Motorbike Diaries from Luxor to Goa via Bollywood Part I

Well first I must apologize that it has been quite some time since I have written... I will try to summarize as much as possible all the things that have happened since my last entry...

In Luxor,we spontaneously rented a motorbike to get to the other side of the Nile and visit the Valley of the Kings. We did not intend to rent a bike but when we left the hotel that morning there was a foriegner outside "testing" his rental out and the idea got in our heads... Rue was really excited. We first went to see about getting our train tickets back to Cairo so we could head to Sinai and of course, as most our experience were in Egypt... the people at the train station where not helpful and would not sell us the cheap tickets and also would not sell us tickets for a night train nor for any trains in the next 3 days... we were stubborn this time and told them to "forget it" and we would find another way... when we walked out of the station a man on a motorcycle jetted past us calling out "taxi?"... we thought it was funny but then he turned around and asked if we were interested in renting the bike... its like he read our minds... we bargained for a little while (not hard enough) and next thing you know all 3 of us our on his bike heading for the hotel he runs... the Sherief aka the Bob Marley House... which is very cute and nice and the roof top terrace is like lit up cafe but he also rents the beds up there for only 10 pounds a night... he rented us another bike and Rue and I were off. Like I said we weren't prepared to get on bike... aka not enough sunscreen and no sunglasses... I was wearing my Yankee hat and it flew off one time and we had to turn around to grab it... Anyway it was the highlight of our trip to Luxor... we went to Valley of the Kings but again, not suprisingly, it was a complete rip off. They sell you a ticket for 80 pounds and you can only visit 3 tombs AND these tombs don't include the better ones, you have to buy separate tickets for those and they are more than the general admission AND most of the tombs are closed for "restoration". We ended up getting back on the bike and riding around for the rest of the day... it is such a feeling of freedom to get on a bike and just go!!! We loved it immediately and said that if it was possible we would buy a bike in India and travel that way.

We rode past Karnak which was very lovely but we did not want to pay to go inside.. instead we welcomed a hunt for the remote bus station and ended getting lost in a village and never finding it. We did however purchase bus tickets to Hurghada from a small office in town for the next day. hurghada is a resort town on the Red Sea, not in Sinai... but we thought we would go there and catch a bus heading for Sinai instead of going back to Cairo...

this was not as easy as we thought. When we arrived in Hurghada, we knew immediately we did not want to stay... the place is commercial nightmare with very new sprawling resorts that we could not ever afford and a huge shady Russian presence... the people told us that the bus to Sharm Sheik was at 10pm and that we could only buy tickets on the bus... this was about a 2 hour wait and a very crowded "outdoor" bus station. We found a curb to squat on with our packs and Rue ran into a very interesting couple. She was Ukranian living in Jordan for the last 5 years and he was an Arabian diver also living in Jordan but temporarily displaced to Egypt to get some needed licensed to start his own diving business in Jordan... she was heading back to Jordan via a bus to Sharm Shiek, then a private car to the ferry that crosses the Gulf to Aqaba... I tell you all this because when the bus to Sharm finally arrived at about 11pm... it was full and would not take on any more passengers. This was the only bus to Sharm, every day and the chances of getting a seat on any day would be very slim. Our new friend needed to be on the ferry to Jordan the next day or she would lose her job. They tried to convince us to split a private car to Sharm for the 12 hour journey... we wanted to help but it was way to expensive. We would resort to either taking a bus to Suez or Cairo and then seeking onward transport to Sinai... they walked away and then she came back and asked how much we were able to pay for the car... I told her the cost of the bus was all we could afford, she said that he boyfriend would pay for the rest because he did not want to send her alone with the chauffeur... so we got a ride.... we drove throught the night, stopping at many many security check points and once for the driver to sleep a little... we finally reached Sharm at around noon the followng day and our friend's new car was waiting for her beyond the checkpoint in Sharm. The chauffeur wanted to abandon Rue and I there because he needed to start his journey back to Hurghada... luckily she had given Rue the money to pay the man because she needed to get in the car and take off... so we told him we would not pay him unless he took us to the bus station... by the way we were trying to get to dahab... he reluctantly took... and left and it turned out to be the wrong bus station... we started walking in the mid day sun and a pick up picked us up and said he would take us for 5 pounds, so we jumped in and in less than a minute we were there... suckered again.

We waited for 2 hours for the next bus to Dahab and spent the next 4 nights there... Dahab is also infested by the Russians. This is a world reknowned dive spot... but we dont dive. The arent real beaches, meaning with sand at least not near where we were... we did go swimming once but it was very difficult because it was very very windy... so we relaxed at our camp and tried to be as cheap as possible in a not so cheap place. I didn't have too many good experiences in Dahab, especially with the men, but this was not anything new for me Egypt.

Some things about Egypt I have to say, the people and the gov't are RAPING the tourist of their money and most tour groups don't even notice since they pay a package price and never leave their "glass box" tour buses. I do not really recommend Egypt for independent travelers unless you plan on getting into serious arguments with vendors at least ten times a day. The monuments are very very over priced unless you are a student or a serious Pharoanic times fan. Women traveling alone will be relentlessly harrassed, the men, again generally, are like savage beasts and will stare, shout absurdities and grab you, especially in the markets and this kind of behaviour was not even deterred by the fact that I was traveling with my "husband". The people on the streets beg and scam you for your money, always stating that it is for their work and families but don't be fooled, we traveled north south, east and west and did not see any extreme poverty... everyone seemed well fed and happy.

I am sorry but I had to say it. consider yourself warned. as you can tell I did not have the greatest over all impression in Egypt.

Ok, we spent our last day in Cairo with our new good friend Zeidan and he asked us to be models for his upcoming exhibition... he showed us the finished products and I am grateful for his artful expressions and of course the beauty found in my photos... through PHOTOSHOP... he blurred my sunspots, wrinkles and acne... it was quite lovely to watch him at work.

OK... so our flight to Mumbai via Abu Dhabi was scheduled to depart at 3:40 am on Sunday, November 2. When we arrived at the Cairo airport at about 1 am, the screens already said that the flight was delayed to 4:30am... we checked in and advised the agent that we were concerned we would miss our connecting flight, he assured us we would catch our flight... I said ok... but what about our bags. see originally we were supposed to land in Abu Dhabi at 9:30 and the connection was scheduled to depart at 10:20... so you figure if we were delayed 40 minutes that left us only 10 minutes... anybody who has every flown before knows this is impossible... but not this Egyptian agent... he just wanted to wipe his hands clean of us...

needless to say when we got off the flight there was an agent waiting for us to inform us that we had missed our connection and that the only other flight to Mumbai was at 12:05am... so we got to check into the airport hotel at Abu Dhabi, which was very very nice... but we were not allowed access to our baggage... I have to say that it was the BEST shower I have had in over two months and I enjoyed it for at least a half hour... they provided towels, shampoo, soap, conditioner, toothbrushes and paste, and a comb... the only drawback was that I didn't have clean clothes to change into but I slipped into the very clean sheets and slept the afternoon away, very comfortably... so it turned out well for us and the new flight got us into mumbai early in the morning instead of in the evening leaving us better time to find a hotel...

ok... I think I will come back to the cafe tomorrow and continue... this is alot for one sitting...

To Be Continued...

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