Rudders at Home

Today we decided to get up early and head into Luxor for the day. There were a few things there that we wanted to see, Karnak Temple again, Luxor Temple, Luxor Museum, maybe the mummification museum, and really I wanted to do some shopping and just have a nose around.

Well, the early bit didn’t really happen. We were out the door and in town by 11, so we were doing pretty good. We arranged for a taxi to take us to Karnak Temple, and then pick us back up to drop us off at the Luxor Museum.

This is the day I got my cartuche. I bought it on Saturday night.

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Tonight was the night we went to Fellah’s Tent. Sunday, it’s also the day I got my henna tattoo. We spent the majority of the day by the pool – yeah we did do a lot of that – and when the henna girl, Maria, came round with her book, I got suckered into getting one done. I’d been debating all week so far, thinking that I wanted one. Paul convinced me that I should. I really wanted something on my hands, wrist, etc, but decided against it. I had to speak at a conference thingy on the first day back, so I wanted something that not everyone could see. So after skimming through her book of designs, I made up my mind to have a lotus flower on my back.

And that’s what it looked like. While she started to put the design on my back, she asked me what my name was. She then offered to put it on my back in Arabic as well. That’s what is written at the top. It was quite cool. She made a paste up with the henna, and then put it on really thick. It then dried and when I showered it cleaned it up and defined the image a bit more. I wanted to get another one before I left, but it just didn’t happen. It was good, though, it’s still just fading away now, and it’s been almost three weeks! I think I got a pretty good deal.

So, we had to meet in the hotel lobby for Fellah’s Tent at 4:30. The event was being held at our hotel, and we’d seen the tents that they used, back by the pool.The first thing after meeting the guide was head down to the dock, where the hotel’s feluccas dock. They got us all dressed up in galabayas and we went for a sunset felucca ride, and got out up river, where the infinity pool and tents were. We were “piped” in by a band of three or four men. I like to think it was a bedouin band, but I might be wrong there.

We really enjoyed Fellah’s tent. It was really one of the best evenings we spent. We had a huge buffett meal, all Egyptian food. I had the best falafel ever, with lamb kofta and kebab and all this yummy dessert, like baklava and tons of things made with honey and almonds and pistachios. The food in Egypt overall was great. We didn’t have anything bad at all the whole time we were there.

There was tons of entertainment. There were these guys who danced with sticks, then came back with a panto horse that I got to ride! There was also a belly dancer, a snake charmer! – we have a picture of Paul with a cobra round his neck!! – and a whirling dervish. It was such a good evening, and they had a photographer there taking pictures of everything, and then later at the hotel, they were selling them. We got a couple, mainly because we wanted to use up our Egyptian pounds, but also because they were quite neat and pretty good pictures. Much better than what I was taking. Simply too distracted to take a nice picture!

We had such a good night. I loved every minute of it. I would easily go back and do it all over again.

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Day 4 – Saturday, November 11, 2006

No rest for the wicked, we were up this morning for 5:30. Never mind our holiday, we were on our way to the west bank of the Nile to check out some tombs and temple. I say some tombs and a temple. I mean, something so spectacular I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. Plus, this is the day that I learned about the whole baksheesh theory.

We arranged for a private guide and driver for the day. Neither one of
us was too keen on winging it – sort of like the Vatican, we didn’t
want to miss anything good. And really, we made a very good decision in
the end.

We met Abdul and our driver (his name I cannot remember – I can’t
tell you how many times that caught me out on this holiday!) at 7 am.
As soon as we stepped foot in the van, we started learning about
Egyptian history. The man was a wealth of information, having studied
history and tourism at uni in Cairo.

We first visited the Valley of the Kings,which was magnificent. In
the pictures you can see the natural pyramid shape to the mountain. We
then headed to Hatshepsut’s Temple, which had some really nice
hieroglyphics. We got some really neat pictures there, and the
structure was really impressive. Once we’d done that, we got in the van
and they told us we were headed to an alabaster factory. Now, this is
something that all the tour books, websites, etc warn you about: “Your
guide will try to take to an alabaster factory.” And I guess we were no
different. If we ever went back, we would probably draw the line and be
firm and not let them take us. But for the novelty factor, we went
ahead with it. And they had a pretty good spiel, really. They showed us
how it all went together, how they made pots and vases by hand and how
they made plaques, etc. Then they took us upstairs where we could have
the opportunity to buy something, how nice of them! And we did buy a
bowl, and a nice alabaster vase, which, unfortunately broke on the way
home. Bummer.

Next we headed to the Tombs of the Artisans, or workers, and that
was our second to last visit of the day. By that time I’d had about
enough of the whole baksheesh thing. We had one guy take our picture
and then complain when Paul gave him too little as a tip. At the tombs
of the workers a guy followed us down in and insisted on pointing out
the paintings, which was just plain annoying. But no matter, the
experience was something else. I guess living in London has taught me a
bit about ignoring things!

Last stop of the day was at the Colossus of Memnon
where we got a pretty neat picture taken. It’s also where I got a
picture of me and our guide and driver. Both men were pretty cool, but
it was interesting how they were together. The driver was quick to
speak to us when there was no one around, but wouldn’t say a word when
the guide was in the van. Plus the driver had candy for a us – like we
were his kids.

After a full and long morning, we headed back to the hotel. We got our
bathing suits on and headed back out to the pool. We got back from our
tour just after 1, so we had plenty of time to get some sun! Hungry as
we were, we discovered they served lunch at
the pool terrace! How decadent! Ok, yes, it was the epitome of laziness
to have food brought out to us in the blazing sunshine, instead of
getting up off our backsides and wandering 50 yards to sit in proper
chairs at proper tables. But, we were on our holiday, weren’t we? And
how much fun was it not to have to leave the pool? Today is also the
day I spotted the camel. a gardener was leading it
around the pool. How surreal. The camel will make another appearance in
this story…

After watching the sunset with a bunch of Belgian people, we got
cleaned up and headed into Luxor. This was mainly because we hadn’t had
enough of dust and dirt, I guess. The trip in was a bit overwhelming,
and our later trips were much, much better. We wandered down a bazaar
and through a bunch of dirty, dusty streets, and then down the
Corniche. We also got harassed by caleche drivers, and though it was a
bit tiring after the morning in the sun, it was really and interesting
experience. This was the night we ordered my cartouche – a necklace with my name in hieroglyphics.

Once we returned from our outing, we headed to the Crocodile Bar for a
few drinks, and ended up dancing the night away. It was such a full
day, but so good. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it!

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Day 3 – Friday, November 10, 2006

Ok, so there’s starting to be a pattern here. On the morning of Day 3, we pretty much did all the same as we did on Day 2. Yep, you got it, the pool. I think it’s probably a good thing that Paul was enjoying his book, otherwise he may have gotten a bit bored, but we both agreed that it was so nice to just chill out for a while. And the pool was such a nice place to be, especially with the sun loungers we were getting – right beside the river. The view was so gorgeous there. We could just sit all day and watch feluccas go up and down. Along with the cruise boats. There were tons of them.

And we just took it easy there for a while, We watched a bit of the sunset with a group of Belgians, and then we decided we needed to make a move. So we went in and got cleaned up, and yes, we did manage to get out for a bit. in the evening on Friday. We had arranged to go to Karnak Temple, just a bit outside of Luxor.

We went with a group, organized by the hotel. We got in a van taxi thing and headed out. The trip to the temple was pretty uneventful, until we had just about arrived. I’ll tell you what, you’ve never seen anything until you see this big hole that was in the middle of the road. Seriously, a hole. In the middle of the road. With no signage whatsoever. I’m telling you the absolute truth, and if I could have gotten a picture of it, I would have. Our mouths just dropped when we saw it.

The sound and light show was awesome. We walk up to the entrance of the temple, and it looks like it’s going to be some small little rinky dink place with hardly anything at all – looks like there’s hardly any room for anything in there. But, when you get in, there’s just space galore and massive, massive statues. THe sound and light show was pretty cool. They would light the statues and a loudspeaker would play a narrative, telling the history of the temple and who built what and why. There were immense stone pillars and a huge courtyard halfway through. The show ended at the Sacred Lake, where we got to sit on bleachers and they told us about the stone obelisks that took seven months to transfer the granite to Luxor to build them. It was pretty neat, because the temple reflected in the lake – really peaceful and pretty. The entire thing was really cool and prompted us to go back to Karnak to see it during the day. See our information about Day 6.

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Day 2 – Thursday, November 9, 2006

And we wake up to SUNSHINE!!! And with that I fell in love with Egypt.

Our breakfast was included in our stay, so we got cleaned up (ok, I got
my bikini and the suncream on) and headed to check out what there was
to eat. We sat outside in full sunlight our first morning. Gorgeous.
Buffet, with nice cook making omelettes to order. The first thing our
waiter did was show us a table and ask our names, then introduced
himself. Very nice service.

Once we’d stuffed ourselves, we decided we’d take a little wander
around the hotel – see what there was to see. The first sidewalk we
wandered down led us to the Nile! We had a good look around and took
some pictures, and then headed back up. We then followed another path
which led us back down to the Nile and we decided to follow the jogging
path around the island for a bit.

The rest of the day was spent doing exactly what I’d been dreaming of for ages: Absolutely Nothing. After we wandered back to the room, we slathered ourselves in lotion and headed to the infinity pool. We brought towels along, and once we got to the pool, we realized that we didn’t need them. There was a man who took care of all that – brought clean towels out, spread them out on your sun lounger and then took himself off to take care of someone else. He didn’t even expect a baksheesh, which was great.

So, we hung out by the pool, and soon enough a fella came round asking if we wanted something drink. Just after noon, and we thought, yeah, sure why not? So we had a nice cool drink in the sunshine. The bottle of which is displaying on the left. Not a bad beer, really, but it’s not all we had while we were there. I had some really good juice as well – something they called karkade, or hibiscus tea. It was bright red, and sweet, just like almost every other drink we had in Egypt. Coffee had sugar in it, tea had loads of sugar in it, as did the hibiscus stuff, which we got both, hot and cold. I really wish I had brought some back, but I guess I probably never would have made any.

Later, the same guy came round asking if we wanted to attend a barbeque that they were having at the pool terrace restaurant. And we decided we’d try that, not really wanting to go into town just yet. And the afternoon slowly passed.

We made it back to our room and found that our tour operator person had left a note with some info on local tours and activities that we could do while we were there. So, we decided on a few of those, went to meet her and booked them. Then got ourselves cleaned up and headed for the barbeque.

Overall, time well spent and day full of not very much except the sun. The pool was freezing, by the way!

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