Tuesday 4th October

I was up bright and early this morning to go to the livestock market with Suzie and her mum and Mr and Mrs KV-explorer and, after breakfast, clambered aboard the mini bus to be taken there.  On arriving, it was an extremely busy place and very very dusty - there was just dust everywhere that was being kicked up by animals and traffic.

You've got to be aware that this is no organised animal market like in the UK - it looks like utter chaos, but I expect there is some sort or order somewhere!!  There are no livestock pens either, so you need to be very aware and keep your eyes open as these animals are only tethered by ropes to their owners and it would be very easy for one of them to get away.  Some are tied by the legs, but not all.  You need to be careful where you put your feet and where you stand - being at the back end of a cow is not a good idea!!  Apart from the livestock, you'll see men sitting at their stalls selling sticks and farming tools.

It seemed to cause a bit of amusement to the locals seeing us lot tramping about taking photos, but no-one said a bad word to us and we were left to carry on wandering around looking at everything - we were probably somewhat of an oddity to the locals!!


Here are a few photos to give you an idea of what goes on

Having a bit of a struggle keeping this one under control

This was one very noisy cow!

We almost swapped KV-explorer for some of these!!

This was the little calf that DIDN'T want to go to market.  It ran off and a chase ensured till it was captured!!

My tips for this trip would be to make sure you wear comfortable shoes - it's not a good idea to wear sandals here.  Take wet wipes with you and make sure you have cloths for wiping your camera!!

After a good look round here, we dusted ourselves down a little and headed to the Temple of Tod which is just a short run from the livestock market.

The Temple of Tod was smaller than I imagined and is situated in an enclosure just at the edge of a village where the village houses look down onto it.  It was really quite pretty and it was very enjoyable just walking around here with no hassle at all from any guardians.

Here are some photos

Washing day!!

This very pretty little girl and her mum seemed to be quite amused at the sight of some tourists wandering around

After we finished looking around here, we left to go back to the hotel for some relaxation at the pool then lunch at the cafe, but that's when our friend had a bit of a bad experience that put her off her lunch - the bag of crisps that had been used appeared to also have had some ants inside it!!  When we related the story to Bob62 later that day he reckoned they must have been 'Walkers' crisps!!

It didn't put us off from going back later to meet our friend who lives 'in the village of the Cobra' El Kobhy, but we just had drinks with him and arranged to visit him and his family on the Friday night.  Our visits to his home are always one of the highlights that I look forward to, and this year there was a new baby to meet. He now also has a new mode of transport, which he was very proud of

El Shazley with his motor bike

Tonight, my hubby and I and our friends met up with Suzie and her mum, Mr & Mrs KV-explorer and Mr & Mrs Bob62 at Puddleduck, which is a restaurant situated in the 'Little Britain' part of town. We all had a really super meal there and a few laughs.  The owner, Jill, allowed Suzie to play some Scottish music much to the disgust of our English friends!!  This was KV-explorer's reaction

Not impressed by the Scottish music!!

This is some of the delicious food on offer

Spring rolls & chilli sauce

Very yummy chicken shawarma wraps

We all then headed off for coffee to a nearby new shisha bar where, not surprisingly, Bob62 and KV-explorer sampled the shisha and the rest of us had coffee and soft drinks.

Gleaming shishas

After coffee, we headed back to the hotel for our usual nightcap then I think I was probably asleep before my head hit the pillow!!

Thursday 29th September

This is the day that all the planning began!!  Leaving my hubby at the pool my friends and I tagged along with Suzie, her mum and Mr & Mrs KV-Explorer to meet Bob62 who had also arrived in Luxor with his wife the day before.

In a local cafe with some refreshing cold drinks we arranged the rest of the holiday with the superb organisation skills of Suzie!!  The first trip would be to Abydos and Dendera, there was the local livestock Market and the Temple of Tod, there was a hot air balloon flight and also a visit over to the West Bank to take in the valley of the Workers, Medinet Habu, the Ramesseum and Carter's house.  It had been disappointing to learn before we travelled that the cafe at Carter's House had ceased to be, but we arranged for lunch at the Al Moudira Hotel in place of that.  Reports and photos of all of that shall appear as this blog goes on.  As you will have noticed by now, this is all being done retrospectively, so I am having to rely on my notes, and they are not as comprehensive as they normally are due to the circumstances I found myself in, so apologies for that or any inaccuracies that you may find!!

At lunchtime we tried out the local cafe where we had had our coffee the night before.  The menu on the board outside was quite impressive so we took our seats and ordered.  Once again, the same scenario - although toasted sandwiches were on the menu, they weren't available. As this was a local cafe, we relied on a little bit of Arabic, English and lots of sign language!!  We settled on sandwiches all round (well local finger rolls actually) and crisps - the French fries advertised also weren't available.  Staff were then dispatched out to buy the rolls - well that way at least we knew they were fresh!!  The beer was brought in too - that meant it wasn't chilled!!  Soft drinks were OK though and they did try to get the beer as cold as possible.  The staff were friendly and so pleased to see us that we decided to make this a regular place for lunch as all we wanted was something light in any case, and it meant we were supporting a small local business.  The cafe is actually part of the Grand Memphis Hotel and the staff were eager to show us the views from the top floor.  Here is a sample of what can be seen

Typical grocer shop

A peek through the trees into the Winter Palace Hotel grounds

Can you spot the geese (or ducks) on the roof?  I had no idea they were there until I got home and looked at the photos on the computer!"

That night hubby and I and our travelling companions went to Puddleduck for dinner, and it was just excellent.  Jill and Mick who run this restaurant are excellent hosts and the food is superb (at least, that's how we found it).  Once again we walked through the local streets and did not encounter any hassle whatsoever - in fact everyone was really friendly and seemed so pleased to see us.

We planned another quiet day for Friday to top up the batteries before our full day trip to Abydos and Dendera on the Saturday.