The Land of no Top Floors, Tue, 08 Mar 2022 | written by Simon
Jemma and Simon at a City, Museum, River in Africa, Egypt

Our train got back to Luxor just before 10pm and our host kindly ferried us across to the West Bank. Villa Sunrise turned out to be pretty sweet and we’ve got the best room on the roof, with a direct view of the Luxor Temple from the terrace. Jemma has done it yet again.

Today, we got up at a reasonable time and walked through the fields all the way to Banana Island, where there is a beach. We got some guy to ferry us across (which involved some more dancing on a boat) and had a swim. The beach – and the whole island – was completely empty!

The guy then ferried us to the east bank, where we checked out the underwhelming Mummification Museum, went for a proper dinner, visited the market again, and then the Luxor Museum, which was quite good.

At the market, we popped in to see Muhammed, the fabrics guy I got the galabiya from. He was genuinely happy to see us, have us tea, and then helped us find a shop where Jemma finally managed to buy a dress she likes. Naturally, this involved another motorbike ride!

In the evening, we caught a ferry back to the West Bank and had a lovely evening at the restaurant of our villa, smoking Shisha and eating delicious fish right on the river bank.

And then, just as we were about to go to sleep… it started to rain! Just a tiny tiny bit, but still! It’s a big deal, since the average annual rainfall in Luxor is 0.0mm.

  • The contrast between the east and west banks of Luxor isn’t as big as in Aswan. Still, we’re surprised by how much agriculture there is directly opposite the city.
  • The view from the West Bank is way better, as in Aswan all you see is massive multis.
  • The noise is a bit better, but mainly because you can’t hear the train.
  • We have a rooster somewhere behind our building, and it is a very Egyptian rooster, dawn or night.
  • More hassling at the market, but we are getting better at ignoring it.
  • People keep insisting to take us to ships which sell papyrus.
  • People don’t seem to get the concept of ‘I don’t need this’ – as if lowering the price would convinced us to buy something we don’t need at all.
  • We don’t know who buys all those over the top bling dresses, since all women in the streets are dressed in very basic ways.
  • People generally dress not very interestingly.
  • The gloriously misspelled boat names are really fun.
  • We keep spotting interesting birds: ibis, herons, and funny little black and white fellows able to give like hummingbirds.
  • Sahlab is amazing!