Food shopping

In most of Luxor, food shopping is based on travelling salesmen using donkeys and carts, markets and small shops.

The travelling salesmen usually sell fruit and vegetables. Fruit and vegetables are also sold in markets and in mini markets, sometimes single stalls or small groups of stalls on street corners.

The picture is of one of a small group of stalls near the railway crossing, close to the end of Ramses Street, not far from the station. There are many such stalls, and smaller single-person stalls as well as small greengrocers in the road that turns off Television Street, at the corner notable for the big Vodaphone shop (see the map of central Luxor).

The tourist market also has a few fruit and veg stalls, but traders here expect tourists and may have special tourist prices. If you continue through the tourist market, past the paved and covered area, into the local market in Old Market Street, there are more fruit and veg stalls that are more likely to charge tourists the local rate for produce.

Prices in the fruit markets are sometimes marked and sometimes not. Most sellers know enough english to tell you the price if you point and ask. Alternatively, look for a stall where prices are marked because then you know you are paying a local person price, not a tourist price. Prices tend to be in piastres per kilo, so 300 means 300 piastres, or LE3 per kilo. The prices will invariably be marked in arabic (see right), so you will need to learn these numbers or take a crib sheet with you. Expect to pay LE2 - 3 per kilo for oranges, LE4 for strawberries and bananas but more for apples: up to LE15 for good imported ones.

As well as greengrocers there are other single product food shops, typically butchers and bakers. Bakers are less likely to have prices marked. There is an excellent one near the entrance to the tourist market (on the way to the Horus hotel) and another in Television Street. Bakers sell a variety of pastries as well as breads and are usually able to tell you the price in English if you ask.

General grocers often call themselves 'supermarkets'. Most supermarkets are small shops which have more in common with the british corner shop of the 1950s than the likes of Sainsburys, although they may have an element of self-service.

More recently, the first british type supermarket, Arkwrights, has opened in the road beside the St Joseph hotel. To begin with, much of the produce was locally sourced, but the first container of food from England has heralded the arrival of 'true' corn flakes and the like, rather than another version made under licence. Arkwrights sells cereals, soups, tinned and frozen food, sweets and biscuits, pet food, drinks, a little fruit and other groceries as well as a few novelty items. They also make up sandwiches and rolls and there are plans to open a delicatessen extension.