sanemagazine: wonderful rubbish

[subtitled A Travelogue in Eighteen Days]
Day Five (cont...)
(cont. from now208 and from Day Five, slightly earlier, if you're keeping score at home.)
You may be wondering, at this point, about showers... fair enough. That would be a fair and legitimate thing to be wondering about. Surprisingly, unsurprisingly, one or the other, there is one overwhelming topic of conversation and thought throughout a trip to the desert comprised of a bunch of people: what are the toilet and bathing facilities like?
Of course, if the bunch of people were Bedouins their thought process and subsequent conversation (suggesting a link between thought processes and conversation, a tenuous link, I'll grant you) might be different, seeing as how they live in the desert, and are probably used to, by now, the non-Western approach to toilets and bathing facilities.
So if you're not in the preceding example group of people, your conversations and thoughts are going to be pretty much dominated both before and during (hopefully you've gotten over it by the time you're done and back home, resting comfortably, probably soaking in a bath and flushing the toilet with gusto every few seconds just because you can, unless you live in California, of course, where you're using up valuable water resources, so you should lay off doing that quite so much, or else move somewhere where they have a more lax attitude towards water consumption) by showers, baths (if you're British), and trips to the toilet, the state of the aforementioned toilet, and the number of bushes surrounding the aforementioned toilet for privacy, which had been neglected to be mentioned to this point, and with good cause, as a lot of people may have argued that it had been neglected in the actual implementation of the toilets in all practicality.
Unfortunately, due to the large amount of sand caked on every surface of our bodies and parts which probably were formerly pieces of clothing but, due to sand encrustation being what it was, were best off being counted as body parts for the moment, until such time as they could be distinguished from real body parts without anything being taken off or left on with disastrous consequences.

We were leaving the oases, at least for sleeping accommodations, with one stop off at the Kharga Oasis on the way back in, where we ate dinner on some guy's roof, with a rooster strutting about happily, chirping every once in a while. Despite having spent the previous four days or so out in the desert, this was our first time out in the midday sun. And on a roof, no less, which, if you're not familiar with architecture (or don't want to harbour any misconceptions about Egyptian architecture by assuming it's like everywhere else's), is closer to the sun. A very very hot sun. So much so you figured lunch tomorrow was probably that rooster, who was just now chirruping it's way through, biding it's time before it turned a sort of golden brown and all it's feathers fell off and the next one wandered out to play a bit in the sun.
The host very reassuringly assured us that no one had yet died of heat stroke on his roof. Or something along those lines, as he said them mostly very very fast and in Arabic. He smiled, at any rate, and had just served us some dinner, so no one panicked too badly, except for one person, and that caused a minor disturbance with the tourist police, but other than that things were grand.

We were told Aswan, which we were going to in a day's time, was much hotter. Though with less desert-like features, in that it had a river running down the middle of it, which did wonders for breaking up the scenery. Really. Well, this is what we were told, anyway.
I was fairly confident that I'd read somewhere that scorpions don't like the heat, so I felt safe when I took my seat on the bus again that none had snuck on while we were in eating lunch, looking for the good life and a cheap ride to Luxor (our stop just before a train would take us down to Aswan). Which sounded like a plausible thing for a scorpion looking to get out of the heat to do, exactly what I would do, if I were a scorpion looking to get in out of the heat. I spent a fair portion of the four hour or so journey into Luxor trying to convince everyone to play a game where the one who sat on the headrest and managed to keep their feet off the chair for the longest won...

Day Six
I don't seem to recall much of day six, past an early morning train journey, a getting off the train at a certain point, Aswan, perhaps, as that's what all the signs probably said, albeit in Arabic. We were supposed to tell that this was Aswan, I'm guessing, from the fact that your face melted when you stepped outside.
Which is, it turns out, how people tell they've gotten home, if they happen to live in Aswan (aside from probably being able to read Arabic): the large number of people standing at the platform holding their faces, occasionally patting (not rubbing, as that causes friction, which causes heat, which you've enough of already, you see) it to either make sure it was still there or to wipe up the bits that had already melted and were only going to make your face look like you'd had plastic surgery and forgotten to let it all set before taking off the molds and bandages.
...

disclaimer:
The rooster did not, in fact, chirrup. It crowed, the way roosters are supposed to, and do the world over. The new noise for a rooster was simply a device to move the story along. Or perhaps confuse children who might be having this travelogue read aloud to them by a caring parent, who is now going to have to spend ages explaining to their child that a rooster does not make a "chirrup" noise, but crows. Unless the parent did some hasty realtime copy editing and switched in a "cock-a-doodle-doo" for the "chirrup" noise, in which case I had no hope anyway, as the parent obviously has far too much experience as it is, and was just using this copy as a placeholder for text when their child began shouting for the story "about the chicken and the giant with the harp and the clouds and the tractor and the," and this is the bit at which they start to lose their breath, but instead of catching their breath, and risking their parent or caretaker butting in, they sally forth with their conjunctive burst, "and the, and the hamster..." At which point they deflate slightly, rapture having taken it's toll on their tiny body and they slump over, probably on the parent's knee, drooling in what observers might call a "sweet" fashion, but one which the victim doesn't quite. And at least you get some satisfaction out of the knowledge that that one little burst of excitement probably means and early bedtime and even earlier waking time.

It rumbles rambles on!



		archives horoscopes accessories contacts theatre fables home Search Sane: [A Note on My.Netscape.Com]		A Sentimental Journey Across Egypt, Libya, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Italy IV [subtitled A Travelogue in Eighteen Days] Day Five (cont...) (cont. from now208 and from Day Five, slightly earlier, if you're keeping score at home.) You may be wondering, at this point, about showers... fair enough. That would be a fair and legitimate thing to be wondering about. Surprisingly, unsurprisingly, one or the other, there is one overwhelming topic of conversation and thought throughout a trip to the desert comprised of a bunch of people: what are the toilet and bathing facilities like? Of course, if the bunch of people were Bedouins their thought process and subsequent conversation (suggesting a link between thought processes and conversation, a tenuous link, I'll grant you) might be different, seeing as how they live in the desert, and are probably used to, by now, the non-Western approach to toilets and bathing facilities. So if you're not in the preceding example group of people, your conversations and thoughts are going to be pretty much dominated both before and during (hopefully you've gotten over it by the time you're done and back home, resting comfortably, probably soaking in a bath and flushing the toilet with gusto every few seconds just because you can, unless you live in California, of course, where you're using up valuable water resources, so you should lay off doing that quite so much, or else move somewhere where they have a more lax attitude towards water consumption) by showers, baths (if you're British), and trips to the toilet, the state of the aforementioned toilet, and the number of bushes surrounding the aforementioned toilet for privacy, which had been neglected to be mentioned to this point, and with good cause, as a lot of people may have argued that it had been neglected in the actual implementation of the toilets in all practicality. Unfortunately, due to the large amount of sand caked on every surface of our bodies and parts which probably were formerly pieces of clothing but, due to sand encrustation being what it was, were best off being counted as body parts for the moment, until such time as they could be distinguished from real body parts without anything being taken off or left on with disastrous consequences. We were leaving the oases, at least for sleeping accommodations, with one stop off at the Kharga Oasis on the way back in, where we ate dinner on some guy's roof, with a rooster strutting about happily, chirping every once in a while. Despite having spent the previous four days or so out in the desert, this was our first time out in the midday sun. And on a roof, no less, which, if you're not familiar with architecture (or don't want to harbour any misconceptions about Egyptian architecture by assuming it's like everywhere else's), is closer to the sun. A very very hot sun. So much so you figured lunch tomorrow was probably that rooster, who was just now chirruping it's way through, biding it's time before it turned a sort of golden brown and all it's feathers fell off and the next one wandered out to play a bit in the sun. The host very reassuringly assured us that no one had yet died of heat stroke on his roof. Or something along those lines, as he said them mostly very very fast and in Arabic. He smiled, at any rate, and had just served us some dinner, so no one panicked too badly, except for one person, and that caused a minor disturbance with the tourist police, but other than that things were grand. We were told Aswan, which we were going to in a day's time, was much hotter. Though with less desert-like features, in that it had a river running down the middle of it, which did wonders for breaking up the scenery. Really. Well, this is what we were told, anyway. I was fairly confident that I'd read somewhere that scorpions don't like the heat, so I felt safe when I took my seat on the bus again that none had snuck on while we were in eating lunch, looking for the good life and a cheap ride to Luxor (our stop just before a train would take us down to Aswan). Which sounded like a plausible thing for a scorpion looking to get out of the heat to do, exactly what I would do, if I were a scorpion looking to get in out of the heat. I spent a fair portion of the four hour or so journey into Luxor trying to convince everyone to play a game where the one who sat on the headrest and managed to keep their feet off the chair for the longest won... Day Six I don't seem to recall much of day six, past an early morning train journey, a getting off the train at a certain point, Aswan, perhaps, as that's what all the signs probably said, albeit in Arabic. We were supposed to tell that this was Aswan, I'm guessing, from the fact that your face melted when you stepped outside. Which is, it turns out, how people tell they've gotten home, if they happen to live in Aswan (aside from probably being able to read Arabic): the large number of people standing at the platform holding their faces, occasionally patting (not rubbing, as that causes friction, which causes heat, which you've enough of already, you see) it to either make sure it was still there or to wipe up the bits that had already melted and were only going to make your face look like you'd had plastic surgery and forgotten to let it all set before taking off the molds and bandages. ... disclaimer: The rooster did not, in fact, chirrup. It crowed, the way roosters are supposed to, and do the world over. The new noise for a rooster was simply a device to move the story along. Or perhaps confuse children who might be having this travelogue read aloud to them by a caring parent, who is now going to have to spend ages explaining to their child that a rooster does not make a "chirrup" noise, but crows. Unless the parent did some hasty realtime copy editing and switched in a "cock-a-doodle-doo" for the "chirrup" noise, in which case I had no hope anyway, as the parent obviously has far too much experience as it is, and was just using this copy as a placeholder for text when their child began shouting for the story "about the chicken and the giant with the harp and the clouds and the tractor and the," and this is the bit at which they start to lose their breath, but instead of catching their breath, and risking their parent or caretaker butting in, they sally forth with their conjunctive burst, "and the, and the hamster..." At which point they deflate slightly, rapture having taken it's toll on their tiny body and they slump over, probably on the parent's knee, drooling in what observers might call a "sweet" fashion, but one which the victim doesn't quite. And at least you get some satisfaction out of the knowledge that that one little burst of excitement probably means and early bedtime and even earlier waking time. It rumbles rambles on!


now - archives - horoscopes - accessories - theatre - fables - contacts - home