A Carriage Ride in Luxor

Monday evening after dinner, we disembarked and took a most interesting horse and carriage ride through Luxor. We saw the Karnak Temple lit up and drove next to the ancient road that is being reconstructed between Karnak and Luxor Temples. The road was recently discovered and should be completed in a couple of years.

Most of our ride took us through the part of the city where the people live, including some of the poorest areas. It was fascinating to see how these people live. We drove by very small shops that sold specific goods: produce, grains, spices, bakeries, fabric stores that had walls of bolts of fabric and huge bags of cotton, tailors at their sewing machines, clothes cleaners with the owners ironing the clothes, shoe stores and barber shops. There were a couple of butcher shops with the meat hanging outside of the shop (beef-no pork to be had here). We also saw a street of car dealers where each of them had one car in their little showroom. We were told that many of the people live about their shops.

As it was later I the evening, the people were gathering in the small restaurants and coffee shops. We saw men playing dominoes and people in chairs outside watching TV. There was a family sitting by a little stick fire. In some places there were donkeys tied up next to the houses. It was clear that these people lived in well functioning communities. In the poorer areas the children came up begging, but as we got into the less poor parts they looked at us or maybe waved and smiled but did not beg. In the better areas the stores were bigger and looked pretty much like what we have at home.
As part of the tour we also stopped at a coffee house. These are very traditional in Egypt and very small ones exist even in the poor neighborhoods. They are normally only frequented by men who socialize, play games, smoke water pipes and drink tea or Turkish coffee or a non-alcoholic fruit flavored malt beverage. As Muslims do not drink alcohol it is not served in the places the locals frequent.

Our big entertainment was the water pipe. Several people tried it and it was pretty funny seeing how everyone reacted to it. All in all it was a very eye opening evening.