Luxor, Egypt - Day 105 - Boots on the Loose

Pulled into Luxor around dinner and after some deliberation decided to go with the 3-star “New Pola” hotel as a little treat; the price is normally $35 US a night but sales guy gave it to us for less than half-price…unfortunately the guy quickly grew to be rather aggravating as well as much of the rest of staff, but it could be somewhat ignored from the rooftop pool/patio overlooking the Nile. I think we found the town itself to be much more enjoyable than any of us expected; plenty of little streets to walk around, and the hassling wasn’t as bad as I had prepared myself for.

Jen, myself, Brant and Dianne (Alissa’s parents) all sprung for a tour the next day that went through the Valley of the Queens, Valley of the Kings, Colossi of Memnon and the Temple of Hatsepshut, plus a bonus stop at the Alabaster factory (always trying to make that extra sale…). It started early the morning after we arrived and the guide was a bit quirky but very intelligent (got his Masters in Archaeology at a university in the UK). He liked to give us every piece of information 3 times and thus got a bit snappy if you ever asked him something he already said (3 times) – I felt a couple times like there might be a test coming at the end of the day! But if was good and very informative. Kept bringing up the terrorist attack in 1997 at Hatsepshut that left around 60 tourists dead (same place we were going) which I thought was funny; I think he was fairly passionate about it though since it was so close to where he was that day and he knew people there and all that. Told us back then the Valley of the Kings saw around 6000 people a day; afterwards it went down to 800 and has since only recovered to around 2000 a day which might explain why people are so desperate for our business. He also said it used to be a two hour wait just to get into some of the temples and tombs, but now you can just go right in. Other random things I thought were interesting included the law that sugar cane can’t be planted within 100 feet of a road now as it provides good cover for terrorists, and the reason everyone leaves their homes unfinished with no roof is because (besides a lack of money) there’s a 40% tax once it is done, and since it rains only once every 4 years a roof is relatively unnecessary.

The tour started at the Colossi of Memnon, which is little more than 2 large statues, then moved on to the Valley of the Queens which has 2 tombs open to the public, one being a Queen (whose name escapes me) and the other for her son. According to our guide, the son’s tomb is the best in all of Egypt; wasn’t particularly big, but the colours and condition of the wall carvings/paintings inside were enough to take your breath away. As with all the tombs we saw in both valleys, there isn’t a lot to see other than the wall art (albeit the most impressive wall art you’ll ever see in your life); everything else is now in a museum except usually the largest outer sarcophogus where the mummy laid.

We moved next to the Valley of the Kings to visit 3 of the tombs; there are 11 open at a time and they rotate them every 6 months to help preserve them (there are on the order of 40 to 50 tombs currently discovered in the valley; they actually found a new one last year only a couple of metres from King Tut’s tomb). The 3 tombs we saw were King Ramses I, Ramses IX and one of the Tutmoses; interestingly they would start digging the tomb when he King was born, and stop immediately when they died – one of the Ramses ruled for 67 years and so his tomb was around 250 metres deep! (which means they only dug around 4 metres a year or less). The 3 tombs were quite similar; join the herd of tourists down the initial hallway (maybe 10 feet wide, 15 feet tall) and it eventually opens up to a MASSIVE sarcophogus of granite, maybe 8 or 10 feet high, and then there will be a few smaller rooms opening in each direction from the main room.

One of my favorite things was the 2000 year old “graffiti” left in a few places by the ancient greeks! Also saw some of the most inappropriately dressed tourists in my life; one was head to toe in pink with a mini-miniskirt and hooker shoes etc. Pretty disgraceful.

Hit the temple of Hatsepshut next which Jen was more fond of than me; not really a lot to see inside, but has a beautiful setting overlooking the Nile valley with the mountains right up behind it. Doesn’t go in very far, but is three levels and is probably as wide as a football field is long, with columns supporting it the whole way across. Ended the tour with a boat back across the Nile and a voluntary tea and koshary for lunch with the guide (mmmm…, the food, not the guide…).

Other “educational” things to see in Luxor are the Temple of Karnak, the Luxor Temple, and the Luxor Museum (no pyramids in Luxor though, which makes me wonder about the name of the casino in Vegas…). Did the Temple of Karnak the next day which took a couple hours and features most impressively a room with over 140 of the BIGGEST columns I’ve ever seen; templed and museumed out, Jen and I skipped the museum and Luxor Temple, but the other guys went to the museum and seemed very fond of how well it was done (apparently better than the one in Cairo). Both temples feature a “sound and light show” every night that I thought would be good and cheesy, but we never made it to either (there’s always on at Giza in Cairo when we return…on Wednesdays the Shpinx speaks Japanese!).

Shahat (our co-captain from the felucca) was in Luxor so Jamie talked to him and met with him and his friend who eventually invited us all to an Egyptian engagement party (which we had thought was going to be a wedding). It wasn’t particularly exciting (tent full of people, men and women sitting separately, watching a stage full of others dancing), but it got good when the power went out, twice, (actually the whole block’s power went out, likely due to the number of lights on in this one tent), and a guy had to rush to drive his motorbike into the tent to shine its light on the group of girls to protect them from the roving hands of the boys who were taking advantage of the dark!

Our flight to Dahab (Sharm el-Sheikh) left the next evening around 6 pm, so we pretty much just hung around the rooftop patio to wait out the day. I think Luxor can be a good place to visit, but only with appropriate expectations; for the sites you need to get what you want out of them, then get the hell out, but the town can be enjoyed with only a little tolerance required.