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Published: August 6th 2007
Fashions
Women's clothes shop, Bahrain A heart stopping high speed taxi ride through the darkened streets of Luxor at 2am in the morning gives us our first glimpse of the ancient ruins that document much of Egypt's ancient history. The vintage Peugeot 504 taxi from the airport drives into the city with its lights out -apparently to save fuel. The ride is a rip off & we are tired after a long day of planes & airports, but as we speed past Luxor Temple - a collection of giant pillars in the centre of town, it all begins to feel worthwhile.
We are in the Middle East, starting a new chapter on our journey.
The chapter begins with a brief visit to Bahrain, a tiny island nation off the east coast of Saudi Arabia. At just 20 miles long & 30 miles wide with a population of 700,000 it's an intersting introduction to the region. Having made it's wealth from oil, it's home to a small but growing collection of cloud reaching towers. The island is growing too, with reclaimed land quickly sprouting new developments. Meanwhile just a few hundred metres away inland
through
Luxor Temple
Luxor, Egypt. the gateway to the old city, Bab Al Bahrain, the narrow back alleys are home to the souq or market, a thriving metropolis of herbs, spices, gold, toys, accessories & clothes.
One of the first things you notice are the people: almost every woman wears a full length black chador. Most men wear a full length robe & a headcloth. Although the men's styles vary in style & colour, the only difference between one woman & the next is that
some show their whole faces, others only their eyes.
Few tourists pass through so we are welcomed wherever we go & it's a pleasant place to pass a day or two. Especially when you find yourself staying for free in a posh hotel when you know that you really shouldn't be.
Luxor provides a good introduction to Egypt. Compared to the capital, Cairo, it is like a village -a moderate sized town that sits across the banks of the River Nile. Everything is different to what we have become so accustomed to in the past 9 months. In dusty backstreets & alleys mudbrick houses are scattered amongst the concrete ones. The sound of people talking in Arabic,
Pyramids
Cairo, Egypt. donkeys, mosques, the deafening sound of the call to prayers that echoes around town every few hours. Cats roam the streets rather than dogs; even the cars are different. Gone are the Toyota Corollas & Camrys - this is a land of vintage Fiats, Ladas & Peugeots - all relics from decades long gone. The food is all new too - no more rice & curry, instead cheese, falafel, pita bread, beans & eggplant.
While Luxor Temple on the east bank of The Nile was dedicated to the living, the west bank was reserved for the dead. This is where you'll find the Valleys of the Kings & Queens where historic figures such as Tutankhamen & Nefertiti were buried in magnificent tombs. Luxor is also home to a phenomenal amount of 'Nile River Crusie Boats' & just a few too many salespeople, guides & touts.
A short stroll from our hotel and we arrive at the river bank. Within no time at all we've succumbed to a very good salesman who has us on his felucca (small Egyptian sailing boat) for what he claims will be a very relaxing trip down the river. Relaxing it is - so
Mosque
Bahrain relaxing in fact that we don't travel more than 20 or 30 metres from where we began. All the same, we are sailing on The Nile, taking in the views of the city of the living & the city of the dead. On the east bank lays the modern town, encircling the temple with shops, hotels, touts & houses. The west bank provides a peaceful & green alternative. From the felucca our view of Luxor Temple is obscured by hotel boats & cruise ships - we're told that there's at least 300 of them, polluting the river & spoiling the views. But despite cursing their presence an Egyptologist later tells us that he spent a few days on one for his honeymoon. Lunch
onboard our smaller vessel is bread, tomato & soft cheese. I have missed cheese. A lot.
Standing on the roof of our hotel at sunset I look out across the town & see something strange. All of Luxor is a building site. Although every single building is home to at least two satellite dishes, not one building actually appears to be finished - the roofs are missing leaving them all open to the elements. Apparently this
Movies
Bahrain is to avoid paying a building tax that is only paid once building is complete. Hence no one lives in a completed house.
"Mister, camel ride? tshirt? felucca? souvenir? what you want? how can I help you? where are you going tomorrow? what can I do to help you? where are you going? are you annoyed with me? why are you annoyed with me? what do you want? tour? souvenir? felucca? camel?
why are you going that way? what's wrong with you? why are you not happy with me? what have I done to annoy you? why are you going that way? go this way!? follow me & no one will hassle you...." While there are plenty of people here who want to be your friend, there are plenty more who want sell you something. Unfortunately you can't always tell the friends from the merchants until it is too late. While most just want to welcome you to their country & let you
move on, there are a few who just won't take no for an answer. They'll follow you down the street, some will even curse you for coming to their country & not buying from them.
Mosque
Bahrain Others will push you until you can take no more.
Fortuntely we'd been warned & were expecting the worst. Fortunately the majority of Egyptians we've come across have been warm & friendly, with the constant greeting of
'Welcome welcome, we hope you enjoy your time here' From those offering directions to
those paying for our lunch, they are by & large remarkably friendly, welcoming, polite & hospitable. You only need to walk two minutes away from the main streets of hassle & you are transported to the dusty backstreets where there's kids playing, old men smoking water
pipes (sheesha) friendly local women laughing.
The West Bank of the Nile River in Luxor (at the time ancient Thebes) was the burial place for pharaohs, queens, noblemen & all manner of other celebrated & ordinary people. Magnificent tombs were constructed in the cliff to honour the most significant of these.
Only a handful of the supposed few hundred that were built have been discovered so far, & of these only a few are open to tourists today. The most magnificent, that of Nefertiti is closed, while the most famous & most celebrated of King Tutankhamen has been emptied of its
Local
Valley of the Queens, Luxor, Egypt. treasures & is of little interest to most people anymore. Once upon a time, deep in the tombs, were the mummies in brilliantly decorated coffins within coffins. Around them were all manner of everyday & religious artefacts along with four vessels containing their removed
lungs, stomach, intestines and liver.
For a change we took a small tour to see the tombs. Having a qualified Egyptologist around really helps when your personal knowledge only extends to what you remember from primary school.
The tombs are magnificent, representing an ancient underworld, and although most relics & coffins are long gone (to looters & museums), it is really the staggering artwork & hieroglyphics inside that remains after a few thousand years that is most impressive. As
antechambers lead to burial chambers, reliefs depict scenes from the Book of the Dead & other ancient journals. Most look as if they were painted last week even though they date back around 3000 years.
Today a few people live in villages the valleys - one man has apparently been busy digging on his land hoping to find a new tomb & his ticket to fame & fortune. Aware of this, the government is
Karnak
Luxor, Egypt. trying to move the villagers on in order to continue their own search for more treasure. They cut the village's water off a few years ago & plan to cut their power soon too, but so far little has worked.
Back on the east bank, just a short walk from the centre of Luxor lies the Temples of Karnak. Being on the east, this was a temple dedicated to the living pharoahs & gods rather than the dead. A vast sanctuary of obelisks, pillars, columns, statues, hieroglyphics, halls & tour groups this is yet another magnificent sight. Strangely, Egypt is host to a lot of Russian package tourists - many wearing startlingly revealing outfits for a such a conserative
Muslim country. The entry to Karnak is lined wih an avenue of small sphinxes that give way to the vast expanse that was added to on & off over a period of 1500 years.
Moving on from Luxor we take the train on a day long journey to Cairo. The seats are soft & recline, there's legroom & real windows. This is a luxury we are not used to. It's easy to be fooled into thinking that transport in
Temple of Hatshepsut
Valley of the Queens, Luxor, Egypt. Egypt is perhaps of a higher class than we are accustomed to, but in fact there are plenty of lower classed trains, we just aren't allowed to use them.
Throughout the journey a small irrigation canal runs parallel to our tracks. Beyond that the scenery changes from sugar cane to village & back again on a regular basis. A few big towns come & go too, but most of the day the only blots on the green scenery are donkeys, horses & a few locals. Although sugar cane is big business for Egypt we're told that because of its height, it's also a prime location for terrorists to hide. These days you won't find sugar cane right beside the road or railway tracks, it's all a safe distance away.
Terrorism has had a big impact on tourist numbers - bombings a few years ago here, & the Middle East situation in general have kept vistor numbers down for awhile. But as seen everywhere that we've been, terrorist activities & the targetting of foreigners also have
a painful & long lasting impact on the local communities. There is a huge police/military presence in Egypt today & there are a
Spinx
Cairo, Egypt. lot checkpoints to pass through. Sadly the site of a lot of men with big guns stopped being strange to us a long time ago.
Cairo is a huge city, one of the largest in Africa & the Middle East. This becomes apparent within moments of arrival in the city. People are everywhere. Cars speed past in every direction at once without a care for who may be in their path. We jump in (another) ancient taxi at the train station & before we even set off the door handle & rearview mirror have fallen off. I thought I'd seen big cities, I thought I'd seen insane driving, but once again I am
speechless. We don't just drive fast, we drive at cars, we drive into groups of people. I am thoroughly amazed when we arrive at the hotel with the rest of the car still intact.
If you took away the cars & people, downtown Cairo could be a European city, with its grand buildings & a scattering of designer shops. While Luxor appeared conservative & traditional with the majority of people dressed in chadors & robes, Cairo is far more
cosmopolitan & modern with plenty of
Karnak
Luxor, Egypt. men in jeans & hair revealing women. The view across the Nile in Cairo is different too - high rises, hotels, offices, cars & pollution. Cairo is essentially a modern city too, at least by Egyptian standards. That said it's still a polluted mess of ancient cars & people. There's virtuslly no new or modern vehicles, most cars are around twenty to thirty years old & imported from Europe. They haven't even taken off the old number plates, they've just stuck new ones over the top.
Cairo's Egyptian Museum is home to around 100,000 relics including Tutankhamun's famous death mask & his coffins. It is also home to a staggering number of tour groups. Fighting through them to King Tut's jewels is a mission in itself, but well worth the effort. The
museum lacks much in the way of structure or signage & is hard to appreciate without a guide. I have no idea what most of what we saw actually was. What does stand out, beside King Tut's jewels are the numerous brilliantly painted wooden coffins & the animal mummies.
The museum is also memorable for being stuffy & dusty yet lacking in having anywhere to buy a
Big Head
Apparently the heads were this shape because of inbreeding. Valley of the Queens, Luxor, Egypt. Karnak, Luxor, Egypt. drink.
Much the same as Luxor there are those wishing to be friends & those wishing to make money. Either way it's always the men who say hello or welcome; although almost always smiling, even if only from the eyes, only one woman actually said hello. A high proportion of men claim to be married to a foreigner, normally Australian or European - a sales technique or a sign of the modern age?
The Pyramids - the only surving member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Knowing there will be busloads of tour groups, we set off in search of a public bus from downtown to the pyramids at 6.30am. Being an ancient wonder, you would expect to find a sign or something to suggest where the bus or busstop was to be found. The bus doesn't even stop at a bus stop, more a makeshift gathering place at the side of the road. We arrive to find the pyramids don't open until 8am, by which time a massive convoy of tour busses has joined us.
What surprises a lot of people about the pyramids is that although around 4000 years old, they sit in
Pyramids
Cairo, Egypt. the modern suburb of Giza in Cairo. As the bus crawls through the city streets a peak of the first pyramid suddenly appears in the window. It's only once you
walk up to the pyramids that you realise the whole of Cairo, huge as it is, is built in the middle of the desert. While the city creeps up on two sides of the pyramids, the others give way to a neverending expanse of sand.
The pyramids are everything you expect them to be; They are huge, impossible to comprehend & at times look thoroughly out of place. Yet they are magnificent, an engineering triumph & a beautiful sight. As we walk around I'm offered a ten thousand camels for Kylie. I don't take up the offer but make a note of what she is worth. We were earlier told that camels sells for between US$700 (£350) for a white one & US$2500 (£1250) for a red one. I'm not sure if I was being offered red or white.
Although tourists have been visiting the pyramids in their thousands for years, there's still very little there in the way of ameneties. I didn't see one rubbish bin yet
Hieroglyphics
Karnak. Luxor, Egypt I saw a lot of litter. At the only toilet, an old portacabin, the men's was closed. Around the main areas there is a constant barrage from people begging you to ride on their camel. There's no signs, no information, even the ticket booth looks like it was put together from old crates a few days ago.
It's hard to get a feel for Cairo in just a few days, but crossing the road is something I'll never forget - imagine crossing the M25 but with all lanes going in different directions, at different speeds, zig zagging across each other at the same time. At night it's even better - virtually everyone drives without lights.
The old Islamic area of Cairo is full of narrow backalleys - a giant sprawling souq (market) with a heaving mass of people all laden with shopping. A giant flyover casts a shadow over a couple of the numerous mosques that litter the area.
Perhaps the strangest thing about Cairo is that even though the pyramids & museum thrive with tourists, you can walk the streets of the city for a day & not see any at all.
There's no curry,
Spices
Bahrain but the few Egyptian dishes I've tried soon have me addicted. Koshari - macaroni, rice, lentils, chick peas, tomato, onions and garlic is very cheap & very tasty. Cheaper still is a pita sandwich filled with falafel, fuul (beans), aubergine, a few chips and salad. Delicious.
Leaving Cairo by bus the desert soon takes over from the suburbs once again. A few random settlements appear now & then, along with a strange small walled compound that could be home to a neighbourhood of tiny Christian houses or giant Christian tombs. throughout the day's drive across the Sinai towards the Red Sea coastline the scenery is an almost luna-esque barren landscape of sand, mountains & hills.
We spend just one night each at the 'beach' towns of Dahab & Nuweiba. Dahab has good intentions but is relatively expensive & really built for divers. There's few tourists around & we soon tire of the restauranteurs & tacky souvenir shop owners that accost us each time we walk past.
Sitting by the beach at a Bedouin style camp, Nuweiba is just too cold for comfort. As a howling blows, the only thing to keep me interested is the view of
Pyramids & Us
Cairo, Egypt. Saudi Arabia across the water. An unseasonal chill is passing through & my one vaguely warm top doesn't quite cut it. We don't even own real shoes. We hope that we have at least avoided the snow which is falling just a few more hours to the north where we are heading next......
Texting We are about to disappear off the radar. You can no longer text us.
Wellington - Sydney - Bangkok - Khao Lak - Chaweng (Koh Samui) - Lamai (Koh Samui) - Bangkok - Macau - Guangzhou - Yangshuo - Guangzhou - Zhengzhou - Guangzhou -Shanghai - Huang Shan - Shao Lin - Beijing - Xi'an - Chengdu - Leshan - Kanding - Tagong -
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Bangkok - Bahrain - Luxor - Cairo - Dahab - Nuweiba
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Stayloose
ben
Thats alot of cash
I did the maths. You could make between (depending on quality of camel) 3.5 to 12.5 million quid. I know kylies a pretty girl and all but thats a lot of cash. Really enjoyed reading that. I miss the ME. Best hospitality on the planet. ben