And back again the next day. Well, certainly in Luxor!!!
Just last week, we noticed that the council men had the digger out shifting some illegal traders off the streets, again. I wrote about it somewhere, but cannot now remember where. Ah, that's right, it was on TripAdvisor, in a private message to one of the contributors who was commenting on the "Riot Police" behind the Temple, never mind.
It was the self-same scenario as it had been in our main road, Yousef Hassan Street, a year or two ago. I blogged it at the time, along with a few pictures of the digger. (Did I possibly mention at the time that it was a "Lovely shovel"? That being a reference to Michael Palin's character Eric Olthwaite in his Ripping Yarn, "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite".) They had riot police with them that time too. Poor looking skinny kids with big nasty truncheons, most of them. That was to negate any temptation for the local banditry to stop the council workmen doing their duty.
The illegal traders which had sprouted up in the Abu El Haggag Square over the past few years were getting beyond a joke. As well as stealing the electricity from the nearby lamps to run their fridges and lights, they were actually almost blocking the way, here and there. Then there was the man (sorry, several men and boys) with their ever growing numbers of electric quad-bikes and scooters, which were also having their batteries charged at public expense from the street lights. They had recently been branching out into petrol driven motor-bikes and petrol driven quad-bikes, initiating a particularly dangerous situation, as far as I could see.
Anyway, they were all cleared away last week! But then, along comes the Eid! The Eid brings with it all sorts of travelling funfair types of things, the shuggy-boats and swings, the hand-cranked roundabouts, the nut and candy-floss men! And, of course, an ideal opportunity to reinstate the illegal stalls!
Here are a few shots of how it looked this morning:
You can see in the foreground that the quad-bikes etc. are back, as well as the wooden tent-frame of one of the illegal drinks sellers. But the following is the "piece-de-resistance", I've never seen anything so frightening in Upper Egypt:
You can see how fast it's going; the screams from the riders were deafening. They were really enjoying the thrill of the speed!
But for pessimistic old me; I couldn't help but thinking about Egyptian "Health and Safety"! (Or the complete lack of it, more like!) I had to walk away quite briskly after taking the photo', as I was having visions of one of those little kids flying off into thin air!!!!
Bye for now.
Just last week, we noticed that the council men had the digger out shifting some illegal traders off the streets, again. I wrote about it somewhere, but cannot now remember where. Ah, that's right, it was on TripAdvisor, in a private message to one of the contributors who was commenting on the "Riot Police" behind the Temple, never mind.
It was the self-same scenario as it had been in our main road, Yousef Hassan Street, a year or two ago. I blogged it at the time, along with a few pictures of the digger. (Did I possibly mention at the time that it was a "Lovely shovel"? That being a reference to Michael Palin's character Eric Olthwaite in his Ripping Yarn, "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite".) They had riot police with them that time too. Poor looking skinny kids with big nasty truncheons, most of them. That was to negate any temptation for the local banditry to stop the council workmen doing their duty.
The illegal traders which had sprouted up in the Abu El Haggag Square over the past few years were getting beyond a joke. As well as stealing the electricity from the nearby lamps to run their fridges and lights, they were actually almost blocking the way, here and there. Then there was the man (sorry, several men and boys) with their ever growing numbers of electric quad-bikes and scooters, which were also having their batteries charged at public expense from the street lights. They had recently been branching out into petrol driven motor-bikes and petrol driven quad-bikes, initiating a particularly dangerous situation, as far as I could see.
Anyway, they were all cleared away last week! But then, along comes the Eid! The Eid brings with it all sorts of travelling funfair types of things, the shuggy-boats and swings, the hand-cranked roundabouts, the nut and candy-floss men! And, of course, an ideal opportunity to reinstate the illegal stalls!
Here are a few shots of how it looked this morning:
But for pessimistic old me; I couldn't help but thinking about Egyptian "Health and Safety"! (Or the complete lack of it, more like!) I had to walk away quite briskly after taking the photo', as I was having visions of one of those little kids flying off into thin air!!!!
Bye for now.
Dont look safe but then they dont look safe when the fair comes at top of our street nice to see things brightening up in Luxor. xxsandra mick
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