Since J hadn’t been down to the south, we decided we should visit two of the big ticket tourist attractions: Abu Simbel and The Valley of the Kings. Instead of flying, we took the sleeper train south. The compartments felt a little smaller than the ones in the Turkish trains for example, but the beds are relatively comfortable, and you actually get fed edible food in sleeper class.
Tag Archives: luxor
Luxor Day 2
We got up at some ungodly hour this morning to hitch a ride in a ferry across the Nile to the West Bank to go to the Valley of the Kings. We rode donkeys from there for about an hour – wow they were competitive! If they saw a gap in the donkeys ahead they’d race to get there! At one point my donkey decided to make a run for it, slipping past someone else and leaving confusion in our wake. Apparently I was clutching it so hard it looked like my legs were wrapped completely around the donkey’s girth in an effort to stay on! No stirrups, we just had to rely on our thigh muscles to hold us on.
The Valley of the Kings was fantastic! We visited three tombs: Ramses I, Mermeptah and Ramses IV. Gotta love those Ramseses! They’d apparently just reopened Mermeptah’s tomb, and it had lots of vivid colouring on the wall, unlike Ramses I, whose tomb was really plain.
Then we headed off to see Queen Hapsetshut’s Temple. Amazing view – imagine being queen of all she surveyed!
Instead of donkeys, we took a taxi bus back to the banks of the Nile. The drivers were no less competitive than the donkeys, overtaking tour buses on blind corners and making us generally fear that we’d be joining the pharaohs pretty soon! But we made it back and took a ferry across, before moving our stuff to the riverboat for the next few days.
Before leaving Luxor we treated ourselves to afternoon tea at the Winter Palace. Apparently it costs $1500US per night to stay there! And they knew it too – the waiter looked askance at our jeans, so W got his own back by slurping his Coke from the bottle. Take that!
Filed under Egypt
Luxor
The night train was good – much more comfortable than airplane seats, and we actually got some sleep! Our huge New Year celebration consisted of a plastic cup with Baileys and Frangelico that some of the others brought with them – yay!
The facilities on the train were pretty yuck, but at least it was only a 7 hour train ride.
Luxor is gorgeous, nice and warm compared to Cairo. We arrived at 7am and couldn’t get to our rooms until 10.30, so spent the morning wandering around then sitting by the pool on the roof. Not too shabby!
Once we sorted out our rooms etc, we headed off to Karnak Temple. Huge! I couldn’t believe that there was still some of the original coloured paint on the undersides of some of the under cover sculptures. Wow!
After catching a horse and carriage ride back to the town proper, we hit the bazaar, including getting some fresh dates. Perfect.
Luxor’s a bit quieter than Cairo, understandably. We still got a lot of touts, but a lot fewer than the hassle we had in Cairo, which is relaxing.
Filed under Egypt
Two Weeks Away 