Fly into Dubrovnik, airport surrounded by spires of cypress & domes of pines. Zig zag along coast, misty & scenic & stippled with islands, to old city. Fight our way through tourists beside the walls who have just poured out of dozens of buses – 3 or 4 cruise liners each holding 5 – 6000 people have docked today, says waiter where we collapse for coffee. They shuffle like caterpillars after leaders who hold aloft flags or furled umbrellas. They bring in no money at all, says waiter, they get everything from the ships...
> MOREWe are driven through the dusty town peopled only by men, all the women having been killed, imprisoned, driven away, to the Nile Palace, where all receptionists, cleaners, boutique owners, waiters and cooks are men. The sense of loneliness, being a woman visitor in a Muslim country. On the Nile terrace we drink, while the dusty mauve air turns dark Prussian blue. My ears are deaf from the plane and my tumour, my eyes are sore and ache, I feel I am receding from everything around me as life becomes fainter, less palpable. I slowly...
> MORELUXOR. Our 7th visit. Luxor Temple, not crowded because the tourists have flown. A stall offers free booklets on Why Islam is the Tolerant Religion and Why Allah is God of All, and Bob picks up one for his friend Colin Gilbert, a creationist. The Avenue of sphinxes, the towering pylons with slots for flag poles, the temple of the sacred barque, the hypostyle hall, Alexander the Great’s additions, the nubile breasts of Ramasses II’s daughter who reaches to his knee, a carving of the cow goddess Hathor and, lines of oblong indentations...
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