Category: Thoughts on Antiquity

A week in Luxor leading up to Christmas — pure delight!  I stayed at the Maritim Jollie Ville (formerly the Movenpick), which consists of chalets in gardens of palm-trees, and ate a fillet steak every lunchtime on the terrace overlooking the Nile.  The steak, indeed, was only 6 GBP.   The hotel is on an island 3 miles from Luxor, and the management take every security precaution.  They also vet the taxi-drivers that are allowed to pick up passengers there, and have a price-list at the desk to which they must conform. 

Luxor is much more touristified than I remember.  The town has been cleaned up, and there has been massive investment, including traffic lights!  The west bank feels a little more like a theme park than it did.   

Tours remain expensive.  My operator (First Choice) wanted almost 40 GBP a head for a morning visit to the Valley of the Kings etc.  But it is still possible to take a taxi from your hotel to the Valley of the Kings for the morning.  4 hours cost 15 pounds sterling, for the taxi, not per person.  This was undoubtedly the way to do it. 

Unlike my former visit, it is now possible to visit Edfu and Kom Ombo; and Abydos and Dendera; as day-trips from Luxor.  However these must be done in convoys under police escort, although this is rather token.

On the other hand I had a taxi-driver that I hired at Karnak try to shanghai me and take me for a ride into the backstreets of Luxor, which was somewhat frightening.  Another that   Walking in Luxor, you are constantly accosted by taxi-drivers and Caleche drivers.  Indeed I went into Luxor Temple purely to avoid this hassle!  Returning to the resort was a relief.

Edfu temple is pretty splendid as the tops of the walls are intact.  I wish that I had more than an hour there.  Kom Ombo was interesting, but waiting for the escort for 3 hours was too long.

I don’t recommend First Choice Airlines.  The seat space was the smallest that I have ever experienced, and less still once the boor in front reclines his seat.  I spent some 5 hours in cramped discomfort, experiencing actual cramp at one point.  First Choice also encourages you to sign up at the start for expensive excursions which are non-refundable in the event of tummy upsets.  Naturally the most expensive are scheduled for the back of the week, when the bug is most likely to have struck.  I was a victim of this myself, having to cancel a trip to Abydos. 

One tip: wash your hands after handling Egyptian money.  The notes are filthy, and handling them is a prime cause of upset stomachs.  I am certain that I ate only with the greatest caution, and still had minor cramps.  On the positive side I did lose half a stone in weight — no chocolate, you see!

But a great way to spend a week in the dire run-up to Christmas.  The actual price of such a week is around 400 GBP; nothing much, in other words.  Recommended.

I first went to Luxor in March 1986 with a friend from college, and staying in the Hotel Philippe, where the air-con didn’t really work.  It was very scruffy, and we had to negotiate our own way to the Valley of the Kings.  But it was very special.

I seem to remember going again at Christmas time some time in the 90’s — my memory seems rather fuzzy, somehow — this time staying in the Hilton and taking a day-trip down to Dendera by boat to see the spectacular temple of Hathor.  What I remember best about Dendera is the temple compound, the mud-brick walls of which looked like a Hollywood set for The Mummy.  I also remember eating nothing on the boat — the plates are often washed in Nile water — and learning later that everyone else had been struck down with ‘gyppy tummy’.  I remember visiting Medinet Habu and being greatly impressed by it.

I’m going again soon, to get some sunshine and get away from the cold and dark.  I went out and bought some guidebooks, and learned to my astonishment that there are now armed guards everywhere.  I don’t know whether this will prevent me visiting Esna and Edfu, but I hope to do so.  I’d like to see KV5, the massive tomb excavated by Kent Weeks, which made quite a splash a few years ago.  They found two staircases in the tomb, but no-one ever said if they went down the second one.

Nokia have developed a mobile phone handset which can send and receive text messages in the Ge’ez script.  It is being trialed in Ethiopia, where the unicode script is still being used for Amharic.

If you have any interest in books in the UK, if you ever borrow books by inter-library loan via the British Library document supply service, please join the BL readers forum and add your comments!

My current  hosts for the Tertullian project have been fine, but they only allow me 1.5Gb of disk space.  I’m beginning to find this tight.  Does anyone have a suggestion of a reliable, reasonably-priced professional US hosting service?

The BBC reports on a sudden change in policy:

Libya changes tourist entry rules

Hundreds of European tourists have been refused entry to Libya after an unannounced change to passport rules. From the evening of 11 November, visitors without an Arabic translation of their passports have been denied entry, even if they have valid visas. … No warning of the change was given to foreign embassies. …

Switzerland has lodged a formal complaint to Libya after about 40 air passengers on board a Swiss carrier were denied entry to Tripoli on Sunday.

The travellers were forced to return to Switzerland on the same plane later that evening.

More than 170 passengers on board a charter flight run by France’s Air Mediterranee had to do the same. They were not allowed to get off their plane which had landed at Sebha airport, in southern Libya.

A passenger on board the P&O cruise ship Artemis has contacted the BBC to say the vessel was not allowed to land passengers in Tripoli on Tuesday morning for a planned day trip.