Getting templed out in Egypt

We're in Luxor now and have been seeing the sights - Valley of the Kings, Karnak, Deir el Bahri etc. The temples and monuments are truly amazing....haggling for EVERYTHING in Egypt is another story.

At last time of writing we were about to head to Abu Simbel which was a great sight to see - although we still never figured out why the convoy left at 3.30am. After the tourist massacre in 1997 all tourist vehicles in Agypt seem to have to travel through in convoys that leave at specific times. All the vehicles meet in certain spots and then travel with armed guards. If you miss the convoy you have to wait a day....so when you want to go to Abu Simbel you must leave at 3.30am even though it is only a 3 hour journey away. Craziness.

Despite the early start, that night we managed to fit in some sunset drinks on the roof (where the photo of sunset was taken) followed by late night cocktails at the fancy Movenpick hotel...it was happy hour. We even finished with a midnight Maccas (first we have seen anywhere in Africa)...felt like home!

From Aswan we boarded some Felucca boats for a 2 night sail down the Nile towards Luxor. This is one of the most relaxing things we have done all trip - highly recommended! Nothing to do but relax...

We then did a fly by of the Temple of Horus near Edfu and headed on to Luxor for three days. First stop was Vally of the Kings where we were particularly proud of ourselves for baksheeshing (bribing) our way into some extra tombs. Interestingly each of the tombs we saw were very different in decoration - some very minimalist, some grand, some decorated in stick figures and others very ornate reliefs. I really enjoyed that part and all the ancient history lessons came flooding back.

We also enjoyed the "Sound and Light Show" at Karnak - where they illuminate the ruins and tell you some slightly cryptic stories (let's just say they could use some editing services when writing the script). Cheesy but fun!

Other than that we've been enjoying shisha pipes, coffees, wandering through the bazaars and eating cheese again (haven't really had any in Africa). We haven't been enjoing the haggling though...it is ridiculous....you have to haggle hard for absolutely everything which gets pretty annoying after a while. I don't mind haggling for souveniers and tourist stuff, but for every bottle of water or cup of tea it starts to get a bit annoying. Ah well, welcome to Egypt!

We're loving the travels but definitely starting to miss home a bit - on the day of Sim's wedding I was gutted to be away and spent a bit of time poring over the photos on facebook (thanks Zoe and Tiff). Sim - you look amazing! I wish we could have been there and look forward to seeing more photos and hearing more about the day...to compensate steve even let me walk into pretty much every jewellery shop in the bazaar to "buy" myself something to "feel better". hehe!!

xxx