...that means more Egyptian characters (feel free to insert Dr Evil laugh here. What? I'm sure Shubby Doo got the joke...lol!).
Well, here goes...
Allow me to introduce you to Liver Man aka Cleaver Man, aka Mahmoud, the Chef.
Each night we had a buffet type meal (hence the purification ritual mentioned in my previous post :)), but in addition to this there would be some kind of 'added bonus' e.g. stir fried vegetables while you waited, or craved lamp (refer to previous post) or pasta sauce whipped up fresh. Anyway, Mahmoud was always in charge of this.
He was actually quite sweet. Very shy, but he pee'd me off slightly very early in the trip when he asked me who TB was i.e. 'friend', sister. I asked why he wanted to know, and he replied with a shrug 'two girls....', and left all the insinuations lingering in the air. I hissed and moved on. Excuse me, do i look like a lesbian? You may think it a bit forward for a chef to be asking personal questions, but in Egypt it isn't apparently! All the Waiters etc were very friendly and flirtatious with the women. By the end of the trip Eddie, our waiter was professing undying love for TB, and freely referring to Diane as 'baby' right under her husband's nose!
Ok, so Liver Man got his name like this - On one of the days, the 'extra' was liver. I can't remember what was being done to the liver 'cos i never have and never will be interested in liver - it's disgusting. Like eeeeuuuwwww. So anyway, TB was wandering around the food trying to decide on what to have when suddenly, she sensed someone standing right behind her. She turns round and is confronted with an unsmiling Mahmoud (he's smiling slightly in the picture, but usually had this deadpan expression on his face), so she's there, looking up into his face, and he goes solemnly 'I have liver' and then turns and walks away.
I'm sorry if the humour doesn't translate, but it was hilarious, at least the way TB related it to me. After many repetitions and good laughs over it, we eventually came up with the possibility that he might have actually been saying 'I have Cleaver', you know, just like in the horror films, before the killer raises their arm and chops someones head off......oh, i'm sorry! Welcome to the weird and wonderful place that is my mind.
Baba Groper 1
On our second evening, we had a Galabiya party, and everyone had to buy galabiyas and come to dinner dressed up. After dinner, we retired to the sun deck for fun and games, one of which was a variation on musical statutes, whereby when the music stopped, Osama (our compere for the night) would call out random numbers and you had to form a huddle consisting of that number of people. Or he'd say something like '1 man, 6 women' and anyone that couldn't find a group would get eliminated. The long and short of the story is that TB ended up in a huddle with an elderly man whose hand began to travel south!
Baba Groper 2
I was standing at the notice board in reception one night, checking the itinerary for the following day when this guy comes over and stands beside me, presumably to also check the board. We get chatting and he asks me if i'm Nigerian too (Ayman, our guide had begun to refer to us as his Nigerian friends). I said yes and he remarks on the fuel situation in Nigeria (he's a long-distance lorry driver). Somewhere in the course of the conversation, he's going on about what a shame the situation is, and how the Nigerian people already have it so bad (i smile and nod) without having to also 'get it in the arse' (his words, not mine) from the government. For some reason, he feels the need to mime the action of getting it in the arse, and proceeds to reach for my arse, i kid you not! Someone walks in noisily at the same moment and i turn to see who it is and thereby manage to avoid the full force of his grubby hand *shudder*, but not all of it. I promptly say good night and beat a hasty retreat!
More pictures here
Next up (final instalment)...
Abu Simbel and the Indecent Proposal.
