Trip Report X

Bonjour et salut toute le monde.
1) Arriving in Amsterdam.
2) Staying in Den Haag (the Hague)
3) Taking it easy & getting to Toulouse
4) Catching up with Rebecca
5) Caroline
6) Le lac
7) The food of kings
8) The train to Toulouse & contacting airlines
9) Narbonne & trying to get on trains
10) Narbonne by night
11) Montpellier to Geneva, contacting Pierre-Alain & Natalie
12) I'm sick but life is good
13) The hot air balloon in the front yard
14) Taking it easy

1) I arrived in Amsterdam at 8am on Friday the 9th August. After spending a while checking out the layout of the airport (I would be passing through here twice more in the next few weeks at least, and the 2nd time would have 30 mins. to get from my flight from Geneva to my flight to London), duty free shops and ticket prices to Toulouse, I picked up a flight to Toulouse with Lufthansa leaving 7.30pm Sat., stopping at Frankfurt, then returning Thursday the 15th August at night (via Munich) in time for my 10am flight to Geneva the next day for 300 Euros. KLM wanted 720 (there are $1.83 AUD in a Euro). Apparently the cheap flights I was told about are all out of London & booked via the internet. Dropped my big backpack in a locker (I had a weekend's worth of clothes with me in my small backpack). Caught the train into town and wandered around, then found a post office and found I was right at the start of the one walking tour around Amsterdam I had really wanted to do. Had lunch at a really nice cafe for about 20 Euros (prices seem to almost be in Euros what they would be in $AUD in Aust., but not quite), listened to some great buskers and checked out the old palace. That was tre cool, but I wasn't as impressed with the Newerks Gallery just across from it. For some reason almost all the artists seemed to believe it was important not to use any craftsmanship, and unbelievable cynicism was the order of the day (OK, so everything we do, think, watch, read, say, eat etc. is entirely evil and leading to destruction - now what?). The only thing I found even remotely interesting was a rowboat constructed entirely from phallic objects. A bit of work and a bit of humour had gone into it at least. A couple of the places I was supposed to visit on my walking tour didn't seem to be where they were supposed to be. Was looking forward to visiting Anne Frank's house until I saw the que stretching around the block. Checked out the Bible museum, which was a bit strange. It did have some nice models of Jerusalem at various times, and of various Jewish temples and the tabernacle, & a partial history of the New Testament. I don't know, if a place like that doesn't enthuse me it's going to leave most people running for the exit. Wandered through some interesting places and ended up at the Historical Museum, but I only had 40 minutes and it wasn't enough. Seeing how Amsterdam had developed from a bunch of farmers living on peat bogs to a thriving trading community in 1200 AD or so was very interesting. I intend to go back to Amsterdam & I may visit the Historical museum again (although there are so many other interesting places to see I may not get time). Caught a train to Den Haag.

2) I got to Den Haag, had a Chinese restaurant meal for dinner, and asked a taxi to take me to the youth hostel. I couldn't quite make out what he was trying to say (I thought he was pointing out which was his cab, their were a bunch of them at the rank with drivers hanging around nearby), so he found another driver who spoke more English who told me it was behind the building we were standing in front of. The Youth Hostel is a really nice place by a canal with modern facilities (such as electronic keys and internet terminals). They had heaps of tourist info about Den Haag, which looked really interesting and I hoped I might fit in a visit to a couple of different places the next day, such as the miniature village & aquarium, as well as get a chance to check out a couple of places in Amsterdam I still wanted to see, mainly the maritime museum, but I thought this might be pushing it. Although it is a great place with great facilities far far exceeding an Egyptian 3 star hotel, along with a great breakfast (self serve so some people were making it their main meal of the day) (I had Vruchten Hagel, Anijs Hagel & Chocoladehagel Melk - the closest description of which I can think is 'hundreds & thousands'), a dorm is not a place to get a good nights sleep. Apart from being in a top bunk a few people felt the need to set their alarms REALLY early - and sleep through them.

3) On Saturday instead of carrying out all my great sight seeing plans I booked an extra night at the youth hostel so I could rest until 4pm when I had to catch the train to Schipol airport. I did a bit of net stuff and that was the last time I had the chance before arriving here in Geneva (where I've been slowed down by being so sick). in the course of re-booking, having to change dorms & getting locked out of where I was staying (my electronic key ceased to function at 10am), my toothpaste, toothbrush, shaving cream and razor got thrown out, and I seem to have lost my scarf. As my flight landed in Frankfurt & Toulouse I thought the sinuses behind my left eye would implode, which was a new experience in pain (it's not the most painful thing I've experienced, just a new flavour). Anyone lip reading what I was saying might have been a bit confused (I was praying but with a lot of words that shouldn't be part of my vocabulary). At Toulouse the shuttle busses have stopped running and the taxi phone isn't working. Fortunately the couple in front of me is happy to share a taxi when one arrives, which is also helpful when they translate how cheap a hotel I am looking for. Stayed in a really nice hotel with a full bathtub for 29 Euros, 33 including breakfast. Developed a rasping cough and started cramping up at night for the first of several nights, although this night my cough hasn't started keeping me awake. At breakfast someone staying in the hotel walks past and says 'bon appetite.' I consistently find the French not only more friendly than I was lead to believe, but more friendly than Australians (can you imagine an Australian saying to a stranger eating breakfast, 'enjoy your meal,' unless they worked there?).

4) Rebecca met me at the train station at Maurs. She is a friend who is Australian and met the love of her life in St Cirgues, France, and moved there. She has no nearby friends except those French ones she has made and she can't even get videos or DVDs with English subtitles let alone in English. The only churches anywhere nearby are extremely traditional Catholic ones with very few people so she has no Christian fellowship, and she lost her English bible some years ago (which I will be rectifying shortly). Also she uses the internet via AOL, which gives her 2 hours a month & can't communicate with me or a lot of her friends (AOL is one company I actively advise anyone I know to avoid, I heard of too many people having too many problems with them when I was a real net addict). I wonder if some of the problems I am experiencing are a spiritual backlash for breaking through her isolation a bit. She and her fiancée Jean-Michelle live on a small farm with a chateau they are turning into a bed and breakfast. When she first me him he was doing strawberry farming as well as cattle and would leave the house at 6am and arrive back at 9pm 7 days a week. Rebecca persuaded him this was a bit ridiculous and they are fixing up the chateau because although a bed & breakfast is a lot of work (and a heap more money than they bargained for - but if they stop now they get no return on their loans), at least they will be able to take holidays. At the moment the only person they can really leave their cows with is Jean-Michelle's ex, so they can only have very rare weekends away somewhere where they can return from at a moment's notice at present.

5) One friend Rebecca does have around from time to time is Caroline, & her beau Benoir, whose family live in St Cirgues and who is the way Rebecca met Jean Michelle. I've known Rebecca for about 18 years and Caroline for about 15. She has a daughter now, although I didn't get to meet her as she is in London where Caroline & Benoir live. Hello from her to all of you who know her. This means I now have 4 cousins (2 married couples) & 5 friends to catch up with in London, not to mention a trip to Belfast to catch up with another 2 cousins, catching up with a friend from Yorkshire and trips back over to the continent to revisit Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rebecca & Jean Michelle, & to see Paris. In September I'm going to be a busy little beaver.

6) There are a couple of lakes near St Cirgues, although I only got to see the smaller closer one. Caroline & Benoir offered to take me sight seeing one afternoon & Jean-Michelle wanted to show me around, but I really wasn't well enough and mainly just wanted to hang out with Bex (Rebecca). On this smaller lake there is a beach and watercraft for hire, pedal boats, canoes etc. There are also free water slides, a children's playground and a cafe if you haven't brought a picnic with you (the 2nd time I went on a water slide my head went under at the end & I thought it would explode because of my flu). I took my camera with me and meant to get some shots, but I forgot. I was having too good a time. You can tell I have an engineering background at times - I was bothered by the inefficient propulsion mechanism of the 2 person pedal powered watercraft, which use a paddle wheel, until I realised the 1 person pedaloes were propelled by a shrouded propeller. Bex and I had a lazy pedal around in a 2 person craft and she dived in and went swimming a few times, but I figured this wasn't a good idea for me since I was sick.

7) On Wednesday the 7th we went to a cafe in Figeac for dinner after checking out the photographic exhibition of one of Rebecca & Jean-Michelle's friend's (it was great - I thought of buying something but the mountings were what really made the pictures work & all the ones I liked were unsealed wood, which would go in the bin upon hitting Aussie customs). The cafe Rebecca had wanted to book was booked out so we got 2nd best, which was about as good as the best restaurant in Sydney (Figeac is only just big enough to make it onto the maps - Maurs & St Cirgues don't). I had foi grasse (which didn't do anything for me), truffles (which did), a variety of mushrooms cooked in various ways & a few things I don't remember. What I do remember is experiencing things change taste in my mouth, like a good wine, which is not something I'm used to. Of course, we had a good wine. Dinner for 3 including a good wine bought at the restaurant (there is no bringing in wine from outside in France), 100 Euros. OK it's not something you can afford to do every night but it's still cheaper the Australian equivalent. By the way, their 1 Euro table wine is about as good as the $12 AUD bottles of Preece Merlot or whatever we have at Bill & Judy's pizza & wine nights (which means a $20 AUD bottle of wine if you shop at Liquorland). A quick meal for when no one is dropping over is a 3 course equivalent to what most people I know would feed good friends for dinner, and friends dropping by means a 5 course meal that I don't have an equivalent to.

8) Because I had the flu I had to cancel my return flights & catch the train (apart from the pain, flying with a flu can rupture your eardrums). A general policy of airlines is that if you fail to turn up for a flight without contacting them, they cancel all your ongoing flights, so it was very important I let Malaysian Airlines in particular know I wouldn't be flying from Amsterdam to Geneva on the 16th as my round the world ticket is with them. On Thursday the 15th I got on a train from Figeac to Toulouse at 7am, on an itinerary which would have had me in Geneva at 5pm that day. At Toulouse I had a bit of time before my train to Montpellier, so I rang directory assistance and tried to contact Lufthansa (Toulouse to Amsterdam) & Malaysian (my ticket for Amsterdam to Geneva, although the flight was with KLM). Malaysian (MAS) played a recorded message giving their office hours (during which I was ringing) and hung up on me. After a couple of other things I realised the train on the departures board to Montpellier I was thinking I had plenty of time to catch was an hour after the one I was supposed to be on, which I had missed. As my connecting TGV to Geneva at Montpellier left half an hour after I was supposed to arrive, I couldn't make the connection. I got my ticket changed and now I had to get a train at Montpellier to Lyon, and a train at Lyon to Geneva, which would arrive at 9pm.

9) At Narbonne (100km before Montpellier) there was an accident which was going to delay the train I was on for at least an hour, so I went to information again and they told me the TGV to Lyon I was to get at Montpellier was on another platform and to change trains now. TGVs have booked seats, so I found my seat and stuck my bags on the rack, and as the delay was so long I got off and tried to contact the airlines again, this time succeeding with Lufthansa (I had one digit left out of their no. before), but the same problem with MAS. I went to get back on the train, which was now about to leave, and as I put my hand on the door it locked closed. I literally missed the train by 1 second (if I had had the door open it couldn't have locked). I went back to information and they told me when the next train to Montpellier left from and contacted the train so my luggage would be put off there. When I went to get on that train the stationmaster said it wasn't the train I was about to get on that went to Montpellier but a different one. I went to get on that one and they said I needed a booked reservation to get on the train. I went back to the booking office and the person in front of me was the last person they served before it closed. It was 8pm and all the trains to Montpellier that were on the display were TGVs I couldn't get on without getting my ticket changed (at least I was having no problem doing this each time if I could get to the booking office). OK, so I'll find a hotel and do some sight seeing in Narbonne and head to Montpellier in the morning.

10) It was the middle of the school holidays here, and Narbonne is so popular there were heaps of people sleeping at the train station & quite a few backpackers sleeping in the park. At about 1am I saw a big family of three generations pleading with the owner of a really big hotel (it took me ages to realise it was a hotel, because it was a castle, so although I saw it on the maps I kept thinking 'it must be near this castle but I can't find it'), but they ended up hanging around a playground all night long. Although it wasn't a cool night, all's I had on my torso was a T-shirt and there was a slight breeze. At 2am I am walking past a couple in conversation who call out 'bonjour' as I approach & 'avoir' as I pass. I'm too surprised and preoccupied to respond while they're in earshot. Note that people are saying 'bonjour' all the time and 'avoir' fairly frequently, once from a car driving past. At 5am I realised I should have stayed at the train station, as although it is locked between 12am & 5am, if you're in, you can stay in. It was warm (probably from everyone's body heat apart from anything) and there was no breeze. I had gotten a couple of hours (at most) sleep in a park, but mostly I had walked around in a pair of shoes not suitable for walking long distances (I had pretty sore feet by now). In the morning I got a train to Montpellier.

11) They didn't have my luggage but Lyon was where the train terminated and it would probably turn up there. I rang Pierre & Natalie whose last information was that I was arriving on a plane at 12pm, and got no answer. As the next time I could ring was from Lyon, where I arrived at 11.55am, I asked mum to contact them. She had also contacted Malaysian Airlines. Apart from not having my mobile phone with me, it has stopped working properly and just cuts out as soon as I connect to anyone (maybe it's been damaged by too many X-rays). In my first break, an announcement came over the intercom just as my train pulled in & I got my luggage & made my train. At Lyon I gave Pierre & Natalie a ring and mum had gotten through to them. I got to Geneva at 2.45pm and was fairly relieved to see Pierre's face.

12) That night (Friday) I saw a doctor who was very glad I saw them when I did because my lungs are heavily laden with fluid. I am now on an intensive course of antibiotics, a fever suppressant & something for my cough. Of course, I have to keep coughing until after the antibiotics have done their work and all the fluid is out of my lungs or I could experience serious long term consequences (I had a friend who took a cough suppressant and because there was still stuff in her lungs it created real problems for a long time, I think still ongoing). Fortunately I can take lozenges which mean I can cough without it hurting so much, but even this can present problems. Once your throat doesn't hurt it is easy to strain it and damage it further (a general problem with pain killers). My voice has been disappearing from time to time. I got a good night's sleep for the first time since the 5th August (rising to travel from Wed. the 7th to Fri. the 9th, staying in a dorm in a youth hostel on the 9th, being sick & cramping or coughing myself awake from Sat. the 10th until the present). In spite of all this I am having one of the best times I've ever had in my life. I feel like someone who has been quite happy with their car, having no problems with freeway driving or anything, but who has just realised they forgot they had overdrive and haven't been using it for about 28 years.

13) The day after I arrived here a hot air balloon landed in the front yard. Hang gliding, ultra-lite flying, para-gliding etc. are all really popular here. Natalie does some hang gliding. I ran the 5m back to the house to grab my camera and it wrecked me. Anyway I got a shot, so next time I get access to a computer with at least Windows 98 & USB support where I can upload my pics, you'll be able to see it on the web. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. The fine cuisine I started in France has not abated, although because of the antibiotics I can't try any wine, & I'm probably eating quantities more in line with a person than a horse. I've had more cheeses than I can think of (probably more than a dozen different types), including a few of those that aren't just a great taste, the taste develops and changes in your mouth. Went back to coughing myself awake all night.

14) I've been taking it pretty easy at Pierre and Natalie's, hanging around the house or the yard and resting, reading Asterix in French & writing stuff on Pierre's Powerbook 150 (the 2nd Mac laptop ever made, 8MB RAM, 160 MB HD, only 8 keys you wouldn't find on an old mechanical typewriter, Mac OS 7.5.1 from late 1995, uses Double Density disks which new Macintoshes have no trouble reading), and it's such a joy to use I remember why I love Macs so much. I can't believe how quiet it is, there's no fan so spin down the HD & it's absolutely silent. Other than that I have been out a couple of times to see Pierre's work or whatever, and gone wandering around Geneva through lakeside parklands with little museums here and there. Geneva is a really beautiful place. Pierre & Natalie live where the first farmlands begin in their own forested area at the foot of a mountain just over 3 km from the heart of the city. It's exactly like in all the fairy tales except with all the modern conveniences. The ATMs warn you not to insert trombones into their deposit receptors (a trombone is also a paper clip). One thing about Europe is all the larger packets have handles built in (eg. buy a six-pack of sparkling water, fruit juice or milk at a supermarket & it'll have a carry handle).

Blessings,
Joe Krishna Mithiran

Trip Report VIII

Hello everybody! [Hello doctor Nick! - OK so I'm a Simpsons fan]
Overlapping chronologically with Trip Report VII:
1) Lunch on Thursday the 1/8/02.
2) Egyptians - helpful & safe (but with a few scam artists!).
3) Karnak temple complex, buying water.
4) Luxor temple & those terrible Christian vandals.
Back to the more recent past:
5) Friday - time on the 'net & the Luxor Museum.
6) Lunch.
7) An afternoon's feluccaing on the Nile.
8) Smoking a hookah in an Egyptian bazaar - the story of the sandals.
9) Running into 5 people online Sat. morning. Of email accounts.
10) Joining my Nile Cruise, of Traveller’s Cheques, ATMs and change.
11) Relaxing and getting a change of perspective.
12) I'm enjoying the view (of the Nile, right...).
13) Some of the best food I've ever eaten, and it's still Egyptian.
14) Getting lost at Edfu (did I say the Egyptians are helpful?).
15) Police everywhere, giving me a guided tour.
16) Dinner with a group on the boat and the first night in Aswan.

1) At lunchtime the van dropped me off at the Amoun restaurant (Temple of Karnak St., behind or beside Luxor Temple, ph.370 547 if you're ever in Luxor) and pointed out the direction to get back to my hotel (I was just at the end of the street it was in, but I didn't pay enough attention to which direction he was pointing in). They gave the waiter 10 EP to look after me and told me drinks were not included with lunch. This actually allowed me to get one of the cheaper lunches (e.g. a chicken sandwich) with a drink or almost anything on the menu without a drink. Their surcharge was a flat 10% (i.e. not 10%+5%=15.5% [the 5% was applied on top of the 10% charge]). I think 12 EP was the most expensive thing on the menu, but I never got to try it because there were too many good Egyptian dishes I was trying to work my way through & I was only eating breakfast and one main meal (either lunch or dinner) per day. I saw a couple from the tour there and they said they had searched all over Luxor and this was the best restaurant. When I left I went in the wrong direction and met a man who walked with me back to the hotel. The hotel is the Saint Mina Hotel, Cleopatra St. Luxor, ph. (095) 375 409, rooms with a bath next to them from 20 EP per night if you're ever in Luxor.

2) Note that although in this case he was looking to take me on a cab ride & try and scam money out of me, on several other occasions I've been looking for something and someone's walked with me to the place to show me, then walked off before I could even offer any baksheesh. Also every time I've asked someone a question and they didn't speak English (which is most of the time outside Cairo), they've found someone who does, sometimes then walking with me to the place I wanted to go. Egyptians are extremely helpful and if you approach someone you're not likely to be approaching someone who wants to scam tourists as most of them don't do this, the only problem is that it's the one's who do who hang around the tourist areas, speak English (or any other language tourist dollars arrive in, such as Russian), & who will approach you. It's a lot less hassle getting lost somewhere away from the tourist areas of an Egyptian village than it is walking up to the entrance of a major temple. Also the Lonely Planet Guide notes that it is safe in Egypt to walk alone on the street at any time of the day or night, and that it's safer than western countries (it's just that the 8 year olds here put some of the notorious scammers in Australia to shame!). Just don't leave anything too valuable in your hotel room or even in the hotel's safe unless it's a 5 star top end place.

3) In the evening we went to the Karnak temple complex - 60 acres with the biggest standing obelisk in Egypt. The earliest parts date back to close to 2000 BC. These temples are the closest thing to Herod's temple in Jerusalem at the time of Christ I'm ever going to see, and I can see why anybody hearing Jesus say, "Destroy this temple and in 3 days I will rebuild it!" would have thought he was a raving loony. There is an avenue of sphinxes connecting Luxor temple to Karnak of 4km, all except a few hundred meters buried under the streets and buildings of Luxor. At the Karnak end they are ram headed sphinxes, human headed at Luxor temple's end. Water here is 2 EP. A tip: when buying water, don't pick up a bottle or even take one out of a fridge with a glass door unless indicated to do so by the shopkeeper - often they'll pull a bottle out of a freezer for you that's heaps colder and will still be cool at the end of the bottle. Buying several bottles of cheap water and taking it with you to the temple sights seems a waste to me, unless you don't mind drinking water at 40 degrees Celsius! Just take one large bottle, preferably from a place that keeps them in a freezer.

4) After Karnak we checked out Luxor temple (a couple of hundred metres from my hotel). Close to 1400 BC. There is a mosque built over part of the temple, which is still in use, which shows that the temple was buried in sand to a height of about 30 metres in the 13th century. There is also a chapel at temple floor level where the Coptics took refuge from the Romans, and a couple of bronze Roman pillars from later on (after Rome converted to Christianity). This chapel is a chapel to Mut that has had its engravings covered with plaster and painted with Christian scenes, some of which have been allowed to remain. Although Egyptian monuments have suffered vandalism & graffiti for over 2000 years, and have been remodelled and added to ever since they were made, it's been the Christians who've done the worst damage as they have consistently removed the faces from engravings & statues, either because they were spooked by them, or (& more likely in my opinion) because they thought it was their Christian duty to deface these pagan monuments. I consider the latter more likely because the temples have been lived in almost continuously since they were built, & no one else ever saw the need to remove the faces, and because it's been my experience that Christians are all to eager to destroy anything they consider pagan, whether it belongs to them or not, forgetting that if it doesn't belong to you then destroying it is stealing, and Paul speaks against this sort of behaviour referring specifically to robbing temples. It neither does Jesus' reputation any good nor sets anyone free if it's not the person getting rid of their own baggage.

5) Got up Friday morning and went to the Rainbow Internet (not Rainbow Cyber Cafe), Sharia Yousef Hassan, 6 EP/hour and decent speed, for a while before checking out the Luxor museum. It's got a range of stuff that's impressive for a museum not in a capital city, really well laid out and easy to take in and understand. They had help from the Boston Museum. It would be great if they could organise the Egyptian Museum like this, but it would probably have to be spread out over a couple of blocks to put everything on display! Mentioned I was interested in taking a felucca ride at the hotel and they organised a trip to Banana Island for 90 EP in the afternoon, saying it would be good if I gave the captain 10 EP. They are very helpful at the hotel, packing basket breakfasts for people leaving early, organising tours etc. So far everybody Ahmed Fathi (ph. 010 543 3269 if you're ever in Egypt & heading for Luxor) has put me in touch with has been very good (I wrote this before I went to Aswan).

6) Had lunch at the Amoun and splurged out on some of the best ice cream I've ever had. Between a good meal, juice & the ice cream it totalled 22 EP including the 10% surcharge. I left them 40 EP (did I mention I like this restaurant?). OK I admit not having dairy products for 2 weeks has biased my opinion about the ice cream, and when I got to Amsterdam I found out what great ice cream is all about! But the stuff at the restaurant was still amongst the best I've had.

7) The felucca was a motorised one, and at first I was thinking I should've specified a sailing felucca, but then I realised there were no sailing boats out and it wasn't for another couple of hours that there was enough wind for them, so I figured at least I got in a couple of extra hours, but once the wind picked up captain Bakr (in case you're ever looking for a felucca at Luxor or Aswan, he sails between them) transferred me to a sailing felucca in the hands of his assistant, so I got the best of both worlds! We went out to Banana Island where I ate a couple of handfuls of small, sweet bananas for 10 EP, then got shown around the island by a small boy for another 6 EP. They had various tropical fruit growing. I resisted the invitation to take a picture of a banana tree since there's one growing in our back yard at Redfern. After that we floated back down to the dock while drinking Egyptian tea, which I've really developed a liking for (I may never have milk in tea again!), then I was transferred to the sailing felucca & went over to some marshy islands for a camel ride. He really wanted 25 EP but I bargained him down to 20 EP, but I saw his point about walking through water (he spent most of his time past his knees in water between islands), so I gave him 30 EP. We then sailed out on the river to watch the sun set over Luxor & I gave the assistant 10 EP. When we got back I gave the captain 40 EP. The Lonely Planet says 30-50 EP/hour is a good price. We had been out for 3 1/2 hours for 186 EP with throwing money away and getting all the trimmings, when if I'd done it myself it would have cost me at least that just for the hire of the felucca, let alone anything else, knowing my bargaining skills.

8) Later on I caught up with Ahmed Fathi (ph. 0105 433 269) to arrange the rest of my trip, and after catching one of the local minibus taxis, which you just get on and off where-ever you want on their fixed route for 25 Piastres (0.25 EP) which you pass to the people in front of you who pass it on to the driver, to the ATM, he invited me to tea at a tea house he goes to. He ordered a hookah & asked me if I'd like to try it and I said yes, so he ordered me one with something milder mixed with honey. It was the mellowest thing I've ever smoked! No sense of discomfit in the throat, just smooth and sweet! While we were relaxing a small boy came up and said, 'Fix your sandals for you?' Let me tell you about these sandals - I was praying one day when during the conversation I mentioned to God that the coolest footwear would probably be leather sandals with Velcro straps at the back, smarter looking than the Velcro top ones but just as easy to get on and off. On my first trip to Malaysia as an adult 2 1/2 years ago, my uncle Sri bought me a pair of great sandals that I've worn pretty well every summer all summer ever since. A year & a half ago the buckle broke on one of them. I got them repaired by replacing the buckles with Velcro as I couldn't find a matching buckle anywhere. Voila! Exactly what I mentioned in my prayer, my favourite footwear & a gift from Sri & from God. So when this kid offers to repair them now that I've virtually worn my way through the soles, it is a great blessing. I decide that 20 EP is a good price, but that I'll give him 50 EP since I'm feeling so blessed. He asks for 20 EP & when I say they're my favourite sandals, he throws in 'each.' I give him 50. As we're leaving, his friend comes up and asks for money. He mentions he needs new school shoes and they cost 10 EP. I decide I'll give him 1 EP since he hasn't done anything, but I only have a 20 EP note. He says he'll get change. A moment later he is telling me I didn't give him any 20 EP note. Ahmed talks to him and asks me how much change I wanted and I say '10 pounds.' I get 10 EP back. This kind of rubbed me up the wrong way.

9) Saturday morning and I jumped on the net. Chatted with Suren, Melba, Sri & Navin, and saw Hui Ying online but she was gone before I had a chance to message her (caught up with her a few days later in Aswan, though). Even if you don't want to use Hotmail because of all the junk mail, I think it's worth having an account just so you can chat with people in Instant Messenger. You don't have to actually read all that junk mail, just set your options to exclusive with automatic deletion of anything coming from someone not in your address book, log in every 90 days to keep the account active (your email gets deleted after 30 days so you need to log in at least this often if you actually want to use the account), and let your friends know the email address you actually check. Yahoo is pretty good & doesn't get anything like the junk mail that Hotmail does, plus has 6 MB available for email storage and you can have a site of 30 MB of photos if you want, plus some other things. All my relatives switched from Hotmail to Yahoo & I log on Yahoo Messenger! as well as Instant Messenger whenever I'm at a net cafe that has them. I only have one friend with an ICQ account, so I don't worry about that one (sorry Nick!). The only problem is that every net cafe I've used so far, even in The Netherlands, uses an American spell checker (which you may have noticed I don't often use). Had a rest in the afternoon and came back to the net cafe for the rest of the evening.

10) Sunday & it's time for me to join my 5 star Nile cruise on the Oberoi Sherazzad (Oberoi is a big company with offices all over Egypt and the world, even Australia!). Couldn't access either my savings account (a Plus card which I only ever accessed successfully from the airport in Egypt, no problems in Amsterdam though) or my Visa card from the ATMs and had to go to Thomas Cook to get some traveller’s cheques cashed. Note that although I had already paid for the cruise in advance ($200 USD for the first 3 days & $70 for the extra night) I wanted to give Ahmed a tip. Cashing traveller’s cheques has the advantage that they give you a lot of small change, and the better ATMs give you at least 100 EP in 20 EP notes and the rest in 50 EP notes, but some ATMs just give you the minimum number of notes including 100 EP notes. Not that I had any problem getting 100 EP notes changed at the right places, it was at the other end where I kept losing out. Twice a 5 EP taxi ride cost me 10 EP because I didn't have a 5 EP note, once 4 EP water (the Kings Valley, the 2nd most expensive place after Abu Simbel) cost me 5 EP because I didn't have 1 EP notes, once a 10 EP taxi ride cost me 20 EP because I didn't have a 10 EP note etc. etc. Taxis are the main time you need small change.

11) Had a really good shower and grooming session (even washed my watch band and earplugs) and lay on the bed relaxing in my 5 star cabin which you could put a wall through to make a reasonable bedroom & a reasonable lounge room, with it's 2 bathrooms (showers only, though), and let the relief of not having anybody hassling me and knowing that instead of hiding in my small room at the hotel in Luxor if I wanted to get away from it, I had a whole ship I could wander around without getting hassled. Not that I ever retreated to my hotel room, I guess I used the net cafes to relax. I thought about the fact that the kid who annoyed me because he tried to scam my 20 EP note when I was already being generous towards him & his friend would live in a partially completed (high building taxes on finished buildings) mud brick house without any bathroom, with dirt floors and a few animals, and decided not to worry so much about bargaining so hard or getting scammed.

12) Went up to the swimming pool and found myself surrounded by gorgeous young bikini clad French women with whom I would later be dancing and embracing! They had party games that night which included one where you had to form into groups of as many people as the host said when the music stopped. Most of the tourists in Egypt are French (probably because it's close), including most of those on the cruise who were young French couples, so these gorgeous young women were all married and most had children, but that's OK, I'm just enjoying the view (of the banks of the Nile, of course!). At the party I was the only one there who wasn't French, so all the directions were in French, et le animateur parle "un homme et deux femme" et il est tre agreable! My apologies to the French language.

13) Lunch was some of the best food I've ever eaten, which continued to be the case right up to my basket breakfast they packed for me on Wednesday morning. They had a survey of whether everything on the boat met expectations, exceeded expectations or didn't meet expectations, and I created a new box for the food which said 'far exceeded expectations!' The Lonely Planet Guide says food is not the reason people visit Egypt, which is true in the smaller stalls, but some places (like the restaurant in Luxor) do really nice stuff (let alone 5 star Nile Cruisers). Mostly this was Egyptian style food as well.

14) Monday I gave mum another $100 AUD hour long phone call, then we stopped at Edfu where I headed off in the wrong direction without my Lonely Planet Guide (thinking it was a small place & I'd easily remember where to go), got totally lost and ended up wandering around some Arabic district with no tourist carriages (there must have been over a hundred at the dock), no bazaars or tourist stalls, and no one who spoke English. Asked someone in western clothes how to get to the temple but he only spoke Arabic. After I realised I was heading in the wrong direction & backtracked I ran into him and his friend again, who suggested I asked at a shop we were passing (in sign language), who translated where I wanted to go after I repeated it in a couple of different ways, then they walked with me to the temple & disappeared after a quick Salaam before I could offer any baksheesh.

15) At the next place we stopped (a small place whose name escapes me), one of the policemen with automatic rifles who were everywhere (or occasionally with sub-machine guns with extra magazines taped together) was concerned that I wasn't with a tour group, showed me around a bit and pointed out an engraving of Horus with a stethoscope, then disappeared before I could offer any baksheesh again. I had thought the cruiser was the only place I hadn't seen these policemen until I saw some on the front of the boat through a curtained off window and realised they were still there, they were just a little less conspicuous. I saw others who I assumed were soldiers because of their different uniforms (most of them were in white), but they turned out to be different police uniforms (blue or khaki). I saw teams of police frogmen checking out the water around where the Nile cruisers were docked (all the cruisers dock in the same places at much the same times). I got talking to some people from the cruiser and asked if I could join them for dinner.

16) I joined Tom & his wife Sandy, a lady whose name escapes me, Betty Lou, Marla & Lurvy, but Sam & Barry both said they'd been eating too much and decided not to join us for dinner. Anyone notice that I just wrote the names of 7 out of 8 people I met almost a week ago (as I write this) once over dinner, from memory, when several years ago I would often have difficulty coming up with the names of people I knew really well, even people I'd been best friends with for 15 years, and that even a couple of months ago I would have difficulty coming up with names of people I didn't know quite so well from time to time? Not to mention the amount of stuff I packed into the time I was in Egypt, the lack of sleep I was getting over the last few days & the fact that I kept it all going all through my first day in Amsterdam. Now I'm taking it easy for a while. We docked in Aswan that night, but I went to bed early straight after dinner and was only aware we'd arrive because I heard the anchor drop.

Blessings,
Joe Krishna Mithiran

Trip Report VII

1) Security.
2) Getting to the museum.
3) Of postcards, water & the Hilton Mall.
4) The Egyptian Museum (Mary, they need your help!)
5) Internet cafes in Cairo.
6) Cairo driving.
7) Getting my train ticket.
8) Arriving in Luxor.
9) Our tour group, van & guide.
10) Valley of the Kings.
11) Hatshepsut's Temple.
12) Valley of the Queens.
13) Luxor - 'hassle capital of Egypt.' Common scams.
14) A night not to remember.

1) When I said 'they' checked my passport holder, I meant airport security. Metal detectors are outside all plush malls & arcades, museums, temples, anywhere where tourists go. On the more important ones it's even tighter, eg. at the Egyptian Museum you go through 2 checkpoints with metal detectors and X-ray machines. In Luxor the police drive armoured 4-WD cars with armoured machine gun turrets. As I mentioned, there are police with automatic rifles everywhere. This is not the place to pull a bank heist!

2) Woke up Tuesday morning & had breakfast, which included milk (made up from powder & boiled water) with my coffee, which was the only time I saw milk (powdered or otherwise) while in Egypt. Asked which direction the Egyptian Museum was (I knew approximately where we were in Cairo, but wanted to check which side of the Nile we were on) & the manager told me the cab fare should be 4 or 5 EP and wrote where I wanted to go on a piece of paper for me to give to the cab driver. I think it worked out about 50/50 who could understand enough English to know where I wanted to go, or who couldn't. That piece of paper became extremely useful as the museum was where busses to the pyramids left from and was right next to 'Downtown' (where I had been trying to get to on that first horrible night), where all the internet cafes and ATMs are. No cab driver accepted less than 5 EP, and none of them ever used their meters anywhere in Egypt (maybe they're all set to some outdated price or something).

3) Checked out the gift shop and cafe and found water was 3 EP (1.5L), hallway decent postcards were 1.5 EP and daggy ones were 1 EP. This was the same price for cards as inside, but you can't buy water inside, so you're best option is to get it from the cafe on the corner of the Hilton mall opposite the museum for 2 EP (1.5L), the mall also having an American Express office and an ATM that accepts Visa & Cirrus/ Maestro, but not Plus (which is my card, not easy to use in Egypt). A general note about postcards: I figured I couldn't get as good a shot of scenery or displays as you get in postcards, so I would buy lots and send them to people & keep the camera for shots with me or my family & friends in them. In Malaysia & Thailand this is true, but the quality of postcards here in Egypt is pretty low & I can take better shots, assuming I've paid to take my camera in, which you have to do almost everywhere, except where photography is completely forbidden; and, of course, no using a flash.

4) Mary (in the chapter title) is a museum curator who's helping people of another country preserve their heritage. The museum reminds me of a Gould’s store (a huge 2nd hand bookshop), where anything you're interested in is probably in there somewhere, but finding it can be very difficult. I opted for a cursory examination of everything, reading the descriptions of a few objects but finding a few of the ones I was interested in didn't have descriptions (although later descriptions on similar objects sometimes helped). At the Luxor museum, they had help arranging stuff from the Boston museum, and it's much easier to take in everything (although some rooms in the Egyptian Museum have more stuff than the whole of the Luxor one). There were a couple of tourists having a rest on the feet of a 4500 year old statue near the entrance, around the corner from the signs everywhere saying 'do not touch or lean against the antiquities,' 'do not touch or lean against the cases,' 'do not use a flash.' Fortunately they keep their old stuff in sealed cases (eg. tools from 700 000 BC, mummified dinosaur fish), protecting it from people encouraging their children to climb on the statues so they could take flash photographs. Took me about 2 hours to see everything (as in, let it pass before my eyes in a dazed state). I think the best way to see this place is in a small group with an Egyptologist as a guide & give it a half day.

5) Found an internet cafe at 'downtown' and chatted with Suren (alias Kevin) & Melba in instant messenger. Most internet cafes I have used have Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger & ICQ, although Nick is the only one else who uses ICQ so I stopped using it, so if you have one of the former you might catch me online. So far it's been Suren, Melba, Navin, Sri & I saw Hui Ying online but she was gone too quickly (same with Suman but that probably means someone else was logged on from his computer at work). On Sat. morning in Luxor I saw every one of you, except Suman, online in 1 morning. Back to Cairo. The one I was using was Onyx at 5 EP per hour (very slow though & their building has power outs periodically), 26 Mahmoud Bassiouni St. Downtown (their price is down from that in the Lonely Planet guide, which is how I knew where to go). Told Melba I didn't have any inclination ever to come back to Egypt, but that was just a combination of culture shock, fatigue, & the hassle of trying to organise everything myself. Perhaps a better net cafe than Onyx was InterClub, 12 Talaat Harb St. Downtown, 6 EP per hour but fast & modern. Talaat Harb St. is a laneway running off Qasr el-Nil St. (in which there is an ATM), the next st. north of Mahmoud Bassiouni. There was also another 6 EP per hour place round the corner from the Midan Talaat Harb (the square at the centre of Downtown, in which thee is an ATM, accepting all except Plus) end of Bassiouni, turning left as you walked out of it, but I didn't get a chance to check it out. This is the bottom end, prices go up to 12 EP per hour (eg. for the one in the Hilton Plaza).

6) In the cab on the way home, while stopped in traffic, the driver pulled his dashboard out, fixed something in the speedo, then put it back together again. I think I've seen about 4 traffic lights since I've been in Egypt, and those that were working were being completely ignored. The drivers here do short beeps on their horns all the time to let the car 3cm to their left (driving is on the right hand side of the road here) know that you're there or whatever. I think they must be pretty good drivers, imagine intersections with 5 or more major roads leading in with no traffic lights and constant heavy traffic with rarely anyone touching. I saw cars stopped after a small bump once. I wouldn't want to be in an ambulance, though. I've seen ambulances completely surrounded on every side (as everybody else is, like the hub of a spoked wheel more than like a box with only 4 sides) & unable to move on several occasions.

7) Got up Wednesday morning with the intention of getting my laundry, checking out, going to the Egyptian Railways station at Ramses square, checking in my bags & getting a return ticket on the overnight sleeper to Luxor, then visiting the pyramis in the afternoon before coming back, getting my luggage and getting on the train. At breakfast the staff had to ring the hotel lobby to get them to tell me there's no milk. In the hotel lobby they don't know what 'Egyptian Museum' is (people often don't know the English names we have given to their sites) (the manager and his assistant are not on duty today). The taxi driver couldn't understand where I wanted to go and pointed out various people who might speak English to help us out, one of whom informed me that the bus standing in front of me went there, so I got on. This was a big A/C’ed bus for 2 EP with big comfortable seats, unfortunately this means less room between them. The A/C’ed busses have the advantage that the driver speaks English (or, at least, in my 2 encounters they did). It would have been easier getting on and off the el-cheapo busses with the amount of luggage I was carrying. When I got to the train station I found they only took cash, which I didn't have enough of on me (I assumed a 660 EP ticket at the main Egyptian train station could be bought with Visa). At the cloakroom there was a packed room full of people waiting to check in their luggage, with the guy taking 10 mins. per person. I left with my luggage & proceeded to lug it around for 2 hours looking for an ATM that accepted Plus or even Visa, then a bank that would change traveller’s cheques. Went back and checked in my bags, there were only 4 people in front of me this time so it only took 40 mins. (8 mins. to put a person's bags in a locker, 2 mins. to light up a cigarette and get to the next person). Watching someone collect & staple a couple of forms and put them in a draw is like watching someone in Asia or Sydney in slow motion, but the shopkeepers at Crescent Head would be right at home (except, of course, that in every other way they'd be totally out of their element). Government wages here are about 300-400 EP per month. A meal in a REALLY cheap restaurant costs about 10 EP. Caught a cab back to downtown, went to all the ATMs I could find, then went to Thomas Cook (Mahmoud Bassiouni St.) and got some travellers cheques changed into Egyptian pounds. Caught a cab back to the train station & bought my ticket. Caught a cab back to downtown, by now it was 4pm or later & too late to visit the pyramids, got on the internet for a while, had dinner at a cheap restaurant that worked out at 40 EP for something that listed on the menu as 22 EP (with a small bottle of water & some dry Lebanese [or rather Egyptian] bread, +10% charge, +5% sales tax - standard surcharges in restaurants) and caught a cab back to Ramses in time to catch my train with a couple of minutes to spare.

8) Dinner and breakfast were included in the price (which I didn't realise), but there was no shower. I washed myself in the sink in my room just before the man from next door, who was travelling with his wife & son, came in to share my cabin for the night (they're like sleepers on the XPT except without the bathroom cubicle, 3 persons seated or 2 persons sleeping). Then he changed his mind and slept with his son. The meal was not bad as far as travel food goes. It's one of the first meals I haven't been unable to finish in a long time (but I had just eaten). They dispense powdered soap in the lavatory. 5.30am and we arrive in Luxor. A man, Ahmed Fathi, greets me at the station and asks me if I want to stay in such & such a hotel with a swimming pool. I am highly suspicious and tell him I can't afford it. He asks me for a budget & suggests somewhere else. I check the price in my Lonely Planet Guide to find this hotel, the Saint Mina Hotel, Cleopatra St. Luxor ph. (095) 375 409, about 2 minutes walk from the train station, is suggested as a great hotel. There price lists 20 EP for a single without a bathroom, I am paying 25 which I figure is a fair mark up for someone who showed me where the hotel was, walked with me and helped me carry my luggage, lets me check in at 6am and only pay for the Thursday night, then later walked with me to the nearest ATM that would accept my card (but now I get a message saying my National account can't be accessed and please contact my bank, so I have to use Visa) (and at this point I'm still only considering options). After talking with him for a while, he proposes a plan of sight seeing during the day, followed by a cruise to Aswan on Saturday. He seems to be proposing good stuff at a reasonable price, calculating in $US he tells me the exchange rate is 4.65, which I later find out is the exchange rate for buying $US, which is a relief because at point someone said it was 4.58, and although I didn't really expect him to quote the exchange rate exactly I was a little disappointed at the thought of being gypped 70 EP (which didn't happen). He quotes $55 US for guided tours of the Kings Valley, Queen's valley & Hatshepsut's temple in the morning, and the temple complex of Karnak & Luxor temple in the evening (256 EP, he makes it 250, I calculated the included entry fees were over 100 EP of that); and $200 US for a 3 day, 2 night cruise on a 5 star cruise ship, saying that you can't really sail in a felucca from Aswan to Luxor at the moment as there is no wind. After we get the money, he takes me for a drink at a cafe where we chat & he smokes a hookah (he pays for my drink). This guy turns my whole Egyptian experience around. The thing is, what he offers is not cheap (although the hotel is), but it's of such exceptionally good value that by blowing my budget somewhat. I had thought I would spend about $1500 AUD in Egypt, then I thought it might work out less when I found out the exchange rate for $1 AUD=2.5 EP rather than the 1.5 EP I had calculated in Dubai by comparing their exchange rate for $AUD & EP at their airport (neither of which would have been as good as you can get), now it comes to over $2000 but I really am having the experience of a lifetime.

9) I get picked up in a van (15 seater) with A/C’ing but they don't turn it on until it gets hot. There is our guide & a driver up front, and someone else (2nd driver?) and 11 of us tourists in the back. During the middle of the day you don't want to be sitting at the back of the van, the A/C’ing isn't designed for a full load during 45 degree in the shade temperatures. Evidently they sometimes quote it as being cooler than it is, though, because the Egyptians can go home from work if it hits 50 degrees. I have to say that even in the back it was bearable, even though at Hatshepsut's we got out & there was a slight breeze so it was cooler outside than in. I start off sitting next to a French couple with whom I exchange a few sentences in French (and have complete conversations in English) & they say my French is pretty good. I also chat with a Canadian couple, a German father & daughter, 2 women from Spain, & 2 women from Korea during the course of the morning.

10) Our guide is very impressive, doing most of the talking outside & going through one tomb with us in the Valley of the Kings, explaining in detail what everything is and letting us know what we are likely to find in the other tombs. He knows more about his stuff than any guide I've ever met. In the afternoon one of the group (all different except for myself) asks why the beard is broken off one statue in particular (which isn't one of the most significant ones), and our guide doesn't know but he tells us all the different ways the statues have been damaged. This was the only question he couldn't answer completely (& there were heaps), and he gave us the background info. Our first stop, after the monoliths in the plain by the road, is the Valley of the Kings, where I pay the extra (which Ahmed mentioned right at the beginning of working out my itinerary) to see King Tut's tomb (which has his inner sarcophagus and mummy in a room you can look into but not enter). In the first tomb (where our guide did do some talking) we found graffiti on the walls. Early Copts and later Romans, although some is as recent as the 17th century, with chisels rather than spray cans. The stores at the Valley of the Kings are higher priced than those at Hatshepsut’s temple, water costing 3 EP for a large (although I ended up paying more from a guy with a bucket full of ice and water bottles right up at the tombs). Our guide tells us the price we should be paying for water, white cotton scarves to keep the sun off our necks (10 EP and for once I actually bargained the guy down to the reasonable price, because I gave up and was walking away) (always walk away when negotiating at some point, every time I did I got the prices I was aiming for), & 10 EP for 3 sets of 12 postcards. I asked a guy 'How much?' and he said 10, so I handed over 10 EP, and he said $10 US, ALWAYS establish which currency you are bargaining in (& make sure pounds means Egyptian pounds, a common trick is to quote a price in pounds and once you're committed, say 'British pounds'), once he had my 10 EP note I had great difficulty getting it back and by the time I got 2 sets for 15 EP I had to run to catch up with the rest of the group. The batteries in my camera ran out and our guide suggested Hatshepsut's tomb would be a cheaper place to get them than here.

11) At Hatshepsut's tomb (Hatshepsut was the female pharaoh), water cost 2 EP but was kept in freezers so it was worth more (in my opinion) than that out of the fridge (it was still cool at the end of the bottle, which stuff from a fridge was not). At this point I need to say I would much rather pay higher prices for cold water than carry heaps of cheap water and drink it when it's 40 degrees. Paid 80 EP for the batteries (it's a lot, but it was too impressive a sight to miss capturing), and the shopkeeper tied my scarf on my head in Arab fashion. This place, Luxor temple and Karnak temple are the most impressive places I have seen so far, also something inside me goes 'Yay!' about women rising to positions traditionally only male. People have often commented that I look Egyptian, often coming up and talking to me in Arabic, particularly if I say 'salaam alekum,' and once I had the Egyptian cotton scarf tied on my head in Arabic style, the people who keep pointing to a picture and wanting 1 EP for doing so etc. stopped coming up and bothering me.

12) We then checked out Valley of the Queens, where there is one 11 year old male and a foetus entombed. One theory is that under 12 they were buried with their mothers, I forget what the other theory was. They theorise the mother miscarried with the grief of losing her 11 year old son, hence the foetus in the same tomb. The guide informed us at the start that the foetus was the prince when he was still a foetus. Egyptians do have a sense of humour, which you get to experience outside of Cairo, and I must admit it's a relief when someone makes a joke because there are so many people trying to get money out of you for everything & nothing, and to get more out of you if they think they can get any, you really have to have your wits about you all the time & almost the only time you can relax is in your hotel room, so a joke relieves a bit of the tension.

13) Things you can expect: getting a quote, handing over some money and finding out it's in $US, getting a quote in pounds, handing over some money or getting to the end of your ride and finding out it's in British pounds (I know I said this earlier, but British pounds are 7.25x Egyptian pounds, so it's worth repeating), having someone tell you something you've just seen written on a sign and expecting 1 EP, having someone show you something from a different angle which doesn't add anything and expecting 1 EP, handing over 10 EP, they don't have change so they keep your 10 EP (also in Cairo), working out a price, then finding out they mean 'each' for repairing your sandals, handing over 20 EP and having someone say point blank that you didn't give it to them, going to Banana island and getting charged 10 EP for two handfuls of bananas, having someone take you on a short walk and want 10 EP (he got 6.25 EP), agreeing to 14 and finding out the guy was saying '40' (happened in Cairo & was just difficulty in my understanding his accent - in this respect others may have an easier time as I have hearing problems). At all times, for everything & nothing, in every way, people will try to get money out of you.

14) After lunch I went the wrong way after leaving the restaurant and got a bit lost (Luxor's not all that big, though). A man came up to me and asked me what I was looking for, and walked me to my hotel. He said he was a horse drawn cab driver and would I like to go for a tour around town for 5 pounds per half hour. Alarm bells should have started ringing at this point because that's too low a price (and, of course, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is). He picked me up about 8.40pm and took me for what was an interesting tour, going through various markets & bazaars, past the free animal hospital, and finally came to a 'papyrus' factory. I realised at this point it was a scam, and kept thinking I had heard of this somewhere, then I realised it was the same as the BKK tuk-tuk drivers who take you on a really cheap 'tour' and drop you at all these gem shops that try to rip you off. I figured I'd go in and look around so he could get his commission as I was getting the tour so cheaply, but this isn't BKK. Eventually I bought a 'papyrus' (probably banana paper, although the place did have a ministry of tourism seal, so possibly not) with my name in hieroglyphics in an oval shape with a line underneath (a cartouche, like the names of the kings) next to an ankh. Although the place had the ministry of tourism seal, he offered me 50% off as soon as I walked in the door (memories of paying over $13 AUD for a picture of an elephant in BKK), and there were no seals of authenticity on the 'papyrus'. I had decided it was worth 10 EP to me to have my name in fancy letters. He asked me what I wanted to do next and I mentioned I had been looking at small alabaster vases, throwing in that it was marvellous how you could hold alabaster up to a light and see it shining through. Now I was being really foolish. I ended up getting hassled into buying a small vase for 60 EP (he started at 350 EP & I definitely wasn't interested) which I could have bought for 20 EP earlier (25 EP price tag, even I could bargain to 20 EP). On that occasion (a shop we had stopped at with our guide), I had said that I couldn't carry it and the assistant said he would carry it for me (I just had to buy his ticket). One restaurant I went to, the Amoun Restaurant in Temple of Karnak St., behind (or beside) Luxor temple, the restaurant that they had given me lunch at earlier this day, after giving me a great lunch with the best ice cream I have ever tasted (probably biased by the absence of it and dairy products in general, but it really was exceptional, better than Baskin Robbins'), the waiter said '300 pounds,' smiled and laughed and got me the bill for 22 EP (I had been drinking water & a tropical cocktail as well). I left them 40 EP. Anyway, back to Thursday night and we get back to my hotel to be informed 5 British pounds per half hour for one hour equals 80 EP. I was so upset I just left the vase & the papyrus, and said 'keep them' after saying he didn't use British pounds & I had never even seen one. He relented and said he'd take 10 EP, the fact of a police officer walking towards us perhaps in my favour, but I didn't have a 10 EP note so he got 20 EP.

Blessings,
Joe Krishna Mithiran