Strolling in the (Tourist) Souk

Over our long weekend (Friday was our Coptic Christmas holiday) a few of us spent some time wandering through the tourist souk here in Luxor. It's always an adventure as we are importuned at every turn to buy! buy! buy! Luckily, over the years we have mastered the art of refusing without rudeness (unless the salesmen get really aggressive!). Sometimes a hand on the heart and a simple "La, shokran" (No, thanks) suffices.

Others of our group were actually shopping for stuff so I had the opportunity to stand back and observe--and snap some photos of the scene. Here they are, along with a few from past seasons. This first is the "new" entrance to "El-Souk":

And here's one of the side entrances, before they completed all the refurbishment:

Some shops:

"Believe it"... or not

Aladdin's lamps?

There are plenty of places to "add a little spice to your life":

The global financial crisis is affecting the merchants in Luxor too. The sign which reads "Prace que la crise" should actually be "Parce que la crise" and means "because of the crisis", which explains all the "small money" signs in this window:

We spent quite a bit of time in this next shop, and some spent a bit of money here too! I guess you could label these shots as "Genuine Fakes"!

This is a shot I took on one of the side streets. For some reason, the merchant did not want his wares photographed, so I only have this one to share:

And as the sun sinks slowly in the west, we leave the souk for another day... :

I just uncovered some photos I took in the people's souk a couple of years ago. I'll share those in another post. I think you'll be intrigued by the differences.