Luxor 26th-28th October 2010

Managed to sleep okay on the night bus after admiring some awesome desert views through the window at dusk. Had 2 seats to myself for about 85% of the journey. On an 18 hour ride this amount of space was unheard of! I awoke in the morning to see a very different landscape outside the window. We were approaching Luxor through the Nile Valley and the land seemed green and lush with farming villages and agricultural plantations along the way. Reminded me a lot of many parts of India I had visited.

The bus predictably stopped at a taxi rank short of the town station and I ended up sharing a cab into town with a Japanese girl while a tourist tout tried to recommend hotels to us…..

The tourists hustlers in Luxor were a lot more demanding than those in Dahab. As soon as we got to the central station they descended on us like a plague of locusts….

Luckily the hostel I was looking for was represented so managed to avoid most of the melee by agreeing quickly to see a room there . The “Bob Marley “ hostel had been reviewed well on the internet….upon arrival it didn’t quite live up to its reputation…no wi-fi, dirty, no bar etc…..I began to realise that nothing would live up to expectations in Egypt….had to hard bargain to get a cheap room price…worked out at 3 pounds (uk) a night for a private room…..not bad!

Met a nice Canadian couple from Quebec in the lobby and we all booked a tour of the west bank tombs( valley of kings/queens ) the following day.

I then set out on my own to check the town out….yep Luxor had that proper third world feeling I had been expecting but didn’t find during the previous summer in Turkey . Hot, dusty, traffic chaos, petrol fumes, various forms of rot along the main streets….made my way to the train station to be told that I couldn’t buy an advance ticket to Cairo for the following evening until the next day as the system had to update over night……..another thing I hadn’t seen on the European leg was the travel chaos caused when there are no legible signposts and everyone seems to send you in opposite directions to find things…..

Next I made my way down to the banks of the Nile with the intention of walking the 2km or so to the Karnack temple ( one of the best Egyptian sites on offer). According to my guide book ( a piece of crap by the way inaccurate and crappy maps ) the tourist hustling along the banks of the river was meant to be among the worst in Egypt. Within seconds guys with offers of “ hello friend where are you coming from?”, “Ah number 1 country !” “U take boat trip good price for one hour”, “today is special day..last day of Egyptian market “….“my brother has shop”, …then more discretely “ u want to smoke some good stuff” etc etc etc…... Luckily my time in Morocco/India previously had prepared me for this and after engaging the first couple of offers with polite but disinterested conversation, I just began to ignore the offers altogether and eventually they left me alone…..

By the time I eventually got to the Karnack temple I was pretty exhausted..it was hot as hell! However once inside I felt rejuvenated….the columns of the temple were better than the Acropolis in Athens and the whole site had a magical feel about it as the sun grew lower and redder in the sky……spent about 2 hours exploring the complex and reusing requests for “baksheesh” (tips) from the local workers for crappy mini tours of certain areas of the ruins . Even the armed guards were in on the action…two let me onto a closed off bit of the external wall to take “ panoramic photo” and then asked for money when I came down a sincere sounding “ sorry I have no small notes but thanks for your help “ seemed to suffice.

After leaving Karnack my feet were aching so I managed to barter a cheap ride back to the town centre with a guy in a horse drawn cart who suggested I help him to entice other tourists for a ride

“ come my friend we can make good business together”…I reply ” im on holiday dude the last thing I want to do is make business”…disgruntled he dropped me 300m from my destination with some bullshit excuse about traffic restrictions…hilarious ! and worth the equivalent 30 pence I paid him just for the story alone.

Back at the Bob Marley hostel there was nothing afoot so headed out to see if I could find a beer anywhere…the pub listed in the guidebook turned out not to exist and my long hair ( by Egyptian standards), seemed to be gathering some unwelcome attention from some of the rougher locals….. so in the end headed back to my room for an early night …slept like a log!

Next morning me and the Quebec guys joined the tour of the west bank we had arranged….we were crammed into a mini bus with a few Russians, Koreans and Japanese and introduced to our guide Hammed who apparently spoke the best English in Luxor……( he didn’t )…could hardly understand him as he reeled off from memory the standard tour guide script that I usually would avoid….(In this case the price of the cab and the tour guide were low enough to make it worth it …but his disinterest in answering questions throughout the day was obvious.)

The sites themselves were well impressive first the Valley of the Kings and tombs painted with original frescoes from around 900BC, then a temple complex , then the standard trip to the “craftsman’s village” where we were touted ( all be it very good quality ) alabaster statues …including some that glowed naturally in the dark…..( actually the glowing ones were really cool had I had some more money may have bought them up …assuming the glow in the dark bit wasn’t done with a trick light ) .We finished by visiting a couple of colossal statues before returning to the hostel 2hours before we were meant to….needless to say the envelope passed round for tips for “Hammed the best englished (sic) speaker in Luxor “remained empty.

Later that afternoon I got my train ticket for Cairo, did some blogging, ate and watched the sun set over the river at the Luxor temple while the locals attended mosque alongside row upon row of parked tour busses…..despite all the hassle I love this kind of situation and once the touts realise that you know they are bullshitting you, you can actually have some good conversations with them…..

Was targeted with a few more choice comments on my hairstyle while walking back to hostel…..

man pulls up on motorbike and shouts at me ..”hey longhair, ….you look a gay “ …

I reply loudly :“ no you do “….

He replies louder ” No You”….

Me angrily …“NO YOU!”….

His response to this “Hahahahhahnah” ……

my verbal assailant then speeds off on motor bike and I notice he is wearing a tight pink T-shirt with two other dudes all snuggled up on the seat behind him looking pretty damn gay by western standards....kettle …pot!!

(actually its not uncommon to see male “friends” in Islamic countries walking down the street holding hands or with arms around each other….This is just a regular male blooded show of friendship according to the local culture …however having your hair longer than your ears is obviously taboo….ah well rock and roll man! sticks and stones init…..)

Back at the hotel decided to get a couple of hours rest before catching the 11pm train to Cairo…after a while was woken by a knock on the door and the hostel staff stuck another person in my private room ( had 2 beds in it ), he himself just being kicked out of a private double as a couple ,and the opportunity of more money, had arrived looking for shelter…..got the impression that this type of thing would be common throughout Egypt ….the Frenchman now sharing the room ( for 3 hours at least ) was cool enough and on a similar 6 month trip to my own….I eventually left the hostel at 10pm after getting 10 Egyptian pounds knocked off my bill for having to share with another person for 3 hours
( was I starting to get the hang of bartering again????)

Typical train station chaos as I was given multiple train and carriage options by the well meaning locals…eventually found my seat in a first class cabin ..was sharing with an Egyptian, 2 Japanese and a French lady….no one was really talking so put the I-pod on, read for a while and then struggled to fall a sleep as the AC was so high…like seriously cold ,student flat in winter, chill….ended up wearing jumper, jacket and zipped up sleeping bag before I could finally drift off . I wasn’t expecting to use them for a while so had to successively struggle them out of the bottom of my pack in the dark and cramped cabin during the night …had broken sleep and crazy dreams as the train made its way slowly north to Cairo….