After an hour here, we headed to the lesser visited Valley of the Nobles. These tombs seemed better preserved and we liked them more than those of the pharaohs. You can see them cut into the side of the mountain like in this picture:
Because each and every attraction required a separate ticket (pretty annoying), we saved money and snapped a picture of the Temple of Hatshepsut without entering.
That evening we watched the sunset on the Nile, but held off on riding on a felucca, despite the tout's best efforts.
One major downside of the day was continuously being hassled by taxi drivers, touts, and useless people demanding baksheesh (or a tip).
First the taxi drivers. These guys honk about 25 times as they pass you and scream "taxi" 5 time, which gets pretty tiring. If you do happen to ride in a taxi, the entire trip will be an annoying sales pitch of their services or the services of their brother's cousin's friend's camel-walker who happens to have a great alabaster shop you should look at. When it comes time to pay, the driver will never have any change, which results in another 10 minutes of waiting for them to find change. It makes you feel cheated and annoyed which really ruins your impression of the culture.
Next are the touts. These guys, mostly offering felucca rides, walk beside you closely and ask you repeatedly if you'd like to go. They don't understand words like 'no' or 'I already went on one' and accuse you of being rude if you ignore them entirely, generally finishing the encounter with some Arabic cursing. Lindsey told one she would take his card at which point she had to go down to his boat to get it, then he asked her to get on the boat, then he said he didn't actually have a card, then he went to find a pen, etc, etc. We understand that these people need to make a living in a fairly poor country, but it's absolutely tiring, and beyond any annoyance we experienced in Asia.
Finally, and worst of them all, are the baksheesh-demanders. These people perform some useless task that you haven't asked of them and then demand baksheesh, or a tip, from you. This could include pointing a hieroglyphic and saying something you don't understand, awkwardly standing in a bathroom and not doing anything, or walking alongside you and claiming to be showing you the way to something clearly marked. Any attempts to tell them you don't want their services are ignored and generally result in them getting angry with you (again with the Arabic cursing). In the event you do give them baksheesh, it's never sufficient, which again brings you back to the Arabic cursing. This really ruined some of the tombs and temples we toured, as we spent the entire time trying to escape them.
Enough of the ranting, but wanted to share and make everyone aware of the dark side of Egypt, specifically in Luxor & Aswan.
Our second day, we headed to the absolutely massive Karnak. The best feature here was the Great Hypostle Hall, supported by 134 towering pillars meant to resemble a papyrus swamp. This temple is usually plagued with tour buses, but we arrive early and again missed the crowd. We had some annoying backsheesh experiences here, but enjoyed this temple the most of our stops in Luxor.
Originally, the entire temple would have been painted, and many of the ceilings, still remained that way.
While we'd planned to stay in Luxor/Thebes for three days, we didn't find the temples to be as time consuming or interesting as we'd expected, and headed down to Aswan for a day.
The train ride proved to be another annoying experience that made you feel cheated. The staff at the ticket counter in the station refuse to sell tourists (white people) train tickets and instead instruct you to buy them on the train. Once on the train, they demand that you pay a fine for not purchasing a ticket in the station. A few other tourists bothered arguing with the conductor to waste his time, but to no avail, they just really love to cheat their visitors out of a few more dollars.
Getting off the train in Aswan, we had an interesting cultural encounter. Three Nubian women shoved their way off the train (stomping on Lindsey's feet in the process) and began a sort of screaming-howling-singing chant in a large circle of bounding people directly on the train station. Our jaws dropped and we looked at each other to see if either of us had a guess as to what was happening. A bystander must have seen our bewilderment and explained that someone had died and it was their tribal way of mourning. We wish we could explain this a bit better, but it was certainly something tribal and ancient to observe.
In Aswan, we walked through some Nubian villages on Elaphantine Island in the middle of the Nile. These villages were filled with colorful houses as well as cruder mud-dwellings. Lindsey picked up some henna tattoos on her feet in a rather awkward home where dead frogs adorned the walls and a baby played with a cucumber and hookah.
We had planned to take one of the famous felucca (Nile boat) rides here, but decided not to. We'd grown increasingly aggravated with the felucca touts and couldn't stand the thought of encouraging them anymore.
One last highlight was drinking a Stella beer, our first drink in an otherwise dry Islamic country.
Overall, Luxor and Aswan didn't live up to the high expectations we developed in Cairo. Next stop: Sharm el-Sheik for some Red Sea diving.
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