Aswan and Luxor

We went to Aswan and Luxor and spent a few days at each place. What stands out for me is the amount of hassling we got to buy stuff, go to hotels or rent a camel/felucca/horse/taxi.

The west bank of Luxor was really bad for pressure sales.

On the ferry boat over a fellow started talking to us - at the start he said he was going over to pray at the Mosque. This changed though and it turns out he is a hotel 'tout' who gets paid a comission to take us to hotels. We tried to get rid of him, but he kept following us (by leading in a way) to the hotel we were going to. We tried to get rid of him, but he would still keep following and would interfere with conversations we would have with other Egyptians. In the meantime we were being followed at the same time by two other 'touts'. So we had three people following us. I eventually yelled at them to stop following us. They said they were not following us so I basically 'snapped' and 'forcefully' suggested I did not want to have any of them within my sight.

So we walked away on our own to find a cab. As a cab started to come down the street I noticed one of the touts, stop the cab and tell him something before the cab came to us! After all that! We ended up walking 5 minutes out of town and had to get rid of one last guy before walking another 5 minutes to find a neutral ride out of the town.

We also saw some cool temples (lots of basksheesh guides), met a nice French couple (Johnathan and Samantha from Paris) and spent some time with Uni and Graham whom I met in Cairo and who were still in Luxor.