Oasis, Days 28-33

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Friday 20th May 2011 - Day 28 Oasis

We were stopped during the night by yet another police block and kept there a lot longer than we should have been but thankfully were aloud past this one. The drivers were told twice to stop at places in order that we could get out, have a stretch and get something to eat but they didn't stop. Dave got really angry with them and eventually we stopped but the prices of everything were through the roof so most people just went to the bathroom and got back on the bus again. We finally got to Luxor at 2pm having been on the bus for 19 hours!! Our hotel was very basic and some of it was being renovated so it was a little all over the show. It was however in a great location, only a 5 minute walk to the main strip of town. It was so freakin hot that I instantly started sweating as soon as I hopped off the bus - it was 45°C! Our rooms took a while to be ready and when mine and Jess' finally was, it had no fan. It was just as hot in the room as outside and there was no way we were going to be able to handle sleeping in there without some kind of ventilation. Jess went down to reception to ask for a fan thinking we would be given a plug in fan and they said they would sort it while we were out exploring. We stopped off at a falafel place and then made our way to Luxor Temple which was at the end of the street. It was not as I had expected at all. I had thought it would be more like Petra, bigger for one but also slightly out of town, surrounded by desert but nope, it was right in the middle of the city. On the way back to the hotel we met Nev and Emma who were going to get beers. We joined them as we could definitely do with a beer. At first we couldn't find the store and looking like right tourist we went into the information centre to ask. Eventually finding, not a store as we had thought, but more a garage type setup, we got our supplies and headed back to the hotel. Upon our arrival we discovered our fan was not a plug in one at all but they had in fact installed a ceiling fan which was just crazy, but cool. We laxed out inside for a couple of hours before meeting up with everyone to go shopping in the Souk (market). Dave took us to a local silver store where I bought an Isis pendant (an Egyptian Goddess) before we went to dinner at a restaurant at the end of the Souk. We headed back to the hotel after dinner to find our fan had almost come off the ceiling and was shaking and making the worst noise. Afraid of being decapitated in our sleep we went to find the hotel manager. He tried to tell us it was fine and was not interested in fixing it or giving us another room. Dave surfaced a short time later to have a look and went away to talk to the guy. He came back and said there was nothing they could do now but that they would change our room tomorrow. The room was so hot and opening the doors to the balcony did nothing, if not make it hotter. Me and Jess were pretty much stripped naked but we were both still so overheated - we were so tempted to drag our mattresses out onto the balcony but the street below was rather noisy.

Saturday 21st May 2011 - Day 29 Oasis

I got only a couple of hours sleep because I was too hot. I was up and down on the balcony trying to get cool air but there just was none! At some stage a few of the locals were trying to take down a banner in the middle of the road using a homemade ladder, much to my amusement so I stood and watched them for a while. We were at reception at 5:30am ready for a full day of Temples. We went to the Valley of the Kings first where amongst others Tutankhamun's tomb was. The tombs we went into were still in pretty good condition with most of the carvings and colours preserved. They had all been emptied and the contents stored in musuems - it would have been good to see at least one tomb with its artifacts still in there so you could get a better idea of what it looked like before. We moved onto the Valley of the Workers which was a city and tombs. The discovery of the worker's city and tombs seemed to indicate they were a lot more important than anyone had previous thought, they were not just mere "workers", the leader of the workers at one stage telling the King he could carve his own tomb if he wanted to! The workers did however have to stay in the city their entire lives, never being
allowed to leave so I guess the King did still have great power over them. The carvings and colours in the worker's tombs were a lot more impressive than that of the Kings. Not being able to leave and therefore having no outside use for money, they used every cent they earned to make their tombs more beautiful than any other. It was still quite early when we finished the tour so me, Jess and Jen decided to go for a bit of a wonder around. That didn't last long because of the heat so we decided to go into a hotel and see if we could use their swimming pool. The receptionist told us it would cost 100 egyptian pounds each. Feeling a little bad for the others we asked if we could use it if there were 20 of us, to which they said no. We met the others at an outside restaurant not far from the hotel and sat and had a beer before hitting the shops to look for stuff to buy the children at the orphanage - we were heading there at 3pm that afternoon. We found bouncy balls and bubbles while some of the others got books and pencils and Amin bought a football for the boys. When we arrived at the orphanage we were met by the manager who gave us a bit of a tour and told us some of the history of the orphanage. It turns out he was the only staff member paid by the government, all other money for staff, equipment, food etc was solely relied upon by donations. They guys played football with the boys while most of the girls sat in the baby rooms - split into two for newborns and 1-2 year olds. One baby in particular was 4 months old but by his size he looked only about 4 weeks old! Some of the girls from the orphanage were in the rooms too helping out the few staff there was. They seemed to know what they were doing so it was obviously a regular thing for the girls to help. We went outside for a while and a few of the older girls had come out of their rooms to inspect the new people. All in all it was a good visit and good to see how that orphanage ran compared to the orphanages I would be going to in Cambodia and Vietnam. For dinner we caught a boat across the river to a hotel that had a restaurant on the roof top. It was outside so there was no air-con and stinking hot but nothing a fan and a cold beer didn't fix. It had been a few days since our last big night in Dahab and some of us were getting fish bowl withdrawals so after dinner Dave, Nev, me, Jess, Amin, Simon and Emma all went to a pub. It was called the Kings Head and was a very cheesy english pub. The music they played was pretty funny. I had considered a cocktail but decided to stick with beer. We played a few games of pool where everyone played together - you write your name on the board and get 3 lives, each taking turns at trying to sink a ball. If you don't you lose a life, if you do you keep your lives and it's the next persons turn. Everyone is slowly eliminated until there is only one person left with a life who is the winner. I had never heard of it before but it was really fun as you didn't have to wait around for a full game to be played before it was your turn. During the night I of course had to try to get another free tshirt and it was the easiest tshirt I got so far, all I did was ask for one and they gave it to me, it was awesome! Jess got one too. We left around 2am with Amin and Simon so we could share a taxi while the others stayed to play more pool.

Sunday 22nd May 2011 - Day 30 Oasis

My sleep was a lot better than the night before as we had the fan going full crank and the beers no doubt assisted. After breakfast we took a token horse and carriage ride to Karnak Temple. Our guide was really good, he gave us some good information on the history. For the most part it was made up of huge pillars, 134 to be exact with a huge swimming pool which actually looked more like a lake that had been concreted around. I was dying to jump in and have a swim, so was everyone I think, but it was definitely not clean enough for that. One smaller pillar had a Scarab Beetle on the top and was meant to bring good luck if you walked around it three times, which we all did. We took the token horse ride back to town where we went to Luxor Temple. Whilst the ruins itself and the history was good, it was just not what I expected and not as good as some of the other temples I had seen, although it did look really cool at night when it was all lit up. We spent the afternoon relaxing and decided some more beers were in order. Me, Jen, Jess and Pop went back to where we got the first beers from but it was closed. We asked one of the local if they knew when it was going to open and he proceeded to take us around the back of the building into a dodgy stairwell to where we discovered was the shop owner's house and shop stock room. After negotiating a price we walked away with a box of beer. The beers were jumped upon by most people when we got back so we sat laxing out and drinking beers until dinner time. A group of us had decided to find a local restaurant that had been mentioned in the Lonely Planet. According to the map it was just on the other side of the train tracks. I don't think many tourists venture on that side of town because we got lots of funny looks from the locals. It was actually really good to see a different part of town and because we were in such a big group it was not worrying at all. Sadly after walking around and around we could not find it and ended up at a restaurant that was literally a few doors down from our hotel.

Monday 23rd May 2011 - Day 31 Oasis

The temperature during the night felt a lot hotter than previous nights and stupidly I had not taken any water to bed with me, having run out. I did go down to the reception in the early hours to borrow a bottle of water out of the fridge but the hotel people were there chatting and playing backgammon so I did not want to disturb them. I got up twice during the night to have a cold shower before giving up at 5am! I had another cold shower, packed my bags and was down at reception by 6am. The hotel people were nice enough to bring me breakfast early even though it was not due to be served until 8am. Everyone else came down in drips and drabs before we all got on the bus at 9am to head to Aswan. The drive time was only about 3 hours so we were there by lunch time. Our hotel was nice but basic although it was in a prime location, only one block from the market and pretty much on the waterfront, only the main road in front of the hotel separating it. We were left to our own devices to look around town which we did and exchanged money and Jess also looked into shipping stuff home. I bought myself a much needed new pair of jandals in the market as my old ones were falling apart. Later that afternoon we caught a little boat across the Nile to a Nubian Village, stopping off on the way so people could have a swim and jump off rocks. We were having dinner at a locals home and they were fantastic! They gave us a tour around their home, which was very open and simplistic. They had 3 small crocodiles in a concrete tank that represented good luck - in a couple of years when they were bigger they would be eaten. The food was beautiful, the homemade rye bread being some of the best bread I have ever tasted (I wanted the recipe). After dinner a young local girl gave whoever was interested Henna tattoos, mine being on the inside of my foot. She did it all freehand, only glancing quickly at the pattern I had chosen before she started. Some didn't even pick a pattern, they just told her to do whatever she wanted. Her skill was fantastic. The Henna was very dark black and when it had fully set you peeled off the top layer so that it was completely smooth. I actually liked the placement of mine so much and quickly got used to it being there that I'm considering getting a real one there (sorry mum!!). Once we were done at the Nubian Village we headed back to the hotel via the boat.

Tuesday 24th May 2011 - Day 32 Oasis

Today we were off to see Abu Simbel Temple, a temple that had been moved to higher ground in the 60's to preserve it as the Nile was rising fast and had already destroyed many other temples. 4 great statutes of Ramses were carved into the front of the Temple and sat at the entrance. One had been badly damaged, its pieces lay at the statutes feet. The carvings inside were still in great detail and very clear despite the temple being cut into thousands of pieces in order to move it. Another smaller temple for Ramses' wife Nefertari stood 100 metres away. We were only allowed to take photos from the outside which was disappointing. After looking at the temples we watched a movie about the discovery of the temple and its subsequent move - it was painstakingly done so as to make sure that everything would be able to be put back exactly as it was before the move. I had originally thought the guide told us that the damaged statue had occurred when they moved the temple but in the video it was quite clear that it was already damaged before the move took place so I am still not quite sure how it got damaged. After the movie we headed back to town and walked through the market to a pizza place at the end. I went with Jess, Jen, Pop, Amin, Simon, Amanda, Gav, Nathan and Sam. I hadn't yet tried to egyptian pizza so me, Jess and Jen shared a vegetarian one. It was actually more like a flat pie than a pizza, I wasn't really a fan! Later on we headed down to the waterfront for dinner. The food was good but the beer was very expensive, double what we had been paying in other places. Once I left the restaurant and got back into the heat, a wave of dizziness hit me and I started to feel rather sick. We were heading into the market to have a look as it was meant to be better at night but I lasted about 10 minutes before I had to go back to the hotel and lay down.

Wednesday 25th May 2011 - Day 33 Oasis

Given how bad I felt the night before, I actually had a pretty good sleep but when I woke up I felt even worse and my back ached so much that it was difficult for me to stand up. I was meant to go with everyone on a camel ride but it was not a good idea so I stayed in bed while the others went. I didn't want to be stuck in bed all day so I drugged myself up on a little too much Ibuprofen so that I could make it through the day - we were going to see another temple. I went out with Jess and Jen to get some lunch, stopping off at DHL so Jess could post her stuff back to oz. The guy was a rude jerk who took forever to do something that should have taken 10 minutes - we were there for an hour! By the time we had finished we only had enough time to get a falafel sandwich and then head back to the hotel as we were meeting at 2pm to head to Philae temple. No one appeared to be in the mood to go, I think we were all starting to get a little templed out by this stage but we sucked it up and went along anyway. It was on an island so we had to catch a small boat there. That Temple had also been moved to be preserved. We stayed long enough to hear the history, have a look around and take some pictures and then we were all over it so we
headed back to the hotel. As it was our last afternoon in Aswan (the following two days being on a felucca with no access to anything), me, Jess and Jen went on a hunt for supplies - mixes for our vodka, snacks, and fruit. We found everything in the market, helped by a small local boy that followed us everywhere and even tried to get us local prices. We thanked him by buying a few of the bookmarks he was selling as well as a little extra. We ate dinner at a restaurant across the road from the egptian pizza place we had been to. It had more Italain style pizza as well as other more "normal food". The pizza I wanted they didn't have so I opted for spaghetti bolognese while Jess and Jen got pizzas. The food was so good and although the clay bowl they brought it out in looked quite small, it was packed with food, I was seriously full by the time I finished. When we got back to the hotel we headed to the roof where we thought everyone would be having last night drinks but no one was up there. Not feeling like going to be bed we decided to have a late night swim in the pool. We didn't have our togs on so stripped down to our underwear and just jumped in. The pool was tiny and actually only thigh deep, we could stand up without getting our underwear wet which we thought was so funny. We splashed around for quite a while taking random photos of each other and trying to make a whirl pool - we had great fun!

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