Ahhh, finally out of Luxor and at the ocean

Laura's post

We are so happy to get away from all the craziness of the touristy cities. Maybe we don't have enough patience, but we are both so tired of being hasseled by everyone we see. We don't know who to trust anymore. People start out by being so friendly and if you say no to them, they end up being mad and yelling. I've got the attitude of trust no one, and don't even look their way when they talk. Its crazy here. Too bad though, cause the sights are amazing.

And NEVER have I been to a country where there are so many men everywhere. Where do the women hide? There are women out, but the men out number them by double at least. Its weird. We took our 18 hour bus ride which turned out to be 19, which we were originally told it would be 14. There were 2 women on the packed bus, me and another tourist girl. So crazy. Packed full of men. After popping two gravol I was able to sleep soundly for a few hours, and we finally arrived in Dahab. (super close to Saudi Arabia-we can see lights of a city across the ocean) We got into a hotel room and was going to have a shower and we discovered the water wasn't working so we called the hotel guy and eventually there were 5 guys trying to fix out water. It was taking forever so we asked to get switched to another room, where I finally had a shower from the water trickling out of the shower. And just as I had my hair rinsed, out went the water. Who knows if it works yet or not as we left for the day and have yet to go back. Thats the next stop after this though, I am super tired and ready for bed. We plan on doing a lot of nothing the next few days, I need to nurse my cold better. I already burned through all the kleenex I brought and had to buy some here today. It literally smells like roses and has taken off a few layers of skin around my poor nose.

There is some great snorkelling here we heard, so we might arrange for a trip out to a good spot. Today we relaxed in some restaurants, drinking tea which is a past time of everyone here. All the restaurants along the ocean have cushions on the floor short tables, no chairs. Kinda comfy! And CATS! Cats everywhere. Ian, you would die here and Leanne would love it! haha. And Krista, I thought of you and Pawjo cause they keep water bottles on the tables to spray them if they come near you when you are eating. We were given a bottle of windex where we had supper! hah Chris figures the cat is sacred here, and I think he might be right. Never have I seen so many cats. I had one curl up on my lap this afternoon!

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying their "Louis Riel" day and the olympics. We haven't seen any of them yet, hopefully somewhere will have a TV with them on. 5 more days of Egypt, then off to Kenya! Keep reading, I posted more pictures after this

Chris's post

member that 'fishy' ticket to luxor by train.................well we went to train station only to find out that tricky egyptian guy had sold us a ticket for a local only train that doesn't allow tourists on it.............................now what a hassle as we got to station 1 hour before train left at 10:00 ish unsure if we were going to be booted off train or not?????????????? we even thought of trying to scalp or sell the ticket to a local but we decided we'd try and lady at train station said just sit in your seat and refuse to get out whatever the train ticket collector man says............................so we waited in doubt just about missed our train as i was told platform 10 so when train arrived at next platform no. 9 we just stayed waiting for our on next platform then luckily worrywart sawka asked a local and found out that the one next to us, about to leave was definately ours...................then in our frantic state we were shown our car by a local guy...........as i was too scared to ask train worker considering we had tickets for local only train and we were as white as could be so we got on wrong train car then started showing our ticket to a lady sitting in what we thought we our seats telling her she must move then she asked if we had the right train car(in arabic but we figured that is what she meant) the whole time secretly asking/showing locals only our tickets not letting train officials see it....................................oh brother we are losers as the lady was in her correct seats we were in the wrong train car! luckily we never missed train waiting at platform 10 as i was told never a dull moment travelling in a country where u cannot speak the language and hardly any locals speak english(depending wqhere u r !)
i wondered if i should pretend to be sleeping when train guy came to check our ticket but braved it and all was
okay he never said anything i had actually even joked to laura if she could make her self cry on command while i spoke to ticket guy and pleaded our case......................there is a god!!!!!!!!!!!!!! train ride was okay 11 hrs instead of the 9 we were told

got to LUXOR in the south and a girl in our train car saw our white faces and said she had guest house so we went there and it was nice stayed there 14.00 which was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much for a poor country, specially we never even got our own bathroom.....that was exactly double price, but it was just newly completely renovated and we had balcony over street and hot water plus basically our own bathroom to use the people is egypt hassle tourists like u would not believe cab drivers ask you if u want a ride and if u say no some of them start to walk beside you asking you why not or where u r going or just lower the price and kep asking n following yu........................we had one guy with a horse carriage walk beside us for litterally 4-5 minutes ........................it bugs the shit outta u but we r to nice and need to yell or swear at them more maybe...............i dunno first day we checked out some cool statues at this site with huge pillars and about a million outher tourists from all countries there......................many old people with guided tours rich europeuns man how they must get screwed over on prices!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh yeah first country i've been to since vietnam that locals will actualy ask 4-6-8 times the actual price for services other places we travel they maybe ask like 10 - 20% more then u begin to bargain but these are some of the most ruthless money hungry bugers u'd even see
laura asked at one hotel they said 250 egyptian lbs when she said we didn't wanna spend that much instantly he said he would take 150, dropped 20.00 in a matter of seconds but if we woulda paid it we woulda been screwed over.........................it really tires a person down and ticks them right off to be constantly hassled here plus the heat and crowded ness and dirtiness.......................surprising ole laura hasn't punched out any men yet.........haha me niehter i have raised my voice but that is it..................

oh i did swear quite good at some guy hassling a lone tourist woman walking by herself the men r such pigs here constantly laura get sexist coments n looks that too is tiring...................all in all this country really pisses u off u could say......................we both pretty much hate it kiinda feelin better bout it now that we are at the ocean town which is a bit more chilled out and less hassle..................less but it is still here

so yes we saw this huge temple site ......oh we got scammed on our lunch bill funny we sat eating watching this chinese group arguing of how there bill was too much i as thinking how mad i'd be if that was me and i was pitying them then we went to pay and sure as shit our bill had extras added we kinda started explaining it then i thought it was only about 1.40 so we just paid normaly for the priniple alone i would argue till the cows come home but it was just too tried n hot from an all night trian ride to have any fight left in me now that i think of it i am fired up and shoulda caused a scene as once again we got screwed over by those blasted egyptians!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! leanne if u are wndering laura got these meat roll up things and i wanted to order stuffed pigeon.......simply as it is local common food but they were out so i got this sliced up lamb meat is a greasey sauce with rice n veggies n bread and 1 salad although they charged us for 3...............those sneaky egyptians i tell you .

slept good that night then next day we went over to the other side of the river and bargained with man for ride to a site we explained we didn't want a guide he said okay then continued to hop into cab with us constantly hassling us for him to be our guide each time we said no so he'd just drop his price a bit and continue to explain why we should hire him......................then we had miscommunication they drove us to ticket office for price we agreed but we wanted to go to site 4 kms away so they wanted more money and huge argument(more over the principle of it than the actual amount of money invovled) finaly we agreed to pay them 1.00 more and the whole time the driver was no doubt swearing at us in arabic waving his hands in the air and he and the guide would pump each other up and get each other madder was really uncomfortable situation guide had spit fliing out of his mouth saying eh refused to take our money and blaming us but sure enough when we got t the actuall site we asked to go to he gladly took the money and again offered to be our guide us sneaky tourists kinda pulled a fast one on then for once well kinda we prob stil paid double to triple of what a local would and they simple wouldna taken us if price was that low i think they were mad as they thought they woulda screwed us over and we were 2 tourists that actually stood up for ourselves and refused to pay more! then guide said we couldnit bring our camera's inside, wanting us to hire him to guide us or watch camera and there was a sgin saying no camera's allowed we had no where to put them plus funny story in cairo laura lied about not having a camera and when the woman after the x-ray machine found it she freaked out on laura saying 'WHATS THIS???????WHATS THIS???' so we really didn't know what to do man it is nervewracking at times here anyways guy at entrance was nice and allowed it in we promosed not to use it saw 'valley of the kings' underground tombs they were nice but again what a scam in egypt as we paid 16.00 to go in then read on ticket out of all the tombs we could only go see 3 , after we wasted 1 stamp on a shitty small tomb, and after seeing 3 u'd have to buy another 16.0 entrance ticket what a scam! even worse was fact that tomb of king tut was an addition 20.00 ticket needed oh well we saw three and good ole laura one guy only partialy punched her ticket at one tomb so she actually saw a forth with the original ticket u'd have to get screwed over in this country as much as us to appreciate this but i was so proud of her to see an extra one for free.....simply for the priciple of it SHE ACTUALLY SCAMMED THE SCAMMERS! ATTA GIRL LAURA after that we had a problem we were 4 kms out of town and it had to be 30 - 34 deg cel and after our argument our taxi drove off on us all other busses/vans/ n taxis were hired by other people and waiting for their original customers well money always talks so our ride there was 2.00 and i tried getting ride back for that now guys asked for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more.............know we were stuck with no ride back yet their greediness also wanted the money so we simply offerred 2.50 and started walking down the mountain one guy agreed and after a few deep breathes as we were getting shafted we actualy joked and i shook his had n thanked him as he dropped us off(i know u r thinking that sounds cheap but remember the cab ride for over 45 mins in cairo from cab driver that didn't speak english n drove us to wrong place then finally train station only to ask for 2.50 and be happy for that..........................our 3 minute ride shouldn't cost the same price as a 45 minue ride it just shouldn't unless yer gettin screwed oh well! can look back now n laugh such ss travelling in egypt

once back in town had a tea met this man from Sudan that was mentioning bush's name them motioning a kicking motion guess he thought we were american n must not like them...............................our waiter said not to worry he was only joking but he really wasn't there are some people that are racist and hate westerners and this poor dirty mid 20's guy in a dress or whatever u call em was one of them! i had an awesome lunch after that huge mixed meat in balls and chicken piece n soup n rice n dessert that was awesome and overlooking the river which was romantic to have with laura...............................i am still proud she got an extra tomb outta her ticket......haha that's my girl we went to to our side of river and rented a little sail boat for 1 1/2 hours funny the guy first freaked out at our offer saying how crazy it was then when we started to walk away and he realized he couldn't screw us over for more he gladly accepted 1.00 over original offer smilling and shaking our hands he pawned us off on a boat with thsi 13 year old. and about 17 yo saying they would take us as he had other customers magically and couldn't take us funny the 13 yo was smoking and offering me smokes so how could i refuse one from such a young minor laura told him he shouldn't be smoking as he was so young a tug boat came along and hooked up about 8 of these lil sail boats hauled us all up stream past poor locals living in lil huts with donkeys n camels outside their places...............then we got unhitched from the tug boat and sailed back to the dock the 13 yo stripped down to his uderwear as laura n i laughed and climbed up the mast unsure why he had to strip for this???????????????????? was a fun afternoon evening we went for supper to an actualy funny honest egyptian guys rest...........................we had to act as interpreter for this chinese table that had ordered an entire chicken but was getting single servings of chicken instead and they wanted billed reduced........................then afterwards the guy came and asked us how much our bill was so we told him the honest amount and he made us sign his lil recomendation book with our home country which he used to show people in street to prove his rest was good and he was honest man.........................i spoke many times to him passing by days after actualy this supper was first night there days get confused this night we had a bar b q at hotel was awesome like a big buffet plus all gusts went to rooftop and we all chatted i met this cool old guy 'francios' was a lawyer untill his mid 30's then he quit to paint n write philosophyy books talk about a huge pay cut eh??????????? but he said he wasnt happy before and ore to life than money he is so right after suppe i went with american guy and how retarded we walked n walked the town asking at every store to try and buy a beer no luck one store owner seriosuly quite talking to him after he mentioned beer pretending like he didn't know english and motioned him out of his store all because he asked to buy beer??????????? welcome to a muslim country finally we went to rest that was open and had a few beer

met this danish woman living there that smoked 3 packs /day 3 packs can u believe she was quite drunk n humourous next day we slept in and got ready for a bus ride from hell 14 - 18 hours we went back cross river for our valentines dinner i order duck was the fattiest assed duck i ever had all fat and i fed it to this cat in the restaurant as hardly any meat on it.................it totally sucked but the views were nice and i am happy i took laura out to nice place she deserves that for sure......................heck she deserves a whole living duck for putting up wth me sometimes.......... we got on the bus and it was crazy long ride turn out around 19 hours now we r in room that we both agree r paying too much for first room had no cold water so after 1 hour of waiting for it to be fixed we moved to okay room but not worth what we r paying can get room at hotel with pool for 4.00 more so we may move tomorrow this is nice little town on red sea and we can actualy se Saudi Arabia lights across the water................the whole bus ride was desert here and huge mountains in background with amazing blue water and great snorkeling n diving here world class they say we will go in next few days

today we relaxed as tired from the 19 hr bus ride plus it is soo hot here gotta be mid 30's i had this meat pot lil clay pot filled with meat n veggies n spices n tomatoes with rice n bread and baba ganoush dip........i like saying baba ganoush sounds liek some crazy arabic name eh???????? anyways laura got kofta or meat rolled and cooked but hers wasn't completely cooked n she was worried to eat it i ate some so if she got sick lets we'd be sick together but i knew we'd be fine well i knew i would be and thought she'd be okay too. Itis like 9 hours lator and she is still alive n no puking so it'll be okay.....................the meat was actually tastey we sat n read in a resaurant overlooking the water watching people snorkel n hearing waves lap up to brick wall of rest...........................then we just finished an awesome meal i got mixed seafood platter huge fish fillet shrimp n calamari(octopus) all fried n butter n garlic with of course baba ganoush n bread she had shrimp the seafood is soo fresh here no doubt caught within 24 of us eating it prob caught this morning was waaaaaaaaaaaay overpriced at 25.00 but i considered it another valentines meal after our crazy long bus ride and laura is worth treatng so i am happy we went although fish was extremely greasey and as i went for walk to bathroom i really had to pick up my step or i totaly woulda shit myself. seriously...... it was a bit too greasy actualy but lotsa garlic!(unless it was related to that under cooked kofta of laura's hmmmmmmmmm) we walked to another rest on the water all are totaly over the water and at supper i could see fish in water we had a beer n girl there invited us to her b-day party n she is leaving in 2 days so tomorro we r going for beers plus i am NOT gonna eat greasy fish well gotta run finally enjoying egypt more got 4 more days of sun n fun on the beach here with my babe!