Week Seventy-Eight

Today we do get out at 08.30, even including a stop to visit and feed the kitten on the terrace: by 08.40 we're sitting in a ferry (1EP each, payable at the dock rather than on board, but again with women sitting up front - local couples just don't seem to travel together), and by 08.55 we're telling a man with a camel that perhaps we'll take one later to the monastery. This chat takes about ten minuets (welcome to Egypt), so by the time we get to the ticket office just inland, it's had a chance to open. The tombs are mostly in a line, cut into a ridge just below the summit of a hill overlooking the Nile: we climb and antique processional stairway up to them, noting a prefabricated Nubian village on the shore to the north, presumably one of the ones where the Egyptian authorities housed the Nubians whose houses/land they flooded with the High Dam.
The guys with the keys are hanging around the top of the stairs, so the whole visit is obviously going to be escorted - probably with the suggestion of baksheesh thrown in at some point. Our tickets cover us for five tombs, apparently, and we start with a little guy who leads us south from the entry point, along a path on the ridge. The area's all little cliffs and ridges and we pass several worn tombs with carved columns inside (like Petra, but without the fantastic rocks/colours) on our right, and the worn remains of further processional stairs on our left. Another Petra-esque element among these 300+ tombs are the large number of little false doors, carved in deep relief. Our first tomb, where the guide unlocks the metal gate across the door and switches on the light for us, is that of Sarenput II - a local prince from the Middle Kingdom reign of Amenenhat. It's a couple of chambers, linked by a short passage: the outer chamber has six well-carved columns with no decoration, while the second has four rougher columns and some surviving paintwork. There are six statues of the prince, an excellent granite offering table, some hunting/fishing scenes on the walls, and a number of small and locked side-chambers - these are mostly littered with human bones. One unusual feature is an elephant-shaped hieroglyph - a first.
Next up, dating from the Old Kingdom reign of Pepi II, are the contiguous tombs of Mekhu and his son Sabni, a huge affair with one 18-columned and one 14-columned room. Again, it's pretty rough work, with some coloured sections remaining in the first room. Apparently Mekhu was killed while in Africa, and Sabni led a major revenge-raid south: this story is presumably somewhere on the walls (otherwise no-one would know about it), but we couldn't make it out. We did, in the shallow relief on plaster, see now-familiar hunting and fishing scenes - as in Sarenput II's tomb, and unusually for Egypt, there are no representations of any gods. The roof is blackened (either from inhabitation or from lots of religious ceremonies with candles/fire).
Doubling back, we pass the entrance and then a large tomb which was obviously used as a church at some point (there are still icons and painted crosses on the now-exposed inner walls). If the tomb complex continued in use until Christian times, then this was presumably a burial chapel. Our guide shows us another, lesser tomb with lots of bones inside - this is to compensate for the tomb complex of Heqa-Ib being closed for restoration. Our final and best tomb is that of 12th Dynasty Sarenput I: there's an outer courtyard with good relief work on the walls - two-floor houses with windows, Sarenput hunting with dogs and on his boat with (it seems) a pet goose. There are also scenes of women in temples and, at the entrance to the courtyard, a couple of columns made from slices, like the Nabatean ones. Inside is much more dull, though has some paintwork remaining in the double-chamber.
Just as our tour finishes, the normal baksheesh question turns out to be easily deflected and our guide leaves us (someone else - fresh prey - is climbing the hill towards us from the north side). We meander back for a better look at Heqa-Ib's locked tomb. Local celebrity (we saw his temple on Elephantine Island), his tomb has multiple chambers with multiple doors on multiple levels. Peeking through the locked gates with our torches, we can see an excellent scene of a fighting bull - now, though, the chambers seem mostly inhabited by birds. We have a closer look at the converted church again, as well, and then have a clamber up to a slightly higher temple with good views across the Nile. One surprising omission, considering the area, is that there were no representations of people working in quarries, even though there were a lot of scenes showing other aspects of industry and everyday life.
Back at the foot of the hill, we chat with one of the guys offering camel rides across the desert to the Monastery of St. Samaan (a local hero, like Heqa-Ib - not the one who lived on a pillar). He starts at 50EP, and eventually drops to 20EP and won't go any lower: we discuss this and decide that no, we'd rather walk along the shore. I mean, it is the Sahara but we'll stick to the riverbank and the landing point looks less than 2km away.
There's a trail, of sorts, leading southwards first along the rocky slopes below the Princes' Tombs and then along the side of the Nile. It's pretty desolate (there's no irrigated strip here, just a couple of trees), with steep slopes of yellow-white sand rising sharply away from us inland. In places, the track is pretty much non-existent, so we're just walking along a steep slope of fine sand (which is pretty tricky). Ahead of us, after ten minutes, we spy another couple of tourists cresting one of the hills - they slip and tumble down to us, and are revealed to be a Dutch or German couple. They've just come from the Monastery and are heading for the tombs, and they tell us it was a pretty straightforward walk and took less than an hour(!). Apart from that, our main human contact is with the sound of syncopated Nubian chanting and drums (presumably laid on for the tourists) from Kitchener's Island, which we're walking parallel to. For a couple of hundred metres there are a string of narrow fields (only four or five metres wide), where the shore is briefly flat enough, half hidden among the trees. There's also a simple shack there and a loud and invisible dog, which briefly terrifies both of us (not good terrain for combat or flight). I catch sight of it a few seconds later - a little black thing, which scampers away in the opposite direction once we're past the fields.
And then, after twenty-five minutes, we reach the little bay at the start of the Monastery "road": overlooking the bay is the modern/traditionally-styled tomb of the Aga Khan and his wife (not open to visitors) and, more importantly, a bunch of large trees where we can rest and shelter from the sun. A chubby, older local guy meanders over to chat with us while we rest and, having ascertained that we'll be there for a few minutes, he nips off and returns with an armful of scarves for sale. 180EP (£20) is his asking prices, which gradually drops to 30EP - we're not that interested, reckoning a.) that his price is still too high and b.) the examples he has aren't actually that good.
After bypassing a number of eager camel drivers (20EP up to the Monastery), we climb the dirt track that leads inland - it levels off after 200m, at which point we pass a partially-completed new monastery: the Copts are obviously particularly active in Aswan. And then we're at the ancient monastery, which is free to enter and watched over by a couple of armed soldiers (there are also armed troops riding around on camels in the area).
The most obvious thing about the ruined monastery is that it's actually a Byzantine fortress: though its walls aren't as huge as those at St. Katherine's, it also features a central and very defensible central keep (locked today). Our second observation is that the main window of the unfinished Coptic Cathedral in Aswan looks directly across the Nile towards it - so I guess there's something symbolic going on there. We wander around for half an hour, gazing out at the lone and undulating sands stretching away: it's a pretty barren and dramatic location (barren, that is, except for its proximity to Aswan). Existing for 700-odd years separate from Constantinople, it eventually fell to armed muslims: exploring the roofless church and the twisting corridors, you can almost imagine the monk's fighting room by room. Apart from the walls, there's not a lot left now - a few painted figures, with all the faces vandalised.
Although we now know that the little bay is only 700-odd metres away, an optimistic camel rider has followed us up and tries to tempt us with 20EP (again) back down. He's very attached to this price (maybe it's the minimum set by the local camel mafia), but eventually drops it to 18EP when we've only got 300m to go - I don't think so. We reach the little bay below the Aga Khan's mausoleum, half-resigned to having to walk all the way back up to the tombs for a ferry across: we know there are no ferries leaving from here. It turns out that there's a little rowing boat just got underway, which turns around to collect us (4EP, we agreed - they started at 10EP). It's just one guy, but we have a fellow-passenger: our seller-of-shawls. It's a funny little trip which takes 10-15 minutes, largely because of the useless oars - they're just poles, without paddles at the ends. Considering how long people have been plying the river here, that's pretty worrying . . . Milla is distinctly unhappy with the trip, feeling uncomfortable in such a small and flimsy boat on such an obviously deep and wide stretch of water. She spends most of the trip staring at her feet and is pretty relieved when we reach the other side.
Mr. Shawl tries one last gambit of 25EP per shawl and then leaves in disgust and despair: we follow our instincts, cross the island and catch the regular ferry across to the east bank and civilisation again. Time has been passing (it does that) and we're behind schedule for the felucca/Philae trip - Milla presses to do Philae anyway (otherwise, at this rate, we'll never see it) and as we're chatting a taxi slows on the Corniche beside us. We haggle a bit and do the walking-away thing, and eventually take it - the driver is keen for us to make the return trip with him (he'll wait), but we opt not to. Despite his warnings that there's no transport back from the landing (Philae's on an island, obviously), we reckon we'll be able to work something out when we need to.
We get our student discounts without any hassle, but then there's a nasty surprise - transport to the island is not included: various presumably private operators ferry people across, at 5EP per person in groups of 5 or more, but otherwise an outrageous 22EP per person (the full entry price is only 20EP). As we're discussing this, a tour group starts filing past us - we tag along into their boat, and (when discovered) talk with the tour guide and driver/captain. Yep, he has no problem taking us with the group. And so we chug out around the vertical black rocks into the lake created by the original British Aswan dam, for a fairly impressive approach.
Philae's the temple you always see water-logged on postcards and photos, with people navigating their way through the columns in boats. Since then, though, it's been moved to nearby Agilka Island - or, at least, most of it was: Agilka was reshaped slightly and the top was cut off (previously it was a big rock) to better match the topography of the original Philae Island. Philae is still visible nearby, but only the ring of tall pylons which were installed as part of the removal effort. The short journey drops us at the southern end of the island, where we tell our boat-guy that we'll make our own way back (the tour's only got two hours) and pay him half.
Avoiding the main temple complex for now, we head up the eastern side of the (250x100m) island past the sound-and-light show seats and the information board to the very photogenic and unfinished Kiosk of Trajan - it's very square and Roman, with papyrus columns and lots of okay reliefs on the usual gods-and-offerings themes. Continuing north, we hit the sweet (and closed) Temple of Hathor - it has much better reliefs which we (and a couple of Japanese) get a close look at until a group of armed soldiers force us to get out. Even further north is the largely derelict Temple of Augustus and adjacent, shoreside Gate of Diocletion: that's pretty much it before the end of the island. Next up we head down the western wide - this is where the incomplete nature of the transfer is most obvious, since Agilka is slightly narrower than Philae was, so some of the outer buildings and walls were left behind. The Nilometer is quite fun - normally a deep pit, they didn't bother moving the bits below ground-level, so it's just some oddly-shaped masonry on the grass here.
The main temple complex (this was the principle centre of the Isis cult - she apparently found Osiris' heart here) is unusual for having a big kink in it between the Second Pylon (aligned with the central building) and the First Pylon (aligned with the Outer Court), because of the limited geography available. The narrow Outer Court is lined by a couple of ruined temples on the right side (foundations only) and a colonnaded hall along the left side, arranged so as to appear loosely symmetrical. A ramp leads up through the First Pylon into the Inner Court - columns with new/restored capitals on the right are matched by columns with floral capitals on the left. Also on the left, slightly tucked to one side, is the large birth-house with the usual divine conception/pregnancy/birth scenes.
Another ramp leads up into the Hypostyle Hall, with fantastically complete ceiling (you get a sore neck from looking up) and a great processional line of vultures leading inside to the sanctuary. Because the whole ceiling is slightly squint to the pylon, the normal effect peering all the way inside through the various gates and halls is largely absent here. The sanctuary itself, ringed by half a dozen little irregular chapels at the heart of the temple, still contains the red granite altar.
And that, bizarrely, is it for Philae: there are a lot of well-preserved reliefs, but they're only 1,700-2,400 years old and though the quality's really good, it's got that Edfu-like copy feel to it, somehow lacking in vitality. There are a lot of Sekhmet, Horus and Hathor figures and a sprinkling of Nephthys; a few carved crosses from later ages; and all the stonework features a tidemark (it's green below the line) from even later ages. Almost more interesting than the temple is some of the graffiti left by French soldiers: they arrived in year "RF7" and measured the longitude "depuis Paris". Philae gets 4/10 on the ruins scale, for being pretty good but not as fantastic as some people rave about it.
We hook up with another (French-speaking) tour group for our cheap ride back to the mainland, and get there pretty much last - all the tour buses, minibuses and taxis have gone. Not to worry - I spotted little covered pick-up buses on the main road so (after not buying water because of its price in the tourist stalls at the landing) we follow the road back up to the site security barrier and then try to find a bus. The first few are either full, or private, or military transports but then one stops and offers a ride for 5EP. We laugh and haggle in Arabic (I bet that surprised them) down to the local fixed fare of 25pt each. Throughout the crowded trip back, Milla worries that the driver'll actually charge us more but (when we correctly get off at the right stop without asking) he doesn't.
After walking back through the town centre, we're accosted by a fellow in the street offering Abu Simbel trips for 40EP by minibus: we have a cup of tea with him ("Mohammed Hassan", I think) and despite Milla's reservations agree to go with his outfit (she thinks he should have a proper office and so on, rather than a café, whereas I'm quite happy with the idea that he's just a guy with a couple of minibuses). The only drawback, which we would have got with whatever outfit we'd chosen, is that the bus will collect us at 04.00 - yep, that's four o'clock in the morning: and we have to make it, since we signed a little piece of paper saying we'd pay anyway if we missed the bus and it was our fault (this was to get around Milla not wanting to pay a deposit). With that settled, and my only remaining concern being that the two scheduled hours there might not be enough time to see the site, we get a couple of large takeaway pizzas from Friday's fast food place ("Biti") and hit the hotel, where we discover that our window-watcher has now installed a chair (I'm tempted to take a photo of him out the window, just to worry him). On the roof there's a bit of a surprise since it's been cleaned and cleared of all the junk (which is quite dramatic, since it was all junk). Nonetheless, we locate the somewhat shell-shocked kitten and give it a bite to eat: then I nip out to buy film for tomorrow, since I've pretty much run out and I figure nowhere'll be open that early. Ironically, the guy at Reception chooses this evening to drop the price for their Abu Simbel tour to 40EP per person - ah well, they were too late (actually, I think they guessed we'd booked with someone else). And then it's early to bed for tomorrow's adventure.

Our ten-month anniversary (I forget until prompted by Milla mid-afternoon) is pretty easy to write about since we didn't do a lot We did get up around 02.40, which is a minor miracle, had breakfast and were almost ready (I was ready) when the driver arrived at 03.55. Downstairs, and after an exchange of money (50%), we're in the minibus by 09.00: it's pretty small and pretty packed and, being up the back we don't have a lot of legroom. There's one more hotel stop to pick up a smelly Japanese guy (he's not wearing any socks, and sits next to me) and then (with 11 people) we're off. But not for long. Just at the back of the Nubian Museum, we stop - there are three Russian women on the bus and their guide also speaks English: he informs us that we have a twenty-minute wait, until 04.30, when the convoy will leave.
Other vehicles are gathering here: a couple of coaches, a swarm of minibuses, and the odd taxi - all under the casual eye of armed police/army. It seems that, for the first time in my life, I'll be travelling as part of an armed convoy. It also seems to me that the large and unlit cemetery over the road would make ideal cover for any group of, say, muslim extremists who wanted to attack a nice, large group of tourists lined up nicely in buses just sitting, waiting over the road: possibly I'm paranoid. Time passes, a couple of cigarettes are smoked, and then we're off into the morning: with individual army guys installed on the larger coaches and a little pick-up full of them, we speed through Aswan, across the old dam, and up to a military checkpoint - and then it's off into the desert. I figure we've got 275km there and back, and supposedly two hours at the site - all to do in eight hours. So we'll have to travel faster than a speeding bullet, which is possibly the idea.
Bizarrely (because I feel it defeats the whole concept of a convoy) there's a lot of overtaking among the vehicles and it doesn't take too long before the buses are all pretty much out of sight of each other. This removes about the only thing to look at en route, and the cramped conditions remove any possibility of getting more than ten or fifteen minutes' sleep at a time. There's sunrise, of course, which is dull but very colourful and takes about half an hour for the whole effect. Other than that there's the Sahara, which is mostly lone and level sands (with some very small hills), and is very yellow. Very yellow. About the only excitement of the trip comes when Milla lights a cigarette and creates a general uproar from other occupants: on the basis that we were told it was a smoking bus (one of our essential questions yesterday), she finishes it (though with the window open).
The scenery starts to lighten up a bit as the road swings back in towards Lake Nasser and we near our destination: there's a whole bunch of extensive new irrigation schemes underway, with canals slicing through the desert and sudden surprising patches of green. And then we're suddenly pulling into the town of Abu Simbel - it's a pretty small place, but much bigger than I expected: lots of shops, mostly tourist/souvenir shops which I feel must get hardly any business with most tourists now arriving/departing by coach on the same day (you used to have to fly in and out on the same day, because of the security situation). The town ends in a little dual carriageway which runs to the Visitor Centre and Ticket Office, and the minibus leaves us there with instructions to be back in two to two and a quarter hours.
Almost before we know it, we're through security and into the fenced site which, basically, is an artificial hill: when the waters rose, they only moved the temple by a couple of hundred metres and created a (largely hollow) replica of the cliff-face which Ramses originally chose. There are actually two temples here, originally glaring out over the Nile and now glaring out over the lake, and both have massive and impressive facades, though the way the "hill" stops just above them detracts a little. We opt to hit the Temple of Hathor first, on the basis that it's both smaller and less busy.
The temple has six huge statues across the entrance - two are of Nefertari (this is the only Egyptian temple to be fronted by statues of a woman) and the others (of course) are of Ramses II: they're in reasonable condition, though only one of the Nefertaris is obviously a woman - a selection of their kids flank the larger statues. There's not a huge amount inside (they had to carve it from solid rock, after all): one large six-pillared hall, an antechamber and a small sanctuary at the back. The walls are covered in reliefs of Nefertari and Ramses worshipping various gods (mainly Hathor, of course), and quite a few of Ramses being hugely successful in various military campaigns. The columns have capitals in the shape of Hathor's head (as we saw in Hatshepsut's Chapel to her, for example), and right at the back is a deep relief Hathor/cow emerging from the wall with (perhaps) Nefertari standing between her front legs. It's kinda okay, though a bit disappointing after the exterior - the most interesting relief is one of Seth and Horus: a lot of the time Seth's place is taken by an Ibis-headed version, and sometimes he mutates all the way into Thoth: this is the full square-eared version.
We emerge into the bright heat again (it's just gone 08.00, and looks like two hours is gonna be plenty time for both temples) and walk the short distance across to the larger temple. This one was dedicated to Ra-Harakhty, Amun, Ptah and (in the greatest testament to his egotism) the deified Ramses II: and if he needed one, this gave him the excuse he needed to front the temple with the famous four (now three and a half) seated statues of himself. The workmanship's pretty crude, and it's difficult to tell that they're all meant to be the same guy: each has smaller flanking figures, and there's a small line of Horus/Ra-Harakhty running along the front. Immediately inside, once your eyes have adjusted to the light, is a large hypostyle hall. The first thing that strikes you is that all the columns are Ramses II again: the first thing that doesn't strike you is one of the really fast-flying little birds that seem to live here now.
The walls, of course, are decorated in reliefs of Ramses being magnificent: here's Ramses grabbing his enemies by the hair; here's Ramses in his chariot; here's Ramses besieging a fortress (that's an unusual one). Further inside is a second little hypostyle hall, with only four columns: the walls have good reliefs of two solar barques - that of Ra-Harakhty and that (we think) of Khons (which is odd, because it's not his temple). Right at the back are four seated statues in the sanctuary, facing out - they're pretty crumbly now, but these are the ones famously lit at dawn on the 22nd of February and October. Bizarrely, considering how much time, money, effort and expertise went into moving the temple, this apparently used to happen on the 21st of February and October.
There are a bunch of side chapels and chambers where, frankly, the already poor quality of the work deteriorates even further (I suspect Ramses was more concerned with the scale) - in one chamber on the right (to Ra-Harakhty), the relief peters out unfinished into black lines on the wall. Most of the rest of the walls are reliefs of Ramses and Nefertari worshipping various gods (there's a particularly dodgy one of him before Amun-Min, apparently tickling the god under the chin while holding a waiting cup under the god's erect phallus): most amusing is the ultimate expression of Ramses' worldview - several reliefs of him worshipping himself.
We head out, a little underwhelmed, and quickly check out the Visitor Centre (all about moving the temples, which was more interesting and impressive than the temples themselves). And then it's back onto the bus, another delay while the convoy reassembles, and back off into the desert: Abu Simbel, with its famous facades, gets 3/10 on the ruins scale.
The journey back is much the same as the journey there, except with more light (oh, and I get to sit between the smelly Japanese again and an equally smelly muslim girl, while Milla relocates to a seat with more legroom). We get to see lots and lots of large mirages (reflections are the wrong way up in mirages, by the way), and the extensive radar, fighter and missile defences which protect the High Dam (a huge amount of Egypt would be destroyed if the dam went). At one point Milla opens a window (! - she normally hates people who do that on buses). We get a nice view of Philae Temple and the High Dam from the road along the top of the old dam, and we see an "Alabaster Palace" on the way into Aswan. "Palace" now joins "School", "Factory", "Museum" and "Institute" as local euphemisms for "shop".
We pick up some supplies and return to the hotel where, despite our good intentions of going out and doing stuff, just lie around for a bit. Milla visits the post office (it's closed again - she discovers that it's only actually open up to 13.00 each day) and then plays with the kitten on the roof for a while. While there she meets the cleaning woman (surprisingly they have one), who confirms that she tidied/junked the stuff on the roof - presumably, and hopefully (considering the amount of rubbish which had accumulated), a seasonal exercise rather than a weekly one. We vaguely discuss going out again at about 16.00, but almost inevitably fall asleep until just after 18.30 instead. Still having stuff to do today, we head out anyway and change some money and then shop for souvenirs before checking train times to Luxor at the station: it's a pretty confusing answer and, despite finding someone with good English, we leave unsure of what exactly we found out. By 21.45 we're in a pizza place, discovering that they pronounce Mirinda as Miranda, and we get back to the hotel fairly late.
The last, unnerving incident of the day occurs in the wee small hours - we hear the guy who sleeps on the roof, presumably pissed off with the continual mewling, carrying the kitten down from the terrace. Milla follows and finds it's been delivered to the coffee shop/eatery across the lane - when she's suspicious, they produce the little kitten and explain that its mother lives here. Hm: we both hit the sack, unconvinced of their benign intentions and realistically unable to adopt it as an alternative.

We're up on schedule and breakfast early, and then lose a bunch of time packing: not to worry - we don't have a huge amount to do today. In fact, it pretty much comes down to taking a ride in a felucca, doing a bit of shopping, and then catching a train back north to Luxor. Our first obstacle strikes just after 10.00, when it suddenly transpires that the hotel won't let us leave our bags behind Reception, or indeed anywhere in the place, for free. We can keep the room until 18.00 (normal check-out is at 12.00), but obviously only if we pay 50% of the room rate. Lovely. But we don't have a whole lot of options . . .
It's 10.30 when we head out, detouring via the eatery/coffee shop across the alley with a small bag of food for Milla's kitten: the guys there deny all knowledge of the little cat, until one comes in whom Milla recognises. The kitten is, he says, with its mother - "gone home": that, of course, could mean anything. Milla delivers the little mixes bag of bread and beef, for the kitten, and then we swing round by the post office (Milla's very upset) and then on to the shore. On previous days (or at least on one previous day), we've heard a quoted price of 5EP per our for a felucca: this, we now suspect, is either per person or else for an extended trip (eg. two days up to Kom Ombo) - today the range is from 10EP to 25EP. Actually, the offer of 10EP only comes from one "captain", a young lad of 13 or 14 years old - if we want anything more complex than simply sailing round one of the islands, we figure we'd rather have someone with a little more experience.
Our eventual "someone with a little more experience" is an older Nubian guy: 15EP an hour is his last price, but he'll do around the islands plus up to the First Cataract and back (3 hours, he claims) for 40EP. Milla has reservations, especially when she sees the felucca close up (and remembering the rowing oat trip from the west bank on Monday) - we agree a one-hour bail-out alternative at 15EP, with the decision to be made at a turn-back point at the southern tip of Elephantine Island. Feluccas are just single-masted sailing boats, and this one's pretty small (maximum eight people at a pinch, probably). I notice that the emergency oars strapped to the mast also don't have paddles at the end: hopefully we won't have to use them. We stow our day-bags somewhere out of the sun (under the seats) and then we're off, drifting out into the Nile.
We head north first, into the wind, which is a gradual tacking process - west almost to the rocks around the island, east back towards the moored cruise boats, and so on. About five minutes out, Milla casually remarks that this is going to be the one-hour option: she's distinctly not happy, especially since the water's pretty choppy (the wind's blowing against the current) so the trip isn't particularly smooth. We cut neatly round the north end of Elephantine Island, with its amazingly ugly $200-a-night Oberoi Hotel (the best reason for staying there must be because it's the only place in Aswan which you can't see it from) and then the trip's much calmer as we turn south between the colourful botanic gardens of Kitchener's Island and Elephantine Island. There are great views of the Princes' Tombs, and the landing and viewpoint on Elephantine Island (where we need five attempts at clearing the rocks - our captain came a bit close to the shore in the crosswind), and the Mausoleum of the Aga Khan (and Mrs. Khan).
We round the southern tip of Elephantine Island, gliding in little diagonals among the hundreds of little islands and jutting grey rocks which are supposed to resemble bathing elephants (hence the name). It's all very idyllic, and Milla's now sold on the concept and votes to press on. We leave the Old Cataract Hotel (it looks much better from the water) and ruins of Syene behind and press leisurely southwards past a couple of islands which seem to be owned exclusively by a couple of up-market hotels - one of these is the Isis Hotel: we've seen its private ferries and private landing in Aswan. We chat with our captain as we go - he explains that the huge Coptic Cathedral-in-progress is being paid for by Copts all over Egypt, not just the local community. He also explains that the government has relocated the Nubian communities flooded-out by Lake Nasser - they now have more land than they had before, but it's not as good.very fast moving and is a mass of eddies and sudden brief whirlpools in unpredictable patterns. We tack towards it, unsuccessfully, and then try to kinda sneak up on it along the southern shore by zig-zagging in little stretches. The tiny boat gets caught by the current however and, regardless of which way it's pointing, is whooshed sideways into the rocks. It's all quite alarming. Our captains lifts the keel a bit to protect it and, as the sides scrape against the rocks, he leaps out of the boat and pushes it back out into the current - we have visions of losing him and being struck on an uncontrollable felucca in the First Cataract. Eventually, we retreat a bit.
A bigger boat has joined us (a 20-seater with a comparatively huge sail): they watch our efforts for a bit and then try building up a good speed and sailing straight at the water. We watch it gradually slow and then get kicked sideways into the shore, just as we were: they didn't get as far as we did (ha!). We abandon our attempt (with a favourable wind it's quite do-able, apparently) and head back downstream towards Aswan. Milla sleeps in the bottom of the boat, so she seems to have become more comfortable with this particular mode of travel.
It's mid-afternoon by the time we dock (I get to steer as the sail's being furled, and manage not to collide with any of the big cruise boats), and we go got a brief shop for souvenirs (we did some pricing yesterday, but many of the shops and stalls are closed at this time today, which we hadn't anticipated - bummer) and one last pizza. Then we collect our bags and hit the station in time for the 17.00 train, which we think we found out about yesterday. It transpires (it would) that there's no such thing as a 17.00 train to Luxor, which is just as well because the ticketing computer system is currently offline. Lovely. We go and sit on the platform for a bit - the next train's at 18.00.
There's a fat little man at Aswan station, who may actually work there - his income, I suspect, comes from baksheesh from foreigners since as soon as any foreigner enters the station, this guy accosts them offering various services (train information, porter, guide to the platforms and so on). We've been politely ignoring him. At 17.40, I leave Milla on the platform and rejoin the ticket queue, which is finally moving: our little fat guy offers to get rickets for one foreign couple. His various queue-jumping techniques weren't working today, though (there's a large queue of non-relaxed people because of the delay), and when I left he still hadn't been successful - the two foreigners had foolishly given him the money and left the queue, otherwise they'd have been pretty near the front. I return to Milla (who's apparently been getting hassle from one of the vendors on the platform), and we board for a short (three hour) and painless trip. As happened with the cruise boat, at Esna we're invaded by hordes of locals selling stuff - pastries, newspapers, bags of nuts, etc.: it's a real capitalist stronghold. Aswan behind us gets 2/10 - it's a bit of a dump, though particularly scenic - still, more of a base than a place to visit in its own right.
Back in Luxor we dodge the various touts and recheck into the Fontana Hotel (and get our old rooms), get some cigarettes at 3.75EP a pack (instead of Aswan's 4.00) and check out the souq. Unfortunately, half the stalls are closed and the rest are closing and don't have some of the products we spotted in Aswan yesterday. Pah. We'd wanted to get it out the way because tomorrow may be entirely taken up with trying to see Dendara and Abydos before pushing back north to Cairo . . .

After last night's late night, I don't bother setting my alarm and I get up at 09.15; Milla sets hers for 07.30, briefly stirs at 10.00 to ask if we're going to Abydos, and then sleeps through to 12.15. We go for breakfast, appropriating an extra two eggs to compensate for have none yesterday, and then return to the room. I've been writing, trying to get through some of the 3+ weeks which I'm currently behind, and Milla announces her intention to wash clothes (it's pretty hot, so they should dry quickly): we plan to go about at 17.00 or so. By 20.00, however, Milla's still washing clothes - I go out for chocolate, water and rice pudding (and end up re-shopping for half the chocolate, due to a hole in the bag). Milla naturally finishes after 01.00 (11 hours), and it's after 02.00 by the time we're in bed.

Much to Milla's surprise, we sleep through the 06.30 alarms this morning: I get up just before 09.00 and do some writing, and we eventually end up having breakfast around midday. Checking the clothes washes yesterday (they're all bone dry) kinda confirms what we thought - even though Aswan is hotter, Luxor seems to be drier: we have no idea why. We head out at 13.20 to do more souvenir shopping, or rather shopping for gifts for relatives. From the available range, we're pretty much decided on scarves/shawls as the only things worth buying: no-one really wants novelty trinkets - their names in coloured sand, pharaonic packs of cards or tacky T-shirts; the alabaster and granite pieces are badly worked in comparison with the pharaonic originals and serve no function except, perhaps, as unergonomic paperweights; gold and silver are beyond our price range and most pieces are pretty kitsch anyway; and no-one I've spoken to has yet come up with a convincing use for a decorated piece of papyrus.
Scarves, however, are not proving an easy option either (even setting aside all the usual hassle of agreeing a price: you can normally get 200EP down to 60EP, and 60EP down to 20EP). We've found about two dozen different designs so far: five of these are so narrow that they're useless, another five are essentially cheaper quality copies of other designs (yes, here they produce cheap copies of even their own stuff). Most of the others we don't like that much because either the fabric or the design is too cheap/naff. Having identified our first problem as one of limited appealing designs, the second problem is one of colour: possibly because of the monochromatic nature of their country, Egyptians seem to favour really bland or dull colours - greys, dark blues and browns account for 80% of what's available. The second issue with colour is that the factories aren't consistent, so if a shop has three yellow scarves of the same design then odds are they'll all be slightly different shades of yellow. Our third main problem is that of finishing: for some reason, here they seem to consider "finishing" problems irrelevant - not worth addressing in the production process. "Finishing" problems include stray threads of different colours, uneven and fraying edges and so on - stallholders seem genuinely baffled when we search through a dozen seemingly identical scarves looking for the most perfect/least imperfect one. Actually, the stallholders are generally useless anyway, claiming that a.) patently different designs are actually the same and b.) everything is high quality - they have this concept that Egyptian fabric products are world-class quality, which they actually were when everything was handmade. These days, when everything's machine-made and their machines are substandard (oh, and they claim everything's still handmade), most Egyptian stuff is pretty crappy despite the quality of the material, and would all end up in the "Seconds" bin back home.
The practical upshot of all this rambling is that it takes another six hours to get two scarves that we like, by which time both our tempers are fraying almost as much as most of the scarves we've seen. Two or three hours of writing, followed by an evening meal out makes everything much better again. We run into Jan and Jaqueline again at the restaurant and sit chatting away to them for a while, so it's 23.45 by the time we get back to the hotel and considerably later by the time we go to bed. We're both pretty resolved to get up early tomorrow and finally get to Abydos, so that we can finally get out of Luxor. We shall see . . .