Stephen's Egypt Diary pt.1
Topic: Luxor 2007
[I'll be posting the diary in installments as I'm only starting to realize how damn much I wrote.]

[Please note that comments inside hard brackets reflect afterthoughts. Everything else is written pretty much as I wrote it at the time. And yes, it does get better as I get used to keeping a journal]

28/02/07:
Up at 6AM though I was tossing and turning since 5AM.

Fraught on the trains. Too many people and we’re looking forward to getting away from it all. At the airport we suddenly realize that the hotel will be populated by the British.

The flight is perfect – we see the channel, the Alps, Italy, Greek Islands perfectly from 37,000 feet. We were able to see the continent of Africa approach – beautiful sand dunes.

As we land, we see rust coloured desert and mountains backlit by the setting sun. as we land, everything is bathed in red.

Customs is easy and orderly though we probably got scammed with our visas. [Basically, we were about to line up at the official Government sponsored visa to enter Egypt line when these guys at a plywood table shouted out “Thomas Cook visa’s here” So we took the short line, I signed a piece of paper that had my name on it and a guy licked a stamp and popped it onto a page in my passport. Luckily this was, in fact a ‘visa’ and he wasn’t making arrangements to post my UK passport to God knows where.]

The hotel is filled with old British people and I don’t like how the staff is meek and bows all the time though E points out that’s probably what the old people like. We meet two of them and they’re like the elderly couple in Rosemary’s Baby. We escape them, stroll around the grounds and get pizzas and watch Circles the bat fly around.

We get an adaptor and lie in bed while I obsess over whether I should be tipping the waiter, guy who brought the adaptor up, etc., etc., etc. We end up watching TV in bed. No matter what language it is, 99% of TV is for idiots. So we settled on the most idiotic: MTV and had a hard time turning it off. Idiocy is addictive.

Interesting though, Al Arabia was reporting a big story from Jerusalem that was not getting any coverage on the BBC that featured Muslim people who were obviously very important as they had armed guards, were holding a press conference and were interviewed by the news anchor later, but I’d never seen them before in my life.

01/03/07:
Up at 7:30AM and oh my God we need a king sized bed in our flat. Or even just a bed.

Buffet breakfast, lots of fat white people feeding themselves. I spaz out over the need for coffee and get Elisabeth a cappuccino and overfill my mug of instant Americano, spill it on the way to the table and find that Elisabeth has already gotten us two nice filter coffees. I try new things: Doom juice is awful but I resolve to drink one cup of it a day. [I failed on this the last two days as I was just unable to handle the sickly sweet taste of doom.] There’s refreshing pink karkade that I enjoy more. I try to ignore the young man sitting next to us being alone, weird and creepy. I see the Rosemary’s Baby couple and don’t say hi to them and kind of feel kind of bad about it.

Elisabeth seems like she’s stunned.

After breakfast on the way to the room, I walk into the elevator doors. I accept that it’s impossible for me not to look like I’m totally pissed all the time.

We go for our Thomas Cook induction. Hassan, our rep, has arranged for everyone to have a glass of karkade. I sit down and spill mine all over the bleached white table cloths. I look like I’m pissed.

We book tours and pay for our visas – turns out we weren’t ripped off yesterday. A small, lucky miracle.

As I’m writing this entry, there is only one, miniscule cloud in the sky which has disappeared by the time I’ve finished this sentence.

*

We walk into town and are bombarded by hassle. Well practiced flogging of feluccas, caliches, scarves, taxis, gold, cloth, twigs, bookmarks. We become well versed in how to say no, though Elisabeth is a tease and chats to people. It’s a shame that everyone speaks English.

We head down side streets, away from touristy areas and no one hassles us. E points out how the children seem really happy here. More carefree.

It soon become clear that all the cars are honking their horns at E and that I’m the “lucky man.” [Actually, they weren’t honking at her, they honk at everyone whom they pass. And basically, every time we would pass a group of men, they would look at Elisabeth and tell me “lucky man.” E did point out, however that within minutes of talking with her, most Egyptian men would cease telling me how lucky I was and inform Elisabeth that I was a good man and she should stay with me.] There’s some kind of running joke about her being from Alaska. I kind of get it.

[There’s were lots of recurring refrains. This one was the most bewildering:
Egyptian: You English?
Us: No, Canadian.
Egyptian: Ah! Canada dry never die!]

Assad has been very polite about flogging us a ride in his felucca and if we take anyone up on their offer, it’ll probably be him.

Back at the hotel now and it’s just past 1PM. Meeting Hassan in 3 hours to finalize our tours and spend vast amounts of money. Probably.

It’s hard to believe we’re not leaving tomorrow evening. It’s also hard to believe I’ve initiated taking a balloon ride – I’m scared of that kind of thing.

For the record: Stella Egyptian lager beer (Since 1897) tastes nice with a fruity aftertaste. [Stella export is better though and became my drink of choice.]

*

Am sitting on the balcony listening to the dusk call to prayers from several mosques all in time with one another, all echoing through the city. Spent a quiet afternoon outside sitting. It’s amazing how, in hot, dry countries, sitting outside can be so fulfilling. We’ve also planned our holidays for the next 6 months so all is good and right now I’m starving and can’t wait for some dinner. Reservations at the Indian restaurant [Agra] at 7.

A thought: Islam is so fully integrated into a Muslim’s lifestyle because it has always been a religion accessible to the people. Whereas Christianity spent the dark/middle ages being only available (to be understood) for the upper class. Elisabeth points out that Christianity was so desperate to gain the will of the people that it had to incorporate Pagan (read: populist) beliefs. Thus: Easter celebrates the death and rebirth of Christ as well as the delivery of chocolate eggs by the Easter bunny, and Ramadan ‘only’ involves 30 days of fasting and reflection. (No mention of the magical Ramada beaver delivering candied dreidles to children under their mattresses.) And Lent, the Christian equivalent to Ramadan is something for the evangelicals to fret over.

Am not looking forward to waking up at 5:45AM tomorrow (a.k.a. 3:45AM GMT). I thought we were supposed to be on holiday.