Nubia, the Nile & No-Go Areas - Upper Egypt


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April 10th 2006
Published: April 17th 2006
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Abu SimbelAbu SimbelAbu Simbel

Giant Statues on the Sun Temple
After seeing a glimpse of the lush green farmland and scattered villages of the Nile Valley on our way to the Pyramids at Dashur I was really keen to cycle up the valley. After so long riding through the desert the site of so much greenery was quite staggering. The intensity of the colours seems to be increased by lack of familiarity. Anyway, due to other plans for the next stage of our journey, and rumours that cycling the Nile valley is nigh on impossible thanks to the over-protective and paranoid authorities in Egypt we dumped the bikes in Cairo and became 'normal' backpackers for a while, taking the overnight train down to Aswan in the deep south of Egypt.

We rode 2nd class which was ludicrously cheap and far more comfortable than trains back home, the seats reclined for miles and there was loads of legroom, so we actually managed to sleep quite well - something I had not expected. The train is very slow though, and I mean slow. But waking up to pre-dawn light as we crossed the river on a huge bridge was well worth it, and the train then rumbled slowly on past fields of sugar cane, wheat, cotton, fruit, vegetables and date palms, with mud-brick houses and villages scattered throughout and the population already up and setting to work in the fields, or being pulled along on donkey carts. I wanted to be on my bike riding througn it all. Eventually, 13 hours after leaving Cairo, we arrived at Aswan and stepped out into the heat, dust and bustle of the city again.

Aswan is not really that big and is a really nice town set on the river with beautiful green parks along the corniche (river bank), lush green islands in the middle of the river and stunning desert hills rising above all this on the far bank. The view is spoilt only by the lines of ugly "floating-hotel" style cruiseboats that moor up and by the fact that it is impossible to just sit and enjoy the view or to walk along the corniche without being constantly bothered by felucca 'captains'. The felucca is the traditional sail boat of the Nile and going for a sail around the islands is the thing to do if your a tourist, and seemingly ripping tourists off is the the thing to do if you
Valley of the QueensValley of the QueensValley of the Queens

Detail from inside one of the tombs. The falcon headed deity ıs Horus, not sure on the other one.
are a felucca captain, or a commission man acting on their behalf. You quickly realise everybody in Aswan is a felucca captain, or so it seems.

We managed to avoid this experience for the first couple of days, wandering around the bazaar and taking the public ferry across to Elephantine island, which is about the only place you can sit in peace in Aswan. The island is home to a large Nubian village. The Nubians are an African people who lived along the Nile in what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan, at least they did until the Aswan Dam and then the High Dam were built, which flooded their homeland. Most now live in transplanted villages around Aswan and along the river to Kom Ombo, with many more moved to Sudan. They paint their houses in bright colours - usually a sort of ochre yellow or a lilac-blue colour that is supposed to ward off the evil-eye, and the people seem more quiet and relaxed than the Egyptians, maybe this is just becaused they are not constantly pushing hard-sell tactics on you. Unless they own a felucca of course. We enjoyed just sitting on the river bank on the far side of the island under palm trees, watching the river, the felucca's and hundreds of colourful birds flow and fly by. It was the perfect tonic after Cairo.

After having said a final farewell to Ben back in Cairo, he was of course one of the first people we met in Aswan. He had only managed to cycle for one day south of Cairo before constant police harrasement forced him onto the train too. I stopped wishing I had tried to cycle. We had planned to visit various temples around Aswan but soon learned that you basically have 2 options - going on a tour and paying over the odds, or trying to arrange things youself and still paying over the odds. For instance you can probably manage to negotiate a good rate for a taxi to take you to the ticket office for Philae Island Isis temple (on an island in the lake between the 2 dams), you then buy your ticket, you then have to take a boat to the island. The boat should cost about 3 lire each, but you are not in a huge group off a coach (thank god), so they
Dread at the ControlsDread at the ControlsDread at the Controls

Pleasure Boating on the River Nile
will try to charge you stupid money. Usually the tactic would be to walk away and pretend you are no longer interested, but you have already paid for your ticket so they have you over a barrell and they know it. We actually decided not to bother visiting Philae simply because of this, and we met many other travellers who were also put off doing things because of all the hassle involved and the fact you end up paying so much more than you should, or else you have to argue with everyone all the time to get what is still an unfair, but slightly better price.

We did want to visit Abu Simbel, however. This is a monumental temple carved into the cliffs above the river by Ramses II to mark the border of Egypt and Nubia/Africa, being famous for the enormous statues staring out of the rock face. At least it was like this until the High Dam was built, when it was cut into peices and moved 60m uphill and put back to together in an artificial mountain.

Now because the Nile Valley is so incredibly dangerous tourists are not able to travel freely where they like. You cannot take the cheap trains that locals take, you cannot use the local (and very cheap) minibuses. This is apparently for your own safety - ever since the massacre of a bus load of tourists back in the 1990's (notably this happened at a well visited tourist site, and they were on a tourist bus anyway) the authorities have been ultra paranoid. It is understandable to a degree - tourism is a major business in Egypt and it suffered badly after this incident. But as a result you can now only travel in overpriced tourist buses that travel in huge convoys with other tourist buses (and a minimal amount of actual armed protection it must be said). You cannot go freely where you want , when you want. Instead you must visit the tourist sites with every other tourist all at once, which does not lend to a very pleasant experience, unless you like being a sheep of course. Even if we had come with the bikes as soon as you try and leave a "safe" area (i.e. tourist site or town such as Aswan or Luxor) you will encounter a police roadblock and will be stopped
Friendly LocalFriendly LocalFriendly Local

He might not look so friendly, but at least he wasnt trying to sell us drugs, a felucca ride or generally hanging out for "commission".
and either turned back or made to join a convoy.

This is the situation with Abu Simbel - it is way south of Aswan close to the border with Sudan and the other side of the Tropic of Cancer. It takes 4 hours to get there by bus from Aswan and because the vast empty tract of the Sahara desert which lies in between is crammed full of armed terrorists desperate to kill some tourists you must travel in a convoy. They leave Aswan at 4am, you then have 1 hour at Abu Simbel along with the several hundred other tourists before returning with the convoy. Well we decided to risk our lives and try to get there without a convoy. The public bus runs to the town of Abu Simbel at the much more friendly time of 8am, which means you arrive long after everyone else has left. We had no problems buying a ticket or getting on the bus, or passing any of the checkpoints, so seemingly the desert is not so dangerous after all. When we arrived a panicking soldier did appear and try to get us to take a taxi to the Temple, we said
Nile at dawnNile at dawnNile at dawn

From our felucca mooring
we would walk. He started to walk with us. We stopped in a coffee house and he wandered off so we moved before he came back and walked unescorted to the temple. It was definetly worth it - the temple is amazing and even more so when you consider it was moved. The reliefs carved inside were also impressive and we spent around half an hour inside with nobody else there. We had 4 hours there in total - only 1 hour would not have been long enough and the ambience would not have been the same with hundreds of people. I have since met other travellers who went with the convoy and who didnt even go inside the temple as it was so busy and crammed with people.
The bus ride back started well - the driver had to start the bus from the engine and it was obvious that his gearbox and/or clutch were totally screwed. We joked about being stuck in the desert. An hour later we were not joking when the bus shuddered to a halt in a place clearly identifiable as the Middle of Nowhere, the Sahara desert. Our fellow passengers all got off and
FeluccaFeluccaFelucca

The view from the laid back position it seemed natural to adopt as we drifted and sailed our way downstream.
crowded around the engine. I went to see what was going on and they looked up expectantly "Mechanic?" Er, no sorry. Clearly the bus driver wasn't either. One old guy started collecting some scraps of sticks and rubbish as if he was going to build a fire for the night (the sun was busy setting), another sat in the sand and started to bang two rocks together - a hopeful sign........
Fortunately Egyptians all have fancy mobile phones and so help was soon on the way in the form of 2 minibuses. We got our money back from the original bus driver and left him with his knackered bus in the desert, and had a cheaper but far less comfortable ride back to Aswan. The only thing that made it bearable was the hypnotic Nubian music the driver was playing.

The following day we said goodbye to Ben again - for the last time as he set off to catch the weekly ferry to Sudan (yes, you take a ferry through the desert from Egypt to Sudan) on his way to Cape Town. If our bikes and gear had not been back in Cairo it would have been very
God of WisdomGod of WisdomGod of Wisdom

Thoth, the İbis headed God of Wisdom at Kom Ombo temple.
tempting to go this way too. Another time, another road.

We then set about the hard task of trying to arrange a felucca trip down the the river towards Kom Ombo or Edfu for a reasonable price and with a captain who was actually going to take us where he said and not try and extort more money from us once we were on the river. It is common for people to pay over the odds for a 2 day trip only to spend one night on the boat and then be dumped on the river bank and put in a taxi. We manged to get a good price and asked lots of questions about where the boat would go, how much food there would be etc. Compared to other peoples' stories and experiences we got one of the few good deals going, and our captain didn't try anything too dodgy.

It was obvious that the other passengers, who were off a package tour from the UK, were probably paying enough to hire the whole boat and the captain had then sold off extra space to us, pocketing the extra cash himself. We said nothing and played along, enjoying 2 days of pure relaxation as we drifted and sailed downstream past more Nubian villages, palm trees and plantations. The boat would moor up every now then for toilet stops and food stops, and we could go for walks along the river banks through the fields, with nobody harrasing you to buy anything and no police checkpoints. It was beautiful and we wished we could carry on down the river like this for ever. At night we would moor up and be rocked to sleep by the waves off the passing cruiseboats, with a loud chorus of frogs. We would be woken in the morning by noisy kingfishers dive bombing into the river a few feet from our heads. On the second day the captain stopped 1km from the village of Darwa and announced that for 10 pounds each we could go in a bus to see the camel market. Knowing that a journey of this distance should cost only 25 or 50 piastres (pence) and that the camel market was not even on that day we stayed with the boat - everyone else went though and the captian got a tidy profit from this too as I don't
Colossi of MemnonColossi of MemnonColossi of Memnon

Aaagh how they dwarf the tourists.....
suppose he paid the bus driver anything like 10 pounds per person. I decided that the river was just too inviting - after sitting for 2 days in the hot sun looking at the cool water I could take it no longer and dived in. There are no crocs downstream of the dam but there is apparently Bilharzia, so I may suffer internal organ failure in the future, but at the time it seemed well worth it.

The next morning we had to leave the boat as we arrived at Kom Ombo - a huge temple dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek. Sadly we were back in convoy country and as we left our boat about a thousand other people left theirs. We had one hour in the temple which would normally not have been long enough but as it was crammed with people and not such an enjoyable experience this was fine. The scale and size of the temple was impressive as were the carved reliefs of various gods with different animal heads. We then had to endure a ride in a tiny minibus (15 people in a bus for 14) in the convoy to Edfu - the next temple. Again only 1 hour here when you could easily spend all day, but again it was crowded and not enjoyable because of this. Edfu is even more impressive than Kom Ombo but the hordes of tourists are what stick in my mind rather then the temple itself (and yes I know I'm one of them....). It was another 2 hours of agony in the bus to Luxor, not made any better for knowing we were paying 4-5 times too much for the safety of being in the convoy, which was a joke. As soon as it starts moving there is a mad dash by all the buses to try and overtake each other and get to the front. After 20 minutes you cannot see any of the other buses or the armed police escorts as everything has become so spread out, so there is no real protection from any would be "terrorists" anyway. I was in a pretty bad mood when we finally arrived in Luxor due to the heat, the discomfort and the whole convoy experience.

And if we thought the touts in Aswan were bad they are nothing compared to Luxor. It is almost impossible
Karnak sheepKarnak sheepKarnak sheep

Seemingly in prediction of the effects of future mass tourism, the Pharaohs lined the entrance to Karnak temple with hundreds of sheep statues.
to get a fair price in Luxor and frankly I was tempted to leave as soon as we arrived. Except we couldn't - of the 6 or more daily trains to Cairo foreigners can only take 3 of them and we were told they were all 'full' until 3 days time. Starving we went in search of Koshary but whereas elsewhere in Egypt a large portion costs 2-3 pounds, in Luxor they charge 6 pounds to tourists and no amount of bargaining or protesting does any good. I even pointed to the menu on which the most expensive item was priced at 3 pounds. And walking off doesn't do any good either as they just let you walk - in Luxor there are thousands of tourists, most of whom seem happy to pay whatever stupid price they are quoted.
We were then followed around the streets by a "friend" who was clearly just tagging along to try and claim commission from whichever shop or cafe we went to (which would of course be put on our bill). We ended up walking around in circles and eventually just stopped to ask him why he was following us. Eventually he got the
Karnak Karnak Karnak

After the crowds left.
message and said goodbye, but then wanted to shake hands - especially with Erika. In Islamic culture a man should never touch an unrelated woman but it is common for young men and even small boys to constantly try and shake hands with female tourists. Erika refused and he got funny, I was ready to lamp him and almost did as by now my mood was even worse. When another guy then "bumped" into Erika in the middle of the street as if by accident I actually did threaten violence. I am not proud of this and it had all just got to me, but on the other hand if I deliberatly bumped into an Egyptian girl and attempted to grope her violence (if not a full-on lynching) would be certain to follow. We retreated to our hotel and could not believe that after months travelling in arabic countries and never having such problems we had to admit defeat and ask the guys in the hotel to go and buy us Koshary at the local price (for a small tip of course, but still way cheaper than the alternative).

I guess a lot of the tourists in Egypt are just that - tourists on a 1-2 week holiday from home, they are still being paid and even if someone charges them 10 times the going rate it still seems cheap compared to Europe or wherever. It is. But if you are on a tight budget, you have been in Egypt a long time, and you know what things should cost, you are constantly frustrated by people trying to rip you off like this. Not that I blame them for trying, but in Cairo and other places if we were quoted a "tourist price" we could always quickly and easily haggle it down to a local price or very close, or else you just go to the next tea-house or falafel stand or whatever. This simply doesnt work in Luxor as they seem happy to lose your business in favour of the next tourist who will pay over the odds without question.

For other travellers I will say this - in Luxor go to Oasis hotel. Not only is it the cheapest bed anywhere in Egypt but the staff are amazingly freindly and helpful, and actually seem ashamed of the scene in Luxor. They will tell you what you should be paying for things (and they are honest about it, not trying to cream off extra profit for themselves like everyone else) and if you can't manage to get this price yourself (which will be hard, even if you are seasoned folks like us) they will send a boy out to get it for you. And dont let someone take you to the hotel from the station, they will want commission. If you have to ask directions tell them you have a reservation and you know the price (though you will actually have to know it), and you will not be paying anything extra for commission.

Which is not to say that everyone in Luxor is on the take. We went back out to get some beer to calm us down and at the bottle shop they charged us local price straight off, though being able to joke with them in arabic helped here I think. And once I had calmed down and surveyed the scene you see the other side of the equation. Luxor is heaving with tourists who obviously have a lot of money and are happy to spend it. The majority also make no or little effort to conform to local customs or standards, ie. European and North American women walking around in low-cut tops and shorts or short skirts showing lots of flesh. I was kind of shocked by this too as I had not seen it for so long. It is hard to expect locals to respect the tourists when the toursits show so little respect to the locals, and after all this is Egypt, you are in their country and should show some respect. I also saw lots of tourists being rude or aggressive with touts, which will only make the whole thing worse for the next person. I understand their frustrations because it is very irritating to be constantly hassled, but smiling and saying "no thankyou" in arabic 4-5 times should do the trick and preserves mutual respect. If you can make some kind of joke then even better. Many touts would then smile and say, "Ok maybe tommorrow" or make comments about us being freindly tourists. Ignoring people, turning your back on them or shouting at them in your own language is not going to make them respect tourists and only means they will be more agressive or assertive in future. This is clearly what has been happening in Luxor for a long time, lots of people depend on tourists for their income but you can see a simmering resentment there too.

We were standing talking to a Canadian guy one day when a shoe-shiner came up looking for business. I laughed because we were all wearing sandals, but the Canadian took some kind of umbrage with him for interupting our conversation and got really aggressive with the guy - actually pushing him away. Not only was there no need for this but of course the shoe-shiner doesnt want to be disrespected like this and started to shout back, actually saying to him "you are in my country". Of course other people come over but nobody wants to back down until the Tourist Police arrive and drag the shoe-shiner off, because of course the tourist is always right in their eyes. I felt sick as there was no need for this behaviour at all. We had been talking about going for a drink together but we left the guy quickly after this. I actually now wish I had done or said something more at the time to help the shoe-shiner. His friends were all asking the Canadian guy "why did you do this?" but he was just shrugging and smiling and could only say "I dont want to be hassled like this".
It is not hard to imagine where the seed of discontent and anger that leads to incidents like the massacre that occured outside Luxor stems from, of course there is no justification for shooting tourists (or anyone) but I can easily see how some sick-minded people can play on the anger felt by some to encourage them to commit such crimes.

There is of course no easy answer and I have already admitted being aggressive myself once or twice, sometimes it is all just too mcuh. I think there are too many tourists who have the mentality that thay have paid for their holiday and to have a good time, and nothing should spoil it (I understand this too - they have spent weeks and months working hard looking forward to it and want to have a good time), including the local people. On the other hand the locals are poor in comparison (average monthly wage in Egypt is equivalemnt to 20-30 GBP, or around 50 USD. You can double this if you live in Cairo and have a 'good' job) and see every day relatively rich tourists who come to their country and show no or little respect for their customs and culture, and are often just plain rude.

The answer for us at least would be to escape from the toursit hotspots like Luxor and get out into the countryside and small villages to meet people who are not making a living from tourists. I'm sure there is the same level of warmth and hopsitality in these places as we have experienced in other countries such as Syria which are equally off the "tourist-map". In Egypt though you are prevented from reaching these places and these people by the checkpoints, army and roadblocks and convoy system, and so you only see the ugly mass-tourism side and all the bad stuff that goes with it. This is the real tragedy for me as the country and people are beautiful, but you cannot move freely. You are forced into only going to certain places and doing certain activities or else staying in your hotel, at least in the Nile Valley - elsewhere you have more freedom.

It is still worth visitng Luxor though, the temples and funeral complexes on the west bank are amazing - especially some of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and Queens, and of course Karnak temple in Luxor itself. We hired some bicycles (yes, having cycled all the way to Egypt we then left our bikes only to hire some very dodgy Egyptian ones) and took the ferry across to the west bank early the next day and cycled around the spread-out complex of Thebes up to the Temple of Hatshepsut, which is situated in an enormous corrie under huge sandstone cliffs. The temple looks impressive but mostly due to the location and the mountains behind it. This is the site of the tourist massacre where 60-odd people were killed a few years ago. The hills are heavily policed now of course. We skipped the temple and climbed the hills to walk over to the Valley of the Kings. Once on the ridge the views were amazing - rolling desert hills stretching out to the west, and to the east the green fertile strip of land alongside the bright blue ribbon of the Nile, and then more desert beyond, stretching off into an infinite haze. The Valley of Kings was of course heaving with toursists, but we visited one tomb and it was well worth it. The painted scenes inside give a good impression of what the temples would all have once looked like, before the paint wore off them. We noted that the colour scheme of blue, yellow and dark red was identical to that used to paint Nubian houses, though whether there is a link is not for me to say.

By the time we climbed back over to the temple there were a couple of hundred tourist coaches parked up so we skipped it altogether and cycled around to the Valley of the Queens, which by now was almost empty. More painted tombs. We spent the rest of the day just cycling around the green fields towards the river, enjoying the relative freedom for once and the comparitive lack of hassle. The west side of the river is a world away from the city of Luxor on the opposite bank.

We wanted to take the night train back to Cairo the following day but were again told it was 'full'. When we told this story to the guys at our hotel they suggested that if they went to the ticket office with a little extra money, then maybe the ticket guys would be able to find some empty seats. Basically they keep some first class tourist seats back until the last minute in order to get baksheesh. By now I just wanted to get back to Cairo so we coughed up the extra cash and they got us the tickets. We went to Karnak temple in the afternoon when most of the tourists have already left and spent hours walking around in awe of the huge temple walls, the columns and the obelisks. It was so quiet towards the end of the day that a fox and her cub were even scavenging amongst the broken stones and we also surprised a group of bats in a small dark chamber in one of the smaller satellite temples.

Sadly the first class comprtment on the train back to Cairo was much less comfortable than the 2nd class seats - the seats barely reclined and there was no overhead luggage store. Try to get 2nd class tickets, they are cheaper and better, really. We got back to Cairo and reunited with our bikes, by now eager to get back on them and do some proper travelling again - free to go where we like, when we like. But first we had to go to the Iranian embassy and collect our visa - probably the most expensive sticker in the world but we do now have a tourist visa for Iran. Now all we have to do is bus our way back to Turkey (without a Syrian visa...) and then start cycling again through eastern Turkey and into Iran, and hopefully onwards towards India.

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17th April 2006

what? no photos? same on you!!!
17th April 2006

Cumbria Update
Hello intrepid cyclists! Where are the photographs in this blog? We were amazed to hear how heavy things can be in Egypt; we knew about the bother back in the 90's but had no idea the repercussions were so serious even 10 years on. We have now done a couple of trips in our converted van and are getting revved up ready for the festival season. We are going down to the Larmer Tree Festival (sort of in the Glastonbury area) in July, which has a great line up including Afro Celts, Dreadzone and Shooglenifty - should be superb. A bit of news for you, if you hadn't already heard - Joe and Jane had a baby girl just over a week ago, sister for Danny. She is going to be called Marnie. I have to write the now traditional silly poem, of course, but it makes a change to write one about a happy event rather than another "someone is leaving" ode. Keep on peddling, guys, and keep the blogs coming; we look forward to each one arriving. Take care. Loads of love, Shirl and Dave
29th May 2008

disappointed
As a Canadian reading this post, I'm disappointed in my fellow countryman. In true Canadian style I'm going to apologise, on Canada's behalf.

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