Craziness on the Nile

Above is a picture of men trying to sell stuff to people on the river cruise ship I was on. It was so ridiculous that I had to take a picture of it. The picture below show just how many of these guys there were. There must have been at least 35 boats. They would literally surround the ship in their attempt to sell their various good. It was crazy.

Enroute to Aswan, all the cruise ships had to come to a stop and wait their turn outside the Esna Locks. This is where these guys were waiting. They would then oar out to each ship. When they arrived, they displayed their various wares. If a customer wasn't sure about the item, they'd put it in a plastic bag and throw it up to them so they could take it out of the bag and look the item over. If the person liked the item, the haggling began. If they didn't, they put it back in the bag and threw it back to the seller. Hopefully, the item landed back in their boat though in a number of cases, the seller had to fish their wares out of the river. Things got more interesting if the seller and buyer agreed on a price. The buyer would then put their money in the bag and throw it down to the seller. In some cases, the seller had to fish their money out of the river. In one case, a would be seller threw his item too high and it landed on the roof of our ship. Luckily for him, I'm a decent bloke. I managed to get the item off the roof and, I threw it back to him. This whole experience was the craziest thing that happened on my tour of Egypt. It said just how hard these folks would try to sell you something. It was unreal.