Thursday, November 9, 2006

We packed up and left the hotel.

We took the icky train to Luxor. It took over three hours. I saw my first squat toilet at the train station, but turned and ran instead of using it.

There were beautiful views from the train, grass and palm trees with the Nile behind them.

We got to Luxor at 5:00 p.m. We had made reservations at a hotel, but were stopped outside the station by a man offering us a deal at New Pola, the hotel we were originally going to book, so we went to check it out. It was nice, but when we got to the lobby we were asked to sit down. I asked Mohab what was going on and he said that the man had to talk to the general manager as to whether or not we could stay there. I laughed and said "let's go" no one's going to tell me whether or not I can pay them to stay there. The whole mentality about unwed couples being together, but even though we are renting two rooms, it is still bad because he is Egyptian and I am a foreigner. So, we headed to Gaddis to check in. Same issue. The guy at the desk put up a stink and called the GM. He said no, that we couldn't stay there. So, I asked to talk to the GM. We went up to his office and explained that there is a misunderstanding. He said that they had had an incident with a tour guide and a visitor and it is the policy of the owner not to allow Egyptians and foreigners of the opposite sex to stay in the same hotel. We explained that we are asking for separate rooms, etc, it still didn't work. However, he did call around to other hotels to try to find us one. We finally got rooms at The Royal House, which is a fairly nice place. They even put us on the same floor! However, "no in room visits".

After we settled in we went and got some dinner, pizza, but way better than home pizza.

We went back to the hotel and watched a movie and went to sleep.... in the same room. ;-p