A few hours later we hear a knocking at the door.

“Mika open the door!”

“No it be monkey burglars, maybe you should do it, I don’t think they forgave me for the rocks on the head.”

She looked at me strange and like anyone would do she shouted at me, “Open the door!”

“Ok, ok.”

Standing at the door was one of the workers who said in bad English, “Breakfast 3:15.”

I looked at my watch which clearly read 2:00am, “Umm why thanks for the heads up.”

“Yes” he replied, thinking I don’t know what.

Back in the safety of my bed, “Hannah does your watch say 2:00am?”

“Yes”

“You know how we bought these quality watches and were always wondering which one of ours was not keeping time correctly, well do you think maybe they both just stopped working or something.”

“Yours might not be working right but mine was the one keeping time right.” She stated. End of discussion.

“Do you think the clocks changed like daylight savings?” I asked.

“They only changed 3 weeks ago…”

“Well this is Egypt.”

“Mika do you think if we miss out bus they will give us our money back?”

“Well this is Egypt.”

“Yeah true, no chance.”

So I sat back and pondered it for a minute before falling asleep again. Next minute another knock.

“Mika open the door.”

“Monkey burglars?”

“MIKA!”

At the door was broken English boy again, looking a little stressed out, “B r e a k f a s t” he said slowly and loudly in case I couldn’t understand English, “3:00 a m”

I looked at my watch which told me it was 3am.

“Ok, thankyou for the second wake up call.”

“Yes.” He replied.

I turned around to go to bed again. A big mistake because he started to get read agitated. “Breakfast, breakfast.” He repeated.

“Ok man I heard you, we don’t have to leave until 4am we have plenty of time.

This only seemed to make the poor boy more confused, “No breakfast 3am! No 4am!”

He was really determined to get us our breakfast. So I did what anyone would do in my position and closed the door on him and went back to bed. Hannah got up thinking they maybe he had found some cornflakes and vegemite and toast for us and was as excited about it as we would have been if it was those very things.

I slept for another 30 minutes and wandered in to be greeted by our splendid breakfast of a stale roll and processed cheese slice. The use by date helpfully scratched out. I really don’t know why he had to give us a few practice wake up calls before the real deal. Especially for this breakfast which I wished I hadn’t of eaten as soon as I finished it.

At 4am our mini bus without air conditioning arrived to pick us up and we all just squeezed in for our convoy to Abu Simbul. About 20 buses all full of tourists had to have a police escort because it is on the border to Sudan and its angry Muslim terrorists all itching to get some white boy massacre. In 1997 on this very bus route some of them had crossed the border and slaughtered a whole big bunch of tourists so the Egyptian authorities had put in the convoy for our protection.

The convoy more resembled a gumball rally to me with the buses all competing to get there first, first as in before the escorts, everyone. One bus took off, tires squealing only to be overtaken on the outside by another who had got the jump on everyone by overtaking, using the curbs liberally. This caused the other bus to try and ram it off the road completely but in doing so created more space for another bus to pass him on the inside. We soon joined in on the chase and even though we were in a mini bus doing 160km/h didn’t even come close to finishing first. It beats me why there are so many bus crashes and tourists killed in Egypt, really.

After we had paid for our tickets by carefully using the line in place, ie using gile, whit, charm, distraction, female charm, diversions and blatent pushing in we joined the other 600million tourist to see the 2 temples right next to each other.

I decided to get a carefully constructed masterpiece picture so set the camera down with timer rolling. I didn’t really trust Hannah to get it just right. Also then she would get all the credit for such a good picture. So I quickly ran out and walked to the spot marked with an X on the ground and looked back and casually strolled towards the camera with my natural face on and exaggerated movements, so you would be able to see how cool I walked. Just as it was about to take a picture someone walked in front of it. I repeated said process, another person walked in front of it again.

“Mika just let me take the picture.”

“No!” She just wanted the fame and fortune, I swear.

Anyway after 8 attempts I gave up. So I cant show you the perfect picture.

There was a No Camera sign as you entered into the temple so I had my camera in my hand turned on but I forgot to turn my screen off and the guard noticed.

“No Camera!” he barked a little angrily.

“Yes ok” I said and I walked off with it still on.

“I said no CAMERA”

“Ok” so I had to turn it off.

As soon as he returned to the entrance I turned it back on and tried to get some pictures but the camera was being difficult and would work.

“The guard came back and saw the camera in my hand so I turned it off without him seeing.

“No camera!”

“Its not on mate.”

“Yes it is on.”

“Nope”

“Show me.” So I showed him and grabbed it from my hands because I didn’t expect him to take it. I walked to the doorway of the little room and blocked his exit.

“If you think you are taking my camera you have another thing coming.”

He ignored me and tried to walk out.

“The camera thanks.” I said politely with my hands out.

He tried again to walk out so I pushed him back in and held out my hand. He was smaller than me, most Arabs are thankfully, so I could do that. Anyway he saw I was about to release the tiger on him so he gave it back, reluctantly.

“The cheek Hannah, trying to steal my camera.”

“Well you did try and take a picture.”

“Heheh, true, but he didn’t know that, for sure anyway.”

As usual we saw everything in about 30minutes so had another 30 minutes to kill so we walked past the Souqs.

“Hello, welcome, where you from?”

“Japan.”

“Welcome to Egypt, come look, very cheap.” As he trust up some scarves into our noses, grabbed Hannah and dragged her forcefully into his store.

Next store, “Hello, welcome, where you from?”

“Imafrimaplicvaranere” (Pikey for ‘I’m from a place far from here.’)

“Welcome very cheap.” I sneezed from the dusty scarves which had been carefully placed up my nose.

“Vrerynoyniissf” (‘You very annoying, go away.’)

“Speak English?”

“Ovorseianatdaainkmoin?” (‘of course I can what do you think I am speaking?”

“Yes” the standard reply for when they don’t know what is happening. It left them scratching their heads long enough for us to escape their clutches and into the waiting hands of the next Souq owner.

“Hello, welcome, where you from?”

By the end I think we had said we were from every country in the world.

“Hello, welcome, where you from?”

“Espanol.”

“Hola, mucho gusta a Egypt. Muy Barato.” he said. (‘Welcome to Egypt. Very cheap.’)

“Si” I replied confidently. (‘Yes’)

“?De donde eres?” (‘where are you from?’)

“Si”

“?Cuentes anos donde eres?” (‘How old are you.’)

“Si” I was getting the hang of this. I was confident I had them all fooled.

“Hello, welcome, where you from? Very cheap.”

“Oh that’s absolutely beautiful.” I cried in response to the plain white Tshirt he was holding up, “Hannah it’s gorgeous isn’t it? Do you have it in radioactive pink?” I was heartbroken when he didn’t. I couldn’t see why he couldn’t have that colour, I mean just because everything in Egypt comes in the standard white or black…

“Hello, welcome, where you from?”

Hannah started to get really excited about his tshirt which happened to be the same as the last 400 sellers.

“Oh I couldn’t touch it.” She gushed.

“Yes, yes touch, very nice.”

“No, I couldn’t” wherein he tried to thrust it in her face. She backed away and tentatively put a finger forward and then at the last minute pulled back.

“If I touch it I will fall in love and then have to buy it.”

He tried harder to get her to touch it, getting quite excited.

“Oh I couldn’t touch it positively I couldn’t.” she said, running away squealing.

On the way home on the bus we snaked the best two seats on the bus which made us popular with the previous occupiers who got on last and got the two worst seats in the isle. Suckers.

So by the end of the morning we had got through and only had about 3 lies dealing with money. Not a bad start, for an Egyptian day.