewer tourists here, the locals, Berbers, weren’t as verbally talented as the Egyptians in Cairo and Alexandria Port, and they mainly retained their simplicity.

A hill stood beside the Siwa Oasis, and Zhang Zian noticed many holes in it, like parasites in a piece of fruit. This was the famous Gebel al Mawta, or the Mountain of the Dead, where many of the graves from the Ptolemaic Dynasty and Rome Dynasty resided.

The Siwa Oasis was around 10 kilometers in length with six to eight kilometers in width. Its local population was around 20,000, with rich Eurasians coming to stay during the winter. A yellow mud house stood beside the main road, with “Welcome to Siwa Oasis” written in black on its walls. There were no tall buildings in the town. Even their tallest building was only four stories high. They all looked really dull and dirty.

It was currently not the peak season for tourism. There weren’t many people on the streets, and most of the hotels were empty. The donkey carts, motorcycles, motor tricycles, big buses, pickup trucks, and even convertibles all crisscrossed each other on the road without rhyme or reason. Seeing the roads, they knew they hadn’t left Egypt yet.

Salem stopped the car in front, asking Zhang Zian whether he wanted to take a look around as tourists after getting out of the car. He was familiar with this place and was willing to be their free tour guide.

Zhang Zian wanted to tour the Siwa Oasis to see if the place that CNN had so highly spoken of really lived up to its name, but he had a mission to fulfill today. He had to go to the Bedouin to get a tour guide for their expedition first. He could tour all he want after he’d finished work if he had time.

Salem understood, reminding him again of what they had agreed on earlier before he got back into the car and continued driving.

Going past the small town, they entered the deserted desert.

There were no more proper roads, and the sand seemed to stretch on for miles before them, with hügelland dispersed amongst them, devoid of life. The two cars rushed up the sand dunes and dived down the sand valleys, as though they were surfing in the sea of sand. A long trail of sand dust was kicked up behind each car. It looked like a mini tornado was following them.

Zhang Zian was still all right with his seat belt on, but the elfins in the car weren’t. They were all dizzy from getting rattled about all day, complaining about whether he really knew how to drive.

No one knew how long they had been driving in the desert. Zhang Zian had long lost his sense of direction. Everything around him looked the same, and he couldn’t differentiate between the hügelland and sand dunes at all. Hopefully, Salem hadn’t lost his navigation instinct as a Bedouin and wouldn’t lead everyone into the middle of the desert with no way to get out of it.

Salem’s car slowed gradually, and he stuck his arm out of his car window, a signal that they were about to arrive.

A row of low houses showed up before them, the Bedouin men wearing long robes holding onto their camels as they trekked across the roads, the bells on the camels ringing every now and then. It seemed just as though they had gone back to the world of “One Thousand and One Nights.”

Zhang Zian and Salem both stopped their cars.

There were a few other jeeps parked near the entrance to the village. Could they belong to other tourists coming to the land of the Bedouins to pay their respects?