Luxor is a weird town. It seems to have been a favored tourist stop on the route between Aswan and Cairo back when Egypt had tourists. (There was an al-Qaeda-affiliated Muslim extremist massacre of 59 foreign tourists in Luxor in the late-'90s. It wasn't good for business.)
The first thing that stood out about luxor was its weird forms of transit, and their frequently questionable employ. Horse carriages, odd little boats, bicycles with precariously placed passenger seats ...
I asked a taxi driver about the many motorcyclists wearing flimsy construction-site-style helmets: Was it a cheap and easy way around a new helmet law? Yep ... Brilliant! The worst/saddest infraction was a FAMILY OF SIX packed onto a single, small motorcycle. The seating order on the 150-or-so cc motorbike went like this: two small boys sitting on the seat, the handlebars in front of them, their dad (driving) directly behind; behind driver dad was mom - holding a very small baby - and nearly falling off the back end of the banana seat; but her fall was being prevented by the milk crate strapped to the rear cargo rack - which contained her daughter, who was maybe 7 years old.
we walked to non-tourist backside of the main square. this was the entrance to the mosque, lined with sellers of fruit, nuts, incense, etc.
that's the mosque up there. it's actually built into/on top of some of the town's most prized ancient ruins. I somehow doubt they have a city planning commission. or zoning laws.
ann's hair was getting long, so was my beard.
for jim.
the current state of luxor's main police station (and environ, next photo) tell the story of luxor's current economic status.
this shot is taken from the main road in luxor. it goes - west bank (aka "Valley of the King") on the other side of the river, the Nile, east bank, road, luxor.
staying on the east bank (the main part of luxor), directly across the road running next to the river are these ruins.
entrance to Luxor Temple.
the backside of the previously mentioned mosque.
ann doing a hilarious impression of egyptian tour guides. "now i would very much like to tell you about the carvings you will now be seeings. they are, i think, very beautiful and nice! you see the ducks? there is very beautiful and nice carving on the ducks!"
all over egypt's historic sites they seem to be doing some rather dubious "restoration" work.
the next day, we headed a bit north (still on the east bank side) to Karnak Temple.
this site is where they filmed the famous chase scene with classic villain Jaws (tall guy, metal teeth) in the Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me.
it looked a little like this.
and this.
more of the temple.
in front of it, they're new souvenir/gift shops (thus the crane). the current ones are little huts.
later that night, we decided to take a sunset felucca cruise on the Nile.
because he came along before a (car) taxi, we used this caleche (horse carriage). you feel rather lame in them, but it's fun.
we could have gone to the tourist-y "dock" part of the river bank and easily gotten on a fine felucca (feluccas are little sail boats used all over the Nile region for transit, goods transport, fishing, and tourism). but no - we like a little adventure. so we went down this alley ...
figuring we'd find some boats.
and after some quick negotiations and a trip down this rickety ladder ...
we got on a boat
and with the aid of this boy and his father
took a $2, one-hour sunset Nile sailboat cruise.
up next - the west bank, leaving luxor, and our return to berlin.
