Arriving in Luxor, Karnak Temple, Wandering...

---

Not one of my best days on the trip, as you'll read....

Overnight Train from Cairo to Luxor

Our bedraggled group arrived by overnight train in Luxor very early. The train itself had been quite an experience. For example, the toilet lid flipped up rather like a movie theater seat. So, if you wanted to say, put down toilet paper on the lid, you had to hold it down with one knee, while applyign the protecting toilet paper, and then quickly flip over to sit on it before it flipped up. Also, you couldn't squat over the bowl because the lid was always perpetually halfway up and blocking you. the advantage to this was that any dirt seemed to slide right off and it seemed pretty clean, relative to other train bathrooms we saw on the trip. We were also told that the water in the sinks was not safe, that it was rife with bacteria, so all of our cleansing had to be done with hand sanitizer. Sleeping was difficult because of the starts & stops of the train, and I was also unnerved because of the freaky train attendant we had.

I accidentally pressed the "Call Attendant" button on the train, thinking it was my night light. So it called our train attendant. I apologized for having called him accidentally, here I am wearing my pajamas already. He says to me "That's okay but now I will have to punish you." Grabs my hand, kisses it and says that's my punishment. Later on, he kept saying wierd stuff like "Don't forget about me." Our tour leader eventually took him aside and told him what for. But all night, I kept worrying he would somehow get into my cabin because he just had that crazy perv glint in his eyes.

Anyway, I don't think ANY of us had slept by the time we arrived in Luxor...so we stopped briefly at the hotel to clean up in the hotel bathroom, and then we were off again to Karnak Temple. Clean up meant mostly washing our faces in the sink, and running a brush through our tangled hair.

Karnak Temple

To get to Karnak temple, we rode in caleches - horse-drawn carriages. I was really excited about this, really cool form of transportation. Unfortunately it turns out that I am severely allergic to either horses or the hay they eat. Not long after we boarded our caleche, I started violently sneezing, with bloody snot getting all over my sleeves. I was having an asthma attack by the time we got off the horses, and it took me a while to recover. Meanwhile, we were entering Karnak temple along with seemingly thousands of other people. It is impressive in its size, but in my state, I was in no mood to hear a guide go on about the history and significance of every little carving. Still, I amazingly remember a lot of it and I suppose I'm glad I was there. Mostly I just wanted to find a quiet place to sit down and focus on breathing.

I did recover, away from the horses, but then we had to ride the caleches back to town. We stopped halfway to go to a jewelry store. unfortunately the horses were "parked" outside. Through my gasping breathes and burning eyes, I managed to order a necklace with my name in hieroglyphics and another one with my name in Arabic. After everyone finished their shopping, we walked back through Luxor to the hotel. Big Mo pointed out the bank, ATM, the new and old bazaars and other important places on the way. We stopped at an expensive Egyptian fast-food joint for lunch, eating falafel and smoothies and onion rings. It was pretty tasty, but much more expensive than Felfela in Cairo - 11LE for a falafel instead of 1.

Later that Day

After lunch, Alli, my mom and Scott all went to sleep. I wasn't able to sleep yet, as I had been quite the insomniac on teh trip so far, and I walked around Luxor alone. Our hotel was conveniently located across from the corniche of the Nile, and the Luxor Temple. I found the little park in front of Luxor Temple was a big place for Egyptian couples to kanoodle. I looked for the entrance and had a classic Egyptian experience. I find a gate with a guard and ask "Can I buy a ticket here?" He says to me "5 minutes". Meanwhile, he is letting people out one by one. I can see some sort of ticket office inside the gates. 5 minutes passes, and I start to walk away - and he pulls me back saying "5 minutes, 5 minutes". After another 10 minutes, I walk away and ignore him. I find out later on that I was standing at the exit, no entrance there, and the entrance was on the other side!! So I didn't see Luxor Temple except from the outside.

I started to wander the bazaar on my own but pretty soon I ran into Marc and Victoria, a welcome sight. It was fun to shop with them. They were on their way to the jewelry store to retrieve their camera memory card. We walked the whole way through the markets. Victoria was on the lookout for a children's version of the Egyptian tunic she had on. I was looking for a Nancy Ajram galabeya. They patiently waited with me as I negotiated for a galabeya, 2 in fact. Then we headed off to the jewelry store. I had a reaction to the horses again. We got back to the group just in time to leave for our donkey ride that evening, which I've already written about. This was the first time I had the chance to hang out with Marc & Victoria, an Australian couple that , you could tell from the first day, was very fun and funny. Just great personalities.

While I'm talking about people on our tour, our trip also included two people we called "The Twins". Actually they were not twins at all, and not even from teh same country. In fact, they were randomly put together on a single supplement. One was Nicky from Sydney Australia, and the other was Susan, from New Zealand. What they had in common - both lived in beach towns, had blonde hair, and were pretty, well-put together women with great senses of humor. My family got along very well with them, especially my stepdad Scott.

There was also a small family, Ronda, David & Tamara. They started out by keeping to themselves, but we got to know them by the end. Then there was Will, an architect from Canada. He reminded me of someone I would hang out with at home and always asked really good questions. Another couple on the trip had come from Tasmania, and they had been travelling for a long time - in fact, they had just completed a trip through India. They could always be counted upon to have a good attitude and perspective, and took everything in stride.

Completing this number was myself, Allison, and my mom Tere, and her husband Scott, all from America.

Evening Shopping

After the aforementioned donkey ride and lovely dinner in a rooftop restaurant on the west bank, my parents and I went shopping in the bazaar. The ship was going to have a Galabaya "Egyptian Night" party, and they needed some duds. I was all set but was in the market for a new costume coverup, and an embroidered women's galabeya would do nicely. Now, my mom is going to kill me for the picture I'm posting but it really says it all!

We stepped into the first shop selling galabayas that we saw, and were promptly offered tea by the proprietor. My parents declined, but I accepted. "Ah, you understand our Egyptian hospitality, I see!", he said. He sent the boy to get the tea. Meanwhile, his mother was on the floor, praying. It was a little strange, as she was praying directly towards me and I felt like perhaps we shouldn't be there. I asked him to convey my apology for the interruption and he said it didn't matter. It was a very small shop, and all the walls were ilned with shelf upon shelf of colorful garments in plastic packages. First, it was Scott's turn to find a simple man's galabaya. He tried on a few but looked best in a simple white one. Complete with a skullcap and white scarf tied around the forehead, he looked like a fellaheen. The storekeeper kept insisting that my stepdad was wearing an X X X L. Not exactly something you want to hear! Then, it was my mom's turn. Luckily women's clothing comes in numeric sizes, like 1-5. She tried on a long red woman's galabaya, with embroidery. I joked with the proprietor that we should make my mom look like Fifi Abdo. He got so excited! His old mother, now done praying, started to help my mom get dressed. She got a headscarf and wrapped it around my mom's hair, and added a coin belt to her waist. Soon my mom was looking like a baladi dancer! But, it wasn't exactly the right look for her. She ended up buying a white on white embroidered tunic, that she can quite easily wear to work when she returns to the states. For myself, I ended up with a pink embroidered galabeya, where the embroidery is all of Pharaonic designs, pyramids and pharaohs. We ended up paying quite outrageous prices, despite some extreme bargaining, but I still think we got a good deal, because the cotton felt like very high quality in the end. I was convinced at last - and anyway, I only paid 200LE for mine. The whole time I chatted away in Arabic with the mother, although I didn't have a lot of words - it seemed to mean a lot that I spoke any Arabic at all. In the end, we felt like part of the family and that's what counts.

---

Photos

Caleche Riding
Myself, Allison and William in a Caleche

Nicky in a Caleche
Nicky in the front of a Caleche

William and my Parents in a Caleche
On the way back, William rode with my parents on the Caleche.

Hatshepsut's obelisk
I like Queen Hatshepsut. She's ballsy. And her obelisk is still intact because it was covered up for so many years by her angry stepson. He built a wall around it so no one would see it, but also thereby preserving it for the future.

Wall Paintings
Wall carvings with some original paint, in Luxor's Karnak complex.

Karnak Temple
Big colossi, with alli for reference.

Karnak Temple
I'm sure this had some signficance that I've now forgotten.

Aisle of the Rams
Rams lining a courtyard...rams symbolized the god to which this part of the temple was dedicated to - Amun.

Luxor Temple
A view of Luxor Temple from the outside - couldn't find my way in.

Shopping for Galabeyas
My mom, Scott - and in the background, the mother of the family that runs the shop.

My Parents
In the ferry over to the weset bank