Thomas Cook Yaller Yaller

We took the Thomas Cook Nile cruisewhich involved a surpriseng numbeer of aeroplanes. Starting in cairo I was surprised to be visiting the pyramids on day one thinking that Cooks were risking the rest of the tour being an anti climax. I neeed not have worried, Cook's had it right. The wonders of the Nile are not to be missed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1 Thomas Cook

I'm not going to give you long descriptions of Pyramids or paintings, tombs or temples. Its not that they are not worthy of mention, they are magnificent. The guide books art books and history books will do it better than I. Unfortunately for you dear reader even the best of them will not adequately prepare you for the mind blowing magnificence that the Egyptians were able to achieve 2, 3, 4, or even 5 Thousand years ago.
I'll try to fill in where the guides leave off and relate the nuggets that I found particularly entertaining.
As you know, Meg and I are something between the travellers represented by Steve and Karen and the luxury tourists represented by Amanda and Arthur. We normally take unplanned camping trips
So what are we doing on a Cook's tour? Well S & K found dealing with the Egyptians tiresome, we were not particularly interested in how the modern Egyptians were passing their time and we had some rave reports from friends Helen and Cliff who took their honeymoon in this fashion last year.

Thomas Cook are expensive but they do make a fair attempt to earn their crust. It was a degree of attention very novel for us. At Heathrow we are met by a car park attendant who is spotting numberplates, he whisks the car away. At the check in desk. Amr, our tour manager relieves us of :-
1) our luggage
ii) our passports
iii) our need to queue
He will ensure that we get window seats. We inspect our fellow travellers and fail to make conversation with a pair of Scots.
"Hello are you on the Treasures of the Nile with Thomas Cook?"
"Yes"
"So are we, I'm Dave and this is Meg"
"Hello"
"Have you come down from Scotland this morning"
"Yes"
"We are really looking forward to this trip! Have you been with Thomas Cook before?"
"No!"
You may find this rather one sided conversation a bit boring, its significance will be revealed in a few days.
Air Egypt serve no alcohol, poor food and show dreadful in flight videos. We dodge the queues at Cairo and are whisked into the Semiramis, a sumptuous hotel that has greater security than Heathrow. We are to learn later that recently, the pianist sprayed the staff and guests with sub machine-gun fire in a fit of jealousy over a woman. We are assured this had nothing to do with the religious fundamentalists that are shooting tourists in some other part of Egypt. We dine in a very interesting Pasta restaurant where you choose your pasta and the constituents of the sauce separately and the chef then creates a deliciously fresh meal. Egyptian red wine called Omar Kyam at 26 £E per bottle is quite drinkable. £1 = 5£E.

Day 2 and we are seated on our coach but our Egyptologist hasn't shown up. We don't panic, Amr doesn't panic but goes off to make some urgent telephone calls. The hotel security doesn't exactly panic but become very fidgety. Yasser Arafat and other dignitaries in the PLO are meeting the Israelis in one of the Hotel conference suits and an unplanned bunch of tourists are a complication. Some of the conference guests leave, dressed in colourful Arab costumes with ceremonial daggers they look incongruous as they are hustled into stretch limos by beefy bodyguards with bulging jackets then motorcaded into the Cairo traffic. Amr returns to announce that Hassan cannot be found but he has enlisted the services of Mohammed who we will pick up en-route to the Pyramids.

Mohammed flags down the coach and instantly impresses us. An egyptologist with several degrees from Cairos 17 universities. He has worked as Superintendent of the Giza pyramids, led excavations and actually discovered an unraided tomb. Appears on TV and is having another book published later this year. The standard of living is so different from ours that no matter how well qualified you are, to be associated with the filthy rich tourists is far more lucrative than working.
Mohammed had just finished a tour and was supposed to be spending a fortnight with his family when Hassan went missing but when Amr called he could not afford to dis-oblige Thomas Cook. We become ever more grateful for our good fortune as the tour progresses.
The last kilometre is to be made on camels. You perch precariously one the one hump. The hump is too wide to straddle like a horse so you sit feet forward grasping a single pommel. The camel then gets up rear feet first then sets off. The motion is more like a ship floundering in a storm than a horse or donkey ride. On arrival the camel kneels with its rear legs extended whist the driver negotiates his baksheesh. The camel driver demands an exorbitant amount as we were warned even though we all know that he has been well paid by Amr. We have been advised the they will be well pleased if they can get a further E£3 out of us. They do but if that's what they look like when they are pleased they must look interesting when they are depressed. We pay our E£3 but several "Treasures" pay more, toppling forward on a camel that is neither up nor down is not a good negotiating position. The concept of change is apparently not generally understood. The camel drivers give way to the vendors.
"Arab head dresses E£10"
"Postcards E£10"
"Toy camels E£10"
I want some postcards so get the cards, camels and scarf for a total of E£5. To my surprise I am to wear the scarf almost continually during the holiday. Its the coolest sun protection I have come across by far. The inner recess of the great pyramid is reached by a series of sloping passageways that are only four feet high. The interior lacks decoration but the geometry is ingenious. There are far less tourists than we expected this is to be repeated throughout the trip. Most of the cruise boats we see are moored and empty.
We visit Saquarra site of the first pyramid, the stepped pyramid. Mohammed reveals his knowledge and more importantly his ability to communicate. He loves the subject and it is infectious. In ancient Egypt kings were buried in Mostaphas. These are single storey buildings rectangular in plan. All buildings were made of wattle, mud bricks bound with straw. Roofs were usually rushes. As it never rains anything more substantial in superfluous as far as protection from the weather is concerned. But tombs were robbed and so in 2700BC when Zosser hired Imhotep to prepare him a Mostapha he had the idea of using stone. You don't imagine anyone having to invent stone as a building material do you? We were still in caves, others used wood. So Imhotep built the embalming rooms and the first ever stone building is there for all to see.

"The Egyptians invented it first" becomes one of Mohammed's rallying cries.
Imhotep then set about work on the Mostapha and a good Mostapha it was too, but Zosser was still fit and well. Now when you did good work for a pharaoh they generally executed you so you couldn't do one even better for someone else. Imhotep was a bright lad and suggested that Zosser might like another Mostapha on top of the original. Zosser agreed and was alive and well on its completion.

Imhotep believing that a good idea was worth repeating continued to pile mostapha on top of mostapha until he had a pyramid of sorts. Of course once Zosser had one, all the Kings that followed wanted one. Interestingly you are not allowed to build a bigger pyramid than your father out of respect. The higher levels of the pyramids are constructed using long earth ramps, one on each side. By the time the pyramid is complete it is underground and the the earth must be removed to reveal the architects handiwork. Mohammed had arranged the tour so that we arrived at the stepped pyramid just as the sun was setting. All the other tours have long gone, we are alone, it is magic. Pharaohs could rule for thirty years then had to demonstrate their fitness to continue by dancing before the statues of thirty gods all of which must give their approval. In teaching us the history, Mohammed frequently uses tourists as props. He selects me as Pharaoh when making this point and I wonder if I am going to get the chance to dance?, no!, pity, I reckon that I'm the only male on the tour who would have made Pharaoh. Meg of course would have reigned for ever. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__Chapter2 €

Cairo

16 million people live in the city and another million travel in to work. The city simply is not big enough. Day and night the streets are thronged because the houses are too small. The average family has seven children. Parents need children to care for them in their old age. Education and health services are provided by the state. Rents are controlled but buying a house is beyond all but the very rich and landlords get round rent control by demanding key money. Schools operate a shift system. Children go either in the morning or afternoon, often in classes of 60. The teachers on the tour who are many, wince at the thought. We are shown a middle class district, by our standards we would call it derelict rather than a slum. Side roads are rutted mud, facades are patched up but the rest of the structure looks on the verge of collapse. Earthquakes demolished large areas but the buildings that were "just" seriously damaged continue to be inhabited. Traffic congestion is serious as is air pollution, the pyramids would have been visible from the hotel balcony if it were not for the haze. Our balcony looks over the Nile towards the Cairo tower.

We set off on foot after dinner and reach it by a series of my famous short cuts. I even manage a "shortcut" on the ascent of the tower itself for after exiting the lift and taking to the ladders we go too far and finish up above the illuminated section and amid building rubble. At 64 stories the view is wonderful. The tower stands at the tip of the island that marks the start of the Nile delta. The route back is devoid of short cuts but involves some death defying crossings of the busy roads. The population on the outskirts of Cairo live in mud huts strung along the irrigation canals. The bare-foot laughing children play in the canal alongside the family's buffalo. Most have a donkey which which is much cheaper than a camel. Goats come below donkeys. I have heard that families that own three goats won't be seen dead talking to families with only one goat but this may be mythology

Cairo Museum is magnificent we are thrilled by the gold and blue splendour of Tut Ank Amun whose tomb was found intact as a result of the entrance being buried in rubble from the excavation of the tomb of Ramses III. We visit the tomb later and are amazed to find it smaller than our ground floor. It must have been absolutely stuffed with treasure. Mohammed confirms that TUT was not all that important as a Pharaoh added to which he died at 18 so hardly had time to amass any significant wealth. We get to know some of the Gods and why the Pharaohs are so obsessed with the after life and why all the statues stand with their left feet forward.
All their time in this life is spent getting ready for the second life. No work can be done on your tomb after you are dead and there are all sorts of obstacles to imortality. If for instance one of your enemies defaces your statue, or they simply remove your name. If you avoid that, after death your heart is weighed against a feather. If your heart is heavier it is fed to the lion or the crocodile, if its lighter your in, provide no one has stolen the four vases that contain your liver, lungs, stomach and ?? You don't require your brain which is discarded during mummification. You are instructed to "Follow your heart" by a message written where your eyes will light when you awake.
The mummy room has just been re-opened for the first time in ages and we get the chance to see some of the individuals we are coming to know. They look remarkably fit for their age.

We visit a perfume factory where we smell the natural essences from which all the expensive french perfumes are made. The factory sells beautifully shaped , decorated perfume bottles the Thomas Cookers consume them as ideal presents. Next to a papyrus factory, even better presents and a demonstration on how you make papyrus (simply by squeezing) and how to tell real papyrus from banana which we are assured all the vendors will try to sell us. The papyrus are covered with beautiful hand painted scenes. The only difficulty is choosing which ones to buy. Its a bit like desert island discs, you can only have eight and their are hundreds you like. I am particularly fond of Anubis the god of embalming. He always appears as a Black Jackal with ginormous ears and in some pictures looks vilely evil. Meg chooses a large scene of entering paradise, we both like a band composed of three lovely instrumentalists.
Later in the tour we find scent bottles and genuine papyrus much cheaper than in Cairo but understand that Cook's have an obligation to use the government owned establishments

Back in the hotel for our last night we have a romantic dinner in the grill overlooking the Nile. I frisk the pianist on the way in but he is clean. The traffic crossing the bridge is madder than the mobile congestion of the day. Lights it would appear are an optional extra. We have a relatively early night as our morning call is scheduled for four AM.__________________

___Chapter 3

Aswan Damn!

Thomas Cook Attack!!! You think your on holiday but in fact you have joined an assault course. We get up at 03-00AM. If it had been my suggestion I would have been lynched. Because we have paid an arm an a leg its O.K. for Amr to start our day 3 itinerary at this unearthly hour. By lunch time we will have had three flights, visited two temples at Abu Simbel and joined our cruiser. Do we get the afternoon off? Do we hell as like, there is another temple and visits to two Damn dams.
Aswan is one and a quarter hours by air due south up the Nile. For the whole of this distance, not a single tributary joins the main stream. I had wondered in Cairo how a 4,000 thousand mile river could be so narrow. Aswan is the navigable limit from the Mediterranean due to the cataract. The English built the first dam here and had to move the temple of Isis to an island in the process. Isis was, amongst other things, famous for gathering together the pieces of the dismembered Osiris and bearing him a son, Horus, in spite of not finding the part that you would have thought she most needed. The island isn't quite long enough so they had to bend the temple slightly when they re-erected it. In 1952 we had fallen out with Egypt over Suez so Gamul Abdul Nasser asked the Russians to build a much bigger dam and move the much bigger temples of Ramses II and queen Nefertari in the process. Lake Nasser, formed by the dam has stopped the annual flooding of the Nile and ensured a constant flow of the equatorial rains. The source of the Nile is Lake Victoria, Abu Simbel is just south of the tropic of Cancer. This is one hell of a river. The three flights are notable for the Air Egypt landing technique which seems to owe something to Barnes Wallis. At Aswan airport I imitate Air Egypt when I by pass the slow moving crowd using a flight of steps by using a polished marble ramp. I fall, landing on a bottle of duty free brandy and a glass bottle placed in our hand baggage by Meg to avoid the rough handling that suit cases receive. The brandy and the delicate bottle survive but my rib takes a hell of a whack of which more later.
They are still trying to evaluate whether the Russian dam is a good thing. The pros are easy, hydro electricity for all and some left over to export. Constant level of the Nile, the dam holds over three years supply. plenty of fish. The cons are harder. No floods means no silt and the Egyptians have never needed fertilisers because the Nile changed the top soil every year. The water table has risen, which is undermining the foundations of many of ancient temples.
We are now in continual close proximity with our fellow tourers and are getting to know them. We'd like to see Aswan but neither todays or tomorrows itinerary allow it and we sail tomorrow afternoon. Ten of us set out after dinner for the bazaar.
"You 'll be O.K. if you stick together" we are advised. After five minutes we have lost them all as our fancies take us into different shops. Meg has a specific purchase in mind. Shabti for Dave her lab technician. Dave is a member of the British Egyptological Society who because of his health may never visit the place. He had furnished us with all manner of books and videos prior to our trip. Shabti are small models of craftsmen and workers that were interred with the Pharaoh so that he would have the necessary staff in the after life. Dave deserved a decent example. We came across Hassan who lit up at the prospect of someone who wanted something other than cats or scarabs or papyrus. Hassan is from upper Egypt, the lower Egyptians tell Upper Egypt jokes in the way we tell Irish jokes. He has much darker skin and is probably Nubian rather than Arab. He blew the dust off shabti after shabti and the haggling commenced. Our main problem was to convince him we did not want a wheelbarrow full.
"Its just one I want, for a friend"
"Don't you like him?"
"I don't even know him"
"I thought you said he was a friend?"
"He's Meg's friend"
"And you want a present for him?"
"I have a special price for four"
"I don't want four"
"Do you only have one friend? How many children do you have?"
"Two children, lots of friends, only one shabti"
"Trade has been very bad this year, would you like some tea?"
We drink tea and discuss our families and the effect of the religious fundamentalists on the tourists. Hassan would really like an outlet for his goods in England.
"Would we like to be partners and sell his goods in England?"
We look more closely at his stuff.
"Well actually its a bit too good for general souvenirs"
"Too good, how can it be too good?"
"Well most of the souvenirs sold in English holiday resorts are rubbish, things that no one in their right mind could possibly want."
"What do they do with them?"
"Put them on a shelf and dust them for the rest of their lives or, take them to a car boot sale"
Hassan finds the behaviour of the westerner as portrayed by me difficult to comprehend. Meg sympathises and explains that my opinions are considered eccentric by right thinking Englishmen.
We drink our tea, buy our shabti, accept gifts of cats and scarabs for our children and promise to write. The significance of the scarab beetle is characteristic of the delightfully simple science of the very artistically talented Egyptians. The sun was of tremendous importance, but how did it get across the sky? The scarab beetle pushes a ball of eggs through desert, therefore there must be a big beetle behind the sun! Obvious when you think about it. The scarab now signifies rebirth and life continuing. Hassan shows us the quickest way back to the river and we board after midnight. Did we really get up at 03-00 A.M.? The rest of our raiding party all returned safely some time ago and the remnants are into serious drinking on the moon deck. They have been studying the evening entertainment program. Tomorrow night, no that should be tonight there will be a cocktail party, tomorrow there will be Nubian dancers and the day after sketches by the groups and a jelabia party. Serious jelabia purchasing is added to our already overcrowded schedule.
Mohammed has arranged a visit to Kitchener Island, an extraordinary mixture of plants and birds, I do wish I'd brought a field guide, and vendors. There is a great panoramic view across the Nile to Aswan from the top. We attack the vendors, Dave and I reckoning that we have more bargaining power in a large group. They want E£80 for various jelabias that look like discarded deck-chair designs. I quite like a blue and green one. The price tumbled to 25, I sense my colleagues weakening and tell the vendor that we are off to the top of the hill and he has half an hour to reconsider my final and amazingly generous offer of E#15 and turn on my heel. Dave calls after me that the price is down to E£20 and the traitor buys my blue and green jelly-baby. I seriously consider sending him to Coventry for the rest of the trip but on consideration decide it will be sufficient to get one for E£19. On returning from the top I prepare for battle but soon find myself wearing a four-piece outfit plain white with heavy Nubian embroidery. I feel great in it but it costs E£200 and that's after some heavy bargaining. I am assessing my chances of getting him down to E#100 when Meg keeps saying "When are you going to wear it" rather un-helpfully. The vendor is shooing her away like an unwanted pigeon. He smells a sale. Meg's very attractive two piece cost E£50 and I am sure she will wear it several times. My problem is that if I don't but my Sheikh of Araby kit I don't like the deck-chair any more. I wind up with one of the four pieces for E£40 and the disillusioned vendor kisses me goodbye.
Chapter 4

Two Headless Horus for E£20

"What is this Sketches by the Groups?" Meg and I ask Mohammed on the way to breakfast.
"Each of the tour parties must put on a sketch to entertain the others, nothing too serious, just to make people laugh"
"Just for a laugh, no more than a couple of minutes then?"
"No, they should last about twenty minutes and at the end of the evening, the jury decide which is the best"
"I see.....any bright ideas?"
"Yes, the guides have to make sure that two groups don't do the same thing so I'd like you to do a sketch based on a guide taking a group of tourists round the Cairo museum. The guide should get all the names wrong, the tourists should ask awkward questions, get lost and we need a vendor to sell them souvenirs. I think you should be the guide Dave"
That's what you get for being the first person to ask what it was all about.
Mohammed wants to know who we should press into taking the other parts, so Meg and I become casting Directors.
The tour manager? I suggest Vimal.
"Too short protests Mohammed, Amr is much taller than me"
"There is only a choice of one if height is the criteria so Chris joins the casting committee.
The Vendor? Only one choice again we agree on Bill and Meg returns from informing him to say that before she had finished he had sold her the salt and pepper pots as headless Horus for E£20. Bill was the dour scot at the airport who has come out of his shell on an E-type camel.
The gullible tourist? Donna natch.
The lost tourist? Stella, not type cast but she'll do it well.
The tourist burdened with cameras? Dave has about ten slung round his neck normally.
The one asking awkward questions? Seems made for Meg.
Mohammed will ask me how to spell every word I say.
Casting is a piece of cake, Mohammed seems pleased.
"Who will play the exhibits?" I ask.
"We don't need Exhibits" says Mohammed.
"We must have exhibits we all agree"
Mohammed looks slightly less happy.
We need two goddesses. Amanda and Eileen are the unanimous choice, and two gods but finish up settling for one, Garry! I will account for the other statues absence by saying he is a TV star in America. We have corrupted the name Komumbo to Columbo.
Mohammed visualises that there will be no one in the audience.
"All the better we chorus.
Chris agrees to study Amr's mannerisms. Bill starts collecting his stock. Dave resigns as camera toter because he wants to take pictures so Vimal is in and Paddie is also added with no specific role. Mohammed suggests some lines to me, I reckon I can amend them to suit my sense of humour. A rehearsal is vaguely discussed without much enthusiasm. We think it will spoil our spontaneity. The Americans are seen holding scripts and rehearsing regularly. We capitulate and meet at the stern three hours before the "show." Frankly we are rotten and what is worse for me, at the point where I am showing them how to read hygheroglyphics and lower Oglyphics I do something dreadful to my injured side and finish in agony. Meg suggests that I cut much of my clever and sophisticated jokes on the grounds that
i) Most of them are not funny.
ii) No one will understand the ones that are.
After the performance, Chris complained about the cutting of my explanation of Ramalamadingdong's two left feet because it ruined his Nottingham Forest joke.
We "actors" thoroughly enjoy the actual performance I cannot answer for the audience. Bill steals the show with his splendidly effective vendor. Garry plays King Ramalamadingdong by lying on his back with his left foot in the air. The two goddesses Nefertiddly and Hotchipshot were a great idea. I enjoy explaining to my "Tourists that Nefertiddly is in such good condition because of her alcohol content. Amanda obligingly is holding a wine glass. I decipher the hieroglyphics of her two "Carbuncles" as reading "Hello Sailor" and "Mines a gin and tonic, easy on the tonic" Donna does the "Is that an obelisk in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me" joke on Bill. The three songs written by Bill, yes, the quiet Scot at the airport, were an even bigger success.
There was "No! we have no papyrus" to the tune of Yes we have no bananas
"All I want is a room somewhere" new words for tired tourists.
and the big finish:- to the tune of do ray mi
C the coach that leaves the plane
L for leathers how we go
E For Egypt's pyramids
O an obelisk Oh No!
P the toilets over there
A for Aswans cataracts
T for Tut with golden mask
R & A Just bring you back to C L E O P A T R A CLEOPATRA!

Mohammed seems satisfied.

The Germans are judged to have won the prize with a sketch that involved one person playing another persons hands and arms. They did it rather well. We are unperturbed. The group is prepared to put on additional shows for E£50 anywhere any time.

Chapter 5

CRUISING and CRUISERS

The good ship ANNI is well found and well fitted out for luxury layabouts. Pity, with all our templing and tombing we don't get a chance to appreciate her bounteous assets to the full. Cabins are adequate in size and well appointed. We spend only sleeping time in them. The dining room is light and airy. The touring parties have separate tables which is rather a pity. The food is good and the quantities excessive, but meals are optional and mainly self service. Dinner always has a theme.
One deck up from the dining room is the spacious lounge where afternoon tea is served, nominally at five but usually after six because we have taken longer than planned on the afternoon visit. It is to here we retire after dinner for the evenings entertainment but frankly we spend little time here either. Free cruising time, the little of what there is is spent on the open sun deck during the day which becomes the moon deck after dinner. The deck has sufficient sun beds for the entire complement should they all want to sunbathe together. It is rarely half full. One third of the deck is shaded for the sun burnt. The mid day sun is fiercely hot but the air is so dry it is not uncomfortable. Tables and chairs are available for scrabble, chess or backgammon players. A minute amount of scrabble is played by Nicole and her mum. A mini gym consists of an exercise bike, a dilapidated rower and a stepping machine. the first two are used intermittently by Meg, some young American lads and I, while Graham who is a Fell runner uses the stepping machine almost continually. It is over our cabin and his paces are so relentlessly rhythmic that sound like they come from some part of the engine. The deck is completed by the swimming pool, or more accurately by the swimming bowl. You know these adverts in the papers for inflatable pools that picture Dad up to his waist in one corner, Mum doing the backstroke in the middle and the kids with a few of their friends play in in the shallow end. Then you read the dimensions in the small print and it measures 4ft by 3 ft by 6 inches. Well its one of those. Meg has managed a photo which makes it look olympic size, but Chris broke the world record for any distance you like because his long arms were only just short of a length, so he could trigger the timing devices without moving. The water was un-heated and was braved by intrepid types from time to time.

Chris made many contributions to our enjoyment like when he relieved Mohammed of his walking stick and explained the entire carvings of a temple in terms of football tactics and field placings accounting for Egypt's success in the pan African games.
The oldest cruiser was Gerry at 82, he frequently befriended Anna who was an Australian of Asian descent. probably in her early 20's and on a world tour as was Vimal a similarly aged Maori The pattern that emerged whilst cruising was that initially people would intend to sunbathe. Then Graham would start stepping. Gill's Dave and I would start bird-watching. As usual neither of us had brought field guides so some were easy and some, mainly the gulls, herons and raptors were very difficult. There are dozens of birds, so if you are interested go armed with a guide. We definitely identified:-

Palm doves, Lesser pied kingfishers, Black-winged kites
Squacco Herons, Purple Herons, Little Egrets
Spur-winged Plover

But there were many frustrating others.

Dave would divide his time between the birds and photographing any thing of interest with his super sophisticated lenses. It transpired that they pay for their holidays by selling his pictures.
He was particularly keen on decorated Nubian houses. Every Moslem must make a pilgrimage to Mecca at some point in his life. When they have done it they decorate the outside of their house with pictures of how they got there. boats, planes, camels, pushbikes, donkeys. Often a combination of several. Most of the rest of the cruisers chatted. Some would sit in small groups and others tour from camp to camp causing the groups to mix. It would have been a very enjoyable way to spend the entire trip. As it was we got a total of about ten hours in ten days. The top deck also had a bar but apart from water coke and orange juice it sold very little. The only serious drinking that took place was on the moon deck after midnight by the stayers:- Chris, Donna Bill, Mary, Vimal. They drank mainly duty free.

It was probably in one of these sessions that someone hatched a terrible April fool for Amr. In ones and twos we were to approach him with requests to extend our tours in the most complicated way, I with my bad back was to request an early flight home and after letting him wrestle with the complications for a few hours put him out of his misery. He took it better than I would. As we got to know each other it was surprising how many were (a) teachers and (b) doing this sort of thing for the first and probably once only in a life time. There were people celebrating major anniversaries, mums treating sons or daughters and sons treating mums. frequently the man of the house had been left at home. I am jolly glad I was not in that group
Chapter 6 LUXORURY

The Sheraton at Luxor was up to the high standard of the trip,
the swimming pool, large, circular and about 20' above the level of the Nile and separated from it by only a few trees. it often appeared as though passing fellucas were sailing in the pool. On Easter Sunday each room recieved hard boiled eggs baked into a bread cake, they were too nice to eat. From Luxor we visited the valleys of the kings and queens with Mohammed and on our one day off visited the valley of the nobles for six more tombs. To our delight, in one of them we came across the original of the band that we had both admired in the papyrus factory. Villagers have built their homes in the valley of the nobles and we met many of them on the visit. The normal vendors were augmented by children "selling" home made dolls. They caught on to Donna of course and she was surprised to find that although the dolls were very cheap, no matter how much money she parted with, she never actually acquired a doll.
Many of the homes are built illegally over the tombs. Once built however the authorities respect the occupants rights but refuse to supply them with electricity or water. The occupants are more than prepared to put up with this in return for the opportunity to burrow under the floor looking for relics. Some of the items we were offered surreptitiously did look genuine but as it didn't seem cricket we declined to purchase. Egyptian vendors take a lack of sale very much more philosophically than a Morroccan. We ended our free day by visiting the museum at Luxor, Mohammed would have been proud of us. While a Luxor Meg and I hired our own private fellucca for a sail at sunset. Well actually it was more of a row because it was windless. It also involved quite a lot of walking because our Captain, another Mohammed, Mohammed moustache, decided to take us to banana island. This was quite interesting and involved eating little green bananas and a lot of baksheesh for the islands mafia.
I know I'm not supposed to be describing the treasures but if I were the temple at Karnak would be the hardest one to describe. the hyperstyle, (a hall of massive columns in particular is now in our short list of top places to be). We failed to capture it on film as did the James Bond and Agatha Christie films.
One of its sights is the scarab beetle to end all scarab beetles. The locals believe that any woman who walks three times round the beetle becomes pregnant within a year. Donna has been trying for ages and so has Mandy. Meg trogs round on Mandy's behalf. Both Donna and Mandy produce daughters within the year. The Son et Lumiere was unique in that instead of having a seated audience, the program was in episodes throughout the temple and the punters progressed in a series of cavalry charges. The earlier tour with Mohammed had been far more illuminating. He was particularly taken with the lady Pharaoh Hatchepsut. Her funeral temple looks more like a modern airport than a 3000 year old temple. I liked the story of her modifications to Karnak. Many rulers added to the original and Hatchepsut was into obelisks. She wanted one in the middle of the existing temple. The method of erecting obelisks precluded this. The architect was flummoxed, Hatchepsut made it clear that it was his problem. He knew what the lady wanted and the consequences of failing. So he dismantled the temple, erected the obelisk and put the temple back together.
We relaxed a little in Luxor. The group spent its final few hours round or in the pool. I swam in my cotton scarf, one of the ladies upstaged me by wearing sunglasses as well as a hat. All the money was gone, all the presents bought. Garry had run out of biros, he had bought boxes of them to give to the children a great idea because they valued them immensesly. Nicloe's mum, Aida had brought small plastic games but the children's parents often tried to sell them back to us so I guess they were less prized. We wondered what junk lay around our houses that would have had a high barter value. I got several offers and a lot of interest in my Turkish worry beads. We swapped addresses with virtually the whole cruise and a number of us arranged to meet again in August. I wonder if we will? They say if you swim in the Nile you are bound to return to Egypt. I think we will be returning soon. I hope I have whetted your appetite.

Shortly after returning home I wrote to Mohammed's family to thank them for missing their holiday. In reading the letter you may get an idea of how much we enjoyed the holiday.

Dear Friends

Mohammed did tell us your names, but in the excitement that was Egypt, I have forgotten them. Please forgive me.
Your Husband/Father, must meet hundreds of different tourists each year and after a while their faces must merge into each other and their identities become confused. It is easy for us because there was only one Mohammed.
We were a party of tourists without a guide. Mohammed had just finished one tour and was supposed to be spending some time with you, his family. Amr, our tour manager called Mohammed and we gained a wonderful guide and you lost your Father for ten days.
We have always believed that one hour with your family is worth ten spent any other way and so we appreciate how great was his and your sacrifice. Let me try to convince you that your sacrifice was not entirely wasted.
We had an absolutely wonderful time. Largely due to Mohammed. Its interesting to think that the Pharaohs spent all their lives preparing for the second life and Mohammed brought them to life for us. I'm sure it is possible to enjoy seeing Egypt and the Nile's treasures without a guide. The paintings and sculptures are magnificent. The pyramids, breathtaking, but Mohammed made them magical!! His knowledge must be tremendous but it was his enthusiasm that helped keep us spellbound. You can tell how inspired we all were, on our final day which was a rest day, 15 of us visited the tombs of the Nobles and then spent the evening in the Museum at Luxor on Mohammed's recommendation. We only left the museum when it closed. It is very difficult to say which of the wonderful sights we liked the best, possibly the hyperstyle in the temple at Karnak, but the whole trip was memorable.
At home we spend much time walking in the countryside and we like to devise a walk that is beautiful every step of the way. Our trip to Egypt was like that. The place. the people the magic.
Mohammed asked us to make sure Thomas Cook knew that we enjoyed it. I wrote to them and they replied. I have enclosed copies of both letters for Mohammed. We are spending a lot of time spreading the news of how wonderful Egypt is.
We have arranged to meet our group again in the British museum -- Egyptian section of course -- on the last Saturday in August. They were a great crowd. I have enclosed a photo of us to help Mohammed remember which of his devoted followers we are.
Best wishes and many thanks,

Dave and Meg Ridley

Thomas Cook ATTACK!!!.________________