No, not Room 101 silly! Post No. 101

No folks, it's not 1984 with Winston Smith retrospectively changing all the news. No, we now have all the flash news agencies and the big boys like the BBC et al, changing it as it happens! But that's old news, let's see what's going on just now, in Luxor of course.

Mmm? Not much apparently! The crack was that Thomson Holidays and Thomas Cook were coming back to Luxor today. We were quite excited (always been easy to please!) and planned to have a stroll down to the Etap to view the new batch of arrivals. Then the Boss decided to have a nap! I was playing on the laptop, complaining to Etisalat (our new Internet provider) about the poor service I am receiving etc. and had a look on the Luxor airport arrivals. As far as I could see, only three of a planned six flights were on their way from good old Blighty. I eventually plucked up the courage to awaken her, and we got sorted out and down to the hotel by about 5.30pm.

Things being tight all round, we took a small (50 piastres) packet of biscuits with us. They've stopped serving the free cake as they are also feeling the pinch. I was pleased to see Aly the Guest Relations guy in the foyer, as a friend wanted his email address. (Actually, as people are often asking for it on TA, I'll post it here. Then all my readers will never have to ask again! It's............

alymohamed22@hotmail.com

There you are, painless!

We ordered our tea and Nescafe, with cold milk for the tea and hot milk for the coffee, from a new waiter-in-training, Ahmed Mohamed. He did very well. Bedawy wasn't their to try and tempt me to a shisha. A taxi pulled up on the road, one girl with one suitcase, huh! She wasn't even a newbie, I recognised her face straight away. Waiting and waiting, then around the corner came a Travco coach (Thomson's handling agent in Egypt) goody! It was almost full, but, sadly, sailed on past to some other (possibly more salubrious) destination another three passed by as we sat there, all looking about full, but the only other arrival at the Etap were two foreign looking gents who were part of a midi-bus full, the rest of whom were also going on to somewhere else.

Not much entertainment there then! But we did have quite a discussion about insulation and air-conditioning, so the time wasn't altogether wasted.

Talking about "wasted", our friend Ahmed the caleche man took us shopping up the other end of town the other night. As we came down Medina Street (it's one-way, the opposite to that which we were travelling) we came across the Bonduk take away place. "You want I should get for you some hawawshy?" "Yes please," says I. Now then, hawawshy is something like a thin haggis sandwich, but it's not, if you know what I mean! Ahmed introduced me to it just a few days ago, on a gentle ride around the Karnak area, well not as far as Karnak actually, but not far from it. It's absolutely lovely! And, it's only 3le! My tongue was hanging out by the time we got home and made some tea. But, the hawawshy wasn't the same as the one from near Karnak. Bitterly disappointed, I manfully struggled on, hoping to get a taste for this stuff. But it was no use, over a half of it got pelted into the bin! Mind you, I've since had Ahmed take us back to the original place, and it was just as nice as the first time, pity it's such a long way.

We're hoping for more of you lot to come next week, so don't disappoint us, you're our primary source of entertainment! See you soon, Insh'Allah.