My Birthday Trip to Luxor

I hadn't planned it that way, but it turned out that the itinerary for my trip to the southern part of Egypt had me spending the night on the felucca and waking up on my birthday somewhere on the Nile River. This was an exceedingly pleasant thought, once I realized it. The first part of the trip had been difficult. I was left wondering why I had even come to Egypt. The place was really seeming a lot like crap. I wasn't having a particularly good time. Things were badly organized and poorly executed. And I hadn't been really surprised after how the first two things I had booked through the hostel had turned out.

Then we got to the felucca. The felucca captains were very relaxed. But the best part about them was they seemed to understand what people who come to ride on a felucca want. They don't want to worry. They don't want hassle. They just want things to go smoothly. They chatted with us. They fed us. They made sure we were comfortable. They listened to what we wanted and then did their best to provide it. Compared with much of the rest of Egypt, this was new. And consequently, my experience of the trip, of the Egyptians, of the country changed. I hoped it was going to last.

The felucca ride was very relaxing. We lounged on the deck long into the night. The crew put up covers around the deck and there were mattress-like pads where we could lie down and then eventually sleep. It was a great place to let the stresses of the poor management and bad guides of the past few days slip away and down the Nile. And it really seemed to do the trick. Much was different after that boat ride, short though it was.

Dawn came up and I woke up and got up just as the sun was coming over the mountain beyond the river. I went out on the river bank and wandered around for a while. I managed to get a photo of the sunrise over the mosque across the river.

There were also some interesting tracks in the sand. They looked like bear tracks, but I didn't think they could be. When I asked Hamada, one of the felucca captains, he told me they were fox tracks. They were still prowling around the banks around the spot we had moored for the night. I wondered if they ever came onto the boats and attacked people. Nah. Probably not.

Because we had arrived at the felucca so late the previous day, and because we were due to continue our journey down to Luxor early this day, we only had a few minutes after dawn to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of the Nile before we had to cross the river to a pier and get in a bus. We said goodbye to our captains and got in the bus. And we were on our way, the four of us: myself, Kei (from Japan), Frances (from the United States), and Isis (or Qian Xue, a Chinese student studying in the United States). There were two other guys on the felucca with us. They were from Spain, but they had set up their time to stay on the felucca for two days. They stayed behind for what we were sure would be a nice day on the river.

The four of us headed down the road with our driver. He stopped shortly thereafter and picked up four more passengers. Then he stopped again and picked up four more. We were now twelve. It was a bit of a tight squeeze in the bus, but everyone seemed to be nice people, so it was all good. The last four were just taking transport down to Luxor, but the rest of us were going to be visiting two temples between Aswan and Luxor. The first temple was called Kom Omdo, and it was a hybrid temple to the crocodile god Sobek and the fertility goddess Hathor, but also to the god Horus. This makes it a rather interesting temple, historically, but I knew none of this when I visited it. I only knew that it was cool for two reasons. One, a lot of the paintings and carvings were very well preserved. Second, there were not many people there and so it was relaxing.

There was even a copy of the Egyptian calendar on one of the walls. It was quite interesting.

It is also when I discovered that the Chinese girl was a bit naughty. She clambered up on the walls at one point and went to try take a photo. She was called down, because it was not allowed to climb the walls, but she ran around on the top, avoiding the guys who were chasing her trying to get her to come down. It was very funny to watch. I thought she might be a good distraction from the trials and frustrations of the first week in Egypt.

One of the entertainments at Kom Omdo Temple was avoiding the pitfalls of the people “looking after” the temple. There were people at various spots around the temple. They were apparently there to make sure that nobody was going places they shouldn't go or doing things they shouldn't be doing. But what they were really doing was trying to make some easy cash. I was beckoned to several times. “Come here,” they would entice. “I will show you something.” They would lead the unwitting person who followed them to some corner of the temple with some carving or painting on the wall and show it. Then they would stick out their hands for a consideration. Of course, this is a common tactic all over Egypt, and I don't know how many people still fall for it by the time they are reaching this temple for a visit. They did get Kei, the Japanese guy though, so I guess it must work often enough for them to still think it's worth the effort of trying.

After the visit to the temple it was back to the van to continue. We had been told to take about 30 minutes at the temple, but by the time we were all out (including the Chinese girl who hadn't been led away in chains), it was a good hour that the visit had taken.

We headed down the road to the next temple, a temple for Horus called Edfu (that was sometimes written as Idfu). When we arrived at the temple, we were told to be back in an hour. We walked in and it was really big. I wasn't sure we would be able to limit our visit to just an hour.

Horus is the son of the gods Osiris and Isis. When Osiris' brother Set had killed Osiris, Isis had become afraid for her unborn child, who was to be Horus. She went to Edfu to have Horus, and in some kind of exchange amongst gods, Horus was given the head of a hawk when he was born. The mythical place of Horus' birth is in front of the temple.

Beyond the birthplace stood the temple itself. As mentioned it was huge. This may not look very big here...,

...but if you compare it with a photo with people standing down in front of the temple entrance you get some idea of what it required in the building of the temple.

Inside the entrance, there was a courtyard. This is where the common people were allowed to come and worship.

As with other temples, the next area was where the priests and king and queen were allowed to be.

And the innermost spot in the temple was the spot where only the high priest and the king were allowed to be. It also held a conveyance that I think was meant for Horus.

Around this inner sanctum area was a corridor with scenes, many of which showed battle scenes between Horus and his uncle Set. In a rage over Set's killing of Horus' father, Horus battled Set many times trying to kill him. The corridor showed many of these battles.

There were corridors and rooms all over the inner part of the temple. Some sets of stairs led up to a balcony on a rooftop giving views down into the temple. Unfortunately these balconies were closed off by gates and were inaccessible. But the corridors leading up and down were maze-ish and fun to explore.

At the end of our time in the Edfu temple, I got a photo with Isis, as the Chinese girl called herself. Then we headed back to the bus, but we had been in the temple for quite a long time and we were more than a half-hour late. The driver was very pissed off. It seemed that he had to return to Aswan that night, and we were taking so long that he was in danger of not being able to return in good time. There was little else that I could say other than, “Sorry.” But that seemed to deflate his anger, and he gave a kind of irritated laugh. We got into the van and finished the trip to Luxor. Isis, wanted to try to convince the driver to stop at another temple, but there was no way that was going to happen. This was fine as it was getting a bit late and we had been supposed to be doing something in Luxor after arriving. It was late enough that that now seemed impossible.

When we arrived in Luxor, we were taken to our hotel and a couple of “handlers) were there waiting for us. I made up with the van driver, gave him a little tip and entered the hotel. The handlers sat us down and explained the itinerary for the next day and how we would be going around to see the temples and other spots of interest. We were given the option of doing it all in one day or of taking two days to do it all. The original plan had been to do one set of temples after arriving in Luxor and the rest the next day. That was now moot, but it didn't sound like that was what they had planned. It didn't matter. We all decided to do it all the next day. Then it was up to our rooms and time for a rest.

I'm not sure what it was. It may have been that it was my birthday. It may have been some kind of internal decision to relax. It may have been the way the day had proceeded with us being more or less in charge of how long we were in the temples. It matters not. I had a really good day. I enjoyed the temples we visited and the road along the way. There were hassling touts, but they are easy to deal with. (One just keeps one's feet moving and they have no particular defense against that unless they become physically involved in getting you to listen to them. Actually, keeping one's feet moving seems to solve 70-80% of the day to day types of problems one faces in tourist areas, maybe more.) I was entertained by my tour mates and by what was around me. I had this feeling that things had changed.