Sofitel Karnak Luxor, Luxor, Egypt - Reviews and Hotel Information

'La Shukran'. I repeated it over and over again as the traders crowded in on us. They were draping silk scarves over my wife and they were getting too close to her. It means No thank you in Arabic. No thank you I do not want a ride in your horse and cart/felucca or taxi. 'La Shukran' to your alabaster vases, your basalt sphinx, your carved wooden head of Tutankhamen. Once walking blindly away from the market at the exit from the valley of the Tombs. I walked straight past both of the Crocodile brothers, almost shouting 'La Shukran' at them. They both laughed at the fact that they were the very people I was looking for.

Our first introduction to the hassle that is a feature of tourist visits to Luxor came the very first time we stepped out of our hotel, the Sofitel Karnak. Tarek Crocodile offered us taxi rides to wherever we wanted to go and told us what a good honest man he was. We went into the little supermarket next door and the owner, Mohammed, told us Tarek was 'a maniac' and did not have a good taxi. However the absurd prices in his supermarket meant we ended up going everywhere with Tarek or his brothers for the fortnight. The first place he took us was an ordinary Egyptian supermarket where we were not asked to pay £5 for a packet of crisps- it was more like 15p.

The Egyptians have begun to realise that the frequent hassle that tourists experience in small towns like Luxor is spoiling the image of their tourist trade, so they have introduced the Tourist police, specifically to help tourists and make them feel less intimidated. Twice on our holiday we met members of the Tourist police and both times they attempted to extort money from us. It's not really working is it?

Official excursions are hassle free and you have your own guide but they are also ridiculously expensive. The Egyptians seemed to be out of touch when it came to pricing things or just stupidly greedy. A fairly ordinary bottle of wine in the hotel cost £20. If we can buy wine shipped here from Chile for less than £4, why is the wine they make in their own country so expensive? In our second week we entered the month of Ramadan and the wine shops outside of the hotels were all forced to close.

English tourists that have been to the country before have left their marks. The most asked question is 'Where are you from?' The answer 'England' often receives the reply from the Egyptians 'AsdaPrice' or 'Lovely Jubbly'. As one small boy in the pool said on our last day, 'Why do they all say that? No one in England says that any more.'

The Sofitel Karnak is supposedly a five star establishment. In actual fact it is more like a two or a three star hotel. Our room had a radio that last worked when Tony Blackburn did the breakfast show; a bath that leaked through an enormous crack; and when we arrived, it took us half an hour to even find the room. Entertainment in the hotel was a rather bored belly dancer on Wednesday nights in an amphitheatre that was ridiculously underused. Channel 1 on the TV in our room was a series of pictures of the hotel which listed all kinds of services, about half of which were not provided and those that did cost extra. The music on the channel was a series of unbelievably cheesy romantic songs from the 1980s. The hotel provides a free shuttle boat into the town which allows you to see the town from the Nile. Naked children swim up to the boat from the shore to beg.

In the 1970's a frequently purchased present to help kids learn about history was the Jackdaw. A Jackdaw was an A4 sized folder containing fact sheets, photos and facsimile documents about some event or other. The most popular Jackdaw in 1972 was Tutankhamen's tomb. It was compiled by Magnus Magnusson, the world's most famous Icelander and later compère of 'Mastermind'. The reason for its' popularity was the visit of the Tutankhamen treasures from Cairo to the British Museum, which 8 million people visited. I cannot imagine any child today wanting a Jackdaw for their birthday like I did in 1972.

The visit to the Valley of the Kings really was impressive and made up for me missing the exhibition in 1972. Tutankhamen's mummified remains and sarcophagus are still there. A small, leathery, wizened boy lies under a blanket with dark wrinkled fingers and toes. This, plus the temple at Karnak and the treasures at the Luxor museum made the whole trip worthwhile. Luxor itself feels like a huge open air museum that reveals a civilisation that lasted far longer then ours has or will in the future.

If you go to Egypt then you have to expect to lose at least one day of your holiday in the company of your friend, Mr Toilet. They do have excellent pharmacies out there though. Watching other tourists coping with the conditions can be great fun. A couple arrived on our second day from Manchester that were determined to party. They spent the day ordering Pina Coladas and the night drinking 'a bottle of voddy' on the banks of the Nile. We did not see them for two days after that until we saw them still looking a strange shade of green and telling their friends that the meat at the hotel was bad.

In the evenings we ate the hotel buffet in the Optec bar. It was always accompanied by one of the stars of our stay, Ahmed Taha, the sous Chef at the hotel. He would seek people out, play jokes on them, tell them how nice they looked and just be an absolute pleasure to be with. He provided a pretty faceless hotel with a human face, and one that was always smiling.

Towards the end of our stay it became clear that the hotel had become the cheapest item on Teletext and the new arrivals who had come for a week's Bed and Breakfast had little idea why Luxor should be their holiday destination other than the price. One young girl, laying in the 42 degree heat was offered all the various services available at the hotel's beauty salon. Her request, 'Have you got a sunbed' was met with a dazed look of misunderstanding and incredulity.

As we lay in the sun and watched the Nile float past us, our cleaner toiled daily in the rooms. The cleaners here work their way towards a tip by creating all manner of shapes out of the towels and sheets for you to discover when you return to the room. We had hearts and flowers, a sphinx and even on the last day, a crocodile. It was somehow a fitting tribute to Tarek and his brothers; like all those Egyptians whose friendliness and sense of fun had made it such a good holiday destination.

It's so good to know that I have so many brothers in Luxor, and it's sad that I will never go back.

Sofitel Karnak Luxor, Luxor

Sofitel Karnak Luxor

Luxor Hotels