Thursday 22 December 2011
We left for Luxor on an 8:45 AM flight from Cairo, aboard Egypt Air. Security was very light since it was a domestic flight, and safety was similarly lax with them seating me in an exit row, even though I do not speak a word of Arabic; additionally, the flight took off while the safety video was still playing. Nonetheless, it was an eventless journey, and we arrived well before noon.
After the flight we boarded the Nile cruise ship MS Miriam for seven nights. This is a welcome treat as it gives me enough time in one location to unpack my suitcase and not have to live directly out of it!
The passengers are fully spread across the spectrum, from a (married?) woman with two teenage children up to people well into their retirement years. There’s a female Navy Lieutenant Commander (O-4) plus her retired school teacher mother, and the tour guide is Mohammed, a retired archeologist who took up tourism as a profession because it pays better! No major issues seem to be in this area, for which I am thankful since small boats like this get even smaller if you need to avoid certain people with whom you feel uncomfortable.
Our first visit around noon was a bus ride to the Karnak Temple, a huge site, complete with an obelisk (which I believe to be the companion of the New York City monument). In the evening, we went to Luxor Temple which is much more famous, and in this case housing the companion of the French obelisk. After that, there was a quick stop at a Papyrus shop (where I bought a painting of Horus and Hathor), and finally back to the boat for dinner.
One of the things I am finding out about Egypt that I did not expect beforehand is that the number of ancient sites available for touring is huge. I expected a handful of the well-known sites, but in actuality there are more than I can begin to count, and to visit all of them would literally take months. Additionally, there are subtleties at each site that I would not begin to understand without a very observant tour guide such as Mohammed to point them out.
We left for Luxor on an 8:45 AM flight from Cairo, aboard Egypt Air. Security was very light since it was a domestic flight, and safety was similarly lax with them seating me in an exit row, even though I do not speak a word of Arabic; additionally, the flight took off while the safety video was still playing. Nonetheless, it was an eventless journey, and we arrived well before noon.After the flight we boarded the Nile cruise ship MS Miriam for seven nights. This is a welcome treat as it gives me enough time in one location to unpack my suitcase and not have to live directly out of it!
Since I was the only Insight Vacation tourist, the company thankfully combined me with a larger group from Trafalgar (which I believe has the same parent company), so there are a dozen of us in the same group—which means I don’t have to dine at a table alone, since they group us at meals by the tour company we are with. I cannot tell how many total passengers are on the boat, though I do know there is a large number of Germans, many of whom leave tonight.
Owing to low tide, we cannot travel north on the Nile, so we will be docked for the first three days as we visit Luxor, Karnak, the Valley of the Kings and Dendera before sailing south on Christmas Day.
The docking arrangement of the ships is a bit odd, with literally six of them lined up side-by-side, which means that in order to board or disembark we walk through five (currently unused) ships before getting to ours.
The ship itself would hold over 100 passengers were she fully loaded, and it has the traditional sundeck on top, with a large bar, small fitness center, and gift shops below deck. There’s even a pool table, so I might give that a shot. Though it claims to be a five star establishment, it certainly falls short of that in most marks. It is clean and pleasant, and I have no regrets about being aboard it, but to call this a five star is silly enough to begin with, and downright absurd after just having spent three nights at the Savoy in London. The rooms have newly installed toilets, bath tubs and counters in the bathroom, but in all other regards this looks like a twenty-year-old ship with the expected wear and tear: Neat and clean, but far from elegant. Tissues in the rooms are displayed in their original cardboard boxes (not in a sleeve or cover), the pens in the room are clear plastic sticks, and the Ship Directory is a paper folder, not a leather binding. Again, I am not disappointed, but the description is definitely misleading. On the plus side, the prices of the things that are not included are very reasonable, such as $6.50 for a glass of liquor or about $4 for a glass of wine.
I should also point out for anybody who has ever been on an ocean-going cruise ship that the dining process is different on a Nile ship: Food is presented buffet style, and you serve yourself, with waiters there to clear tables and take drink order but not to serve your meal.
I should also point out for anybody who has ever been on an ocean-going cruise ship that the dining process is different on a Nile ship: Food is presented buffet style, and you serve yourself, with waiters there to clear tables and take drink order but not to serve your meal.
Another bonus: Since the ship is only partially booked, the tour company upgraded me from a single cabin to a larger double, and by cruise ship standards these really are quite large, with total area over 200 square feet. I have definitely stayed in far smaller rooms in Tokyo and Europe.
The passengers are fully spread across the spectrum, from a (married?) woman with two teenage children up to people well into their retirement years. There’s a female Navy Lieutenant Commander (O-4) plus her retired school teacher mother, and the tour guide is Mohammed, a retired archeologist who took up tourism as a profession because it pays better! No major issues seem to be in this area, for which I am thankful since small boats like this get even smaller if you need to avoid certain people with whom you feel uncomfortable.Our first visit around noon was a bus ride to the Karnak Temple, a huge site, complete with an obelisk (which I believe to be the companion of the New York City monument). In the evening, we went to Luxor Temple which is much more famous, and in this case housing the companion of the French obelisk. After that, there was a quick stop at a Papyrus shop (where I bought a painting of Horus and Hathor), and finally back to the boat for dinner.
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