Day 4

The next day, we had our trip planned to go to the temples on the East bank That wasn't until the afternoon, and I think we killed time in the morning partly by going to the shop across the road and finding the young man there, called Emad, both likeable and friendly and seemingly not needing to bargain with him, we again spent a lot of money.

I got an alabaster goblet, a papyrus picture which I had my son’s name put on, and several tea towels, and had them make a necklace for me out a piece of yellow sapphire that matched the stone in my ring. Zaib bought some more bookmarks and had cartouches put on them. We said we'd be back on Thursday to pick up our things that he was making especially for us. His father was also in the shop and very friendly although you got the impression that his English was not very good. Emad had been to England to study, and also to try to sell some of his products, and we very much enjoyed our conversations with him. When we went back on Thursday, his pretty sister was in the shop, and also his Mother who ended our visit with "May God bless you both very much," which was very touching. We felt like we had made friends with the whole family.

One of our group members had very bad luck. Ann is not a bridge player but had come as a companion to 84 year Hilda who is a regular. But on one afternoon, she moved to one side to avoid a pestering beggar - and fell into a hole in the road and broke her leg. She had to go to the hospital and have it put in plaster, and then she had to sit in her room alone while the rest of us played bridge. The next night, my very good hearted roommate, Win, gave up her bridge, which she didn't enjoy much anyway, to spend the evening with Ann and took her first to the pub, and later to the disco. She did this on a second night later in the week too. The wheelchair that the hotel eventually found for Ann's use and the crutches cost her quite a lot of money, and were in very bad condition. One of the group Pat, a physio, just retired, couldn't wait to tell her colleagues at home how bad it all was.

The temples were most impressive and I really enjoyed seeing them, but I was tired, and think I would have enjoyed it more if we had taken a day over each. Our guide, Mohammed, was rather bad tempered. Ramadan had just started which meant that Moslems couldn't eat or drink or smoke or swear from four in the morning until five at night. Zaib said she normally would have been observing the fast too but was excused because she was on holiday, and would make up for it when she got home. But I think she felt a little guilty eating because she felt she had to explain herself to the waiters and waitresses in the restaurant each day. They had bowls of olives and fruit by the entry to the dining room because it is very important for them to break there fast immediately the sun goes down.

The county is predominantly Muslim and there are many minarets with their frequent chants. One night I decided to leave the window open (my roommate was out drinking and I figured she wouldn't know or care by the time she came back) but I certainly regretted it when the chants started at four a.m. and went on and on.

Back to the Temples - the first we saw was the temple at Kamak - which was the largest of its sort in the world covering many acres of land. Each pharaoh contributed something new during their reign which meant it grew bigger and bigger. The pylon we saw at the entrance hadn't been finished - and the scaffolding -  made out of mud and stones piled up on each side, gradually higher and higher as the wall grew higher -  was still in place. When they did decorations, they started at the top, and then as they progressed down, they undid bits of the mud scaffolding. The walls were not perpendicular, and they had wedges cut into the rock so that when the flags were flown from them, they would be straight.

Most of the columns had either lotus flowers or papyrus flowers on the top - one represented the lower Kingdom and one the upper. We in Luxor were in Upper Egypt - because the Nile starts in the central part of the country - and around Cairo is considered Lower Egypt, even though it is farther north and higher on the maps. The Pharaohs for the first millennium concentrated around Cairo building the pyramids and sphinxes there - and about 2000 BC the seat of government and religion moved to Luxor so these temples dated From then.

The main god is the sun god, who they thought had produced himself out of nothing from the top of a pyramid shaped structure and he then produced a wife, and a son. These were the main gods they worshipped, and they kept boats for each of them to process down the River to the other Temple for a 29 day feast during the rainy season each year. The area between the two temples and into the temple grounds was lined with sphinxes - although not all that large. Most were in pretty good shape. The hot dry climate contributed to things being well preserved, and also the fact that much of it was buried under sand and only rediscovered in the 18th Century. We saw some graffiti from the 1850's when it was fashionable for young rich men to visit Egypt as part of their grand tour - but thank goodness, no modern graffiti at all in evidence.

We saw the obelisks which originally numbered about 12 but many were given away to the French and English and Americans at various times for various favours. The ones we saw had been erected by Hotchepsut and her father during their reigns. The most impressive part of the structure was the central Hypostyle hall where the columns were 55 or so ft high and very highly decorated and still the colours were bright and most of the pictures in good shape. There were windows - slatted openings high up, as it would have been very dark when the stone roof was in place. The very central structure was the holy of holies where the gods lived, and where the priests brought food for them three times a day - lots of it and only the best. They assumed the gods magically imbibed what they wanted, and what was left was then offered to lesser gods, and finally the priests finished off what was left.

We went to a visit to a papyrus factory on our way to the other Temple - the Luxor Temple - which was only a half mile away or so. The papyrus was made by first of all cutting off the outer leaves, which were used to make baskets and then the white inner sections were cut very thinly into strips which were soaked in water for five days or so, until the resin in the plant became sticky. These were then put first lengthwise and then crosswise on absorbent mats, and covered with another mat, and the whole lot put under pressure for five days. The resulting product was the toughest paper-type product ever made. It could be rolled up and messed about and it didn't tear. We were told to watch out for the inferior and cheaper versions which were made out of sugar cane. The museum had hundreds of beautiful pictures and we were told to order them and they would be delivered to our hotels, but I had already bought a picture and felt mine was as good as these for less money.

I was pretty fed up with temples by the time we got to the Luxor Museum, and in truth, it looked a whole lot like the other ones. One thing that impressed me was that a mosque which had been built in the middle ages above one of the walls of the temple - for a time was completely buried in sand - but then refound, and that mosque is still in use today.

But I think you can see too many statues and too many pillars and too much culture makes it seem all rather ordinary instead of how very special it would be if you could only see a little bit of it.

I haven’t said much about what the people were wearing. Almost all wore typical Egyptian clothing - a sort of long loose dress like a kaftan - and a head piece. Most of the women dressed in black and some had their faces  veiled but most didn't do this entirely. Those who wore Western clothes wore lots of them because to them a temperature of 70º was very cold. Emar's father in the shop across the way said he was wearing three sweaters. The children often had very bright dresses on but very non-western styles - very old fashioned looking. Many were barefoot. They seemed a very attractive bunch of people, even the beggars had a pleasantness about them. And they were for the most part not aggressive and nasty, in contrast to the way I found the men in Tunisia on another bridge holiday. Most people spoke English and were very pleased to see tourists.

There were no western shops at all - no MacDonald’s or big department stores of any sort. There weren't even the big souvenir shops that you see in Mediterranean countries all along the road. The shops were small and for the most part kept their wares inside. The food markets were showing many unusual varieties of food and yet the quality often seemed rather poor. I expect the best was given to the hotels and the populace only got their rejects. I didn't buy any food from the markets - and when Zaib said she liked the looks of the dates we had in the hotel (to the manger who had a soft spot for her) he admitted that they had to wash and soak the dates several times before they came out as nice as they were. He got one of his employees to bring her a sample of the dates from his father's farm - and she bought a kilo but they weren't nearly as nice as those in the hotel.

On Thursday we went for coffee with some of the others in the Winter Palace Hotel which had been the home of King Farouk. It was very beautiful and right in the heart of the city, but you couldn't see or hear any of the problems just beyond the green of the parklands.