Banana island

Banana island today is no longer an Island it stopped being an Island a few years ago when they decided to fill in the land to make a road to the then crocodile Island. that is still an island and is now called Kings Island sounds posher doesn't it. well jolly ville movenpic thought so.
and now the near end the reed beds have been filled in and the land given to Gamal Mubarak to build houses on. his father passes a law on nile land and the son breaks it, http://www.eeaa.gov.eg/ thats what happens when we are in a corrupt country,

Nice to see a worker can have a rest while waiting to hassle a tourist .

Recently acquired Bead's made in China the only thing real here is the dust and hassle.
as is all the other rubbish sold here

Banana Island is a treat to visit there are all kinds of trees
and the wild life is wonderful, but apart from that ?
mr loverly is an Egyptian and as most of them they think its ok to rip the tourist off. Nice sign saying its an antique shop the only thing antique about it is the building and the dust.
unlike asda there is a no money back guarantee,

these 2 stuffed snakes will fall apart by the
time they are on your mantle piece.

The animal that looks like an oversized ferret
was introduced to egypt to keep the rat population
down in the sugar cane fields, now it is a pest
and kills to survive, chickens ,ducks, geese
even the young of the sheep and goats,
so Mr Loverly (Ahmed Hassan and sons)
have decided to stuff them to sell to the tourist
I have been visiting the island since 2003
and these where here in exactly the same pose
and place. the snakes have been moved recently
to make way for the rack for the beads that have
arrived from china, at least the stuffed animals
are made and stuffed in Egypt.

Sparrows that get spoilt

I have a bad back again after overloading my back with an overdue shopping. all in kilos to us oldies thats 2.2 lbs I think.
5k spuds, 2k toms, 2k onions, 1k oborgine. that alone is over the limit for me to carry, so my doctor says 5 kilo maximum but Mr Muscles here forgets about his three slipped discs when feeling fine and no arthritis .
Then there was the other bits on the other hand, meat assorted, 5k, and seeing my wife is or can not come for xmas due to a turn in her mums health. I bought some assorted fruit and sweeties. after all it is xmas and something I have always celebrated, due to the lack of my usual spirit. IE Glenfiddich 18 Year old, I cannot see me getting inebriated for the first time since I can remember. or is that I do not remember,
and unable to go for my usual walk and birdwatching. no must cancel the last remark I have fed the sparrows and watched them eating the oats. 12 this morning if it carries on like this I will have to get a sack of corn too feed them.
bit pricey tins here just to feed the birds, a bit spoilt are these House sparrows ,Passer domesticus. if thats the name they first gave them why not domestic sparrows.

Today I have emptied the fly zapper trays and mixed it with the oats. they love this, oats and dried meat (flies) gives them a varied diet that they are used to.


This is the unafraid one she has dropped pieces of the straw roof canopy she is making or trying to make a nest in the lecy box the so called electricians left open after they used it .

and yes I have made sure its safe no bare wires incase she gets zapped like her food.

I love watching these birds they have so much character and who was the idiot who said they have no brains, if you can work something out like my food bowl is missing you have a brain.
yes or no? I say yes, some one told me he read some scientists report on goldfish, they only have a 15 second memory. now how stupid is that, how do they know what food is or what a fly is. ok they may not distinguish between a fly and a flyhook. but they know when something is overhead ready to devour them . soon as I heard this story I could imagine the fish in the fish bowl swimming about , ooh where am I never seen that before.
bit like some Egyptians I meet, 15 second memory


She is a bit miffed because I have had to clean the feeding pot

The straw canopy is a nesting haven for the Sparrows and there are two pairs of Turtle doves that make a nest here.




This morning I moved the feeding pot to clean, incase the rats get a smell of it.

They know the dish is missing. where has that man moved our food too.

Its ok the food is back


The donkeys waiting for the farmers to finish watering the land.

My neighbors roofs and the farmers working on the field

Its rather hazy today this is the view to the front of my flat pretty awesome eh!
if you have time you can read up on this area called thebes
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/thebes.htm

My next door neighbours roof definitely a fire hazard.


Then my other neighbor has made a good fire with an acrid smell of burning plastic.when i shouted down to put the fire out he said there was snakes around so need a fire Mr Tony,
never mind giving the snakes a smoke, you are killing me, with that smell. ok I wait for the fire finish, As I say there is more sense in the donkeys than these people,


one of the reasons I had a bad back this morning! carrying this lot.
19. 30 now . the smoke and pain has gone after taking piraton I know they are for hay fever but they are great sleeping tablets. I took it while working on the computer this morning I had finished all the writing for this post. but did not publish after uploading the last pictures and I switched the computer off in my drowsy state and flopped on the bed only to wake up 18.30. and find half the posts writing had vanished . never mind all done again . until tomorrow not sure what I will blog, I have some bird photos from yesterdays sighting already to go on the egyptwildlife2 blog
and will be taking all the pollution blogs off. that will only be on my website myegypt.co.uk

Scenes from Egypt

Self explaining scenes from around Luxor Egypt

Nile cruise,

One of my followers wrote on the Nile pollution.
Not only the pollution you showed, but there were several dead cows drifting in the water, when we were sailing on the Nile. We tried to be as careful with water as possible, but we got terribly ill in spite of this.
Your post is very interesting!
Nice to see the Nile cruiser. even though they pollute the nile
and over 80% of the tourists on board get a tummy problem from drinking polluted Nile water that in one form or another they have an intake of, all washing and cleaning is done by water pumped direct from the Nile no filtration units on board these vessels see , my blog on Nile pollution
http://www.myegypt.co.uk/index.php?f=data_home&a=5


Nice to see The fish feeding plant next to the cruisers on the Nile.
as I was walking along the cornish (thats the promenade) I had this lovely aroma of a rotting carcass coming from the Nile, In the restaurant not 20ft away there was quite a few tourists most likely from one of the cruise ships waiting to go on a trip on the Nile. in this photo taken at 14.30 29/11/09 there are two rotting sheep carcasses the pale coloured one as you can see is bloated and most of the wool has gone this means the carcass has been in the water for more than one week. and is stinking, black sheep looks as if its not long been in there. and these local people wonder why they are ill all the time, all the water they drink is from the Nile, OK it goes through a purifying plant before it comes out of the tap but all along the Nile and the canals they wash the horses and animals people bathe wash there clothes and clean the pots and pans plates etc. plus what I wrote in the first part about the cruisers. not my problem they say it seems its not the Egyptian governments problem either. ok for me I can afford bottled mineral water the egyptians can not well they are too tight fisted to buy it Nile water is free. for the thirsty.

Its nice to see they have nearly finished the filling of the reed beds. Now that The son Of Hosni Mubarek has been given 25 fadan of this land to build on. only heard about this on 1/12/09

Nice to see the City Council has a hand in polluting this land
go to the above website. to get the story on Nile pollution

Nice to see the balloons back after the horrific crash last may.
it was not an accident they were told not to take to the air.

Its nice to see the horses and donkeys make work for the lower class.

I am trying to be positive here so bear with me.
Even the farmers have a nice job cutting food for the donkey.

Now this is a Nice view of the Nile from Banana Island. I mean that. Egypt is a nice country as far as land and its wildlife go. some one said to me the other day its a pity there are Egyptians living here here.

Nice to see a worker can have a rest while waiting for a tourist .

Nice to see Luxor Council is not squandering some of its millions of dollars on petrol for the road cleaners transport.

This is a nice scene water buffalo been cared for by the cattle Egret. in the Nile.

Camels having a rest.

Nice place to have a beer you can read this story on http://mydeserttrip.blogspot.com/

Nice to see Real Egyptian life at El Kharga on the desert trip

this was a first and a pleasant surprise no money. none of the desert checkpoints took money
Only guess where.

Nice to know I do not need to buy my hand made carpets here in Luxor. I can save seven thousand Egp buying from the mill at Beshandi Just outside El khargo see the woolen mill on the desert blog.

A very nice dahabia like this one. 3 German ladies are trying to get their money back from the Egyptian con man. fancy the stuppid Egyptian not thinking that these three would not meet each other one day Luxor West bank is only a small place and an even smaller German community,
Its nice to know the british consulate website has finally put a warning on its website about buying here in Luxor. particularilly the West Bank. Mind you thieves have always lived there, where do they go now they have taken the tomb robbers houses down,

It was real nice to know we were miles away from sin city.
well at least I am being positive about the whole situation.
another update today! And yet another foreigner has been conned on buying a house here,
Its nice to know we are now living in the fourth most corrupt country in the world.