Egypt/Jordan part 5: Luxor
Part 4: https://medium.com/@timothyteoh/egypt-jordan-part-4-aswan-and-the-nile-2e8a4d78ba44
Egypt — Day 10 (27 Oct, 2014)
I’d planned my final full day in Egypt to be spent at Abu Simbel. It involves a 3am bus to the site which is three hours each way. As I mentioned earlier, Abu Simbel has a massive rock temple complex that was built to intimidate would be invaders.
Sadly Gasser told me there has been an accident at the site and so it was closed for the day. It will reopen tomorrow but I can’t take it then.
Heres a picture I found on the internet. This is what I’m missing!
I decided I would go on an unplanned day trip to Luxor for the day instead. Luxor is 3–4 hours north of Aswan.
The bus was at 7am so I woke up pretty early.
This is the view from my rooftop in Elephantine Island btw. To show how villagey this place is.
Good morning Mr Goat. Are you kambing with me?
I still have a bit of trouble finding my way around the island. This is a map that a German tourist once painted up for the people here. It may be hard to make out but Ibiza house where I am staying is in the top right. Every time I get off the island I make my way to the ferry at the bottom center.
The ferry was very late today because one broke down and they had to get another one from down the river.
It was still early in the morning so there were some schoolchildren waiting at the other end. There is a small primary school on Elephantine Island they attend.
What with finding the ferry and waiting for it, I made it on the train with only minutes to spare. It was cheap though, only 31LE.
The view was nothing to shout about so I slept most of the way.
Saw some cheese being sold like this in an Aswan store yesterday and bought some. Starting to like eating cheese more after coming here.
The WC was horrid as usual but I’m sure you all know by now that when you travel take your dump before you go out, don’t be a chump.
The station at the Luxor was way more busy than the others I’d been to.
Oh and the train was exactly on time again, props to them.
When I was planning my trip I originally wanted to skip Luxor for Abu Simbel for the following reasons:
- Luxor is famous for being Tout Central of Egypt. There are many warnings from people who have been here about just how bad it is.
- Luxor contains many amazing sites, but I was afraid I would suffer “temple fatigue” — anyone who has tried to visit all the wats in Siem Reap will know what I mean. After a while you get tired of seeing stuff that is similar no matter how grand they are. Especially if its not. Sometimes its better to see one super awesome site than a few awesome ones
- Luxor has many tourists and is likely to be crowded
- I opted to schedule more time in Jordan.
I would like to say my fears about Luxor were unfounded, but sadly… Lets just say it’s good I was mentally prepared! There are stories online about ladies breaking down in tears here wtf
Naturally I was barely out of the bus station when I was propositioned for a day’s driving. Price sounded ok so I said ok.
The cabbie actually has a usb stick of Western songs prepared to layan tourists. A (shouldnt it be E?) for effort. Bob Marley was on it of course. Third Egyptian I met who loves him.
I was only doing the West Bank of Luxor because I was starting relatively late.
Greeting you when you go in are the Colossi of Memnon. They are twin statues of Amenhotep III.
I started to wish I had brought a banana for scale. Guys just assume everything you see today is really huge ok? Because they were.
First stop was at the fabled Valley of Kings where many pharaohs were buried. There is an impressive number of tombs here.
… But more than half of them were closed. If you ever come here pay VERY close attention to this list. Otherwise you’ll end up like me and trek up slopes in the blazing sun only to find that the tombs I wanted were closed. You can visit only three btw, with the tombs of Ramses VI and Tut purchased separately.
I’m spamming these picture because it was so bloody hot while taking these.
Descending into the tomb of Ramses VI. This picture doesnt do it justice. It is probably the one with the most well preserved wall carvings.
The sarcophagus chamber.
Awesome looking entrance but this tomb was closed.
I forget which this was. I think it was Seti II.
I was starting to get really annoyed here because the tombs had people in them whose sole purpose was to explain to you obvious things like Isis, Horus, Anubis, etc which I already knew, and then ask for baksheesh. Maybe the sun made me especially irritable.
Surprise surprise the cabbie insisted I visited an alabaster shop and “see how they make” the stuff
Truth be told I am pretty ok with all this as I a) do want to be sure that I’m buying something legit b) find it interesting how they make the stuff.
Theres a chance that they were faking the whole thing but I was say 70% sure they were making the real thing.
They follow the standard formula:
1) This is how we make it
2) This is what fake ones are like *show very obvious fakes that don’t really look like stuff you see in the market*
3) Come have tea
4) choose what you want and put it aside. Then nego
Tbh I kinda liked that everything was organized neatly by material and every size and patten variation was there so you can choose the exact one you liked.
That said I did see pieces that were from here that were sold for much cheaper outside. At least they looked the same.
I guess it comes down to how much you think workmanship is worth. Ie I bought a cat made of red granite. I’m sure the raw material is nearly free, so its just the amount of labour.
Say you spend four hours on it and you value your time at RM20/h, then you would charge RM80. But what if you earned very little or were desperate to sell? Hard to put a standard value on these things.
I was relieved just to be in aircon. Even here they got on my nerves though. After working out a deal and paying, the salesman said he would give me a freebie if I gave him something extra personally. Wtf isn’t that stealing?
When I went out another person tried to give me some alabaster and granite chips “as a gift” but then asked for baksheesh. I almost threw them back in annoyance but they said ok ok take it
Same thing when buying tickets. I have a babyface so they always think I’m a student but don’t have a student card. Then they offer to help me if I help them. Which is quite silly actually the difference is quite small. And again its essentially stealing.
Luxor was the only place I encountered this so watch out if you come. Thing is that the sights here ARE pretty amazing so all the tourists definitely come here. Saw more ang mohs in the few hrs I here than in all my other stops combined.
The Temple of Hatshepsut (wtf iOS autocorrected this. How did it know?)
Some perspective problems here! It is much grander and bigger than this.
Here are the columns up close now go see the previous pic again
Every site has a tourist trap beside it. Usually I’m quite amicable but today I decided to pretend to be from China and not understand Engeerish
Last stop was the Mortuary Palace of King Rameses III, Medinet Habu.
I found this the most impressive site. Not just because of the size and scale but at how intricate the carvings were.
The scale of these buildings are very hard to fit in a square frame! Really need that banana
Sometimes you walk into a courtyard, wow at how
impressive it is, then walk in, glance behind the way you came and wow again.
Man the Egyptians seemed to have massive amounts of time to devote to shiok sendiri.
Carvings that are especially cleanly cut are usually restorations. But no less impressive.
And that was that. I covered very little of Luxor but I couldnt spend a lot of time there. Ping me if you ever go there and cover the sites I didn’t!
Consider taking a full day tour so you don’t have to fight the touts and find an “authentic” experience elsewhere. Luxor was the most touristy place I’d been to in Egypt. Lucky I hadn’t come here as a first stop before experiencing the rest of Egypt!
The 6pm train back to Aswan I had planned to take had been cancelled so I took a “minibus” instead — its what we would call a van.
Minibuses don’t have a fixed schedule, they wait around until they are full before leaving. I was lucky in that mine was almost ready to go.
A friend asked for a selfie “right now” so I quickly took one. But the guy behind was very quick to photobomb wtf
I made quick friends with the people behind me by passing them some Asian technology — inflatable pillows from Daiso. I happen to have two. They were very appreciative.
The guy on the left is Adel who is heading back to Aswan with his siblings for his grandma’s funeral.
In return they gave me some tidbits. Which were actually very welcome as I hadnt eaten much today.
Got around to talking about my bad experiences in Luxor and he got a bit sheepish and apologized.
Also apparently they only paid 27LE for the van ride while I paid 80LE. Which is pretty shit of the cabbie because he was the one who found the correct bus for me and I had just given him a nice tip.
But I guess you have to take it in stride — remember that you really wouldn’t blink to pay RM40 for a three hour bus ride back in Msia.
I did tell Adel that my Egypt experience was pretty good overall and showed him pictures of where I had been. He seemed relieved to hear that.
Oh and this is how hot it was today :p
Egypt — Day 11 (28 Oct, 2014)
Todays update wont be very long as I am spending most of it in transit. Have a flight from Aswan to Cairo at 2pm and then from Cairo to Amman, Jordan at 5pm.
Had to repack everything because Id been buying souvenirs. Also because I made the bad mistake of overpacking — especially because Egypt has a dry climate. In that situation you will be wearing the same clothes more as you don’t sweat much (I tend to sweat a lot back in Malaysia).
On the way to Aswan airport. This reminded me of my favourite board game Power Grid
Aswan airport is a sleepy one. I think mine was the only flight due and there werent even any counters open when I got there. Eventually they opened one. There is a lot of security here though probably because of its proximity to Abu Simbel. Got into a small argument with the customs officer because he went and tore the newspaper wrapping from one of my souvenirs. But because of that he ended up stopping the check.
Flying over Cairo always reminds me of the Civilization game. Had Baba Yetu (youtube it if you dont know it — it is the most majestic song I know. Has won awards too).
Like this vid because it shows the old, messy beauty that is Cairo.
Perks of taking a sunset flight
To top it off, a whole row to myself. Business class on the cheap yo
