200808-210808 - Egypt - Luxor-Cairo

200808 – Luxor

This morning was an acceptable start, 7AM for most of us. Scottish went for a hot air balloon ride through the Valley of the Kings at 430AM. We had breakfast boxes on the bus with our local guide and picked up Fraser at the “Collosus” (a couple of “large” statues).
We arrived at the Enterance to Valley of the Kings. Considering the temperature, we decided not to do the extra tombs. I'm sure that they would be worth it, but it's just so oppressive in the valley. We did 3 tombs, which I'll need to double check the names of when I get home, and tried to dodgy the locals working on flogging their cheap merchandise.
The tombs that we did included the oldest one in the valley.
The first two corridors of this corridor where steep stairways that were very roughly cut, which was intentional to dissuade theives. These initial “dissuassions” became remarkably less polite by ending in a sudden drop into a 10m deep pit, designed to convince the more “persistent” of theives that they were wasting their time.
The artwork in this tomb was particularly simplistic, predominantly stick-figures that covered most of the interior surfaces. The burial chamber was a large room with 4 smaller side chambers. The sarcophagus was of modest size, probably not weighing much more than about 10 tons (I'll need to check that up as well).
Retreating from the heat and humidity of the tomb, the group moved onto the next two tombs (also particularly hot and humid). Much larger and more impressive, these two tombs were carved in the manner that we were used to from the other temples. Additionally, the scenes were painted.
3,000+ years old and the paint might have been put up less than a year or two ago. It is still quite vibrant and VERY well preserved. The level to which this site is still intact is hard to believe. Trying to wrap your head around the age of the place, of all of these places, is incredibly difficult to reconcile. I continually wish that I'd studied all of this much more before I left.
The rooms and chambers of these two tombs were awesome. The size and layout, with scenes and collumns, were mind blowing when you remembered that the builders only had water, fire, wood and copper tools. We weren't able to go to the end of the last tomb, because of damage to the last corridor. The other sarcophagii were at least twice the volume of the first one... I can only imagine the weight.

Having completed the Valley of the Kings, I would definitely like to come back here sometime. In winter when it is cooler. Any time that there were fewer tourists. Part of me does wish that I'd done the tour of the tombs of Tutankamen and Ramses VI. Considering the heat, humidity and number of tourists, I don't think that I could have put up with another two tombs without trying to trap a fat, loud american in the sarcophagus and knocking out the wooden chocks...

Back on the bus, we went for lunch at the house of our local guide. I'd been looking forward to this lunch, to see what life was like for locals and what they consider “home” to be.
To paint the picture, the side streets of these towns are predominantly dirt with a very liberal assortment of debris. This debris can range from plastic litter to corrugated iron and engine parts. The walls are usually very dark mudbrick that appears unfinished. These buildings appear to usually have a common continuous front wall for extended stretches of the street (though the one family may own all of the building owning that wall, I'm not sure), businesses are adjactent to homes but may have a roller-door rather than the sparce, dark, iron door that encloses a dwelling.
To be unfair, an Australian would look at the street and consider it “developing” or under-privaleged. If I hadn't driven past the townships of South Africa, I would have considered it almost “urbanised third world” (I'm being VERY unfair here).
Please keep in mind that this section of town would have been relatively oppulant, our guide has a very good job with a very good company. There appeared to be many businesses in the area and this was towards the middle of the town.
Inside the home, it was tidy and conservatively decorated. Our guide had his brother and his wife serve us lunch and his two children were playing nearby. The ground floor was made up of what appeared to be a kitchen and stairwell off to the side (I didn't get the chance to look through to the kitchen room), the main room was filled with LARGE couches that might have doubled as beds, a large low table for eating around and a standard high dining table to the back (assumedly for doing work from), there was a small bathroom to the rear of floor. It was a very pleasant house, but for some reason I'd imagined it to be palaces behind the dark mudbrick walls.

After lunch, our guide wrote all of our names in Arabic and in Heiroglyphs. He then went on to show us silver jewellery that we could have our names on. Being a little pricy, I avoided temptation.
Some of us went onto the Papyrus Museum, where it was meant to be authentic papyrus (rather than the banana leaves that they supposedly sell in the markets). The papyrus was a little more expensive than some of the members found later on, but it was of high quality and from a reputable company. In a spending mood, we took off to see “Mr Lovely” who was a friend of the guide.
Mr Lovely owns a company that sells authentic alabaster and carved stone. It was very interesting and I bought some very nice pieces that I felt I'd haggled a good price for.
Regardless, I'm SURE we were badly ripped off. At the same time, all of our purchase came with expanations of how each piece was made and how to prove them authentic.

We caught a ferry back to the east bank and wandered back to the hotel. Internet, shower, pool on the roof. End of a good day.
Emam took us deep into Luxor for dinner at a pizza place. The food was nice enough and there was free WiFi (resulting in many of us checking email and banking using my iPhone).
Back at the hotel, Fraser, Evie and I went to a nearby hotel that had a bar. A british pub underground with Aircon strong enough to assist in mummifying an elephant. IT WAS EXCELLENT. We had to catch the bus to the train station at 8PM, which was the only dissappointment. It would have been nice to kick it up at this bar, but it was not to be..

Much to our disgust (especially those of us that went to the bar) we had to wait at the trainstation for 2 hours before our train arrived.. 2 hours of stinking, sweaty heat, at extortionate station prices with every man in 50 metres staring at the girls in our party. For most of the people, they felt that this was the low point of the trip. With everyone tired and fed up, wilting from the heat, I think the Australians fared the best. If you took away the physical exertion, heat and humidity didn't feel that different to Perth on a bad day.

The train to Cairo was heavily airconditioned, but not sleeper compartments. The chairs were similar to what you would find in business class on a plane. The train car was a little too noisy, the egyptian mothers feeling that their children playing “screaming games” was appropriate for 11pm at night.
With a little effort, I drifted off to sleep and appeared to sleep through the worst of it. Many of my companions complained that the air con was too cold at parts and that they didn't sleep. I seemed to get off lightly.


210808 – Cairo

Getting back to the same hotel at about 9AM, most of us showered and got a couple of hours sleep. I met up with John, Aaron and Evie in the reception to go check out some parts of Cairo we'd missed the first time around.
Additionally, today was Evies birthday. Emam was organising a dinner for tonight.
While waiting for the others to show up, I called the bank and put through the dispute of claims on my withdrawals in Aswan.
20 minutes... ARGH
I officially hate phone-banking.

We got lunch at an overpriced local eatery (they had raised prices in the english menu, on the page opposite to the arabic prices..), out of protest, most of us didn't tip. Bad form, but we were unimpressed.

The train was interesting enough, reminding me a lot of the Paris network. We got off at Coptic Cairo and had a look around. We saw the chapel of the holy family and the Hanging Church, which was absolutely beautiful. Evie and I went to see the Coptic Museum, which had some impressive artwork and two pages of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
We had snacks and drinks at a nearby cafe, where Evie declared that it was her birthday and that we had to “stop being so negative” especially with our whining about the prices. Fair call :p

We stocked up on water and caught a taxi up to the citidel. This was a fortification built to protect against the crusaders and I believe was the place until the royal family was expelled. There are two mosques there, one ontop of the hill which is ABSOLUTELY ASTOUNDING. We had a quick look around the palace, including the throne room and bedroom.
We wandered past the Military museum, but didn't have the time to go in properly. Instead we just took very boyish photos of the different cannons, guns and catapults displayed in the courtyard, to Evies ultimate annoyance.

Taxi back to the hotel, we refreshed and went to dinner at an american restaurant. Hamburgers were a VERY welcome relief.
Emam even bought Evie a cake :D cream-spongue = AWESOME

Outside, Scottish gave the last 2 pieces of the cake to a beggar with a child. Emam seemed a little cranky about that and we all teased Fraser about being a softie.
Back at the hotel, there were more beers. Fraser, Nick and Rachel went off to belly-dancing while there was bed for the rest of us.