Egypt Part The Third 2022 - In and Around Luxor

 My ramblings, physically not verbally, around Luxor lead me into all sorts of alleyways as I take a gentle stroll around what is quite a busy city.

It is inevitable that these walks take a while because the Egyptians being friendly souls like to stop you for a chat and if I accepted every invite to take tea I would be awash with stuff. And then again even in quite quiet backstreets there is somebody trying to sell you something, even the occasional bit of hash!

I usually avoid the horse and carriage drivers as I am not sure that the animals are treated too well either during their working life or when they are 'breaking' them in, so by not using them I am sort of trying to discourage their use, but in this case I had beaten the driver down from 50 LE to 20LE so I felt duty bound to take it. As it was one of the boys was given the job of driving so he got a 5LE tip.

Apparently you can only insert a YouTube video in the centre of the page....

Luxor is quite an important place being a regional headquarters with all the usual government offices full of civil servants doing not a lot and queues of people waiting... But looking around there is a sort of university, I am guessing that it will be a branch of an American  or European University where all the expertise and materials are provided from abroad, rather like Greece.

But there is a Faculty of Art, and also a ''Tourist College'' although tourism is a bit of a dead end industry these days. (One of the boys in the hotel where I am staying is doing a catering course).

You can tell it's an art college because of the strange statues outside......

The area called ''Downtown'' on the map is something of a surprise as it contains a network of small back streets with a variety of small shops. For some reason the shops are all independently run, with a population the size of Egypt, around 100 million I am surprised that there are not more larger national ''chain'' stores.

The Downtown area does however boast the Law Courts which are open on Sunday, as is the Passport Office just down the road. The Water Authority also has an office here and a large water treatment plant which is an unusual addition to a cityscape! 

I found the Fire Station as well and it has quite an impressive array of appliances.

Taking a meander to the south there are some central shopping streets full of life and day to day bustle.... 

And also the railway station which for a regional building is almost as impressive as the Ramsis Station in Cairo!

I couldn't resist another video at this point... the most essential accessory on a car is the hooter which is probably the first thing to wear out as well.

The hooter is sounded almost constantly as a warning that the vehicle is actually there and is moving. At least that is how it seems to me....

A bit like Greece it is not unusual to find three or four shops, all selling the same products, next to each other... I love these dry good and spices shops because the smell as you walk past is amazing!

Note the plastic Christmas tree still in place outside the station.... Left.

Somebody told me that they usually take down the Christmas decs when the put up decorations for Ramadan and that is not until April...

I think they were joking

Miss Burger?? Makes a change from Mr Burger I suppose...

And the video below... If you listen you can hear the cigarette boy asking me where I am from, the usual question..

Certainly just wandering the streets can be quite entertaining.... And when you get weary there are cafes stuck in the strangest places....