Aswan

A common question I got upon getting back was would I go back there. Usually I try to plan trips so that if I were to never go there again that I would be fully satisfied with my experience. The one place I would consider trying to revisit is Aswan. This city is located right along the Nile, in order to get to the other side and to some of the middle island you need to take a sailboat (felucca) or motor boat. It’s a pretty fun experience getting to ride these, very relaxing and comforting. I personally love sailing so this was an awesome bonus to the trip. Some of the activities included:

--Unfinished obelisk which was unfinished because it cracked while trying to make it not because they were too lazy to finish it.
--Noubian Village, where the local Africans lived, it was pretty interesting to see how they were treated and how their houses were. The village was crazy complicated, I doubt they ever got mail as it was impossible to navigate, and it was all pretty run down. Our group was lucky enough to go eat at one of the local’s houses and I discovered that they eat Daal (aka Dar aka lentil soup Indian style).

The Markets in Aswan are pretty lively, they were pretty safe… though you can get some over pushy salesmen’s trying to selling you something. Overall, the market experience was pretty fun. They always asked where I was from, and when I replied Canada… the prices of things seem to start at the 200 pound level…. And then I switched and started saying India … they seemed to start at the 50 pounds?? Good ol supply and demand economics right there. Some of my favorite lines from the vendors were (v= vendor, a = Alissa):

V = No Hassle…as they were hassling you to buy something (I’m pretty sure they had no idea what hassle ment).

V= come in and see… everything is for free (haha nothing is ever free)

V= where are you from?
A= Canada
V= Canada dry (I guess they only really knew Canada that way… though I couldn’t ever find any Canada dry when I wanted it)

V= where are you from?
A: India
V= Amitabh Bachan!!! (yes that’s right… everyone in the world knows Amitabh. I even found one vendor who could name me a bunch of hindi actors. Some even knew Ki Hal Hai)