1187 Siwa Oasis (1/2)

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.