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  Luxor, Egypt
Friday, February 15, 2008

We could never have guessed that so soon into our trip overseas that we could have such a run of dumb luck, mis-information and bad service. It all started when we tried to purchase two train tickets bound for Aswan from the Ramses train station in Cairo on February 7th. This large and confusing complex was vaguely familiar to me, but our determination to buy tickets got us no where. We lined up at several booths asking tickets sellers, but recieved much the same response from all. "No tickets!". No second class available. Ditto for first class. It was very frustrating because we got the feeling that they weren't telling the truth. As it turns out the Egyptian train workers try very hard NOT to sell train tickets to foreigners. This means that the tourist has to go through a local agent, who buys the train ticket for you, at an inflated price and then both he and the ticket seller get a little financial kick-back. We paid 140 EG Pounds for a 110 pound ticket.

Our hostel in Cairo provided a tour booking service through an animated bloke named Metallica. His real name was Ahmed, of course. He was able through his network of contacts to get us on the overnight Friday train to Aswan (the one that was apparantly full!). In the process of selling us those tickets, Metallica offered to organise an 8 day package for us whilst we were in Upper Egypt. To us, it actually seemed like a good idea as we thought the little extra we paid for his service would save us time and hassle. That was the theory anyway.

On Friday evening we caught a taxi to the station with our Egyptian escort. This man wa able to direct us to the correct train car and seats (all labelled in Arabic). Our first class seats were appalling. I was concerned I'd get lice from the head rests. Six foreigners were squished into a little cabin with grotty windows, termpremental air flow, no luggage room and a tea and coffee waiter who yelled at you every 15 minutes throughout the night. It was a disappointing experience but we weren't surprised.

Arriving in Aswan, we were met and transfered to our accommodation, the Memnon Hotel. Bear in mind that the terms 'transfered' and 'hotel' are not used in the Western sense. We had 30 minutes to refresh before we headed off with a small tourist group to visit Aswan High Dam and the Temple of Philae. Not having eaten since our bread roll breakfast we were feeling a bit weak. We should have had fruit, but we forgot that back in Cairo. Aswan at night was full of tourists, visiting from the large floating hotels that cruise the Nile. We fould the souq market, a  long street full of souvenier shops and some local conveniences. It was unrecognisable to me as 5 years ago it was a crooked, bumpy, dusty street. It has been refurbished to look like a mall on the Gold Coast somewhere. We were hassled ruthlessly as we tried to find somewhere to eat.

Next morning we left Aswan at 4am, heading in a convoy of buses for the viallage and temple of Abu Simbel. It was a three hour trip. The convoy is a reaction to past attacks on tourists, but apart from Police check points the convoy breaks up along the highway and there is no Police or Military escort. A waste of time then really. Our package tour was meant to include all transfers. The rest of the passangers in our mini-bus were dropped off at the Temple, and we were driven to our "hotel", as we had arranged to stay the night.Unfortunately our driver was a lazy sook, and we then had to tip him to take us back to the Temple. We entered the complex and enjoyed taking our time, waiting until about 11am for majority of tourists to vanish. Again, like the Cairo Museum, the rules had changed, and now taking any photos inside the temples was forbidden. A bit of a hypocritical rule when the guards cigarette smoke wafts inside, easily causing as much or more damage to the paintings as flash photos.

We inquired at the ticket booth on the way out about the Sound and Light Show, the reason we were staying overnight. We were directed to another shop, where we were told there were two shows tonight. Both in Japanese but translatations were available. A bit annoying but we were enjoying the day, 'sucked it up', and decided to come back for the first show. This would allow us to also catch most of the Africa Soccer Cup final, Egypt verse Cameroon. That evening we walked back across town and bought our tickets. Walking up to the gate, we were refused entry. "No, only Japanese". Confused we explained we were happy to listen to the translataion, and we wanted to see the early show. 20 minutes later we were still being refused entry. The early show was actually a private show, and we were pretty pissed off at the ticket staff who claimed they had no idea. We waited, watched the later show, which in hindsight wasn't as spectacular as we'd hoped, and made it back to town in time to see Egypt score the only goal of the match and witness the street celebrations.

Next morning, now Monday 11 Feb, a rude and impatient bus driver picked us up from our Abu Simbel accommodation. We were glad to be leaving it. The 'hotel' had very bad plumbing. We used a bucket to flush the toilet, there was no hot water, and everything leaked. We slept in our sheet liners as we weren't sure if the beds were clean. Not worth the cost of the room. The bus driver also got stroppy with us when we went for a walk whilst he waited 20 minutes for the other passangers to finish at the temple. A control freak.

We drove in a convoy along the desert highway. I was sitting beside the obnoxious driver. I argued with him at one point to put the air-con on. We were all sweltering. He said it was broken, and switched the heater on to demonstrate. He must have thought I was some sort of fool. In the end, I got him to put the (working fine) air-con on. Cameron and I had no information about our Falucca trip which we paid for in Cairo, we just assumed that this bus driver was part of the same company and had the information. In Aswan, he tried to drop us off on the side of the Nile near all the boats. We said no, we needed him to take us to OUR boat. He chucked an absolute hissy fit, turned the car off, and sat with his arms crossed. Stunned, we too refused to get out, until he found out where we should be going next. By this stage we were starting to become weary of the bad service we were experiencing. Eventually, the tantrum-man made a phone call and we were taken to the office of Mustafa, the bloke who Metallica was an agent for. He babbled on with a lot of false apology and so on, promised a great falucca trip, and upgraded accommodation in Luxor.

A falucca is a small, simple, wooden sailing boat, about 7m long and 3m across at the widest point. We were sharing our two day sail with two lovely couples. Julia and Dave (NZ/Canadians) and Sherie and G.W. (Taiwan). We were so delighted to have some like moinided company. Our boat "Captain Ramadan" was operated by Capt. Sa'id Hussien, 28 years old. His mate also joined us for the first day's sail. Monday afternoon and evening were fantastic. We enjoyed great weather, scenery and company. Anchored for the night on the west bank, we played silly card games until about 9pm when the candle ran out, and rolled out our sleeping bags. We slept on deck under a canvas roof.

We had a restless sleep, listening to frequent quarry blastings nearby and being rocked by the large wakes of cruise ships passing by. The next morning we woke up early with the sun. I was desperate to go to the loo, and crawled into the hull to get some paper out of Cameron's bag. I pulled out several bags, with no luck, and asked Cameron if he'd put his in a different spot. "No, it was given to Sa'id to store with all the others." Not worried yet, I hoped onto the bank and found Sa'id having his morning smoke. His reaction made we realise we had a problem. By 7:30am it had become clear that the bag was missing. We searched the bushy banks and nearby massive sand dunes for anything, hoping that the thieves just took the cash and dumped the rest.

Sa'id was really angry at us for the loss of the bag, as if it was our fault, which it wasn't. He was able to communicate with us, in broken English, that our loss was a big problem for him and his business. He also explained that the thieves were likely to be teenagers from a nearby village, who were drug addicts and desperate for cash. We also considered the bag had fallen overboard, but dismissed this idea as nobody on board had moved any bags in and out of the hull during the night. Mind you, if they did dump the rest, it probably ended up in the river.

We were lucky to have a mobile phone and were able to send a few text message to our parent and also call Mustafa and Metallica to get the ball rolling in terms of cancelling credit cards, notifying the embassy, and claiming insurance. Unfortunately we had low battery and credit on the phone limiting our action. Cameron's day pack had a lot of valuable items in it. In summary we lost our new digital camera, our new iPod (!), Cam's passport, several credit cards and cash, both plane tickets and lots of other little items that were annoying not to have. Like our toothbrushes, toiletpaper, Cam's razor, his hat and sunnies. In addition, it was very upsetting that several days later we couldn't celebrate Valentine's Day because they also stole the condoms! Anyway, we did our best to stay in good spirits for the remainder of the falucca trip, if not to reduce our own stress, but also so the other passengers could enjoy their trip too. Oh yeah, Cameron was also suffering a bad head cold, and ran out of tissues quickly. He restorted to using my cute pink hanky, and about every two hours was seen on his belly, leaning over the side of the boat using the rush of the river water to clean all the snot out.

By the time we arrirved at our depature point, Kom Ombo, we had decided to avoid reporting our loss to the Luxor Tourist Police, as they are known to be very harsh on tour operators who fail to care for their clients, regardless of the situation. They have a hang-up from the 1997 massacre of tourists in a Luxor temple. Sa'id was convinced they would put him in prison for 2 years, and cancel his boat sailing licence. Our Insurance Company seemed to understand our concern for this unjust police action and advised we could claim using letters from the tour agent. Just in case, we plan to make a police report once back in Cairo. It is a pity the poilice in Luxor couldn't be so vigilant in actually tracking down the scum who are making the drugs that is causing local youths to break the law..
It has been a very expensive lesson to us so early in our trip. You can't feel 100% safe and secure when travelling in these types of countries, where some people's desperation overshadows their good will. Mustafa did come through with the upgraded accommodation in Luxor, and we have enjoyed hot showers, clean sheets and a hearty breakfast buffet for two days here whilst exploring Luxor's Valley of the Kings and Pharonic Temples. We have also been blessed with kind-hearted fellow travellers who have offered to help fill in our photo-memory gap and are emailing photos they have taken of us, as well as lending a mobile phone charger so we can continue relevant people about our bag loss.
Cam and I are worried that our stories so far from Egypt sound quite negative. I suppose it is just a reminder to all that even experienced travellers like ourselves come unstuck and you can't always look at your travel experiences through rose-coloured glasses.

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