backroads, eating out, and quiet time

buggy outside my door - driver and horse sleeping

I’ve enjoyed Luxor as a city – beyond the temples and tombs & have spent a lot of time venturing out along many main roads and wandering a lot of back roads as well. I get “hello” welcomes from many kids and a few Egyptian men. The women don’t look, but when they occasionally do, they smile. I would feel fine walking around here day or night – you just have to be careful of the ones that strike up an easy conversation, as none of these have led to anything other than requests for money, to go to a shop, or in one case, to have a gay encounter Egyptian style (“la ‘a” means no and you’re creeping me out…).

parallel parking in Luxor

I did have one woman say hello to me as I walked by her home, and when I said hello back, her half-dozen children came running out asking for backsheesh (sigh ~ bad form). A girl hoisted a snotty nosed baby into my face that had some nasty rash, and that’s all it took for me to drop a one pound coin in the mother’s hand, say “salaam” and move quickly away.

Orange juice and "sheesha" - breakfast of champions

Mara House has been wonderful, and as the place is rather empty right now, they’re letting me keep my room until I leave at 10pm tonight. I returned the favor by clearing them out of many of the nice and reasonably priced items in their lobby, and signing up for the Egyptian “tasting” dinner that they serve once or twice a week at their restaurant. The meal consists of small portions of over a dozen different home-cooked Egyptian dishes with rice and bread – all for the outrageous price of about $15 (I could get TWO super-sized Big Mac meals for that!).

McNuggets skateboarding at the pyramids

Speaking of Big Macs…Eating out in Egypt on a traveler’s budget is really hard. At the bottom of the price range, you have falafel stands where you can get a decent meal for just a few pounds (5 pounds = $1US). The cleanliness of these places is always questionable, and sometimes obviously nonexistent. Deep frying helps, but then you’re back nutritionally to the land of KFC. Local cafes seem to cater mostly to tea drinking, sheesha smoking locals, and the couple that I’ve tried have left me unimpressed and watching my stomach for the following 24 hours. So far, my best meals have been 1) the Lebanese place in Cairo (that set me back $40 for dinner) and 2) the Egyptian-style pizza (thin flatbread stuffed with pizza ingredients & a little feta cheese on top ~$6) that I had in Aswan. I’m hoping that tonight’s meal at Mara House tops them all. Allah willing – I may yet leave Egypt with my stomach intact. (postscript: the dinner at Mara House was one of the best I've ever had - anywhere!)

Luxor market

same same, but different

Upper Egypt (southern end of the country – up the Nile) is definitely a world away from Cairo. The chunky children and Islamic urban fashion of the city give way to the flowing robes and the traditional dress that I associate with Egypt. Maybe just my western eye, or my preformed notion of what people of the Nile should look like, but I do find it much more pleasant and natural. This place is full of National Geographic photos at every turn – meaning that the people and their rustic living and dirty/beautiful setting make exceptional subjects. However, the idea of pointing my “big gun” Nikon seems completely out of the question, and even my little point and shoot feels invasive at times. Turning an elderly, scarf-wrapped woman balancing a basket of vegetables on her head into my own Elle MacPherson just seems wrong…

Elle MacPherson with fruit

The return night train from Luxor to Cairo that I’ll be catching at 10:30 tonight is much faster than the previous train down to Aswan for some reason, and will put me back in Giza at 5:30am (wish I could do it twice and get in at noon instead). For an extra $20, I’ve opted for a solo cabin for the ride back to the city. Insulating myself against the locals or other travelers is not what travel is about, but after my rather loud companion on the trip down south, I’ve decided that the alone time is okay. My hope is that my one last day in Cairo will be uneventful – Allah willing.

call 1-800-DENTIST

And then it’s on to London (shouting a quiet wooo-hoooo!)…

Luxor & the Valley of the Kings

Temple of Hapshepsut - site of 1997 massacre

[sidebar] Paul Theroux is often cited as one of the best travel writers around. He’s also often criticized for being too negative and critical of the places that he visits. My feeling is that this is what makes him a great travel writer. “Having a great time – wish you were here” is great when you’re in a packaged, all-inclusive, western-oriented, fluently-English place – but navigating the chaos and cultural conflict of the unpackaged world is hard, and for same reasons that it’s fascinating and beautiful, it’s also challenging and at times ugly.

Coming to Egypt has meant balancing the fascinating and the challenging, the beautiful and the devious. Being tricked out of 50 pounds by someone doing a fast switch with 50 piesters (attempted twice – never got me), getting bantered for backsheesh or bigger tips, or being cornered into paying an overinflated bill gives me something to gripe about – but it doesn’t mean that I don’t like or appreciate the place, its culture or its people. No one knows enough in 2 weeks to avoid all of the pitfalls and traps - which seem endless, but the loss of money and/or face are both small and recoverable. Dealing with people who deal in tourism has given me plenty to gripe about, but it doesn’t diminish the greatness of the place and the hospitality and kindness that I’ve found from the real people of Egypt. [/ sidebar]

home on the Nile

Luxor is a prime destination for some, and an avoidance for others (see above on getting fleeced by people working in tourism). Luxor was the former Thebes, the capital of Egypt during the times that upper and lower Egypt were ruled together by the Pharaohs. There are more temples and tombs in this area than my feet, time or budget will allow, but some are must-sees and for good reason. It’s also a city that has had half of its population relocated to “protect the antiquities” and to allow more room for cruise ships to dock. The future seems to be in the hands of the “fun-gineers” (a Disney term), but for now, the city seems real enough to me.

Ginnelle & Nate from California

While staying on the boat moored in Luxor, I was invited by my California friends, Nate and Ginelle to join them and their “Egyptologist” guide, Shenuda, to go to the Valley of the Kings as well as a couple of the big temples in Luxor city. The Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, was visiting Luxor that day, and with several previous attempts on his life, the security in the area was intense. There were guards posted along the roads spaced 10-20 feet apart for miles in every direction from Mubarak’s location. It was easily thousands of men watching every street, every person, every bush, donkey, etc…We were fortunate to leave early and crossed over the Nile to the West Bank in time to miss the closure of the roads and bridge that apparently kept many people away from that side of the river for the day.

police watching the bushes

The Valley of the Kings is a truly amazing collection of tombs dug deep into the limestone where the desert has preserved them for 3500 years. No cameras were allowed within the complex of tomb entrances, so no photos here, but you can see pictures and get more information at http://www.touregypt.net/kingtomb.htm

The entrance to King Tut’s tomb sits directly below that of Ramses V and VI, and apparently was covered by the debris from the construction of these later tombs – keeping it hidden until it was found in 1922. I visited the tombs of Ramses I, Ramses IV, and Ramses III, each unique and incredibly preserved with paintings as vivid as they must have been 3500 years ago. Makes Jesus seems like a modern guy.

going from the west bank back to Luxor city

With the bridge closed, we opted for a boat to get back to the East side of the Nile where we visited the Temple of Kamak. It was here that I reached temple overload – as I knew that I would at some point. Similar to Angkor in Cambodia, you can really only look at and study the ruins of previous civilizations for a limited time (scholars excepted) before it’s time to get back to the living world. Nate, Ginelle and Shenuda were going on to the Luxor temple, but I decided to bail and instead get some rest. 3500 years of history is a lot to swallow in a day, and I had a belly full.

I mentioned before about the last evening before departing company with my California friends and the Spaniards. It was one of the highlights of the trip, and the kind of thing that still stands out from previous travels – hanging out with people from all over in a fun and relaxed place, trading travel tales and what life is like at home.

horse & baby in the street

"bloody" handprints keep the evil out

So now I’ve moved on to quiet time. I’m staying at a small B&B style hotel run by new-agey Irish woman named Mara. Her place is back 5 or 6 blocks behind the train station, which puts it very much out of reach of anyone or anything related to tourism. The street out in front is filled with kids playing soccer, cats and dogs roaming for food or a fight (lots of cat fights), and regular Egyptian families. My very inexpensive room is actually an apartment-sized 4 room suite, there’s a rooftop garden with wifi, and beers are available and reasonably priced. Good chance to get some rest and catch up on my blog…

cruising the Nile

I seem to be at that awkward age in the world of travel where I truly don’t want to live at the bottom of the food chain with the backpackers, but I’m not ready (hope I’ll never be) to be moved from my 5 star hotel to an aircon bus to see the sights from behind the protection of window glass and a tourist guide holding up a flag to separate him or her from all of the other tourist guides. Many of the people in my budget hotel opted to go up the Nile in a felucca. The idea of spending three days with 10 people in a small sailboat tacking back and forth against the northerly wind for three days was really not feeling like something I wanted to do – though it did sound like an adventure. 30 minutes into my big cruise boat’s departure, we passed my friends on the felucca, and I was certain that I had made a good choice.

10 backpacker in a felucca

my space on the Nile

When I booked a three night cruise, I for some reason assumed that we were going to be cruising the Nile for the better part of 3 or 4 days. In fact, my boat left Aswan on Saturday afternoon, and arrive in Luxor on Sunday evening. This meant that I had two nights on the boat while moored in Luxor, and two more day in Luxor than originally planned. But as I’m writing this on the “rest day” that I’ve given myself, those extra days of nothing in particular to do are feeling pretty good.

the "Nile Story"

The boat experience was like most of my other experiences so far in Egypt; very nice, fun, interesting, sometimes a challenge, and never what I expected. The boat itself, the “Nile Story” is just like its three hundred sister ships on the Nile – sort of a floating McMansion. Grand piano in the foyer, pool up on the sun deck, lots of chrome and mirrors. My room and the rest of the boat was actually quite nice – just in a veneer sort of way. I don’t know what the passenger capacity was, but the 40 or so people that I counted at the meals couldn’t have occupied more than 20% of the rooms. I think there are too many boats, and they don’t seem to make an effort to fill them one at a time. Bus gas here is under $1 a gallon…

Cruising down the Nile is a great experience. The strip of irrigated land between the Nile and the desert is lush and the people work hard to produce their crops in the stretches between the cities and villages. Lots of scenes of turban-wrapped men riding small donkeys along the water, kids playing soccer on the banks, and beasts of burden pulling plows and carts full of people and vegetables. Other than the soccer balls, and some of the more modern litter, it definitely looks like a scene from the days of Yul Brynner and Charlton Heston (though interestingly, neither of my guide books makes any mention of the history of the Jews or Moses and the exodus).



The guest list on the boat included a big group from Spain, a couple of Kiwis, and four Americans (including me). I was seated with the other Americans at what must have been the Obama table. For some reason, they don’t like to mix people of various languages at the dinner table (though the Spaniards were a lot of fun). I made quick friends with a couple from California who had just been married two weeks prior in Florence. We had some good times on and off the boat, and spent the last night before departing the boat hanging out with the Spaniards in the souk in Luxor, having a beer, smoking a sheesha (hooka in Turkey – waterpipe with fruit flavored tobacco) and talking with the locals.

Luxor market with friends

After leaving Aswan, the boat’s first stop was an after-dark visit to the temple of Kom Ombo which is in part dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile god. This location was also a center for the Ethiopian elephant trade, though neither elephants nor crocodiles are around today. Dating back to the Ptolomaic period, this and the temple at Edfu are relatively new – around 2,000 years old, or 1500 years after Ramses II, the temple at Abu Simbel, and the Valley of the Kings.

Kom Ombu

Sobek - the crocodile god

heiroglyphics

Great photo ops at this place, and as usual, the security guards will let you go anywhere and do anything for a little backsheesh. The one exception came when I asked to photograph a guard with his very interesting looking machine pistol. That apparently is not allowed.

haven't seen this one in Call of Duty

That night, we sailed on to Edfu and had an early morning (6am!) visit to the Temple of Horus, a falcon cult god. Another amazing temple, though having been spoiled by the night visit and great lighting the evening before, I wasn’t quite as trigger happy with the camera (plus waiting for the Japanese groups to stop posing and flashing peace signs in front of the falcon stature so that I could take a picture without them took the better part of the visit.).

One interesting and, to me, sad note is the amount of defacing that some of these temples (and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings) have suffered at the hands of the newer religions. Some of the defacing of gods and kings was caused by other Egyptian kings trying to squash the memories of past Pharaohs that they didn't like, but much of it was done by the Christians, and I would suspect also by the Muslims. Monotheists apparently can't stand the idea of multiple gods - even as a part of history. Reminds me of the incredible Christian paintings in the caves of Cappadoccia, Turkey that all had their eyes scratched out by the Muslims.

falcon statue at the Temple of Horus in Edfu

for five punds more, I bet he'd smile

the train to Aswan, Ramses II, horses and hashish

After moving out of my room in Cairo, I had several hours before my night train to Aswan. I spent the time hanging out with a guy named Marcus from Australia who told me that he took 14 months off of work to travel last year. If anyone can travel for 14 months in a year, it’s the Aussies…I also spent some time talking with a family of four (kids 9 & 11) from Denver who were exactly 6 months into a one year trip around the world. Really interesting people, and their kids are seeing more before puberty than most people do in a lifetime.

Giza train station

Magdy drove me to the train station in Giza, but due to the high-speed, bad-road jam of the previous day, his car was sick and died just as we crossed the Nile into Giza. Magdy flagged another cab and threw my big bag into the back. An argument between them with many incarnations of “Allah will punish you” ensued – apparently over the “local” price that Magdy demanded to deliver me to my train. My driver tried to cut his losses by pulling over for two large women – telling me to put my bag on the roof of the car. With nothing but gravity to keep it there, I firmly declined, and prepared to get out and find my way through the dark and chaos. The driver relented while saying many bad things to me (I think), and a few minutes later, I was at the station.

GPS - snaking down the Nile

I shared my sleeper car cabin with an Egyptian tour guide named Abdul. He was taking a group from Hong Kong to Aswan, and explained that he could make a lot of money there selling add-ons, such as Felucca rides, and side tours. My driver Magdy had foreshadowed the conversation to come when he reversed his “I love Obama” from the previous day to “Obama no good” due to the news of the 30,000 additional troops being sent to Afghanistan. Abdul was fine for the first hour, but when the name “George W Bush” came out of his mouth, if was followed by an hour of American trash talk, conspiracy theories (9/11 was financed by America, H1N1 was created in an American laboratory, Kennedy was assassinated by the government, etc.). He may be right or wrong, but because I know he doesn’t know, it was just tiresome. I decided to read a book.

feluccas in front of Elephantine Island

the souk (market) in Aswan

Aswan is a beautiful and (relatively) peaceful change from Cairo. The Nile is narrow, and felucca boats and cruise ships dodge each other going up and down the Nile and back and forth to Elephantine Island. The Corniche is the street and walkway along the river, and if not for the constant offers of felucca and horse carriage rides, it would be really pleasant.

Ramses II

After debating the time and expense, I joined the 3am convoy of mini-vans and busses to Abu Simbel where the southern temple of Ramses II is located. The temple was moved to its present location in the 1960’s when the dam that created Lake Nasser was built, as the original location is now underwater. They really did a masterful job, and the temple and its iconic statues are as impressive and I could imagine.

Ramses II temple, Abu Simbel

The inside of the temple is even more impressive, with colorfully painted carvings and hieroglyphics throughout several chambers. This place was buried under the sand until it was rediscovered in the 1800's. The names and dates scratched into the statues shows that graffiti isn't just a modern thing, and in fact my book tells me that the defacing goes all the way back to the Greeks.

150 y/o graffiti

Our mini-van decided it was a one-way trip, so after a lot of sitting in the sun, our driver herded us on to an empty tour bus, and after a short delay, we were on our way. What I’ve found here is that things don’t always go as planned, but I have yet to be stranded or abandoned. We’ll see if the boat that I’ll be taking down the Nile over the next three days suffers from the same fate as my car in Cairo or the van in Abu Simbel. I don’t see any lifeboats attached…

Entrance to the Aswan souk & a horse that needs more food

My last story from Aswan involves another horse and another bad boy who owns the horse. I went down to walk along the Corniche last night to grab a few pictures as the sun was going down. I had the usual hassles by boatmen for felucca rides, but was able to ignore most of them. After a couple of hours though, I was exhausted from the banter, and sought a quiet bench to relax and watch the scene. After just a couple of minutes, I was set upon by a horse carriage driver. "What you want? You want beer? You want hashish? Nubian hashish is very good. I take you for ride 10 pounds ($2) - no more - no backshish." I said no no no, but after considering walking back through the gauntlet of felucca captains, I said - okay - take me to my hotel.

feluccas at sunset in Aswan

I got into the buggy after checking to be sure that I wasn't going to be abusing one of the lame and emaciated horses that I had seen. I had scolded a driver earlier for the poor condition of his horse, but this one looked healthy. So I get in, and off we go - in the wrong direction. He's whipping this poor horse, and I'm asking him to stop, but we keep going on south while my hotel is in the north end of the city. He pulls off the main highway and right and right into a seriously dark alley. I didn't feel in danger, but when he stopped and got off, I was not exactly comfortable either. He disappears into the darkness, coming back 5 minutes later with a big lit joint in his mouth. Obviously, he needed to recharge before he could take me all the way to my hotel.

bad Nubian hashish smoking buggy driver

Eventually, we got close to my hotel, and I told him to pull over. As I got out, I gave him 10 pounds (not that he deserved it, but I wasn't going to make a scene for $2). He then demanded 20 pounds, saying that 10 pounds was one way and we went two ways. After explaining to him that one of those ways was his idea he got pretty agitated. I said I would get the police to sort it out, and the next thing I knew, he was whipping his poor horse back into action.

I vow to stay away from horses (& camels and small boats and random taxis) for the rest of my trip. The scoundrels that run them seem to be the worst (or maybe just the most desperate) that Egypt has to offer.

After getting back to my hotel, I went for dinner at my favorite nearby restaurant. They remembered me from before, and treated me very well. I needed that.

paperwork, ponies and pyramids

I retrieved my lost bag from the airport in what felt like a scene out of Midnight Express...After calling Egypt Air baggage services for 24 hours with no answer, I finally decided to go to the airport myself. Their partner, United, had found and sent my bag on to Cairo, and I was assured that it had arrived.

The process getting it back would have been completely maddening if I hadn't taken the approach that surfing the Egyptian bureaucracy was an important part of the whole experience. No way was my bag ever going to be delivered to my hotel. Once I figured that out and committed to the long cab ride back to the airport, I was determined not to come back w/o my bag. "passport please" "wait here" "you must talk to the police now" "wait here" "take this form and follow me" "wait here" stamp stamp wait wait "follow me" "found your bag? wait here"...So nice to take a shower and change into clean clothes.

The next day, I headed to Giza with my wonderful driver, Magdy, who had helped me retrieve my bag from the airport. He an "old man" (his words)and has a long grey beard, though I guess he's not really much older than I am. He a pious Muslim, and we had some interesting exchanges. He went out of his way to ensure that I was happy and really did a nice job looking out for me.

Great Pyramid of Giza

The pyramids are amazing from any view. From Cairo, you can barely see them through the pollution, but the sillouette in the haze is very impressive. Coming into Giza, getting the closer view really shows the scale of things. The pyramids of Giza are the oldest as well as the only surviving "wonders of the ancient world" - and were built in the earliest days of the Egyptian civilization. By the time of Ramses and the Valley of the Kings 1500 years later, they were trying to recapture the grand scale of the old days.

Happy Camel

Magdy took me right to his friend who runs a stable of horses and camels outside of the barrier to the pyramids. I had already decided that I wanted to rent a ride out into the desert and not just see the pyramids from the visitor's center flanked with multitudes of air-con coaches. I should have bargained more than I did and quickly got hustled onto a horse and assigned a "boy" to look after me. Feeling like an oversized kid on the pony ride at the zoo, I sucked up my pride and rode on trying to focus on the experience of being at such a remarkable site.


Seeing the pyramids from the desert side opposite where the tour busses queue was well worth the small extravagence. "Baksheesh" was paid to the officials patroling the desert and at the many checkpoints. Keep business flowing and keeps a smile on the faces of the police. Cost me almost $2 to have my picture talken with these two men in blue.

my security detail (so long as I pay)

As we headed back to town after almost three hours on horseback, my young guide decided to put the squeeze on me for a bigger tip, even though what I gave him seemed on the high side to me. In Egypt, this is considered very bad form, and as we were leaving, I related the story to my driver who immediately stopped the car, wanting to go back and confront the boy. Mixed feelings on my part, but obviously not a good business practice - especially in a place like Egypt that takes seriously its reputation for hospitality. My driver was much more upset than I was.

bad boy

Between the cab ride to Giza, 3 hours on a horse, and more bouncing around in the car getting to the step pyramid at Saqqara and a side trip to the train station to book my ticket on a sleeper train to Aswan, I felt like I had spent the day on a roller coaster that never stopped. Amazing place, but hard work.

from the tour bus perspective

being Japanese in Egypt

there's no Phad Thai in Egypt

Not every country plops you down in the sand on a beach with a cold beer, a plate of spicy food, and an attractive Asian woman offering a message…I guess if you limit yourself to those places, you’d never get to Egypt…

pyramids and ponies

First, a few notes from the 24 hour journey to get here.
Vancouver airport looks brand new – just in time for the Olympics. Really nice, but it seems to be set up to handle about 2 dozen passengers at a time. Could find its limits…Air Canada new Airbus 330s are fantastic! Air Canada lounges are very nice too. Good food and beverage selection, though I’ve found I actually sleep better on long flights w/o the booze.

Arrived in Cairo 15 minutes late – not bad for a 24 hour journey. I kind of anticipated my bag getting lost (which it did), so I went through the process (baggage style #22 – soft upright with wheels – remember that) and headed to my hotel. Got a call on the way from the hotel manager that there was a “problem” with my room, so he booked me into another hotel for the night. No big deal ,and I was glad to have him taking care of things for me. Slept for the next 10 hours anyway, so it made no difference.

Cairo skyline from the Citadel

Cairo is an interesting city – a blend of expectations formed from my trips to Istanbul and Chennai, my impressions from reading my travel guides, and my experience shooting Nazis in Egyptian cities in Call of Duty 2 (can picture myself jumping from rooftop to rooftop)…It’s not as chaotic as India, not as pushy as Istanbul…dirty and all one color (tan/dirt) with a combination of European metropolitan, Islamic beauty & fuddy duddyness, pollution and garbage that are hard to ignore, and a mixture of ancient identity and branding with modern 2nd world buzz. They like Obama and hate Bush, and I’ve already been told that “American people are good, just not your government” by a couple of people.

Egyptian Museum in Cairo

I had planned a day of transition – just relaxing and wandering the city. Instead, I found myself wandering into the Egypt Museum – something that I had planned to save for later. But there I was in front of it, and what I’m finding is that momentum here matters, and if you find yourself in a line, that’s probably where you’re going…The museum artifacts are (as expected) magnificent. After many offers from “Egyptian archeologist” guides, I managed to wind my way on my own through the two floors and many wings of statues, sarcophagi, jewelry and death masks…The Tutankhamen pieces were definitely the highlight. The death mask that’s become iconic for Egypt is amazing, as are the three layers of sarcophagi that interned him like Russian stacking dolls (or whatever you call them). I get excited finding a dollar on the ground. I can’t imagine what it would be like to find this kind of stuff buried for a few thousand years.

chubby Egyptians

A few things I’ve noticed:
• There’s a definite “teen scene” in the streets and people 13-early 20 something seem to be everywhere with few small kids or elderly in the mix.
• 50% of girls over 12 are “chubby” with a good 25% being “really chubby”. Fat seems to be the fashion for most older women and many of the men.
• Guys dress much more stylishly than girls with their knock off jeans and jackets. Girls with their head scarves, knit dresses or polyester housecoats over full length knit shirts look like they’ve been dressed by the Islamic version of K-Mart circa 1970. Bloody awful. I don’t even want to know how the ones that do the full head-to-toe veil (eyes only) hook up – though they seem to.