Pharaonic Fatigue

  Luxor, Egypt
Sunday, April 13, 2008

· Luxor, Nile Valley, Egypt
· GMT +2hrs

A muddle
It's hard to know what to say about Luxor and I'm hoping by the time I finish this entry that I haven't done too good a job at ripping into it. Must be careful, and nice.

Valleys & Kings

02 Warzone

Egypt's principal tourist lure remains, as ever, the Nile Valley that stretches south from Cairo, a valley famous for its ancient monuments and timeless river vistas. The train we took from Cairo's Ramses station a few nights ago followed the fertile valley, about the only fertile part of

04 The Luxor Temple

an overwhelmingly stark desert country, south to Luxor. It was here, starting in around 1500BC, that Egyptian Kings (known to you and me as Pharaohs) of the so-called New Kingdom period of Egyptian history (16th to 11th centuries BC) shunned the Pyramid building burial techniques of their Old Kingdom (27th to 22nd centuries BC approx) predecessors and chose to be buried in secretive tombs hewn into rock instead (because, it is said, they believed the former were more vulnerable to tomb robbing). The location they chose, we now know, is a small, barren and bone-dry valley in the Theban hills on the west bank of the Nile across from Luxor proper, know as 'The Valley of the Kings'. It was chosen due to its relative

08 Evil Eye

isolation and proximity to the then Egyptian capital Thebes, modern day Luxor. The valley, a natural sun trap, houses over 60 tombs (not all for Pharaohs), tombs that were designed to resemble the underworld; a long inclined, rock-hewn corridor descends into either an antechamber or a series of halls, and ends in a burial chamber. These secretive tombs were intended as the ultimate insurance policy on life eternal; the plan was to preserve the Kings mummy and funerary finery for eternity. All didn't quite go to plan and, just like the Pyramid tombs before them, the valley tombs fell foul of large scale tomb-robbing. This coupled with ongoing excavations (which first began in the 1830's but reached their height in the early decades of the 20th centrry), and discoveries, specifically that of the tomb of the child Pharaoh Tutankhamen by English archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922, has turned the site into the mass tourist circus it is today. But mass tourist circus or not it remains a must see, as does the shambles of a town/city that is Luxor itself.

Luxor

09 The Valley of the Kings

Being here isn't all about forking over money to stand in a line with dozens of other sweaty tourists as you collectively snake your way in and out of 3500 year old tombs, admiring the hieroglyphics as you go. Nope, there are quite a few 'attractions' on the streets of the town itself,

10 Ramses IV

and they won't cost you a cent to see them. The town is generally a quiet and peaceful affair and offers a nice reprieve from chaotic, cacophonous Cairo (alliteration... I love it). That is until you find yourself dealing with the towns back streets, back streets that would rival those of the worst war-torn streets anywhere in the world

11 Hatshepsut

and back streets only yards from the international 5-star hotels lining the Nile waterfront. It's quite an eye-opener, but just don't open them too wide else you'll be making your baby blues susceptible to damage by some nasty dust. Old, nasty dust. Other than rubble, valleys, tombs & dust there are also temples here, a small Mummification Museum (one that houses a few rather strange mummies but

12 Symbols

one that doesn't really explain the fact that mummies are embalmed bodies, dried and wrapped for burial and presentation to Orsis, the ancient Egyptian King of the underworld whose approval was required to attain the afterlife) and of course the Nile itself, only the longest river in the world. We hear taking your significant other-half for a romantic Nile sunset cruise is high on the list of things to do in Egypt, something myself and Patricia, 2 presently other-half less males, had a good chuckle at as we sat by the Nile a few hours ago watching the sunset and an armada of Nile cruise ships and felucca sailboats coming and going. Oh, and being heckled by young locals offering us hash. We're now back in the rooftop terrace of the Nubian Oasis hotel relaxing, recovering from pharaonic fatigue and doing what we do best; sipping a few more Stella beers ahead of our 11pm train departure for the return to Cairo. Cairo Part II. At least we know what to expect this time around, a first for us in Egypt.

Day 242 & 243 Observations (April 11th & 12th 2008)

· R + P'ing
35 Egyptian pounds (€4.25) for a nice room with breakfast in the Nubian Oasis Hotel is more like the prices we were hoping to pay in Egypt, and a third of the price we paid for far less... well 'accommodating' accommodation in Cairo. It's just a pity the surrounding neighbourhood is such a mess.

· A war zone

15 Greedy

14 Baksheesh

There are no two ways about it; beyond the touristy, and nicely paved 5-star-hotel-frequenting
Nile riverbank & downtown open-air souq, this place is a crumbling, dilapidated mess, one that looks like it has been crumbling since long before Pharaohs roamed the area. The back streets of Luxor resemble a war zone; paved roads are non-existent and buildings & walls lay in piles of rubble beside erect buildings that, although still standing, look like a stiff breeze would topple them into yet another pile of rubble. Walking the streets of Luxor reminded me of my visit to Fengdu, China some years ago, a city that at the time was being dismantled ahead of the rise in the Yangtze river water level due to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. No such excuse here, or none we're aware of.

· An Unnecessary extravagance

16 Headache

I mentioned in the last entry how we opted to travel to and from Luxor in the cheaper 1st class seating train, shunning the special, and far more expensive (€45 expensive), 'tourist' sleeper train in the process. Well, we can now report that the 'tourist' sleeper train is, in our opinion, an unnecessary extravagance; we both slept well on the 1st class seating train coming down here, even if the carriages and the seats in those carriages have their best days well and truly behind them. Of course we still have to travel back in the same carriages tonight, something the Stella's we're diligently working our way through right now should help with.

· "Australian?... Lebanese?"

17 "Good for you"

We're still hearing the "where you from?" question a million times a day. It's only slightly annoying at this stage, but only because the touts down here in Luxor seem a little more, shall we say, presumptuous than their northern brethren, going so far as to answer their own questions.

"where you from?... England?" is invariably their first choice but a shake of the heads from us gets them guessing again.

The leading vote getter for the 'where are we from' guesses so far is Australia for me and Lebanon, for an obviously darker and Mediterranean looking Pat. When we finally reveal, and convince, them that were are actually both Irish we then have to enlighten them that it (Ireland) is a small island beside England and that Pat's mother is of Mediterranean extraction. That conversation only serves to temporarily delay the onset of the sales pitch.

· Hope you have better luck than me

18 A secret shot

We had planned on cycling to and around the sights of Luxor but once we got here we realised that wasn't a very good, self-preserving idea; the distances between the sights coupled with the midday heat would have made for an interesting day on a bike. So we found ourselves being ferried to and from The Valley of the Kings, The Valley of the Queens & The Funerary Temple of Hatshepsut inside the relative comfort of an air-conditioned minibus, one we shared with 7 other tourists and a local guide. 2 of the aforementioned tourists were an Egyptian couple on their honeymoon. Our guide made the announcement on the bus on the way to The Valley of the Kings and everyone, including me, cheered. I guess I could have gotten a cheer too, but decided to keep quiet.

· For your safety

19 A Nile Sunset

It's unfortunate to say but there is an ever-present, although slim, threat of an Islamic uprising in Egypt and it is that threat that explains the travel restrictions in place for foreigners wishing to travel to and from Luxor and the abundance of gun wielding guards - The Tourist and Antiquities Police - you will see in large numbers at any Egyptian tourist attraction, not just the ones here in Luxor. They are there to protect both you, the tourist, and the Egyptian tourist industry, Egypt's biggest money earner by far and an industry that is still trying to recover from the fall-out from the 1997 massacre of 58 tourists at the Funerary Temple of Hatshepsut, the very same temple we visited today.

· Who is 'R & P'ing who?

20 Luxor Temple

Okay, I don't want to dwell too much on the frustrations we experienced as two independent travellers to Luxor (and Egypt thus far) but I do still want to mention them all the same. They, the frustration, not surprisingly all revolve around money and the ever-present efforts of the locals to relieve you of as much of it as possible. It leaves us wondering who exactly is raping & pillaging who. Take out-of-whack (our phrase, thank you very much)

21 Safe?

pricing for example. To us at least it doesn't seem right when you can snare a nice, albeit basic, hotel room (or ANY hotel room for that matter) for EGP35 (€4.25) but then you'd be hard pressed to find a dish (ANY dish) in a restaurant (yep, ANY restaurant) for less than EGP30. That says nothing for the price of a few beers which leaves us in no doubt that the homeless of Luxor are definitely not alcoholics. Looking to buy water? The

22 Stella & Sheesha

price for the same bottle will vary from shop to shop and stall to stall and you will always have to haggle for what you deem to be a fair price (although only with stall owners; the shops, where haggling isn't tolerated, will just shamelessly overcharge you). Oh, and don't forget to check your change, assuming you actually get change. Other frustrations we've experienced involve visiting the tourist sights, sights that invariably don't allow you to take pictures (hence the reason for the lack of pictures from any of the tombs in The Valley of the Kings in this entry and the lack of pictures from the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, in the last entry), charge you hidden dual entry fees (want to see the so-called highlight of The Valley of the Kings - Tutankhamen's tomb - or The Egyptian Museum - the Mummy room?... if you do you'll pay extra and typically more, a lot more, than you paid to get into The Valley of Kings or the museum in the first place) and are manned by locals who expect high tips for unnecessary services, such as guiding you to a seemingly interesting area, sometimes an off-limit area, of a temple or illuminating a low-lit tunnel in a tomb with a flashlight. Yep, we've only 4 days of Egypt under our well travelled belts and already the frustrations are adding up. With more of the countries 'limitless' (a Lonely Planet word, not mine) treasures to come we can only imagine the frustrations will continue.