Luxor Museum

We want to see Luxor museum and so, armed with the helpful hints given to us at the beginning of our holiday, we find a taxi driver and order him to go straight to Luxor museum and go nowhere else. Our five minute taxi ride costs us $20 Egyptian - £2! He offers to take us somewhere else after our visit and we agree to meet him again at 12.30. the museum was lovely and cool and practically empty of people. It was so nice to be able to amble around and not worry about holding up the group or having to rush past things you want to see. Reuben feels a bit queasy but not as bad as I was, so he sits down for much of the visit.

To kill some time, we browse in the bookshop and are cornered by the owner. He offers me a mythology book for £20. I know its worth less and say I’m not interested. He then corners Reuben and says he takes cash, cheques, cards and we politely refuse again. But he stills persists, “Okay, £15” and we start to back up further into the shop. It was very intimidating and kinda scary. Reuben, poor thing, knocks over a pile of books on the floor as he steps back and the shopkeeper gets annoyed and says, “Fine, just go then.” We couldn’t wait and ran out as fast as we could. We stood near a tourist police guard for a bit of reassurance and the shopkeeper comes out of the shop again, brandishing the book and says to Reuben, “Fine, £10, but for her, not for you” and we snap it up! Nothing like a little haggling!!

Outside the taxi driver was waiting and said he wanted to go home and sleep. (Egyptians sleep in the middle of the day as its too hot to do anything.) We asked him to take us to MacDonalds and then he can go. Saying “I want MacDonalds” is a good way of saying that you want to see the Luxor marketplace but don’t want to be taken to every person he knows in town! Once at Maccy D’s, you can make your own way around the shops one block away and its supposed to be good. I say ‘supposed to be’ because we seem to have picked the wrong day and there isn’t a shop open anywhere! We stop in MD’s for a long cool drink and find another taxi to take us back to the hotel.

Before we step in, we notice a tourist shop open next door and go inside looking for magnets to take home. We chat to the shopkeeper who reveals that his brother has set up in North Yorkshire. “It’s a lot colder there than Egypt,” I half say to myself. “Yes,” the shopkeeper says, “its bloody freezing!” and we all burst out laughing! I finally chose a small Tutankhamen head for myself and a larger one for Anna, as she’s just moved out and might need something to decorate her flat. Next door to this place was a T-shirt shop and the guy was trying to sell us T-shirts for £20 each. We finally managed to haggle him down to £15 for three. We rock!