The travel sickness has got to Mum
Trip Start
Mar 08, 2008
1
18
25
Trip End
Mar 24, 2008
Luxor, Egypt
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
We took horse drawn carriages to Karnak. Another early morning to beat the heat. We started to walk around with the guide but mum thought that she was going to faint so we went and found a seat in the shade. When she felt better, I took her at her pace to the main things that I thought she should see, sitting down several times on the way.
We ended up sitting in a Cafe drinking coffee while we waited for the rest of the group to finish. We took horse drawn carriages back to the boat, where mum stayed close to a toilet for the rest of the day.
The weather has finally got warmer. More like you would expect for Egypt.
While sitting on the boat, we saw rats running up and down the banks of the Nile. There is lots of food available. Although there is a rubbish boat (piled high and dropping rubbish in the river), many boats also seem to just dump their rubbish overboard. The government should have a clean up Egypt day. However, they wouldn't get any volunteers unless they paid.
There was also a police boat go past that looked at least 50 years old. Not much difference in design to the Vagabond. Totally different to what you would expect a police boat to look like.
When we got back, my empty smoke packet (which I'd left in the ash tray 4 hours earlier) was sitting on the bar. It was being shown off to all the staff as they came through. It was the picture on the packet (diseased lungs) which interested them. Egypt is still very smoker friendly. Smoking remains acceptable just about everywhere.
I went back out to the market on my own. Firstly I went to the jewellery shop but they were eating lunch so I went and sat by the river bank to wait a while. There were four seats in a square surrounding a tree. I sat on one and very soon a man sat on the one beside me. He didn't look at me but started to talking to me. Immediately I was very uncomfortable. He kept asking me to come and sit with him and kept saying that he loved me. The whole time, he didn't look at me. I ignored him and was about to get up and go to another tree (seat) to wait when a very clean cut and modernly dressed Egyptian man came over and started talking to me while looking at the first one who was seated. The second one seemed nice and was just asking me very general questions like one tourist to another. The first man soon got up and left. I could be wrong but I got the feeling that the second man came over to protect me and chase away the first man without making a scene. I found out later that another girl in our group was flashed in the same area.
I then walked to meet Deb. I got lost so rang him. I had several men try to sell me things but my limited Arabic seems to work and they don't persist like they do with many tourists. Deb met me and took me around the local markets to specific stalls to buy the things that I wanted. He always got prices about one third of the original price asked. The sellers over inflate prices and most tourists pay at least 50% of original price but the correct price is more like a third! No one tried to stop me or sell me things when I was with Deb.
Deb asked me to join his family for lunch. I'd already eaten but he insisted that I stayed and drank tea while they ate lunch. They rolled out a carpet onto the ground and brought out a pan of what looked like baked beans and another pot of a white looking sauce. There was lots of pita bread and they all just grabbed chunks and dipped in the beans and sauce until it was all gone.
Very tired so was pleased to have an early night
