Went fishing again with Khaled, bob (hamdi's Lithuanian wife's brother) Ragaba ('long neck' in Arabic) and others. Looked after shop. Went for a ride with a friend and nearly got bitten by a mental dog. Played football in the street. Lost arm wrestling with Khaled (he's wrestling champion in Luxor and nearby towns). Spent hours talking with bob and hamdi about the differences in life, people and culture where we grew up. Egyptians seem to get up around midday and...

Spent the next day with Mohamed before he had to go to the army for 3 years. We went on a long trip on his bike to sugar farms (picture) and around other poor villages and then I drove and raced some friends home. Went to a night club but unfortunately the belly dancing bit was closed. Then the chain snapped on muhamed's bike so we had to walk home and some of his friends decided to arm wrestle me, I was surprised to beat them all. I watched some kids fighting ...

Yesterday I saw the Nubia museum, Fatimid cemetery and the unfinished obelisk (42m long weighing over 1000 tonnes - the largest piece of stone ever handled however it cracked before they finished it). After some Egyptian pizza I was talking to a man with a stammer. He asked me to sit and talk with him and after a while he started asking me if I like bananas, I confirmed I like bananas. It took me about ten minutes and him mentioning the word "f***y" to realise wh...

Thursday I went on a 6 hour felucca trip with some French people to various islands including a botanical garden which had some weird birds who sounded like they were drowning. Friday I got up at 2:45am to arrive at Abu simbe at 7:30 - a temple built by rameses II which has 4 20m high statues of rameses guarding the entrance. In the 60s they had to cut it into over 8000 pieces of 20-30 tonnes each and move it to higher ground to save it from being flooded by la...

Arrived in Aswan yesterday afternoon in about 35 degree heat. Over the past few days in Luxor I have:- Been to mummification museum showing the mummification process and some dead humans and animals. Luxor museum with amazing statues, artefacts and more dead people. Visited banana island on a felucca and watched the sunset over the island. Travelled around non-tourist areas of Luxor by horse carriage whilst eating sugar cane. Also rode a camel. Been on a whol...