Egypt Nile Cruise, Aswan day tour

 It was quite nice to awaken to this as the view from our cabin window.  Aswan is behind us and the Botanical Gardens to the left.
Not much time to enjoy the serenity though. Today was the big out of Aswan tour day.

 First up was a bus and boat trip to Philae Temple dedicated to Goddess Isis and constructed on the beautiful island of Philae. Philae the modern day name is Greek but the ancient Egyptians called the island P-aaleq which amongst other definitions has the dual meaning of "end" and "creation". It is believed that the various structures contained on Philae Island took 800 years to build (mostly during the roman period). In addition to the priests practicing daily rituals the island was the home of various stone masons, carpenters, and other crafts men continuously building and extending structures.
However the building of the Aswan Dam (see Nile page) almost wiped out the Island and its history. Fortunately an amazing rescue mission saved Philae. Flooded Philae was pumped dry by the Egyptian government and UNESCO through the use of a coffer dam. Philae temple itself was carefully dismantled, so that it could be relocated away from danger. Interestingly each block of the temple was labelled and its position carefully recorded, so that it could be reconstructed in exactly the same format. Even the site on which the main Philae temple rests, was landscaped so that it would look like the site on which the temple was originally standing. The rescue mission took 10 years to complete and involved the movement of blocks weighing 27000 tons in total. Or so it says in the blog page I looked up, thought you'd like to know that stuff.

 Anyway the boat trip back to the bus was reasonably uneventful despite having to endure a bracelet and bead seller who had been allowed to join us.

 Next stop, Aswan dams, the old dam down river is now pretty much defunct although creates a nice lake.  This picture shows what was the Nile rapids before the New Dam was built.  Because of this anomaly in the usual calm flow of the Nile ancient river trade had to off load  and go inland then load onto a different boat to continue. 

Now there are locks to lift ships up to the higher water but pretty much all trade goes by truck now, it seemed to us the major part of Nile trade was carting tourists in endless lines of cruise barges up and down the temple trail.

 Aswan Lake makes for some nice photo oportuntities.

 After hearing all about the scale and result of the engineering to build the Aswan dam we headed off to see a granite quarry where a huge obelisk was abandoned half way through excavation due to cracking.  Given the fact the effort required to get it this far excavated would have taken thousands of man hours and endless stone age effort I can imagine the flood of Egyptian expletives that would have resulted from the fatal rock blow.

 From the broken Obelisk we were taken to Kitchener's island legacy to Aswan, He bought a river island and it was later turned into a botanical garden with many tropical trees and plants.  It remains a beautiful oasis of green lushness in an otherwise dusty environment,

No boat trip would be complete without the locals taking the opportunity to display their tat.  Gail bought a camel bone letter opener out of pity I think.

I presume this sign means don't shoot birds at close range. Despite walking the 17 acre gardens end to endI don't recall seeing any birds so the sign is either redundant or widely ignored.

 The Anga Kahn's mausoleum seen from the Botanical Gardens, a good contrast between the desert and the lushness.

Looking back towards Aswan from the Botanical Garden cafe, showing the river boats and the street merchants selling more tat and decending in heards on you before you can get on board.  .

We returned to the cruise boat for lunch to find a small boat on the bed and had a delightful lunch with our cruise friends before the optional city tour later the same day.

Egypt , Nile Cruise. Aswan Evening tour

 One of the joys of river cruising is the people you meet and the attitudes you experience.  It is no surprise that the Germans and the English do not play well together even after all this time.  It was a surprise therefore that the Thomas Cook cruise was a 40 60 split between the two nations.  This generated many comments around our English-only dinner table guests but I had to put this shot up as this German bloke was obviously equally committed both to his exercise regime, the stationary exercise bike, and his well lit pipe.

The tours of the morning were well organised and the lunch on our return to the moored boat gave recovery time for our evening optional tour of Aswan city. 

 First up on the tour was a visit to a newish mosque in downtown Aswan.  Nothing special really but the tour included a half hour lecture on the Muslim faith.  This little surprise was well shielded from the itinerary tour description and focused heavily on attitude to women and the right to defend the faith.  Hmmm.

 Next was a tour through a mainly tourist targeted souk where we were shown into a spice shop, given a brief sales pitch and Gail bought some very well priced saffron, vanilla beans, and hot peppercorn.  Given the cost of Saffron we are considering starting an export business in fine Iranian Saffron.  we bought 25 grams for less than they sell one gram in the UK.

 The rest of the night was spent wandering through the souk looking at things and trying to convince every person we didn't want to buy their stuff.  Having said that we did buy three "genuine camel leather" plastic belts for about two quid.  I'd like to say we were ripped off but as Gail pointed out, 2 quid for the belts?

 The souk also provided goods for the local residents as well as tack for tourists and we investigated electronics shops and this pickled fish shop to get a sense of the alternate products available.

The end of the city tour included a coffee and a smoke of the shisha pipe.  Light was bad and the camera failed to capture the event but Gail speaks of a lovely apple fragranced water pipe experience and I recall some rather ordinary coffee but a fair bit of laughing and carry on.

We returned for the evening meal on the boat to be welcomed by a goat on the bed and then there was a planned entertainment night.  The event this night was a Nubian Show.  A misnomer surely but the dancers were committed to providing a good show and the "chief"who tried to teach and control a selected team of tourists generated some genuinly funny moments especially given the unexpected comedy performances from some of our fellow travellers.
All things considered this was a rather enjoyable day.

Egypt, Nile Cruise, back to Luxor

 After so much culture it was a sort of relief to just spend a couple of days with nothing on the agenda but cruising the Nile, looking at the scenery and boats.

Despite it being fine and sunny, the reason we went in the first place, you may see from these shots that he river breeze took the edge off the pleasure of sitting on the top deck a bit. Not to be put off though we did spend enough time to ensure that a facial suntan could be bought back to the UK as that necessary bit of oneupmanship resulting from a winter sun holiday.. 

The scenery  flowed past and our return to Luxor was most relaxing, we saw some ideal alternatives to the bulk tourist carriers.  These non powered (tug pulled) vessels are the creme de la creme of Nile cruising, an experience we covet .  Maximum guest numbers 12 to 17, personalised guides, viewing times planned outside of tourist bus schedules.  Obviously worth the exorbitant cost

And of course no trip to the Arabian part of the world would be complete without a ride on an Aussie camel, well, I can't be sure they were Aussies but I do know there is a solid trade in camels from Australia to the Arab states for racing and sporting pursuits.  Something about blood lines and purity. All these camels were males about 5 to 7 years old and about a dozen of us had a most enjoyable ride through a traditional Nile village and got a good idea of life styles of the locals.  We ran out of battery for our camera so this is the only proof of this little adventure but yes I did ride one too and we bought a picture from one of the tour guides to prove it.  No I am not going to let you see it cos I look like a fat stupid tourist.  So I guess it is a good photo.

And that bought to a end our Egypt adventure, the flight home was a series of queues, long waits and economy plane seats but I wont let that make me say I didn't have a good time, on balance. 

Egypt is an experience which reminded me in many ways of India and Indonesian tourist ports.  Lots of really fantastic things to see, stuff to learn and experiences to be shared, people to get to know and sensations to experience.  But all tarnished by the incessant hassle of street merchants, and beggars, unfamiliar costs, suspect tour organisers, limited infrastructure and poor living standards.  But I wont let any of that make me say I didn't enjoy myself because I promised Gail I would enjoy going to Egypt, a place she has always wanted to go to,  so I can honestly close this blog o Egypt off by saying I am so pleased with my Egyptian adventure I have no need to ever return.  Now she tells me we just have to see the Pyramids. 

December falls on Wetherby

I know there is every likelihood this will sound like a BBC weather report but it does and has snowed in Yorkshire this year.  We have been spending quite a few party nights with people we know and have come to know over recent times but these are just parties where we sit around and have fun so you don't need to read endless reports of them. The weather however is something special this year, Nice dry snow and sun and cold and it has been quite cheery.  Lots of fun watching the locals be totally confused about how to do anything in the snow.  I can't for the life of me understand why they are not used to it.  We have no trouble.

These joyous things don't last and as I write this on December 29 we have reverted to the usual cold damp English winter with bare winter grass and some patches of fog and everyone is much more used to this..   This was our back yard after the November fall.

And this our road into Wetherby during a fall

In town during the same fall

Our favourite summer table at the Red Lion Pub garden in town.

Some late hanging apples in the high street.

just below the bridge before the freeze

the sun hots our back yard

A visit to the Garden Gate pub in Hunslet Leeds.  A spectacular listed turn of the 1900's pub

All the rooms were like this, a real time capsule

the lights in Leeds included for some reason two shot lambs hung sadly in the main drag.

Oh, and the fast flowing River Wharfe froze.

quite a lot of froze.

Gail had challenges getting home from work some days but always made it.  Yay the mighty mini.

Some Wetherby graffiti written in the frozen fog.

And this months furry critter shot fr the fans of fur.  This is Gail's semi-tame tree rat.

Other than that December saw us have a lovely xmas at home.  We had friends share xmas eve and boxing night, are planing a new years eve party closer to Leeds with colleagues of Gail's and then it's off to Egypt. More on that at the end of next month,

For now

HAVE A GREAT 2011!

leeds market, wetherby snow, manchester party and stuff.

 This month has been a  bit cold and quiet to be honest.  There have been moments of bike riding, very few and very short,  But we can turn corners, we can change gears, we just have very little distance.

 We did travel down to Limini Coffee in Doncaster for the launch of their new offices and training facility. Greg has become interested in an opportunity relating to coffee and is getting wonderful help from Youri, Howard and Sam.  Sam is i this picture with Glen, a kiwi who writes and runs a coffee forum in London .  Coffee people are lovely folk.  Greg also met a PWC guy who is helping him with his pitch and may help more, who knows.  It was a lovely night,we got to play latte art, learned more about coffee and had a really good night.

Leeds, every year it seems, although I had heard this year it wouldn't, hosts a german christmas market in Millennium square. 

It is a fantastic version of what can be a rather ordinary thing we are told.  There are little shops selling chocolate marshmallows of huge size, nuts of all sorts, cheese, sausages, mulled wine, bierkeller, garlic bread, pickled fish, it goes on and on, and there are rides and trinkets and christmas decorations, candles, but I did say it goes on and on.  There are even dodgem cars.   Speaking of which. Gail's work do for xmas was held in Manchester, I had another invite to go to another party so I remained in Leeds.  At the party Gail went to there was a MonteCarlo show and meal.  I hear tell it was a fantastic night with interesting entertainment and DODGEMS.   I have seen photos of Gail having the best of times but as the camera was not doing it's thing that night unfortunately the record is on others facebook pages and this is the best one of Gail and Jon racing I can copy to blog,  thanks to Karen D. for sending me the original.

 Back home of course it snowed, but you may know it snows here.  This shot from our front door showing the grit truck spreading salt and grit on our road.  Heaviest November falls in 17 years say the experts, locals say we are in  for a lot more if it is like this so early.  There are signs, birds, trees and hedgerow animals do things predicting a bad winter the locals tell us about.  I can't recall all the tales but we have been hearing things like, a big plum crop on the autumn hedges equals a long cold winter, we picked lots of plums this year for example so it must be true. Or its our fault.

There has been other things happening other than snow. I went to Barwick-on-Elmet historical meeting one night because they were honouring the links the old Leeds Savages had with the town.  A hundred years ago, almost, the original Savages took over a small house there for weekends in the country and proceeded to create a frisson and elicit activity in the quiet town leading to some notorious adventures being captured in print and paint.  About seven of us current Leeds Savages went and did some readings of our work and displayed some paintings and one even did an impromptu performance piece.  The assorted historians were most appreciative and showed us original Savage works in journal, sketch and oil paint form dating back to the art deco, nouveau and arts and crafts era..  Many of those artists were recognised and famous in their time and are now.  Some travelled to Australia no less, and I was informed of this many times on the night.

Being commonwealth citizens means we are not welcome to stay in the UK and we have been making enquiries to see if we can extend our stay here.  Our time here is up in 2012 but if Oz had fought on the other side in the world wars we would be welcomed as EU friends for as long as we liked.  As it stands it looks like us Aussies have to pull something out of the hat if we want to stay.  We are looking into that too.

There have been other things like looking at auctions, re-financing our house here, and general mucking about little towns and village pubs but as I said, November has been a quiet month blog-wise if not sorting out life wise.

I probably won't update before xmas, so do have a very merry xmas!

ON A BIKE !!

And she turns corners, stops, gets on and off and can change gears.  It may be a sad admission but this is the most exciting thing that we have ever done outside with our clothes on.
As a first blog entry for a month this will take some beating.