Life of Luxor-y

At last! After days of treading water, things finally took shape yesterday, and I made it onto the flight bound for Luxor this morning. What this meant is that I had to be up at about 2:30am to make sure I got to the airport on time.

For the first time I felt that things were going my way; I had checked in successfully, been through the metal detectors and was on the bus getting ready to be taken to the plane, when suddenly a French chap walked up to me and said my name. Oh no! There is some problem which meant I had to get off the plane I thought. No, instead he handed me my wallet, which I had left on the counter when walking through the metal detector!! You could tell he thought I was some silly "rosbeef", as he patronisingly said I need to be careful here!!

Still, I took this as a sign of my fortunes turning, and it seemed to follow on as, when I landed at Luxor airport, my bag was the first to come out of the baggage reclaim!! So, I was almost back on schedule. I met with the rep who was waiting for me airport and drove me to the boat, where I signed in and dumped my bags, before running straight out onto a tour of the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, the Colossi of Memnon, and the Temple of Hatshepsut.

My home for the next 6 nights....i never thought i would see this....

OK, a weather update. The heat here is unlike anything I have ever felt before in my life. I thought that Cambodia was hot, but even that would seem cool compared to this. I am fairly sure that I would find walking on the surface of the sun cooler than touring these valleys. Even at 7am the heat was in the high 30s, and while it may be true that sitting in the shade means that you get some respite, there is very little shade here at all! Rest assured I am drinking more than enough water, I estimate I have drunk about 5 litres just touring.

The tour group i am with seems to be OK, a fairly friendly bunch, who are broken into two groups; those from Australia and those from England.

We arrived at the Valley of the Kings first, and as is expected at a tourist Mecca like this, the visitors have to run the gauntlet of a horde of locals trying to sell them everything from maps of the area, to authentic toenail scrapings from Tut Ankh Amun himself.

This scene at the Valley of the Kings was very bazaar.....

The shame about visiting these tombs is that no photography is allowed in there, under the presumption that it might damage the hieroglyphs, but my suspicion is it is more so they can sell you glossy brochures at ridiculously marked up prices. Once again our western sensibilities disadvantage us, as when the vendors put on the hard sell, we inevitably buckle and hand them loads of cash in order to get rid of them. The vendors are fully aware of this, and so once you are seen to cave in once, you just attract more hassle. Luckily I was exposed a bit to this in Cambodia, so I had a more steely determination than most, and moments after an American tourist paid E£50 (about £5 sterling) for a glossy brochure, I managed to haggle him down to E£20.

One thing I have not mentioned yet is something called "Baksheesh". It is a form of tipping, but on a much wider scale than in the west. For example, a chap helped me lift my luggage onto a trolley, I had to pay his a couple of Egyptian pounds for his trouble. A guard showed me something interesting on the wall in one of the temples....and I was another couple of pounds lighter in my wallet. However, this is an accepted way of life here, and a couple of pounds in Egyptian money is about 20p, so it is not a big deal, but it is the sheer frequency that adds up. Also, I always seem to have a dearth of pound notes, I am sure the Egyptian government have not printed enough, so I am stuck sometimes being unable to pay or paying 5 or 10 pounds, which is a lot!!

The Valley of the Kings visit incorporated seeing the Tombs of a couple of Ramseses (is that how you pluralise Ramses?!) which were quite interestingly decorated, but you will have to take my word for it. The Egyptians don’t miss a trick though and realise that, because of the fame surrounding the death mask, the tomb of Tut Ankh Amun will attract of lot of tourist interest, and so there is a separate charge for entering this tomb.

A rarity at The Valley of the Kings...no people in shot!

However, I was happy enough to shell out for this. It is a small tomb, but you can still see the stone sarcophagus and the wood sarcophagus that he was buried in. If the Egyptians believed he would awaken in the afterlife it does make me wonder why they locked him in a wooden coffin and then sealed him in stone one in which the lid must weigh at least 2 tonnes! At the other side of the tomb you could view the mummified remains of Tut Ankh Amun himself, which was quite special.

Tut Ankh Amun's entrance - oo-er!!

It reminds me that I need to go back to the Egyptian museum and see his death mask. I might possibly come back to the Valley of the Kings after the cruise as there are plenty more tombs to see, but we are on a punishing schedule to cram as much in as possible in a week.

After the Valley of the Kings, we “stopped off” by something called the alabaster village, which seems to be a local arrangement with the bus driver to filter tourists into the shops there. Still the demonstration on how they shape the stones was pretty good, and they were light hearted and friendly, so I was not too bothered – apart from the fact that I kept on singing “pure alabaster, genuine plaster” from the Mary Poppins tune “Portobello road”.

This sort of job can really grind you down....

We eventually moved on to the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, which is a massive temple carved out of the cliff face Petra-style! It was very impressive and pretty well preserved considering. The slight downside I was beginning to discover is that all of these locations are thronging with people, which makes it impossible to take a good photo without some numpty getting into the shot! Here I met an “unofficial” official, who put his hat on me and took my photo (more baksheesh....)

Hatshepsut's temple was pretty impressive, will be interesting to compare to Petra

Me looking like a daft Egypt....no laughing, i had to pay baksheesh for this!!

The penultimate visit of the day was to the Valley of the Queens, to see Queen Nefertiti’s (affectionately called Titty to the locals.) tomb, and also some other one, whose name I forget. By this point in the proceedings, the whole day had caught up with me, and the intense heat was making my eyes stream unheeded and were stinging to the point where I could hardly focus the camera. I hope I have not got sun burn of the eyeballs, as that is the one place I did not plaster with sun cream!

The Valley of the Queens - trust me! Every hole is a tomb

The final visit was to the Colossi of Memnon. I am not sure what I was expecting here, but I think it was something much bigger than what I saw. I know they say that size does not matter, but when it comes to stone statues, it really does! I suppose I had romantic images of something similar to the Colossus of Rhodes so, all in all, this was a trifle disappointing. Maybe they should be renamed to the Moderately-sized-stone-figures-of-Memnon. At least i was not the only one, it seemed the guide was not too impressed with these either, as after a couple of minutes he was ushering us back into the coach to head back to the boat. I for one was not sad to go.

The Minutia of Memnon....I was disappointed

As soon as I got back to the boat, I locked myself in my room and went to sleep (well earned), finally I feel that I can relax and start enjoying my time here. Also, i have finally got some pictures (to be added, as the internet connection is interminably slow!) which are more interesting that the departure lounges of Heathrow and Cairo airports!!