Abdoul invited me to ride along as he ran errands this afternoon. First stop the ATM for some pounds for my trip tomorrow – 3000 Egyptian Pounds. Next to the oil change guy. His normal place was closed so we headed out, down the narrow dusty streets of Luxor. I am starting to know my way around a little.  I sit in the passenger’s seat and think about how many tourists ever get to see 1/100th of what I have seen in Luxor with Abdoul. Women dressed in black, head to toe. rhythmically walking with baskets or boxes on their heads. How do they do that?

Off to the next garage. They were open. It was surprisingly like a Jiffy Lube, kind of.    Abdoul went into the rear area, where there was a sofa and a TV and bought a gallon of Mobil oil and a filter. Then he popped the hood and the mechanic went to work.

Investigating the store, walking around everywhere, taking pictures…..I heard a very unusual sound.  Playing from some pretty decent speakers was music. Not the chanting of the Koran which is ubiquitous – in restaurants, souks and in cars – but Kenny G!!   I listened carefully. Yep, that is Kenny G.  I was blown away. Seldom do you ever hear western music in Egypt.  And it was blasting in an Egyptian oil change shop!!

After the oil change was complete it was time for the obligatory interior cleaning of the car. The young service man opened all four doors of the car and removed all four floor mats. I watched him walk away and wondered what condition the vacuum would be in. There was no vacuum.

He returned with an air hose with the hose end crimped over in half, like you do to a water hose to stop the flow.  Then he flipped the hose open and using about 90 PSI of unregulated compressed air (in the US this practice is prohibited by OSHA) he blew all the rocks, leaves, dust and trash out from the front passenger’s side out through the driver’s side door. He crawled in and worked his way across to the driver’s side and blew everything out in a big cloud of dust. Then he repeated the process in the back seat. I thought “I never thought about doing that, but it works.”

Next he blew off the floor mats. Then we were off.

Stopped and bought $0.40 worth of fresh bread, about 10 pancake sized pieces of pita bread.  Then to Abdoul’s home on this side of the Nile.  I was greeted by his young children, Yousef, 3 and Rhakma, 6. They have been asking about me…..“Where is the big man?”

We ate spicy eggplant, some beef, beans, salad –  all was delicious. Abdoul rested on the couch and I again spent time with Rhakma going through her english picture book. Dog, cat, elephant, dolphin, house, apple, boat, etc. Rhakma is adorable. Yousef is a devil child and even Abdoul admits it. Took some great pics of the three of them. I thanked his wife for the wonderful lunch and we departed.

Now 6:13 PM, sunset and have a caleche driver waiting patiently to take me for a carriage ride for an hour to take pics for $4.00.

Namaste

Friday, May 13, 2016.  Luxor.

Posted online from the same room I had last week, with double bed, private bath, a/c, cable tv w/ CNN for $15.00 a night.  Ran errands with Abdoul today, getting the oil changed in his car, to the ATM, picking up his Rx at the pharmacy.  We then went to his apartment and had lunch.  Spicey egplant, a beef dish (cow killed yesterday) bread, and several other didhes.

I played with his 2 young children, Yousef, 3 and Rhakma, 6.  Rhakma and I again practiced her english using her picture book- dog, cat, bike, whale, house, apple, bananna, etc.  She is adorable.

The Sarah docked at Luxor last night, after dark, and I slept aboard.  The cruise was much more enjoyable returning downstream to Luxor.  I was familiar with my surroundings.  I knew the routine.  There were only about 20 people aboard vs 90 on the upriver leg.

There was a stiff breeze yesterday and it was delightful sitting on the top deck in the shade. We stoppped at the two temples – Kom Ombo and the Temple of Edfu, where I saw the Pencil Girl on the upriver leg four days ago.  Unfortunately for both of us, she was not there at the landing yesterday.  I planned to be very gracious to her and make her touting very worthwhile and write more about her.  I wanted to meet her.

The Edfu Temple was spectacular.  I enjoyed it more than the Karna Temple, the second largest religious temple in the world behind Angkor Wat.  After spending 5 days walking around the complex at Angkor 2 year ago, I must say that Angkor is much more expansive and more impressive.  The pyramids are another kettle of fish. The Great Pyramid is 3800 years older than Angkor Wat and it is a really, really big pile of rock.  It is mind bogling.

I planned to return to Karnak today at 4 PM for pictures in the evening light, but it is just too hot.  103 F right now, at 3:30 PM.   Monday, when I fly back to Cairo from Luxor, the forcast says  116 F.

Edfu was remarkably intact and I read that it is the best preserved temple in all of Egypt.

Took great pics, but until I download and learn how to use an app on my ipad to compress my high resolution photos, I will not upload pics. Takes forever and burns up my data.  Wordpress does not give me an option to compress file size like Apple does in their native iOS apps for iPad and IPhone. I will try to work on this over the next two days, as time allows.

Upon our arrival at Edfu, I approached Phil, the Aussie at my dinner table and asked him if I could tag along with him and his prepaid, package tour guide.  We asked the guide if he would mind and he replied of course not, as my baksheesh payment would be nothing but gravy and any money would be only for him with no middleman taking a cut.

We climbed into a caleche for the ride through town to the temple.  Phil, younger than me but not as agile, gave everyone a show as he laborously climbed aboard the caleche, flashing the lingering crowd of touts that surrounded the caleche with a big white Aussie plumber’s ass crack about 8″long as he attempted to climb board.  Midway into his second attempt,  I was forced to look the other way as I chuckled to myself.

I gave the caleche driver 20 pounds and the guide 50 pounds or $5.00.  A guide would have charged about $25.00 or $30.00, so it was a great deal for a guided tour of the temple.

Google and Wiki have some great images of Edfu that you should browse.

Wiki says :
Monument information:

Deity Horus (primary), Hathor, Harsomtus
Historical information
Period Graeco-Roman Period
Dynasty Ptolemaic Dynasty
Construction start date August 23, 237 BCE
Completion date 57 BCE
Architectural description
Construction material Sandstone
Height 36 meters
The Temple of Edfu is an ancient Egyptian temple, located on the west bank of the Nile in Edfu, Upper Egypt. The city was known in Greco-Roman times as Apollonopolis Magna, after the chief god Horus-Apollo.[1] It is one of the best preserved shrines in Egypt. The temple, dedicated to the falcon god Horus, was built in the Ptolemaic period between 237 and 57 BC. The inscriptions on its walls provide important information on language, myth and religion during the Greco-Roman period in ancient Egypt. In particular, the Temple’s inscribed building texts “provide details [both] of its construction, and also preserve information about the mythical interpretation of this and all other temples as the Island of Creation.”[2] There are also “important scenes and inscriptions of the Sacred Drama which related the age-old conflict between Horus and Seth.”[3] They are translated by the German Edfu-Project.

Contents
History
Religious significance
Influence on British architecture
Gallery
See also
Notes
References
History Edit
Edfu was one of several temples built during the Ptolemaic period, including Dendera, Esna, Kom Ombo and Philae. Its size reflects the relative prosperity of the time.[4] The present temple, which was begun “on 23 August 237 BC, initially consisted of a pillared hall, two transverse halls, and a barque sanctuary surrounded by chapels.”[5] The building was started during the reign of Ptolemy III and completed in 57 BC under Ptolemy XII. It was built on the site of an earlier, smaller temple also dedicated to Horus, although the previous structure was oriented east-west rather than north-south as in the present site. A ruined pylon lies just to the east of the current temple; inscriptional evidence has been found indicating a building program under the New Kingdom rulers Ramesses I, Seti I and Ramesses II.

A naos of Nectanebo II, a relic from an earlier building, is preserved in the inner sanctuary, which stands alone while the temple’s barque sanctuary is surrounded by nine chapels.

The temple of Edfu fell into disuse as a religious monument following Theodosius I’s edict banning non-Christian worship within the Roman Empire in 391. As elsewhere, many of the temple’s carved reliefs were razed by followers of the Christian faith which came to dominate Egypt. The blackened ceiling of the hypostyle hall, visible today, is believed to be the result of arson intended to destroy religious imagery that was then considered pagan.

Over the centuries, the temple became buried to a depth of 12 metres (39 ft) beneath drifting desert sand and layers of river silt deposited by the Nile. Local inhabitants built homes directly over the former temple grounds. Only the upper reaches of the temple pylons were visible by 1798, when the temple was identified by a French expedition. In 1860 Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, began the work of freeing Edfu temple from the sands.

The Temple of Edfu is nearly intact and a very good example of an ancient Egyptian temple.[7] The Temple of Edfu’s archaeological significance and high state of preservation has made it a centre for tourism in Egypt and a frequent stop for the many riverboats that cruise the Nile. In 2005, access to the temple was revamped with the addition of a visitor center and paved carpark.[8] A sophisticated lighting system was added in late 2006 to allow night visits.[9]

 

I am heading to the Red Sea tomorrow at 5 AM.  It is a three and a half hour drive due west through the desert.  Have a cab through Abdoul for 1000 pounds, about $87 USD.  It works out to about $10.00 USD per hour for the cab.  Will investigate further and keep you posted.  Will be going to Hurghada to eat some fresh seafood and spend the night at a resort.

Wiki:

The city of Hurghada was founded in the early 20th century, and until a few years ago it was a small fishing village. But since the 1980s, it has been continually enlarged by Egyptian and foreign investors to become the leading coastal resort on the Red Sea. Holiday villages and hotels provide aquatic sport facilities for sailboarders, yachtsmen, scuba divers and snorkelers. Hurghada is known for its watersports activities, nightlife and warm weather. Daily temperature hovers round 30 °C (86 °F) most of the year. Numerous Europeans spend their Christmas and New Year holidays in the city, mainly Germans, Russians and Italians.

Hurghada stretches for about 36 kilometres (22 mi) along the seashore, and it does not reach far into the surrounding desert. The resort is a destination for Egyptian tourists from Cairo, the Delta and Upper Egypt, as well as package holiday tourists from Europe, notably Italians and Germans. Today Hurghada counts 248,000 inhabitants and is divided into three parts.

Namaste,

abackpackandadaysack

Nearing Edfu. Will she be there at the landing? How. Much will a caleche be?

Now 1:00 PM. Thursday 5/12/16

Kom Ombo

A rose at 4 AM and then stayed awake to watch the dawn of the day. Went top deck just as dawn was breaking and met the Australian solo traveler, Phil, that I have been eating with at my assigned dining room table.

After several hours of cruising down the Nile we stopped at Kom Umbo to tour the temple there. It is not Egyptian as much Greco- Roman. This is the temple where on the way upriver several days ago the ship arrived late and I was unable to purchase an entrance ticket.

Skirted a few touts, bearable touting, as I walked around the temple which had been protected for centuries by silt deposited by the flooding of the Nile. The temple is unique in that it honors and worships two separate gods – one a crocodile god, the other a falcon god. Crocodiles were very prevalent in this stretch of the Nile prior to the building of the Aswan High Dam.

Departed 10:00 AM

Wiki says:

The Temple of Kom Ombo is an unusual double temple in the town of Kom Ombo in Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt. It was constructed during the Ptolemaic dynasty, 180–47 BC.[1] Some additions to it were later made during the Roman period. The building is unique because its ‘double’ design meant that there were courts, halls, sanctuaries and rooms duplicated for two sets of gods.[2] The southern half of the temple was dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek, god of fertility and creator of the world with Hathor and Khonsu.[2] Meanwhile, the northern part of the temple was dedicated to the falcon god Haroeris, also known as Horus the Elder, along “with Tasenetnofret (the Good Sister, a special form of Hathor or Tefnet/Tefnut[3]) and Panebtawy (Lord of the Two Lands).”[2] The temple is atypical because everything is perfectly symmetrical along the main axis.

The temple was started by Ptolemy VI Philometor (180–145 BC) at the beginning of his reign and added to by other Ptolemys, most notably Ptolemy XIII (51–47 BC), who built the inner and outer hypostyle halls. The scene on the inner face of the rear wall of the temple is of particular interest, and “probably represents a set of surgical instruments.”[2]

Much of the temple has been destroyed by the Nile, earthquakes, and later builders who used its stones for other projects. Some of the reliefs inside were defaced by Copts who once used the temple as a church. All the temples buildings in the southern part of the plateau were cleared of debris and restored by Jacques de Morgan in 1893.[2]

A few of the three hundred crocodile mummies discovered in the vicinity are displayed in The Crocodile Museum.

 
Took some good pics at the temple. Now nearing 1500 photos taken. Having problems uploading pics to WordPress for inclusion in blog for two reasons : poor cell reception in remote stretches of the river, away from population centers and (2) the photos are not decompressed. Need jpeg conversion app to reduce a large pixel photo to a less dense resolution. Burning up data allotment uploading to WordPress server.

Onward, downriver. Next stop – where the girl in the blue dress that lost the pencil will be touting. We will see if she is there.

It’s A Convoy!! May 10, 2016

Yesterday, I awoke at 4:00 AM to a blaring beep beep beep which I thought was my phone alarm, which I had set so I could catch sunrise on the Nile.  It turned out to be the ship’s fire alarm. I stayed awake and read, as dawn breaks around 4:50.

Today, I rose at 2:15 AM

Met the “handler” or the man that got me off the ship and into the van to Abu Simbel and back on the boat 10 hours later.

Left in a van with 3 rows of seats, 3 people to a row to a security checkpoint south of town. There were 3 busses, about 15 vans and four cars in the police escorted convoy. saw the police trucks at departure. There were three or four vehicles escorting the convoy.
At 4:00 AM wet set off for Abu Simbel, 280 km air miles or 300 Km by road south of Aswan and only 40 km north of the border with Sudan, home of the Nubians. The Nubians are noticeably darker than the Egyptians of Cairo. When the Aswan High Dam (funded by the Soviet Unioi in 1958) was built between 1960-1970, the resulting Lake Nasser flooded the Nile homeland of 120,000 Nubians. 50,000 were located to Kom Umbo and provided housing and farming land irrigated by water from Lake Nasser. Numerous Nubians reside in the poverty stricken areas of south Aswan.

 

Wiki says, in part:
The Abu Simbel temples are two massive rock temples at Abu Simbel (أبو سمبل in Arabic), a village in Nubia, southern Egypt, near the border with Sudan. They are situated on the western bank of Lake Nasser, about 230 km southwest of Aswan (about 300 km by road). The complex is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the “Nubian Monuments,”[1] which run from Abu Simbel downriver to Philae (near Aswan). The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 13th century BC, as a lasting monument to himself and his queen Nefertari, to commemorate his victory at the Battle of Kadesh. Their huge external rock relief figures have become iconic.

 

The complex was relocated in its entirety in 1968, on an artificial hill made from a domed structure, high above the Aswan High Dam reservoir. The relocation of the temples was necessary to prevent their being submerged during the creation of Lake Nasser, the massive artificial water reservoir formed after the building of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River.

notes made while riding in the van:

Good seat in van. Rear row. Lots of space behind seat – usually for luggage. Easy in out through rear double doors. Like small commuter airplane – tight no legroom.

70 mph, nice paved road but bouncy. Hard to type on iPad. Large steel electrical towers with 20 sets of wires are parallel to road.

Cannot see police escorts now. Saw leaving.

One way 3 hrs 15 min.

Dawn 4:50 sunshine by 6:00 AM.

Music, Bose earbuds, ipod, on shuffle for variety.

Drinking the OJ from Ali.

6:15 AM passed small oasis. All else sand rock no vegetation.

All aboard asleep except the driver.

Sign – speed limit 90 kph or 55 mph. Going 70 mph. Hard to type. Bouncy.

Barren, rocky sandy landscape dotted with small volcanic hills of decomposed basalt lava extrusions about 100-200 feet high. Heavily decomposed, they look like small cinder cones, with the weathered rock sloping at the angle of repose. From a distance of several miles, it looks like hundreds of pyramids dotting the landscape.

No plants. Nothing but rock and sand.

Ship’s box lunch nothing but read, jelly, sugar juice, bananna.  Ate the bananna.

 

5/11/16, 4PM

Think I now have it figured out.  I can now use my iPhone to access map apps, access the inet, skype, upload pics, download info, etc.  Again, without Moro’s assistanc and friendship, I would be fucked.

While at Abu Simbal today, 5/11/16, after a quick call to my unbelievable friend Moro, he bought me 7 gigs of data for my phone.  I am set.  Many thanks and three cheers for Moro.  Rah, rah, rah!!!

One of the problems was the settings on my phone (you need to be an Apple engineer to understand the functions of all the settings and their ramifications  (remember an iPhone is many times more powerful than the computers aboard the Apollo missions to the moon) but I still own AAPL stock and love their products.

I was using my iPhone as a hotspot to my iPad.  I would shoot pics with my new Sony mirrorless camera (25 megapixel per photo) then using a little dongle device, transfer the pics from the camera SIM card (64gb) to the iPad, which immediately recognized them as new and started uploading them, via the phone, to my web hosted icloud account.  The data allotment on my phone went to zero in no time transferring hundreds of high resolution pics to icloud.  When the data allotment went to zero on my Egyptian SIM card,  I was stranded with no inet and could not use the net to research solutions. I was forced to use the trickle inet at the hotel or on the ship.   I could not use skype, because that is via the web.  I was handcuffed.  I could make and receive calls in Egypt since phone usage (minutes) is different than data (mb or gb) and I had plenty of phone minutes, also thanks to Moro.  There is more to the story, but will leave it at that.

So, I am now revising all previous posts as time allows.  Adding pics, correcting errors, adding background info pulled from the web.

 

A similar thing happened last walkabout, which is why I received a $450.00 phone bill from tMobile after taking pics in Turkey and Nepal which were uploading to icloud via tMobile roaming – before I purchased a Nepali SIM card.

Such are the trials and tribulations of travel.

Yesterday I was at Abu Simbel, on Lake Nasser, 30 miles north of Sudan.  Have now traveled overland all of the Nile from Cairo to Abu Simbel.  Wiil finish the length of the Nile when I go with Moro to Alexandria next week.

Yesterday, May 9,  2016, an hour and a half after the ship’s posted arrival time, midday at the midpoint of the cruise between Luxor and Aswan, we tied up at Edfu, on the West Bank. A short distance away is the Temple of Horus and I feel a little guilty for not disembarking and bargaining for a caleche for a short visit, as my guidebook says it is one of the best preserved ancient sites in Egypt.  I will visit on the downstream cruise in several days.

The Temple of Horus was begun in 237 BC by Ptolemy III and opened in 176 BC.

The boatload of tourists disembarked. I had a beer, took a shower and hit the top deck for a dip. It was midday, hot, and I had the upper deck to myself. I relaxed in the solitude of the 2.5 meter by 5 meter pool. By the time I had enough time in the pool, the tourists started returning to the boat. Alone on the top deck I watched over the starboard railing as caleche after caleche (horse carriage) dropped off tourists and they ran the gauntlet of touts that were selling water, tour books about Horus, cigarettes, etc. I watched and knew I had made the correct decision. When the boat stops on the ride back north in several days, I will give Temple of Horus a go, but without a guide.

I watched as a young tout, a girl about 9 years old, unkept and wearing long soiled blue dress, tried to get the attention of the stream of returning tourists.

Look closely and you can see the girl in the blue dress.

Focusing on her hand gestures, a rapid tapping of her mouth and ears, I suddenly realized she was deaf and mute. I thought about her future. This probably WAS her future – begging shoreside every time a cruise boat tied up and the tourists poured out for the one hour visit to the Temple of Horus and then returned to five star luxury for a buffet dinner.

A european couple from the cruise ship were returning from the temple tour and both politely refused her pleas to buy whatever it was she was selling – it looked like small purse sized packs of kleenex, an item I witnessed repeatedly being hawked on the train from Cairo (think TP). The couple came aboard and must have gone straight to their stateroom, for soon the man reappeared and disembarked down the gangplank.  He handed the girl a small black plastic bag.  She gestured for money……money for food….. by rubbing her fingers together and then repeatedly touching her mouth. I see the gestures frequently, often made by children or old women. The man refused her pleas and returned up the gangway. I watched as she opened the plastic bag fumbled with several pencils and then thumbed through a small paper book – it could have been a small coloring book or a blank note pad.

She ran up the riverbank steps, past the line of caleches and across the street. As she was running towards some buildings and past several men, a pencil dropped from the black bag. She darted for the pencil and then I watched, aghast, as a man in his 40’s pushed the little girl rudely aside with his forearm, snatched the pencil and quickly placed it in his gallibaya pocket. She did not protest; how could she?  Accepting her loss, she turned and ran away quickly, clutching the black bag to her chest.

La, la, la (No,no,no) I softly murmured.

 

 

Note: text revised 5/11/16, correcting several errors, now that I have access to inet.

Note: (originally written before I got the fast inet):

In this environment with little or no inet, it is extremely difficult to write the way I like, with historical info that is a copy/cut/paste from the web, researching additional supporting info, history, etc.  Also, being unable to upload pics greatly diminishes, in my opinion, my posts compared to earlier travel posts on fishbike53walkabout.blogspot.com.

I cannot even get my iPhone to download data via the cellular network. I believe, but have been unable to confirm, that it is related to my SIM card. I think I need to buy additional data download packet, but have been unable to find anyone that speaks technical english. I cannot connect to any browsers or access mapping capabilities with my phone and even if I could, the connection, I believe, would break constantly. Only once in two weeks have I seen a download speed >2 mbps and that was for 30 seconds at 2.2 mbps. Normal download speeds, using the speedtest app has been in the range of < 0.03 mbps. It is similar to attempting to fill a bathtub with a faucet that only drips!!!

Photos!!

Internet, kinda fast @ 3 mbps, which is 150 times faster than what I have been working with for the last two weeks.  Imagine the possibilities!!

 

It was dawn, before sunrise, and I was somewhere south of Luxor on the water. Within two minutes of awakening I was on the top deck. Only a few early rising Japanese were able to outdo me. Light was good so took some pics of life along the Nile before the intense midday sun washed out the contrast and color.

Yesterday, just after lunch, my first meal aboard, I noticed that the small room refer was not operational. Wanting to keep my beer, water, pomegranate and orange juice cold, I went to the desk. They would send someone up to assess the problem. Five minutes later there was a soft tap tap on my door. Upon opening the door, I encountered three staff members. One in a uniform, two in maintenance work clothes.

They entered and I immediately noticed that one of the maintenance workers had in his right hand a 16 ounce framing hammer!! A fucking framing hammer to fix a inoperable mini refrigerator? No ohm meter, no tool belt, no tool box or tool bag. Just a fucking framing hammer!!

They moved the cabinet out from the wall and checked the plug, exactly what I first checked. Then they stood and talked, all three, back and forth, for three or four minutes. I wish I understood arabic, as I could not fathom why it would take four minutes to discuss what to do next. Simple solution – replace it with one that is working from an empty room and take the broken one to the maintenance shop aboard for the ship’s electrician to diagnose and repair. What were they discussing for so long? Then they abruptly left, leaving the cabin door open. Not a word was said to me. I closed the cabin door and 10 minutes later they returned and replaced the refer with one that was working. Problem solved, just as I thought.

This morning after breakfast I moved the mini sofa around 90 degrees, opened the large window/door, took off my shirt, and sat down to watch the constantly changing landscape roll away before me, distant from the chaos of Luxor and the aggressive touts, the incessant cacophony of horns, constantly dodging cars, motorbikes, donkey carts and horse carriages. Away from the trash, horse shit and unending attempts to get my attention and money.

The verdant banks of the Nile were passing before me, the distant barren rocky hills, the soft breeze rustling the window coverings. I took out my maps and books on Egypt. Alone, quiet but for the soft splash of the bow wake and the occasional distant braying of a donkey ashore, peacefully secure in the cocoon of my room.

On walkabout. Time for some Mozart…….

We passed through two sets of locks at two dams that were less than 2 km apart. The lift was about 15 feet on the first lock and much less on the second. The locks were  enough for two cruise ships to raise in the same lift.

Went to the desk to talk about getting the inet connection. Another gent, french, was also inquiring. I listened as the desk attendant assured him that the signal was strong, fast, consistent. He asked in the desk attendant in english several times and in several ways. Always the answer was “Yes, does not stop. Very good. No problem.”

I signed the voucher for 90 Egyptian for 24 hours, handed over the iPad and the secret password was entered. I sat down and tested the connection with Speedtest, an invaluable app when traveling. Download speed was the best I have seen in Egypt, >2mbps. So, I sat down and started to upload. The connection broke. Back to the desk to get the secret password reentered. They will not give it to me. This time I was successful getting “All Aboard” uploaded, but it was slow – the speed had dropped. Then the connection broke. The frenchman was also already at the desk, asking for his money back. I was assured by the manager that once the ship stopped, the signal would be strong and secure. We shall see, but I would guess it will be about the same. Will try pics upload.

Such is much of Egypt. Thank goodness I met Moro – friendly, helpful, honest, a friend I can trust. His only agenda is friendship.

I reflected back on my two visits to Luang Prabang in the north of the Lao P.D.R. No pressure, fair prices, no haggling, safe, friendly. The world is a big place.

Last PM, after running the gauntlet from the Sarah to Venus, I lamented to Jimmy about the incessant barrage of touts. He taught me an arabic word, I’m not sure of the spelling in english, but phonetically it is “la shoe qwah.” It easily translates to “no”. It can be spoken softly, between friends or with increasing volume as the situation demands.

I tried using it on an incessant tout. “la shoe qwah.” He continued to harass me. Again, a little louder and more forcefully, “la shoe qwah.” He persisted. “LA SHOE QWAW.” He departed and I thought “I cannot forget this word.”

Now moored ashore, the time for “Good inet”, per the desk manager. Speedtesr report: .01 mbps down and .03 mbps up. Thought so..

I feel like a blog Nazi (vs. the soup Nazi on Seinfield).

“No pictures for you.”

“la shoe qwah.”
“la shoe qwah.”
“LA SHOE QWAH”