Abydos (And Dealing with Egyptians VII)

I decided I needed to go out again and explore Egypt rather than just enjoy the weather and the pools at the hotel. So I hired a taxi for a day to take in two temples some hours away from Luxor, at Abydos and Dundera. Helpfully the hotel has a list of prices for journeys by taxi and it listed this one as 950 Egyptian pounds. But of course, this is Egypt and the price is never the price. I was charged 1300 pounds. The explanation was utterly unintelligible. I shrugged. here we go again.

Dealing with Egyptians

Ok, regardless of whether or not I was overcharged, this taxi was in appalling condition. Most of the interior seemed to be held together with bits of tape. As were the windscreen wipers. But of more concern was that my seat-belt sprang open spontaneously about half a dozen times during the day, which doesn't exactly give one confidence for its efficacy in a crash situation.

And a crash always felt a distinct possibility on Egyptian roads. One wasn't always that sure on which side of the road Egyptians drove, even while sitting in a car. Also, three abreast overtaking on a single carriageway is commonplace. This is in part due to the fact that even major roads have incredibly slow moving vehicles on them, particularly tuk-tuks. So it was common to find a tuk-tuk being overtaken by a lorry and an impatient car would simply overtake the the lorry while it was still overtaking the first vehicle. A little bit hairy but you get used to it.

You also get used to the fact that donkey driven carts are significant form of transport. And get used to seeing the poor donkeys being beaten to get them to move, especially over humps. Those against animal cruelty should be out protesting in Egypt, except whinging in Britain about experiments is much nicer for them than actually facing the real world.

And then of course there are the police in Egypt. the rampant petty corruption here is treated with a shrug. I will refer to this more in my next entry, but suffice to say that we were stopped endlessly for spurious security checks (I will also explain why  they were obviously spurious), before finally being stopped, held and then taken in convoy to the temple at Abydos with another couple of vehicles as if this was downtown Baghdad.

The especially sad part is hen we got there it has obviously been set up for mass tourism, but so appalling is the mismanagement of the industry that there is no one there. Every effort is made to ensure the experience is a bad one for any visitor. Huge car parks are empty, the modern entrance and ticket hall is basically empty, the glass cafeteria only distinguishable as one because the totally empty building has a sign saying it is one.

Past the ticket office you have this long spacious vista to the Great Temple of Seti I. 

 

 
Of course the one bright side of the Egyptians putting off tourism is that those of us sufficiently persistent at least don't have to deal; with tourist hordes. One had the place if not to oneself then at least with just a handful of others able to wander at will through the towering pillars and able to examine the very well preserved carvings and painting. It was evidently too much effort for there to be any big tour coaches for which the coach park had been built.

the minus side is that one was only given an hour before we were supposed to be taken in convoy back to the middle of nowhere in particular, just where the police had set up a random post.

 

 

  

Behind the temple is the Osireion. But closed.