We've a bit of time to kill in Cairo until the overnight train to Aswan leaves at 1000pm, so we elect to have a lazy morning, sorting out our bags for our week away touring Southern Egypt, and organising our flights to get us down to India. After a couple of false starts on getting to India, we find cheaper and direct flights to Mumbai, so opt to go there instead of Delhi first up. There's a couple of showers in the air, but once they have gone we head up the Cairo Tower which sits on an island in the middle of the Nile, and offers great views over the city and to the Pyramids at Giza through the smoggy pollution.
After a pizza for late lunch we wander through a couple of shopping malls, and find a cinema that offers the promise of the new James Bond, but not until next week when we are in India, so instead we enjoy the sunset along the Nile, and a beer in the Hilton. Its not easy wasting time when on a budget.
The train leaves about 10 mins late from Ramses station. We're in 1st Class on a 13 hr trip, and paid about £12 for the privilege. Its surprisingly comfortable - similar size seats and legroom to business class. Apart from the snoring Egyptian, chatty French girls and the fact that the lights are left on, we sleep surprisingly well. The next day though, we slowly come to realise that as the train trundles along, we haven't made quite as much progress as we had hoped through the night, and are still a long way from our destination. We eventually pull in a frustrating 6 hours late having finished our books, and planned at great length our route around India. After a stroll along the Nile admiring the dusky views, and a spot of birthday dinner, we're back to the hotel as we're getting up at 300am the next day to join the convoy to Abu Simbel.
Abu Simbel is an enormous temple commissioned by Ramses II to proclaim how magnificent he was. When the Aswan Dam was built in the 1960s, the temple would have been flooded were in not for a feat of modern engineering which moved the temple piece by piece to higher ground. Its both an amazing temple, and a fantastic piece of engineering, just a shame that due to security regulations, tourists have to travel in convoy, and the place is packed and bustling. Its a 3 hour drive, so a long way to go for an hour, and then three hours back, but some astounding views as the sun rises over the desert. On the way back to Aswan, we stop at the High Dam, which created Lake Nasser and a hydroelectric plant which powers most of the Nile Delta.
Later that afternoon, we board our felucca - our home for the next couple of days. Its proper back to basics, sleeping under the stars, washing in the Nile, no showers, no electricity sort of trip and is utterly relaxing. We've a good mixed group travelling - couple of Aussie blokes, 2 Belgian women, a Dutch guy, a Chilean girl who teaches English in Paris and our Egyptian crew of 3. Our food is prepared in a space about 3 ft square, and there is always enough to go around. Its utterly relaxing gently sailing along the Nile reading and lounging in the sun, chatting about nothing in particular, and drinking beer. It gets a bit chilly by night, but falling asleep looking up at the stars cannot be matched, and the colours as the sun sets and rises have to be seen to be believed.
We're a bit exhausted and desperate for a shower when we get off the felucca on Saturday morning at Kom Ombo. There are a couple of temples to see en route to Luxor in the bus that is waiting for us. Kom Ombo temple and Edfu temple. We're a bit worn out to fully appreciate them, and are pleased when we get to our hotel in Luxor despite our driver's best efforts otherwise, and insistence on a tip! We're pleased to find a 3* comfortable hotel, with a roof top swimming pool where we can snooze away the afternoon. The rest of our felucca group are looking for a bargain hotel room, so we're feeling a little bit smug.
Luxor gives the first impression of being a resort town. As we enter the city there is the KFC/Pizza Hut combination that we saw at the entrance of the Pyramids. There's an Irish and an English pub advertising football, and a lot of Europeans pottering around. We have dinner in a restaurant run by Anne from Ipswich who tells us all about her family, and where she lives, the sizeable UK ex-pat community (which generally seems to revolve around middle aged women coming to Egypt for younger men, and then getting fleeced out of their savings, only to fall for the same trick from another guy) but does serve up some decent apple crumble! Sometimes home comforts are in order.
Sunday is to be spent on the West Bank of the Nile (the main city is on the East Bank). We have a tour guide with us for the first time on the trip, and despite initial misgivings (Jim) we actually quite appreciate what he has to say as it brings together a lot that we have seen already. The West Bank was used as the burial grounds in Ancient times, and life continued on the East. The thought went that as the Sun rises in the East this is where life begins, and the transfer to the afterlife starts with the sun setting in the West. Our first stop is the colossus of Memnon, two huge statues that stood at the entrance to a later destroyed temple. They are pretty colossal...
Hatshepsut Temple is our second stop. Queen Hatshepsut was a bit of a one. Desperate to rule over Egypt, she faced a major problem in that she was a woman. Undeterred by this, she managed to ship off the 10 year old King Tutmosis III to learn a bit more about the world, and by persuading the rest of Egypt that the sun god inhabited her father at the time of her birth, she was actually the son of a sun-god. All the monuments of her depict with a man's body, she wore a false beard etc., and everyone was fooled, and she ruled for about 20 years. Anyway, her funerary temple is stunning, and tells lots of stories - her trip to Somalia, all about her being the son of the sun god. The Egyptians used natural dyes mixed with wax and egg white, and some striking colours remain to this day.
Next stop is the Valley of the Kings. This is an astounding collection of tombs, of which 62 have so far been discovered. The most famous of which is Tutankhamun - famous as it had not been looted and all the treasures were there to be taken and displayed in the Cairo museum. We explore three other tombs, which have survived the passage of time amazingly well. The designs of gods, hieroglyphs and stories that they tell are fascinating. Pharoahs began to build their tombs here from the day that they rose to power until they died, meaning that some tombs are vast. Once they died, there were 70 days to finish off the tomb while mummification took place, so they are often quickly finished off. The colours on the wall paintings and hieroglyphs are amazingly strong here - the tombs tell a similar story, of the Pharaoh travelling to the afterlife - a 12 hour trip (i.e. during the hours of darkness) along a river until they reach a kind of Ancient Egyptian Pearly Gates where their heart (the only organ left in the body during mummification) is weighed against the feather of Horus. If it is heavier, then a lion-esque monster eats it up, and its no afterlife for them, but if their heart is lighter, then off they go to the afterlife. Anyway, its all a bit mental, and their tombs would have been filled with weapons to kill off demons on their 12 hour boat trip, games to keep them occupied, all sorts of gems and treasures so they generally have a jolly good time. Excavations are going on while we are there - its an ongoing working archaeological site, eternally hopeful that another tomb like Tutankhamun's will be discovered, complete with all its treasures.
The Valley of the Queens is a short drive away. These tombs are not just for Queens, but also children, some of whom died much younger. They aren't as vast as the King's, but still have a good story to tell. Its been a long morning, so we are happy to get back to our hotel and snooze away the afternoon. Downtown Luxor is a bit more authentically Egyptian with dusty streets, souks, and a large number of Egyptians trying to relieve us of our money. Not quite as may as usual, as Egypt are beating Cameroon 2-0 in the African Cup of Nations, but still plenty are around to tell me that I am a lucky man to have Luce on my arm.
The next day, our final in Luxor we have morning by the pool surrounded by leathery old female expats, who have a smattering of Arabic between them, and all have some comment about their Mahmood or Mustafa. We're really quite surprised that this sort of Brit, normally seen in the Chinese restaurant on the Costa Del Sol has colonised this part of the Nile - our tour guide later tells us that the area where our hotel is located is known as Little Britain... In the afternoon, we're off to Karnak Temple, one of the most impressive temple sites in Egypt. Its a combination of about 4 temples that were added to, knocked down, rebuilt ad extended some more over about 1500 years. One room, the Great Hypostle Hall houses 135 enormous columns and is a site to behold. They filmed a James Bond here (not sure which - but it wasn't Quantum of Solace.) We're too templed out to go around the Luxor temple, so pop off for supper in a great restaurant called Jamboree, and back home to chat with our smiley hotel staff (we still don't want to pay extra for a room until our 1030pm pick up to catch our night train back to Cairo)
The train is slow and painfully late. We'd booked first class, but its not in the same league as the train down here, and we are jammed in uncomfort. We arrive late into Cairo, but there is nothing spoiling as the flight to Mumbai does not leave until 325am the following morning. After a spot of lunch, we decide to go to the cinema, and catch up on WB's latest release Body of Lies. I hadnt really paid much attention to it before we left, so didnt know the whole story. It brings a new dimension to watching a film set in the MIddle East about the ongoing war in Iraq when you're sat in the middle of the region in an audience of Arabs. Its a great film though, really thought provoking, and a good way to kill a couple of hours. We're looking forward to getting out of Egypt. Its a fascinating country with some outstanding monuments, temples and tombs. The ancient Egyptians truly were an amazingly intelligent race of people, and we have been at times astounded and amazed at their ingenuity and accomplishments. We're less keen on modern Egyptians though, who almost without exception seem to be eternally trying to fleece you out of money, and we have fallen for tricks at least twice that we know of! The last straw I guess has to be a new bottle of conditioner that Luce has bought from a smart looking pharmacy, only to discover in the shower that it has been watered down substantially! Its a great place to visit, and we would recommend it to everyone, but once is going to be more than enough for us. Roll on India, from what we can gather, Egypt will be like a starter in terms of hassle and scams to what we can expect next!
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