20 / 03/ 2007 (Part 1) - Luxor

I had a been a late boomer for blogs :) Was inspired by a couple of blogs, and then told myself "why not"? , so that I'll never forget the places i've gone to, and things I've done. There are lots of memorable events which I would like to post, but with my "elephant" memory and close to a period of 3 years since I am here in Bahrain, I guess I shouldn't try my luck :) Nevertheless, I think I should still give it a try and see how much info I can squeeze from my brain cells.... :)

Alright I will first of all start with my most recent trip before this information is gone too..... :P

Luxor ( 20-24 March 2007 )

So how come Luxor?

I went to Cairo 2 years ago and decided that I wanted to see more of Egypt, as the architecture and the history is just too amazing. Having some unforgettable experiences when I was travelling alone in the Middle East countries, I would prefer a companion. Though I've only flown once with Marie together to Trivandrum, chatted few times in MSN, she was very keen when I've invited her to join our trip to Luxor.... Yes, initially "our" trip, as there were supposed to be 2 more friends who were supposed to go together without Marie..but in the end, the other 2 friends pulled out...so only left Marie and I. So she and I were meant to be :P
Marie was very easy going, looking into the fact that we only had gone out once in Trivandrum and we hardly knew each other. What really pulled both of us together was our goals :-to experience the Egyptian culture in a backpacking style, in simple words, we are on a budgeted trip. Never did she once complain that we had to stay in quite a old-wrecking hotel, going to sites after sites under scorching sun, and eating in road side stalls. Of course, there were times that we had disagreements too, but we never kept them in heart knowing that we still need time to understand each other.

So a date was set. And we adjourned to Luxor via Qatar Airways. The journey from Doha to Luxor took us approximately 3 hours, arriving at 11.20am.

Now here we are - Luxor airport, grinning ear to ear as our journey begins....

Haha....guess why Marie was so excited about this "No Tips" sign in the toilet in the airport as we arrived??? Cos I've pre-warned her that when I was in Cairo, many of the Egyptians (especially those who deal with tourists) - they were very fond of asking tips no matter where and when...I'm just going to bring 1of our experience during our trip since we are on the tip topic.
Marie had this experience in one of the Museums in Luxor, where there was the same sign which was labelled on the wall, then the lady who offered toilet paper to Marie, asked Marie for tips, then Marie showed her the sign. The lady of course wasn't too happy, and answered "up to you"..... But of course, if you still feel like paying, cos there was no sign saying "no tips" the usual tip for toilet seemed to be Egyptian pound (EP1 = RM0.70)

I had a very good impression on Luxor airport compared to Cairo Airport. Well, think it happens in every country as the capital airport is always busier, and hence slightly dirtier as there are much more passengers, so can't expect much in Cairo. Luxor airport is extremely new and clean.

So who says we can't have a Rolls Royce Limousine? Ok ok. Mom says we have to be down to earth and shouldn't brag :) So we've decided to take a taxi instead...here we are going to the town.....After some bargaining, we took the offer of EP35=RM24 to the train station which was about 7km according to Lonely Planet. Btw, the exchange rate is EP1=RM0.75, and we had Student Card :P so all our entrance tickets are half of the price...so are the train tickets.... don't ask me how come i'm still a student.... :P it's for you to find out and for me to know...

Our MI mission was to catch a train from Luxor to Aswan at 5.30pm, so after buying a 2nd class train ticket costing EP18=RM11 we had like a few hours to kill before the train. Luckily, there was place to keep our bags paying only like EP2.5 for a locker - the key kept by us. So we excitedly visited our first site - Luxor Temple. The temple was just a road away, hardly 7 minutes away - walking.

Entrance Fee : EP20

Here we are : Inside Luxor Temple now. Behind me is 24m high wall, with 2 statues of Ramses2 and a pink granite obelisk. There were originally 6statues, 4 seated 2 standing, but now only 2 of the seated figures and one standing one remain. The obelisk was supposed to be a pair, the other one is in Place de la Concorde, Paris

Great Court of Ramses 2

This court is surrounded by a double row of columns with lous bud capitals

Avenue of sphinxes

Err.....what happened to the leg ah??