Day
8: Nile Cruise : Temple of Edfu
A Mosque within Walking Distance for Everyone
This morning we awoke to the call of prayers from
the Edfu mosques (4:30 or so) I think the local Imams are being
extra vigourous to counteract the effects of the Pharonic temple
worshipers (us).
When we visited the Temple of Edfu later in the day,
there was a continuous broadcast of religious text over the wall
from a nearby mosque--not the call to prayer, but I think some readings
from the Koran. As we could not understand it, it made an exotic
background to the video and voice recordings, and I suppose had
the religious effects that the Imam wanted, so everyone was satisfied.
The Effect of Galabeya Night on the Local Economy
Anyway, early in the morning, beside the docks the shops were opening
and what were they selling--decorated galabeyas! The Galabeya is
a long garment, either with long sleeves as worn by the men of Egypt
or short cap sleeves that they usually sell to the women. I have
seen a double set on a man that had the long sleeved version underneath
the short sleeved version. This was at galabeya night, so I don't
know if they actually do that, but it looked nice.
Shops also sell "belly dancing" type stuff--bangled
bras and belts-- but they always display it over a dress so as to
be modest. Anyway the galabeyas made for the tourist market are
usually made in fine Egyptian cotton with all sorts of embroidary,
either machine made or hand sewn. There were some interesting ones
on display at the shops by the dock, and the shop on the ship had
some nice ones.
Breakfast and Water on the Boat
Buffet breakfast -- lovely feta cheese and yellow cheese, omeletes
made to order, olives and yogurts, cereal, all types of breads,
donuts, croisants, juice and coffee American style from instant
or brewed. On our boat Coffee was provided free with breakfast,
after dinner and, I think, at tea time. If you asked for it at lunch
it was an extra charge.
You can buy bottles of water at meals and take them up to your
room to take to the sites and to brush your teeth. Do not drink
the local water. It won't kill you, it is well chlorinated, but
you are not used to it and it might upset your stomach. Why risk
it when you are on vacation!
Bus Trip to Edfu Temple
 Off
to Edfu by Bus. Wow - Edfu has certainly changed. It is now completely
surrounded by a wall with the town having built right up to the
wall. There is a segregated market place with many vendors and a
security scaning set up at the entrance.
After you walk through the entrance you come to a visitor center
and a large paved area--not sure what it is for. Then they have
reconstructed a chapel where the local guides will let you blow
through a pipe to make the ancient sounds of the didgeredoo (wrong
country but same sound). This may be to counteract the Imams religious
readings, or perhaps the Imam felt the pagan "trumpet"
was too much, anyway, it too added a great sound effect to any videos.
 Edfu
is the largest, virtually intact temple in Egypt. It was built in
Ptolomaic times and dedicated to the God Horus. Edfu is the traditional
site of the final battle between Horus and Set, where Set changes
into a hippopotomus and Horus changes into a winged sun disk and
they fight it out. Horus gets his revenge for the death of his father
and Set is defeated. There are large statues of Horus and a complete
inner sanctuary.
The Vendors Market at Edfu, Nice Souvenirs, Surprising
Behaviour
As we exited Edfu, we were forced by the exit path to run the gauntlet
of the market vendors who could only be described as aggressive
and frantic. There were two "lanes" running in parallel
before you as you exited the gate. Go to the right, do not go down
the lane in front of you if you can help it, because you will end
up isolated from view and you will be detained by the vendors and
will miss your bus back to the ship. You could probably hire a taxi
or carriage or ask another bus to take you back, but if you ship
didn't carefully count it's boarding passes, you might be left.
Not a good thing!!
 Anyway,
the vendors at Edfu behaved in a manner that I have never seen in
Egypt before. They touched you, and held on to your arms and hands
and wouldn't let you go. They tried to physically move you into
their back shops so they could bargain intensely. They are trying
to sell small objects, scarves and galabeya, all nice things, but
they are trying to extact as much money as they can from you in
the short time you have before the bus leaves.
One of the women in our tour was pulled into the back shop and
ended up buying some things under rather stressful situation. She
was alone and the vendors got her to buy in Euros and she paid way
too much, but that was not the issue, that can happen, the issue
was that they would not let her out of the shop until she bought,
or at least that was her impression as she told the story!
Ken and I have some experience in the regular markets of Asia,
but I had never seen anything like this. No one was in real personal
danger, but in Muslim countries you do not expect to be touched
if you are a woman, it is frowned upon. As you can see in the picture
above with the guard, when he offered to be in the picture, he kept
well away from me, a respectful distance
.Anyway, I was walking ahead of Ken through the market guantlet
and he says that he had several differnt pieces of clothing thrown
over him in an effort to make him stop and bargain. One man offer
to shake his hand and then wouldn't let go. So to get away, Ken
told them that he wasn't doing the shopping, the lady in the purple
hat was doing the shopping, and he pointed at me. Cheeky and very
mischevious.
I, in the meantime has spotted a black resin (looks like stone)
hippopotomus and a small glazed horus. The vendor was asking 150
EP and I countered with 50. He came down a bit and I came up to
80, but he was bargaining hard and I was mindful of the bus, So
I tried to put the objects down. He grabbed my arm and would not
let me put them down. His assistant was trying to get me to follow
him into the back room. Well, his next move was to try to add a
another piece for 120, but I didn't want that one, so I said 80
for the two and threatened to drop them to the ground. He finally
agreed and let me go when Ken came by and started to drag me away
to the bus.
80 EP is about 13 USD,and I have never seen a hippopotomus before.
Maybe it was the only one he had and he wanted to keep it for display,
but I was not going into the back to see the rest of his stock,
no way!! Ken complained that we couldn't buy stone things because
of our weight restrictions, but I'll worry about that later. I like
the hippo even if it is moulded resin!
Writing the Diary as We Sail Down Past Esna
Back to the ship for lunch and sailing all afternoon. Writing the
diary up on the upper deck was very pleasant. We went through the
lock at Esna. No offers to get off and see the temple.
Dinner and then Galabeya night. Everyone was dressed the their
outragous "arab" coustumes and a good time was had by
all. We, once again went to bed early, had to be up early for a
7:30 start at Luxor.
Docking at the Sheraton on the Luxor West Bank
We sailed under the new bridge at Luxor and docked on the West
bank at the Sheraton Hotel. Our guide for Luxor called and asked
to come aboard to discuss the tour. He thought we might like to
go down to Abydos and Dendera via convoy or just to Dendera via
boat instead of taking the boat tour, since the sites on the boat
tour were on our itinerary for later in the week.
But we have seen both Dendera and Abydos and don't want to spend
the time in convoy---boring hours on the road and really didn't
want to see Dendera again--nice the first time, but once is probably
enough. If he had offered a boat trip to Abydos, I might have convinced
Ken. Anyway, I told him we would go with the boat group and also
return to the same sites with him.
 The
little gift shop on the boat was finally open when we passed by.
Actually there are two shops, one is a clothing shop and one has
jewelery, books and classier statues, etc. We have been looking
for a statue of Akhenaten and we found one in the shop. It is one
of the ones made for Egypt and European Museums in Germany, I think.
Top quality. We sometimes see them in Australia and have bought
a couple of the set there. For example the line includes a perfect
reproduction of King Tut's throne. And we had purchsed the only
reproduction of Nefertitti's bust that I have ever seen that actually
looks like the real one which is in the Berlin Museum. Anyway we
bought the Akenaten and a book about upper Egypt, a picture book,
written in French. I can read French, so that was OK, but later
we found the very same book in the book shop at the Luxor Temple
in English.
Travel Tip: I really recommend the bookshop at the Luxor Temple.
It is very complete and has many interesting books in it. It is
on the way out of the temple complex. |
