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As keen amateur photographers we often use a tripod. When visiting archaeological sites in Egypt there is a charge of between EŁ20 and EŁ50 for the use of a tripod. We have paid for tripod tickets at sites in Aswan and Luxor with no problems until we bought one for Deir al-Medina, the workers village on the West bank in Luxor. When we arrived at the site and presented our tripod pass, we were told repeatedly by the guards we were not allowed to take pictures inside the tombs. We explained that we had no intention of taking pictures inside. When we started taking pictures of the village, things got nasty. A man who appeared to be in charge of the Tourist Police and Guards, told us that he considered our Camera, a Nikon F65, to be one used by a professional Photographer and we would have to pay him Ł2000 English to continue taking pictures. His abusive threats of having us removed from the site continued until I took his picture. He then hid behind a wall and continued to demand money, saying he would be happy to accept just Ł500 English. By this time we just laughed at him. He was last seen running across the car park and driving away at speed. We always give a few EŁ to any Guards or Tourist Police who agree to be in our pictures, but this was taking things a bit too far. In the U.K, this would be called "demanding money with menaces" and would carry a prison sentence. We would be interested on all comments on this incident.
Posts: 119 | From: West Midlands. U.K. | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I've heard of this a lot, so don't think that you are alone! Because Deir elMedina is a little bit off the beaten track and not many tourists go there in a day, the guards feel that they have a bit of a free reign to intimidate you without anyone else interfering. Taking his photo was a great idea though - I'm going to pass that one on to my friend for the next time he runs into trouble with his camera and tripod!
Posts: 3 | From: Egypt, Alex | Registered: May 2005
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You know, Egypt is an absolute tourist magnet and all the people I've spoken to who have been to Egypt have nothing but praise and would love to go back, but then there are things like that which really ruin the image of Egypt and the worst thing about it, is that it's usually from people in positions of authority/responsibilty. A definite shame.
Posts: 150 | Registered: Feb 2005
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