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Published: January 25th 2010
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Avenue of the Rams
Karnak Temple, Luxor A funny thing happens when you don’t blog during your trip as you are traveling. You get home and you lose the motivation. Or perhaps it is because Luxor makes it into one of my ‘least favourite places to visit’ list. Either way, this blog is really overdue and has been sitting here waiting to be finished. So here goes:
We arranged a driver to take us to Luxor from Aswan as we didn’t really fancy a long journey in a cramped minivan again. We had hired drivers many times in India and always found them to be pretty safe and considerate. I guess good luck can only last so long…
Our driver was a twenty something Egyptian with serious boyracer ambitions. His car was decorated with stickers, fluffy toys and little signs in broken English saying things like ‘Sad Bird’ and ‘Cinderella driver’. In hindsight, this should have been warning enough.
As soon as we got in the back seat he turned and said ‘welcome, my good car. Not good driver’
Um, okay… bad start but we give him the benefit of the doubt and assumed that his language skills weren’t up to scratch and he
Birds eye view of the West Bank
Chris could not convince me to step foot in one of these! didn’t really mean that…
We took off and @$%^@£$&! …quickly realised that he did!
What followed was a very uncomfortable and quite scary few hours. Not only did he drive ridiculously fast but he did it all one handed - during the trip he must have sent and received about 70 text messages.
Since we were paying the guy good money and didn’t really want to die on Christmas day in the middle of nowhere we felt pretty justified in telling him to slow down. This worked for awhile until the little @$%^£$ started trying to race another car that looked similar to his.
To make a long story short, it all got a bit confrontational. Luckily we arrived at our accommodation in one piece where we rang our hotel and made a complaint about him. So you have been warned, if 'Sad Bird' comes to pick you up, trust your instincts - run!!!
We decided to stay somewhere a bit different in Luxor as we didn’t really like the description of the East Bank. We instead stayed in a small camp set up next to the crops on the West Bank. The West Bank was
Cliff top views
Hiking from Valley of Kings to Temple of Hatshepsut supposed to be a lot less hassle and aggro than the East. While it is certainly a lost less developed, I don't believe it quite lives up to the glowing description it receives in the Lonely Planet.
During our stay we tried to visit as many of the sights as possible during the four days we stayed and managed to get through pretty much the same things as everyone else.
Karnak Temple, the Valley of the Kings, The Colossi of Memnon, Tombs of the Nobles, Valley of Queens and The Temple of Medinat Habu.
Our idea was to arrive at all of these places early and explore them in peace before the big tour busses arrived and deposited their cargo in their hundreds.
Unfortunately, arriving early does not necessarily ensure a peaceful visit in Luxor as we learnt entering our first tomb in the Valley of Kings. Since we were amongst a handful of early visitors, the guards simply followed us into the tombs, and stood right next to us as we looked at the drawings. Slightly unnerving and after encountering the same tactic at the Valley of Kings, Tombs of the Nobles and the Valley
of Queens - it was completely infuriating!
Okay so out of four days in Luxor, here is our personal list of
highs: 1. The Temple of Medinat Habu - the least amount of hassle and the least tourists. Beautiful drawings with loads of colours.
2. The view looking down upon Hatshepsut Temple. We made the walk over from the Valley of Kings down to the visitor entrance. The views were great and we sat up on a cliff above the temple for about 45 minutes. It was the most relaxing 45 minutes of the entire trip although the first part of the track is a bit confusing. A guide isn’t necessary but the guys working in the valley will purposefully point you in the wrong direction until you feel lost and need to ask them to help. Trust me, if they shout for you to go left, go right! We would have fallen off a cliff if we listened to their ‘advice’
3. Some of the Tombs in the Valley of the Nobles. The level of detail in the paintings is amazing and show scenes of everyday life in Ancient Egypt. We actually tipped the
guards who LEFT US ALONE. They were surprised but happy.
4. Lunch at Sofra restaurant. The nicest Egyptian food we ate during our stay in a fantastic setting. We sat on the beautiful deck for hours. We went back on our last day and were turned away! They ran out of food!?
5. Catching the local ferry back and forth across the Nile. Much prettier, cheaper and a chance to attempt conversation with the locals.
6. Sitting around the campfire at our camp and meeting some really lovely independent travelers, including an amazing family who are traveling from Germany to South Africa in a restored fire engine!
7. Playing football with the local kids on the West Bank and letting them play with our camera. This was lovely until… see number 3 under ‘Lows’
The Lows 1. Hassle, Hassle, Hassle.
You want taxi? No thank you. You want boat? No thank you. You want camel? No thank you. You want donkey? No thank you. You want water? No thank you. You want helicopter? No thank you.
Oh and how can we forget…
Hello, you want boat? No thank you. Maybe later? No thank you.
Maybe tomorrow? No thank you. Maybe next week? No thank you. Maybe next year? No thank you. Maybe next life? Well actually, now you mention it…
2. So many bus loads of tourists and hundreds of cruise ships. Cringing at what some Western girls were wearing. Hot pants and boob tubes… at a temple? Okaay...
3. …they started demanding baksheesh and then got really upset when we told them we didn’t have any on us! The little toddlers also had their own tactics with dead flowers and baksheesh demands!
Well, there it is. My blog about Luxor - A few highs and lows but I suppose the level of hassle is to be expected in a town that has been a traveller’s destination since the Greek and Roman periods!
Our next stop was somewhere completely different. It’s definitely time for Dahab!
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Maisondubonheur
Pierre-Alexandre
Hi
I share your opinion of the place. Was there 10 years ago. The onlt chance i had is at the time, we were able to enter the Tomb of Nefertari (euh..is this the right spelling....such a long time...). seems this is a no-no these days. I'm back in egypt inMarch for some small stop-overs...on the program Saqqara, Alexandria...and i'm sure some more local harrassement on the way...Always a pleasure to see your pics and read your blog!