Egypt Part The Third 2022 - What's Changed, Random Observations, and A Haircut!

 I think I already noted that the public ferry route had changed going from West to East, well the ferry now lands a lot further to the north than it did before and now lands near the Luxor Museum and the hospital, I asked around as to why and the answer came back that the Corniche on the East Bank has been redesigned and upgraded to coincide with a 'state' visit by the President of Egypt....

And very nice it looks too.... All shiny new street lights, marble and stuff, but I have my own theory as to why they moved the ferry landing and that is because they didn't want the President seeing all the dusty peasants in their dusty djellabas wearing sandals with dirty feet in them.... I sort of suggested this idea to somebody and they looked at me and said 'You are probably right'.... (They did a similar thing in Aswan during my visit in 2017 when they cleared all the boats and horses away from the southern end of the corniche so the president didn't see them between the station and the Old Cataract Hotel, indeed at the time they were rebuilding the station as well!!).

I am not sure how long the new planting will last as Egyptians do not seem to be very good at ornamental gardening, but time will tell, at the moment everything is getting watered..

They have installed some nice little pergolas to provide a bit of shade as well, but for every plus there is a minus and with all the new superbright LED street lights you can no longer see the Temple floodlight at night.

As a well known symbol of Luxor you would have thought they would have made a point of keeping the street lighting low key around that area...

This work has been done since I was here in 2019, one does wonder where the money comes from sometimes....

Oil revenue is not that good these days and with no tourists because of COVID...

A bit of video with the lights on....

Something else that has changed is that there seem to be far fewer boat people trying to get you on to their motor boat or feluccas, and a lot fewer pesky taxi and horse and carriage drivers. Not only that but they seem to be less pushy than they were. Or maybe I have just got used to them!

An even bigger change is in the money! There are about 20 LE or EGP to the £1 sterling or GBP, so 1LE is not a lot of money, (the public ferry fare is 1LE or 5LE if you are a tourist), but there always used to be amounts after the decimal point so if you look at the receipt below, you will see the total is 56.50. But they have withdrawn all the small coins, shopkeepers never used to give you any change anyway but now everything is being rounded up or down. This is a big plus for lavatory attendants because the small coins, (if you ever managed to get any), were always used as ''toilet money'' or baksheesh. Now the lavatory attendant gets a whole 1 LE so she is coining it in!! (This is a bit like when Greece joined the Euro, you used to give 50 drachma as a tip but then along came the Euro and we are giving a Euro as a tip which is nearly 400 Drachma!).

And of course never give an Egyptian a large note to go to the shop and buy you something because you won't see any change.....

I mentioned djellabas further up, so something else I have noticed this time around is that in Cairo you rarely see a djellaba, everyone wears Western clothing, (or mostly),but as you head south you find more and more people, men and women, wearing more traditional dress. A djellaba is actually quite a useful garment if you are a man because if you want a pee all you do is squat and go and the djellaba covers everything up. And in answer to the question ''Is anything worn under a djellaba?'', (avoiding the Scottish joke), the answer is ''Yes'', usually long johns or currently thermal underwear!

And after seeing the selfie I took at Karnak without my hat on, I decided it was time for a hair cut and beard trim, not only that but the Egyptians kept calling me Ali Baba, one of them said I had a moustache like Ferouk, and he's dead.

So with the aid of a translator I took myself off to the East Bank to find a barber, 

Don't I look a picture and a bit cheeky too!

And another random observation.... I noticed on previous visits that there were quite a few foreigners here, that is non-Egyptians, who apparently lived here, with the much fewer number of tourists here it has now become apparent that there really are a lot of northern Europeans living here, notable English and Dutch, both of which races seem to get everywhere, but there are also French and Scandinavians as well, with quite a few Germans thrown in for good measure.

Some of these have been here for years literally, and more have arrived more recently such as the 75 year old Irish woman I met recently.

And for the girls I notice that a lot of them have much younger Egyptian boyfriends/husbands. See there is hope for us yet! 

Still to come is another look at food and a wander around Luxor, and a bit about Egyptian bureaucracy.

But I will leave you with a bit of Egyptian humour..

Taxi driver ''You want taxi, very good price, you know how much?''

Me ''No Thanks you. I am walking''

Taxi driver ''Like an Egyptian?''