Luxor, Egypt

Saturday, May 28, 2005:

In short, I took a day tour of Luxor's west bank including the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Colossi of Memnon and the Temple of Hatshepsut. There are plenty of other sites on the west bank that I didn't see --- Egypt has a stunning number of attractions that you don't hear about all too often, most people (including myself) thinking Egypt's sites consist mainly of the pyramids, a museum, and perhaps a stray ruin here and there. What is on offer, however, is impossible to see in one visit, two visits, even three visits. And most of what you can see exceeds expectations. When hearing that a site I was about to see was three, maybe four thousand years old, I generally expected a crumbling wreck or, in the case of a work of art, something not much more than a step up from pre-historic cave art. Large, well-preserved and artistically sophisticated buildings and artifacts jolted me out of this mindset. The tombs were filled with colorful hieroglyphics and drawings; the Temple of Hatshepsut was immense and mostly intact, the remains of an architecturally advanced civilization. Everything but the obligatory stop at a tourist shlock-shop was fascinating --- and even that episode provided some entertainment when an English guy paid nearly $500 (250 Pounds) for a spectacularly ugly replica of a King Tut statue. His girlfriend looked on at the negotiations (which started at $1,000) and whispered to me "I've only known him for four months." I think I was witnessing the beginning of the end of that relationship. In fact, I'm pretty sure of it.

That evening I caught the train out of Luxor to Cairo. I had a milkshake at McDonalds first, then walked to the station, declining the last three horse-and-cart drivers I would have the pleasure of being followed by.