On the Move
My most memorable journey
by robsonc (13)

Here is a picture of a village near where we stayed

What is your name? Alison Robson What is your age? 47 Years Gender? female Write about the most memorable journey you ever made or place you ever visited. The journey that stands out when I reflect back upon my experiences was a journey to southern Egypt made in the summer of 1982, when I was thirty years old. I was visiting my friend and former colleague, Cordelia, who was living and working in Cairo, with my husband Alan. We had spent many days exploring the intriguing delights that Cairo has to offer, the bustling streets, the markets and museums, the wonderful mosques and all the treasures the Muslim culture has to offer, wonderful colourful Islamic mosaics, beautiful wood carvings, decoration based on Arabic calligraphy, and yet at the same time the people were so unlike anything I had experienced. There were extremes of wealth and poverty, they wore long galibeas and I had never seen beggars with such terrible afflictions like this. The heat was intense, the pavements were cracked and broken, cars hooted non-stop amongst all the hustle and bustle, the buses were so crowded that people were riding on the back and the sides, and the regular call to prayer from loudspeakers when all good Muslims stopped where they were and prayed facing Mecca. We were followed around by groups of children who were fascinated by us who roamed the streets, their homes so poor by our English standards. Then there was the River Nile which ran through the city centre with modern air conditioned hotels bordering it. We had visited the city of Alexandria in the north, by the sea and the fertile Nile delta, seen farms and cotton fields and its lovely corniche and central square with the Cecil Hotel at its centre, and we decided to take a train journey down to the south to Luxor at the Upper Nile. Cordelia helped us purchase our tickets (not an easy task in the confusion and hubbub of the central station) and we arrived at the station in the evening to take the sleeping train. The trains that came and went were very crowded, most of the people travelling in the third class carriages which were just open spaces, no seats, a melee of bodies, bags and animals all bundled in together. We travelled first class in a compartment with four bunk beds. Pulling out of Cairo we saw housing conditions unimaginable in England, houses made of unrolled oil drums and shacks, and it made me reflect on my good fortune to have been born into the environment of my own family life. The train journey took all night and most of the next day. The landscape was mostly desert. Heat and sand was the prevailing landscape, and we enjoyed the Arabic coffee from the buffet car. In Luxor we visited the Valley of the Kings, the Temple at Carnac and took tea in the historic Mina Palace Hotel, where Agatha Christie used to stay. We saw palm lined streets, horse driven fiacres, and the Nile was so very different here. It was greeny brown in colour, with a ferry running across it and beautiful feloucres with white sails contrasted with the small crowded working boats and the famous Nile cruising boats taking visitors from Cairo to Aswan further up the Nile. Our hotel was at Habu on the very quiet west bank of the Nile. It was a family run hotel beside a very old temple, the Medinet at Habu. In the evening we sat in the hotel garden drinking mint tea provided by the young son of the family, and the wind that blew on us felt as if it was coming from a hair dryer! The next day at dusk, after much bartering, we chartered a feloucre. We were taken, with two young Egyptians at the sail, along the River Nile. It was calm and stunningly beautiful. Huge ibis flew over the water. We saw remarkable ancient architecture, we saw a fertile landscape with cattle grazing, palm trees, small mud-brick houses painted in bright colours, people working manually in the fields with the Libyan desert in the distance and yet all the activity of the people for whom the river is their livelihood. We went on to visit the delightful town of Aswan and rode on camels in the Desert, but the experience of the feloucre is the journey that stands out as my most memorable. Where did you travel this week? Where did you travel this year? National & International Travel Where did you go this year? (e.g. school, work, club) How many times did you make this trip? How many miles (round trip)? How did you Travel (walk, car but etc..)? What did you go there for?