Egypt Travel: Foreign Office Gives Advice

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A bit worrying, although the Polish foreign ministry is not yet advising citizens to stay away, the British Foreign office has just added Luxor, where I am due to go on Wednesday to the list of places where "non-essential travel" should be avoided, alongside the areas affected by rioting last night. It was bad enough when my first stop (to arrange residence formalities because the Embassy here - bless them - gave a month visa for a six week stay ) is the government buildings in Tahrir Square that have been the focus of attack these past few days. Now it would seem from the Foreign Office advice that the situation in Luxor itself might not be as stable as I thought it was going to be. There is no contact with the Mission offices in Cairo of course, phone lines dead and Internet down since midnight on Thursday. I am not sure now whether I will be on that plane in just a few days now. Thinking of colleagues already there and several who are due to fly out today and tomorrow.

UPDATE Saturday (Saturday, January 29, 2011): Kate Phizackerley's 'News from the Valley of Kings' blog has some useful information. This includes a phoned report: Jane Akshar Speaks from Luxor sent out on Friday it seems. I'm glad to hear that Jane is safe and so optimistic. My thoughts are with you all.

UPDATE: (Saturday, January 29, 2011)
This is a turn for the worse if true:

Egypt: Ruling party's headquarters in Luxor torched By JPOST.COM STAFF 01/29/2011 14:56 The ruling party's headquarters in the Egyptian city of Luxor was torched as tens of thousands of protesters gathered in defiance of a curfew that was set.

There is a forum thread here Luxor Forum: Is there trouble in Luxor? that I shall be watching. The Djehuty project dig diary ends abruptly on Thursday.