And below.... This is dried tamarind, seeds, stalks, leaves, the lot I am told. These balls cost the princely sum of 50New English Pence each so I am taking some home with me to see if I can use them for making curry!
We have done noises in the night,
In any Egyptian city and even in the middle of nowhere you will get the 'prayers' at certain times of the day.
This particular lot of prayers sounds more like a speech at a political rally, but the again maybe it is just that!
Certainly you can here it above the sound of the traffic...
And now a bit more about Egyptians... Egyptians always have something for sale, exactly what it is they are trying to sell is never quite clear... You know how it goes, you have just come off the ferry from the East Banks and immediately somebody will try to sell you a taxi, very cheap, very good price, Egyptian price... Having refused the taxi you will then be offered a boat to the East Bank, even though you have quite clearly just come from there... But it will be cheap, you know how much?No I don't know how much but you are about to tell me.. And if i refuse that I will be offered a felucca for a 'sunset hour' or Banana Island cruise...
If you keep on refusing various modes of transport they will usually run out of options and in the end offer you a cotton scarf...
Much the same happens with property, they stick a for sale sign up but nobody knows what it is they are trying to sell... And even if you ask you will not find out! And naturally they are having to sell it because they need the money, well actually they don't and this is another similarity with Greeks, many Egyptians own more than one apartment block.
Of course there are some that are as poor as church mice, but many are not, so we don't believe the sob story either!
And then there is the man that wants to sell the family silver for no apparent reason. Or at least a faulty reason... Take the man that has three apartments and wants to sell one of them to buy a new car.
Why does he want a new car?
Well at present he has a car provided by one of the tour companies and he is at their beck and call to take people from Luxor to Hurghada, (and other places), for which they pay him the sum of 200 EGP....The going rate for the trip is 1700 EGP but this man thinks that he will make a lot more money than 200 EGP by buying his own car... Wrong of course because apart from the cost of the car there are all the associated bills so unless he is going to do three trips a day he is not going to make anything, and in the meantime he has lost the cash flow from the apartment he has sold...
This same man is currently doing a bit of building work on one of his apartments and he needs 1500 EGP, (why is it always 1500EGP they need?), very cheekily he has asked me if I would like to make a future booking and pay in advance the sum of 1500 EGP... Why he needs the money I do not know but he could have saved quite a lot if sign writing because he has put his name and phone number on the outside of my apartment... Except that nobody is going to see it because there is a high wall between the building and the street...
And even more amusing the table in the top photo has LED lights inside the top and lots of holes drilled in the top... Why????
Meanwhile elsewhere in the 'garden' he has constructed a 'puddle' for producing is own bricks and plaster for his buildings..
Egyptians are naturally noisy as well...
Down by the ferry there is continuous shouting going on since they moved the arrival point for the public ferry on the east bank, an enterprising band of locals is now running an almost scheduled service across the river to the old arrival point by Luxor Temple, and many are using it because it saves a long walk!
And Egyptians are incredibly cheeky if you let them get away with it, this one (below) seems to think we are ''one''.... Which means it is quite ok for me to buy him lunch on a daily basis...