Luxor's General Strike and Day of Civil Disobedience.

Well: Yesterday was the first anniversary of the resignation of the hated despot/father figure (choose whichever is applicable) Hosni Mubarak, the former 'President of the Arab Republic of Egypt'. The day was to be marked with a 'General Strike' and a 'Day of Civil Disobedience'.

It is my experience that a great many Egyptians are paranoid; about privacy, crime and the seemingly ever present threat of interference of one sort or another from outside their immediate circle. Consequently, the thought of whatever might be about to happen yesterday had many of them in a bit of a tizz! A visitor, who is staying on the West Bank, told me that his hotel owner was "worried" about things in general. It seemed that the hotel man's concerns had also taken hold of him; the visitor, to a certain extent, as he went on to tell me that; "Times are tough here, it could go either way. For sure it would be much worse in Cairo, but if that blows up, it will have an impact on Luxor." I've no idea why an Egyptian should be fomenting such idiotic and fearful ideas in the minds of impressionable tourists.

Perhaps he was trying to pull off the same trick as the big hotels on the East bank have been doing every time there has been any mention of possible disturbances, "You shouldn't leave the security of the hotel today my friend! That's right, stay here, and I'll get in a few bottles of Stella to help keep you occupied, but don't tell anyone, as I don't have a licence!" Perhaps not, I'm an admitted cynic when it comes to Egyptian businessmen!

So, being English (and obviously incredibly brave) we left our 'rose tinted spectacles' at home and ventured out as usual, as we have done on every day since the revolution began.. Lo and behold: the buses weren't on strike, and seeing as we were awoken, at 07.45, by the Egyptian National Anthem from the school across the road; neither were the schools. The calechemen behind the Temple were working (if you consider lying around talking and smoking to be work) normally. I didn't notice any closed-up shops. If truth were told: there was nothing out of the ordinary! No indication, at all, of a 'General Strike', and even less of any 'Civil Disobedience'.

Now then, that is of course, only 'our' experience! I'm quite sure that there will be a foreign journalist, or someone on 'Facebook' or one of the Egypt forums (who isn't actually here in Luxor at the moment) who will know of some atrocity perpetrated against a tourist, or group of tourists here in Luxor yesterday, which was a direct result of these highly organised forms of protest. Let's just wait and see, eh?

Does it show, that I'm starting to get a tad annoyed at all the misinformation which is being spread abroad by people who really should know better? 

Here's a picture I lifted from the Luxor4U website, it might give you an idea of how seriously Egyptians can take things (and quite literally, as this sign maker certainly did):



And these are the people who are warning gullible tourists about upcoming problems?????????

Muhammad's Birthday Celebrations.

Well then! I've often wondered why the Muslims celebrate the birthday of their leader, when they don't celebrate their own? One of our good (Muslim) friends was born on the day we got married, and now when it's our anniversary, he'll ask, "So how old am I today?"

It starts a week before the actual date, with the selling of those great big fancy dollies and sugar statues, and the lovely Turkish Delight which I just couldn't pass-by this year, it was lovely! I bought some from the hunch-back who has the shop on the corner of the Egyptian souk 15LE per kilo, I got a quarter (ruba kilo), plus he'd given me a large piece to try,  for 5LE, which I was very happy with, he's always been fair with me, and I like him a lot. Every year, I mean to ask someone what the sugar statues represent, and every year (this year being the same as usual) I forget! Neither can I fathom what the dollies are for! They come in all sorts of sizes and designs, some I noticed today (for the first time) with wool for hair! Rather different from the others, I've got to say.

One day, I might get around to telling you about my orange rug-wool wig, in which I used to perform (accompanying myself on the ukulele) when I could sing falsetto!!!! That's got your attention, hasn't it?

Never mind all that! I don't know if the two things are related in any way, but on this particular birthday of Muhammad; the Amoun men went back to work! (The Amoun men are the town's street sweepers, so called because the cleaning contractor was once the Amoun Company. And you know how we don't like to change the names of things in Egypt for at least a generation, or two.) I think I reported the other day about the rubbish in the streets, well today it's all been swept up! Here is how we do it Egyptian style:

Although the Amoun men have a roll along cart; they don't fill it with dust or rubbish.The dust is left at the roadside. In my innocence, I used to think that someone else would come along and take it away. But now I know that they don't, it just stays there until the wind, or peoples' feet, move it on! It makes walking a hazardous task, as unaware sandled feet can become rather dirty very easily through walking straight into a pile of dust! As you can see from the bottom right picture; the footpaths aren't really a practical proposition as far as walking on them is concerned. Then the Amoun man's pile of dust drives the pedestrian further into the traffic! It's not very good, I can tell you.

I actually took a load of rubbish photo's to go along with the dust photo's, but they were like their subjects: rubbish!!! I salvaged a couple, which I just know that you're dying to see:

As you can see from this first one, nothing is wasted here. The kind Amoun man has not only swept the rubbish into a nice tidy pile, he's also created a public amenity: a cycle park! What better place to park your bike? I'll bet the owners of those other two were dead upset, just because they didn't get there first!

This last one is typical of the skips (dumpsters, for you Americans) which are strategically placed here and there for the collection of household rubbish. 

So, apart from being kept awake nearly all of last night, and a good bit of the night before, by the wonderfully cheery nocturnal celebrations coming at us from about five different directions through very efficient loudspeakers, the rubbish collectors return to work was the most exciting event of this particular Moulid, for us!

But, happy birthday Muhammad, anyway! 

A Wednesday Surprise!

Well, that's right, our usual Wednesday jaunt to the Etap was full of surprises today.

This morning, I'd read somewhere that 500 of the town's cleaners had, more or less, taken the Governor hostage in his own office! As we made our way through the rubbish strewn Youseff Hassan Street, it was patently obvious that the 'Amoun' men (street sweepers) weren't working. What a mess! We should have been issued with wellies or something. Never mind, we eventually managed to get as far as the Savoy Bazaar, and were aware of several men in what looked like NEW uniforms.Could this be a concession made to them? New uniforms instead of better wages?

When we came out of the other end of the Bazaar, we realised that they weren't Amoun men at all, they were ambulance men! Here's what brought us to that conclusion!
                                                                                                                                                             

That's right, this is Luxor's ambulance fleet, well 25 of them, anyway!











There were several which were out of shot, some actually in the Luxor Supreme Council car park, and a couple across the road in the lay-by.








I asked one of the drivers if he spoke any Inglesie, but he just indicated that he knew a little. Eventually, we came to the understanding that there was a small problem, and that problem was a lack of floos (money). They were still all standing there when we finally came away, so I hope that no-one needed their services while they were lobbying the Governor!

The 25% reduction in drinks prices at the Etap, was coupled with TWO sachets of Nescafe for Freda today. I couldn't complain, as I got a large teapot full of tea instead of the usual small one. They must have been having a good day! Not many minutes after we had taken our usual seats, a Misr Travel coach pulled in, more or less completely blocking our view if the road. As I pointed out yesterday, it's the Egyptian fortnight, and the El Luxor was consequently busy with Egyptian tourists. This coach had arrived to pick some of them up, he'd obviously been booked for a five o'clock return, but was still there at twenty past. If it had been me; the rest would have been walking home, I can assure you! After two false starts, he finally got away. My heart went out to him, I can vividly recall many a day trip return which I just wanted to be over before it started! I only hope he didn't have too far to go.

Not many new guests arrived at the Etap, but we did see about 6 or so Travco coaches sailing along the Corniche, so the Thomson flights were pretty busy. That has to be good news, even if they are mostly just joining Nile cruises.

Then we saw this:

I'm sure that I mentioned, the other week, that I'd seen two open-toppers, well, I finally managed to snap one, even if it was nearly gone by the time I managed to get the old trusty out!

So there you are. That's what passes for an eventful afternoon in Luxor, well it does for some of us! But, in actual fact that wasn't all. With the ongoing strike of the lock-keepers at Esna; we have been warned that there may well be a water cut, so we now have all of our buckets and dishes etc. filled with water and standing about in the bathroom. Those poor folk who have to survive on the West Bank had no water for most of the day on Monday, one forum contributor from over there wrote that things were starting to stink! Poor souls.

I wonder what tomorrow might bring? 

Windy Nook, the latest holiday destination?

No, I'm not kidding! But maybe I'm mistaken, I suppose the following might be an indication that it's to be the new shopping destination for foreigners, something akin to Dubai, for example. But more likely that the person in question is intending to holiday in Windy Nook, and therefore needs to know that sensibley priced grocery shopping is available.

"What are you wittering on about," I hear you ask Well, I found this on my Blog 'Feejit' thing, just now. Freda doesn't believe it, but would Feejit tell us lies?

Copied and pasted direct from the Feejit page:

Baku, Baki arrived from google.com on "Discover 'Our Luxor' Apartment: Happy New Year for 2012." by searching for new tesco store windy nook .

For those of you who are geographically challenged; Baku is the capitol of Azerbiajan, and "local scientists consider the Abseron Yasaqligi (Apsheron Peninsula) (including Baku and Sumqayit) and the Caspian Sea to be the ecologically most devastated area in the world". Weren't you just dying to know that? This must be the strangest search engine 'Keyword(s)' we've ever had!

Anyway, if you happen to live in Windy Nook, and read this Blog, then you can keep a sharp eye out for an unfamiliar Azerbiajani mooching around, and when you see him, you can tell him that you know he reads it too!

Loose lips sink ships!