Posted in 2000, Cairo, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel, tagged Cairo, Luxor, train on June 22, 2008 | No Comments »
Journal: Friday 29 September 2000
We took our seats on the Aswan train leaving Cairo at 12.30am. We had bought first class tickets which cost an incredible LE60 (LE40 for me with my International Student Card discount). That’s only about £6.00 in English for a ten hour journey of 660km! The spotlessly clean carriage was occupied [...]
Posted in 2000, Cairo, Egypt, Local Customs, Travel, tagged Cairo Metro, Egyptian Museum on June 18, 2008 | No Comments »
Journal: Thursday 28 September 2000
Sitting quietly in the rooftop restaurant of the Ciao Hotel at breakfast this morning, by an open window enjoying the relatively clean air, high enough up for the petrol fumes not to reach us, Jenny and I were in a subdued mood. I knew that she was feeling the same about [...]
Posted in 2000, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel, tagged Add new tag, Feast, Malqata on May 17, 2008 | No Comments »
Journal: Thursday 16 March 2000
I had forgotten that today was the beginning of the three-day Muslim feast of Eid el-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice that commemorates the prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac to God and the conclusion of the pilgrimage to Mecca for those lucky or devout enough to go on Haj. [...]
Posted in 2000, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel, tagged snake-charmer on May 10, 2008 | No Comments »
Journal: Tuesday 14 March 2000
Jenny, who has a degree in Zoology, loves creatures of any sort and to my utmost horror, had persuaded Ibrahim to take us to see the snake charmer at his home in Luxor. Snakes come a close second to spiders in my list of phobias, so I’m not sure how I [...]
Posted in 2000, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel, tagged Karnak, Temple on May 7, 2008 | No Comments »
Journal: Monday 13 March 2000
While we were out and about in Luxor a few days ago, Jenny and I met a girl who was staying in a hotel called the Nefertiti, which she said was cheap and quite good. Always on the lookout for decent budget hotels, this morning we went to investigate. The Nefertiti [...]
Posted in 2000, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel, tagged Hassan Fathy, Luxor West Bank on May 4, 2008 | No Comments »
Journal: Thursday 9 March 2000
After spending our first two days here in Luxor on the East Bank, it was time to cross the river, a journey on the local ferry I never get tired of making. Traditionally and in my mind too, Luxor town represents the hustle and bustle of life lived to the full [...]
Posted in 1999, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel, tagged Luxor, Shopping on April 15, 2008 | No Comments »
Journal: Monday 25 October 1999
This morning Jenny and I walked along the Luxor Corniche to the Mummification Museum, a relatively new museum that I hadn’t visited before. It is housed by the river in a very modern building which is entered down steps to river level. Unfortunately when we got there it was closed and [...]
Posted in 1999, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel, tagged Coptic, Luxor West Bank, Monastery on March 8, 2008 | No Comments »
Journal: Sunday 4 April 1999 (AM)
It is Sunday and the last day of this trip. I don’t know where the time has gone, it seems like only a few days ago I arrived in Luxor, excited at the prospect of two weeks here. I have achieved one of my dreams - to spend a few [...]
Posted in 1998, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel on November 10, 2007 | No Comments »
Journal entry for Friday 13 March 1998
There was a partial lunar eclipse this morning and I had fully intended to get up to see it, but at 5.00am I sleepily decided that it was so partial it was not worth dragging myself out of bed so early. Robin and I had arranged with our English friend [...]
Posted in 1998, Archaeology, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel, tagged King's Valley, Luxor West Bank on October 21, 2007 | No Comments »
Journal entry for Sunday 8 March 1998
Robin and I spent a lazy morning reading on the hotel roof. We had had a late night and couldn’t stir ourselves to do very much this morning so we put the time to good use writing up our notes and discussing the kings tombs we had seen so [...]
Posted in 1997, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel, tagged Luxor West Bank, Wedding on September 30, 2007 | No Comments »
In the evening my friend and guide Hassan invited me to go with him to part of the wedding celebrations of a friend of his in the village of Kom on the West Bank. I’m not sure how long the celebration had been going on already but this evening, he told me, there was to [...]
Posted in 1997, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, tagged eating on September 30, 2007 | No Comments »
The next morning I had a message to say I had been summoned to the West Bank by my friend Haga Omm Mohammed who lived at Kom Lolla, near the temple of Medinet Habu. She had a gift for me. I was greeted with the usual smiles of welcome and invited to stay for lunch [...]
Posted in 1997, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, tagged , Luxor West Bank on September 23, 2007 | No Comments »
Haga’s other name is Omm Mohammed. Haga (or Haja) is a honorary female title given to those who have done Haj, the sacred journey to Mecca. Omm is the name given to a mother and Mohammed was her son, the first of twenty children she was to bear in a life of hardship and poverty in the [...]
Posted in 1997, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel on September 13, 2007 | No Comments »
On this trip we all seem to have made so many friends and met lots of new people. Egyptians are always so generous, they insist on you eating at their houses and meeting their extended families. It was difficult to keep refusing and making excuses, which seemed rude, so today Robin and I went over to [...]
Posted in 1997, Archaeology, Egypt, Local Customs, Luxor, Travel on September 11, 2007 | No Comments »
Up at 5.00am for another day on the West Bank, this time in a taxi from Luxor crossing by the car ferry. Sam and Eve were going somewhere else, so Robin, Jan and I had arranged with one of our friendly taxi drivers to spend the morning at the tombs. Our first stop was to [...]
Su's detailed descriptions and photographs of Egyptian Monuments
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