The Luxortemple, Luxor
[Egyptian Moroccans]
I'm already a week in Luxor [240 km from Aswan]. I am mostly in the tea house [filled with homies, no women]: a high ceiling [that every moment seems to collapse], ventilators, walls tiled with huge tiles [as your bathroom] and men dressed in `Dzallabya` [= burnous] peacefully sucking from the water pipe.
In my favorite tea-house I am for three days in a silent war with the waiter: the waiter [ looks like a Moroccan adolescent of about 17 years old] refuses to give me tea if I don`t pay `Ithnen Guinea`(= £E 2) in instead of the £E 1 that everyone pays. We are talking here about a difference of 15.5 USD cents = 10 euro cents but relatively speaking, an additional 'tax' of 100%!. Plus the fact that I am not treated the same as everybody else. Pure discrimination!.
... the road to Luxor
I've tried everything : shouting, being intimidating [my face 2 mm from his and telling him - in Dutch, that he is a piece of shit] but he does not seem to be afraid. Ordering tea through a third-party ... I am consider of becoming physical but then a voice in my head [my mother] remembers me: '... but you are not allowed to hurt them JW!`. [Moreover, you get all sorts of homies around you that prevent you from going to hurt the little prince / stop you].
I have a new strategy that seems to work: I involve other people in the dispute!. One even has lived in my hometown Apeldoorn with whom I can speak Dutch. One `sjey` I have!. But then they leave. Number 2, a `Godfather`-like figure now preaches to the little waiter in a mixture of Arabic-english. He - the Godfather- seems to possess hidden powers because the little waiter shrinks, gives me a limp hand AND a waterly `sjey`!.
... the nile between Esna en Edfoe
The stupid things one can worry about. It's hot, very hot here. As I write I sweat despite the ventilators. I'm too often forget the fact that I'm healthy, that my diarrhea that was bothering me so much in the Sudan has gone and that my bicycle is [still] in good condition [though it looks quite rancid]. As I tell that Egyptian man who has lived in Apeldoorn it has cost me two years to get here I am reminded about my pathetic 15 cent- actions [not 50 cent :)]. But you should always stand up for yourself right?. It is important that you still can look at yourself in the mirror!.
I find the people here very much look like Morroccans: light in [skin] color, curly hair, very hospitable but that can turn also quickly. The people here have a pride that can be quickly careened and one is often not very straight-through-sea [honest]. For example, if your ask for an information and the respendent doesn`t know it he will not admit he doesn`t know [losing face!].
[Luxor]
In 2,5 days I got from Aswan to here. I camped all the time on the bank of the River Nile. I passed illustrious towns like Edfu, Esna where ancient temples can be found like a temple dedicated to Horus, the crocodile god (!). I often arrived at dawn in such kind of places. I didn`t like so much to enter such a busy, dusty town and being obliged to find a cheap chicken ren where I could spend the night. In Edfu I tried but I was fed up almost immediately: I much prefer camping in a sugar cane field which is a quiet place [!] and so I did.
... the luxor temple, Luxor
In Edfu I discovered upon returning to my bicycle that my red whisper lite gas bottle was stolen. A child liked it and has really done its best to pick it away under my luggage. First, I was really angry, disappointed because now I can not cook (omelet) or make coffee plus that blue gas cartridges here seem untraceable.
So unfortunately I can not just leave my bicycle anywhere as I used to do without problems such as in sub-Saharan Africa [Africa under the desert belt]. Oh, you gotta get over it. I hope that the child is happy with it [and not drink the gasoline that was in it!].
... view of the `Valley of the Kings', Luxor Temple, Luxor
In Luxor you drive RIGHT against the remains of the temple of Luxor: Massive columns representing papyrus, a huge gate [a tapered beam shape with straight lines!] including an 'avenue of the sfinxes ` starting right from the temple to the three kilometers away lying Karnak temple. On both sides of the avenue there are [every meter one [!]] a row of sfinxes.
I find easily a cool hostel [40 LE = 6,5 USD] check in and walk, explore my future territory: Aseer H `sab [sugarcane juice], Xoebs [bread], Mataam [restaurant], internet and tea house. These are the points I will coming week circulate in between.
With my spare wheel [a `new` Indian hub that was put in in Khartoum, almost gave up on me in the Sudan and in Aswan replaced with exactly the same shit part] I go to the bicycle mechanic. Prevention is better than curing!. I have given that [old] spare wheel away and I now have a completely new rear wheel [plus a decent-looking `hub 'produced in the People's Republic!]. The communication is again not easy but I can make clear what is wrong and what I want [despite a Copt who joined my difficult communication with the bicycle repairer and `helped` to 'translate' thus complicating things even more!].
Grandpa [an old man in a white robe and white skullcap] put the spokes one by one in the rim [and the hub]. After he balances the wheel almost perfectly. I sit on the ground and look attentively but it remains still magic for me [HOW he does it!?]. Oh, my chance will come when I get a broken hub in the sinai haha :).
The river cuts the city in two: with Cairo and the Mediterranean in your back the `East Bank` is the most important part of the city: the Mc Donalds overlooking the Luxor temple with in it(!) a Disney `like mosque that `sings`/ screams a few times a day 'Allah Akbar' [insanely to build something like this in a 3000 year old Egyptian temple with Christmas lights around the text لله اكبر (Allah Akbar)!].
The train station, a few museums [Luxor Museum, mummification museum] and a provincial مدينة (Medinah = city) is in fact Luxor. Across the Nile River is a strip `Medinah` and then `the Valley of the Kings / Queens`!. A huge ancient Egyptian necropolis where everybody who was important during the pharaoh era [pharaoh, priest, noble etc.] was interred in tombs or in the mountain or in a temple. The tomb of Tutankhamon is the most famous one here to be found (though all his belongings including himself are now in a Cairo museum).
... colossi di Memnon, west bank, Luxor
On the way one has to wade through a [virtual] swamp full of ass wipes, human parasites that cling to you like leeches nagging you into their Fallukah or simply don`t give you no space. I hit one and when I looked better, it seemed to be a little adolescent that almost started to cry. Well, maybe I should just subscribe for a three-month course called `How To Deal With the Human Egyptian Parasite!` For Only 10L.E [1 EUR] / day!.
... at the foot of a Memnon colossi a beautiful lady! (Luxor)
On the west bank you walk through a three-kilometer green strip and then you arrive at the `colossi di Memnon !`. Enormous seated statues, the only thing left of a huge temple!. The necropolis lies outside the green zone: you should really be motivated to visit [empty] rooms/ tombs [although with richly decorated walls] in a horribly hot valley. I decide instead to visit the temple on the east side [the temple of Karnak] and leave the `valley of the kings' for when I am 65 years old, and doing then an organized [but boring] tour- insj-Allah!
[The temple of Karnak]
I follow the `avenue of the sfinxes` that cuts the city in two. From Luxor you can see the huge gate of Karnak: that must have been something!. What is city now must have been an immense temple complex in the past.
Surrounded by sphinxes [at least they keep their mouths shut!], children and hostile troops of dogs (!) I reach the Karnak gate. I'm too late, the place is closed but `Boekra insj-allah` (tomorrow) I'll be back ...
I try to sneak into Karnak but the shop has been good secured: everywhere 'Red Guards' [dressed in white and proud owner of a Kalashnikov AK47] showing me kindly the way towards the ticket office. GOOD man!.
I still have a student card from my student times that is often viewed incredulously: '... is that villain student?', but it got me already twice for half price in such a monument!. TUDelft rules haha!.
After I have told the guy who checks the tickets: `Ana min el Hind!` (I am from India) as an answer to the [stupid] question `from where..?` [ a question that have been asked to me for about 10.00000000 times] I am in!. A huge gate, a narrow entrance. Enormous beautiful columns that were meant to represent [stone] papyrus plants.
EVERY square inch of the walls, pillars is covered with hieroglyphics, portraits of people, animals, gifts. It looks like as if you walk around in a forest of pillars. It reminds me a bit of the Mezquita [the ancient mosque] in Cordoba, Andalusia. That was also a forest of columns, but an elegant one: a palm grove made of stone.
I bump behind some tourist groups, the guides provide useful information, but I get bored quickly. I prefer to wander by myself through this column forest, admiring the chiseled scenes. The top attraction is a granite obelisk: thirty meters high and a weight of three hundred and fifty tons. The text [hieroglyphics] and images of people, animals are still extraordinarily clear. It is [still] a mystery how the ancient Egyptians have hoisted the colossus vertically!.
... an insane obelisk!, Karnak, Luxor
... with on it hieroglyphs in an extremely good state!, Karnak, Luxor
Involuntarily this temple complex reminds me of something fascist: a massively huge, plump lump of stone with straight lines, huge columns, cold, unpersonal like the `Valle de los caidos`, the mausoleum of fascist dictator Franco in Madrid. Only the hieroglyphics, portraits of nobles, Pharaohs, women, priests and animals [ducks, scarabs] give it something human, intimate, something you don`t have in `valle de los caidos`.
... forest of colums!, Karnak, Luxor
The sun sets slowly and immerses the temple complex in a red glow. The tourists are gone and I wander through the complex a bit more, getting a bit lost... Crazy thing to build!.
... the southern gate of the Karnak temple,
[...]
I stay for three more days and will then continue. I am not in a hurry, on the contrary!. This country is very cheap and there is insanely much to see. It's nice to deepen me into their language/ to do absolutely nothing and be in the tea house like the other local good-for-nothing- homies! :).
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