World Heritage Sites and tributes to Lady Di

Today is the main reason for Sarah taking me on a surprise trip to Malta. On our previous visit, we did a thorough enough job of going around the island seeing all the megalithic temples on offer, but one glaring hole in my Malta C.V. was the fact that I didn't get to see the Hypogeum.

This was because the site is situated in such a delicate climate, excessive human sweat and carbon dioxide can build up, bleaching and damage the stones and wall art. So, to minimise this, Maltese Heritage limit the number of people who can enter at any given time and there are only so many "slots" per day. Needless to say, these book out well in advance (over a month) and I was completely unaware of this on our first visit.

We had no such problems getting in this time as Sarah booked the ticket months in advance, so we popped in a taxi and it took us across the island to the site. The Hypogeum is actually not too far away from Tarxien temple (a couple of hundred metres), which we saw on our first visit, but it is so completely different, that upon entering it, you could easily be forgiven for missing it, as it looks just like an average Maltese house with a door. 

The entrance to the Hypogeum - understated in the extreme!!

This is because the site was untouched and underground for thousands of years, and it was only when  building work to erect houses stumbled upon it in the early 1900s that it was discovered (even then, it took the builders four years to report it - I guess they didn't want anything to jeopardise the building of this house!!).

Typically for these sites, there is no photography allowed, so I can't really show you what I saw at the Hypogeum, but it was an impressive underground temple site, not dissimilar to the temples above ground, but completely enclosed and carved out of the rock using primitive tools. It was easy to see why this was a world heritage site, and also why they had to regulate the amount of visitors to it. Completely dissimilar to Egypt, who pack in as many people as possible, and wonder why all the hieroglyphs are being bleached away.

I would strongly recommend seeing this site if you are ever in Malta, but be warned, you will need to book the tickets at least 2-3 months in advance as they only allow a handful of people in each day.  

On our way back home, I noticed there was a Lady Di hairdressers next to the Hypogeum. A wonderful contrast between the old and the new (although Lady Di's hairstyle probably pre-dates the Hypogeum by several thousand years!!). 

Lady Di Hairdressers. Now doing facial waxing....

It does seem that Lady Di is held in some regard here, as just the night before we were in a Lady Di tribute bar, which had an impressive amount of Lady Di newspaper cut-outs and general pictures of her completely covering the walls of the pub. It seems to be a popular haunt of people who could easily have been extras in Eastenders (or El Dorado). I am guessing that it is a nice piece of home from home for the Ex-Pats in the in town, of which there seem to be many.

Group selfie in Di's bar! The pub where all the greats go to "Di".

I have to admit it was a fun place to go, the music was eclectic, and for the most part had some tenuous link to Lady Di (as she is referred to in these parts) and on top of that, they did an impressive Blue Lagoon cocktail which I discovered I really love, as it tastes like Refreshers (the sweets). 

A sign of things to come....

One thing that is worth mentioning about Malta is their signs are wonderfully malapropriate. I puzzled at the bus time table which had bus times from fri-sat and then the Sunday times. Either they meant mon-sat or bus drivers have the cushiest job on the island!

That pales into insignificance when you visit one car mechanic though and his sign reassuringly offers you "free punctures" with every set of tyres bought. That is a business model which you have to applaud really. I wonder if the customers buy the second set of tyres off of him.....

When you add that to the church which seems to branched out and now offers manicures and pedicures - nuns like nice nails too i am guessing or, slightly more worrying, maybe the monks do! Anyway, there is a wonderful array of signs to enjoy here and any that I see and get a chance to snap will be posted up here.

By the lack of action thus far into the blog post you might have guessed that today has been a rather sedate day really, and you would be right. All we have done is a bit of sitting by the pool and drinking cocktails. Engrossed in a book, I forgot about the suns evil rays, and now have lobster legs. This wouldn't be so bad apart from the fact that I must have sat on the lounger in a rather silly way, as only half my leg got exposed, so I have one side, from thigh to ankle, lobster red, and the other side paler that a goth girl's complexion ......

Also, it seemed a rather good idea to look at the temple on our doorstep in order to whet our appetites for the temples to come. Our hotel was actually built around a small megalithic temple, and it seems rather a shame to admit it, but in fact this is the quietest and least visited part of the hotel. If you go to the sun loungers you find them filled with Germans and east European tourists cooking themselves slowly by the pool, but the only person other than us who drank from the cultural cup was a small child (nationality: unknown) who I think was actually lost and was looking for a way back to the pool.

The temple ruins are small, but rather lovely in their own right. The cynic in me suspected that they might actually be a modern reconstruct by the hoteliers in order to get some extra business, but they are in fact pukka 5000 year old stones. Anyway, here are some snaps of Bugibba Temple.

 

 

 

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The Plan

This tour is only a ten day excursion, and so to be completely efficient in seeing everything I want to, I need to sketch out a loose plan of things to do. Brace yourself Sarah - this is where you realise what you have let yourself in for....

For those who don't know, Malta might be a small island in the Mediterranean, but it is packed with a rich history. One of the key reasons I wanted to go there is that it has some wonderful megalithic temples which date from around the time of our own Stonehenge. I love my temples, so it will be nice to tick these off in my EyeSpy book of UNESCO World Heritage sites.

So this is a rough itinerary:

Day 1 - Arrive at hotel, and visit Dolmen temple (this is actually a bit of a cheat really, as the temple is in the hotel grounds).

Day 2 - Acquaint ourselves with the Maltesers, and the local area (i.e. find out where the nearest MacDonalds is etc.) and just relax a bit.

Day 3 - Visit the Tarxien temple complex and also see the Hypogeum (they are near each other)

Day 4 - Visit Hagar Qim and Mnajdra temples

Day 5 - Visit Ggantija temple and explore Gozo island

Day 6 - Day spent enjoying Valletta (I think it is probably sensible to take a break from temples to prevent fatigue!)

Day 7 - Visit Skorba temples and go to M'dina

Days 8-10 - Relax and recharge those batteries (and update blog!)

This is of course a very loose plan and is subject to alterations as we work our way through things - I don't want to be beholden to time, like I was in my whirlwind tour of the wonderful Karnak temple, but similarly, I wouldn't want to allot a whole day to something that amounts to two rocks set parallel to each other, which some Oxbridge scholar has proclaimed to be a temple.

There are other things to see too, and fortunately, the Maltese bus system (I am assured) is a fantastic way of travelling around the island, so it is fairly certain we will end up in some interesting places without intentionally listing them down. I have to admit that I am getting quite excited now that the holiday is within touching distance, and will hopefully get some nice pictures to share with you all, instead of these dry, pictureless posts!!!

Well, that is all for now folks, the next time I post I will be in the Med, with my string shirt and Union Jack shorts on.......

A Petra-fying Experience

Today I had arranged for a private taxi to take me down to Petra from Amman. The journey is a good 3 hours long, so I decided to be up nice and early once more to maximise the day I had there. The journey to Petra is fairly uninspiring, as all you see for miles around you is desert (the Jordanian desert) with the occasional town/herd of camels thrown in. My driver was Samir, who could not speak great English, but seemed friendly enough (which is always good as I have to spend 6 hours cooped up with him).As we started getting near to Petra, the landscape started to change, and it was much more impressive, with miles of flat desert being replaced with mountains.

Finally we arrived, and I managed to get a lovely view of the town of Petra as we approached. There are two options for getting down to the ruins; you can walk, or you can take a horse/camel or donkey ride. I decided to walk down, as it would enable me to stop and take photos along the way.The ruins of Petra are in a siq. This is a canyon that has been created due to seismic shifts in the tectonic plates (earthquakes), the force of which ripped the stones in two. This has created a truly amazing path down to the ancient city, and I was snapping away furiously at everything along the way. The enclosed nature of the siqs does mean though that caution needs to be exercised if it looks like it is prone to rain there (which from my experience of the middle east can't be that often) as some of them can be prone to flash flooding because they are so narrow.

The journey down the siq was surprisingly long, I kept thinking we must be at the city by now, whenever i saw a bend in the path, thinking it would open up and reveal the city, but no, it just continued on and on. Along the way I met an Australian girl, Pippy, who was with an unofficial "guide", and we ended up walking around together. Single women touring in the middle east attract far more attention than single men, and i think she acquired Omar as a result of this attention. If I am honest, he seemed a bit put out that I was tagging along with them, preferring to have Pippy all to himself, and kept trying to get rid of me in subtle little ways, which was actually quite amusing.

A view looking back up the siq at some lazies using a horse!!

After what seemed like an interminably long walk, I rounded a corner and got a glimpse of the Treasury peeking back at me from the siq. This really was one of those hair standing on the back of your neck moments, and I stared in awe at the tiny sliver I could see from the siq. Ever since I was a young lad (many moons ago now) I remember seeing a picture of this place and wanting to go and visit it and here I was, all these years later, looking at it with my own eyes.

The first glimpse of the treasury from the siq. Hairs
were tingling at the back of my neck at this sight.....

A zoomed in view, trying to cut out the masses......

The money shot, the Treasury in all its glory!! Do you
notice the red tinge from the way that the sun hits it?

The treasury is absolutely gorgeous, it is an amazing sculptural feat by the Nabataeans (which is the name for the Bedouin tribes). The outer casing of the treasury is spectacular, but the inside of it is actually very bland, there is one room that is just square and unadorned in the same way. One thing that really struck me about the ancient city of Petra was that one day was never going to be enough time to visit everything in the area. There is a monastary which is about a 5km walk into the mountains, which would have been nice to see, but I only had 6 hours of visiting time, and I needed to cram in as much as possible.

We walked around the city, taking pictures of the scenic views as much as the buildings within, marvelling at the wonderful swirlling colours of the rock, and the tombs chiselled out of them. There is a courthouse (so Omar told us) up one of the mountainsides, so it was a pretty light trek up, and had a nice view of the city looking down. I can only imagine what the views were like from the High place of Sacrifice (another site in Petra, at the top of the mountain).

A view of part of Petra, all carved out of the mountainside - Impressive!

I completely lost track of time, until I started to feel hungry. My early start had meant that I had not had any breakfast, and it was now 1:30pm and I was famished. We sat and ate lunch, by which time, Pippy and Omar had decided to wander up to the monastery. I was due to meet my driver by 4pm for the journey home, and so I reluctantly left them (much to the relief of Omar) and started making my way back up to the top of the siq, taking pictures as I went.

The journey back up is one i can understand people taking donkeys and horses back up for, but these poor creatures do not look in the best of health and I was not keen on seeing the donkeys being whipped so that they would run uphill (in the baking sun), so I made the decision to walk it back. This also meant that I could get some photos coming back out of the siq too.

I took some more photos of the treasury as I walked past it again. It is quite interesting that at different times of the day it has a different hue to it. When i took photos of it in the morning it was rose red (Petra is actually nicknamed the Rose-red city), but when I returned, it was a golden colour. I lingered around here for some more shots before finally making the long journey back to the surface. I have to admit that by the end of the trek out of the siq, which had taken me about an hour, I was feeling pretty exhausted but at the same time I also felt quite exhilerated and even spent a few minutes haggling with a store owner over a rather tacky Petra hat and t-shirt.

The treasury is thronging with people all of the time,
so this shot is quite lucky. Notice the different colour?

Finally we started the long journey home. I was slowly nodding off, when Samir slammed on his breaks. Standing in the middle of the road was a group of camels, idly milling around. I have heard of humps in the road, but this was ridiculous! Still, I can understand why he braked like he did, as hitting a rabbit is one thing, but hitting a camel would have wiped out the car (they are bigger than a horse). The remainder of the journey was uneventful, the sun was setting and i was slowly nodding off in the car. We got home at about 8pm, which was not bad going, but it was a long day, and after showering and ordering room service, I was soon in bed and sound asleep.

When the sign said humps in the road for 50 yards,
I did not realise that it would be so literal................

I will add pictures later, i have taken almost one thousand, so sorting through them will take time, plus i was too tired to attempt this last night!

Entering Jordan and the Citadel

Early this morning I made the journey from the centre of Cairo to the airport in order to catch my flight to Amman in Jordan. At 5am Cairo is wonderfully peaceful, and not gridlocked with cars! It had not been possible to approach Jordan from any other route other than this, as the hotels all around Petra (where I am trying to get to) are packed out. Therefore I am staying in Amman, and am going to drive down there instead.

The flight was uneventful, but it was interesting to note that the plane has to fly south and go into Saudi Arabia before turning north to Jordan. The simplest route would of course be for it to head due east over Israel. Without asking why, I am suspecting that planes from Arab countries all avoid Israeli airspace, either through choice, or because they have to. I suppose some tensions still run high!

Anyway, I arrived in Jordan and was greeted by Mr Ali, a local taxi driver, who was only too keen to help me part with my tourist dinars when all I wanted was to get to the hotel. Still, he was incredibly friendly and was extremely helpful in showing me a few sights along the way from the airport to the hotel. My early impressions of Jordan are that it is much more friendly and welcoming a place than Egypt, and also less invasive of your personal space (i.e. if you say no, you are not pestered). Also, the people here seem really proud of being Jordanian, and the amount of times I have been asked “we hope you enjoy our country” is nice to see.

Amman is built on hills, and the urban sprawl looks great from on high

I actually arrived too early for my room, as it was still being prepared, and so I had a couple of hours to kill, which Mr Ali managed to fill for me by taking me to the Roman ruins at the Citadel in Amman and showing me the Amphitheatre, even coming along with me and taking a few photos for me. My love of old things, was enough to wake up my flagging body and I happily wandered around in the Jordanian sunshine snapping away at Roman columns.

The Citadel has had many influences over the years, it was firstly a Roman temple dedicated to Hercules, then later, a Byzantine Basilica was built here (6th-7th century), before the Umayyad Arabs arrived destroying the Basilica and they built a palace here ( 9th century). This was destroyed by an earthquake soon after completion, and it seems like all of these things had been left to ruin since that time until recent years, when preservation and restoration of the mosque (in particular) was undertaken.

The Roman temple to Hercules, or should that be Heracles....

Umayyad homesteads....well, what is left of them anyway....

Take my word for it, there are the remains of a 6th Century Byzantine church

Amman is built on hills, so you can get some lovely panoramas from on high of the whole city. The mountain that the citadel is on is the highest in Amman, and so commands spectacular views of the streets below, with one of the nicest being the view down to the Roman amphitheatre hundreds of feet below. The architecture of the city is gorgeous, really reminiscent of other Arabesque countries in North Africa. Combined with the sound of the mosques calling everyone to prayer, it really is a wondrous feast for the senses.

The citadel affords nice views of the Roman amphitheatre

After a couple of hours here, I returned to my hotel, and finally my room was sorted out. I am actually in a brand new wing of the hotel, and the smell of newness is still on the room!! All I can say is this place is lovely, nice and spacious, beautiful decor, a LCD TV, and more facilities than you could shake a stick at.

My room is smells brand new. I like the office in the corner allowing me to
keep my finger on the pulse of the international money markets. Sell, sell!!

Tomorrow I have arranged for another early start so I can make the long trek down to Petra, where I am hoping to find the Holy Grail that Indiana Jones left behind....I think all these early starts are catching up on me (I was up at 4:30am this morning), as this afternoon I just fell asleep for 2 hours (which is smething i rarely do). I am looking forward to returning to work, so that I can have a lie in....

Memphis and Saqqara

Today I have booked myself on a tour of Memphis, the original capital of Egypt and Saqarra, another site just outside of Cairo which was pyramids. The Giza pyramids are the most famous purely because of the size of them, but there are many pyramids scattered along the Nile Valley, and these particular pyramids are some of the earliest known pyramids in Egypt, so it is interesting to go and see how the art of pyramid design began and was slowly perfected over the centuries.

Memphis is all much of a muchness, it is another temple dedicated to the God Ptah, who is the creator god of Egyptian mythology, that has been heavily ruined by people either taking the stones to use in other buildings, or by Macedonian conquerors (aka Alexander the Great) who wanted to crush the people’s belief in these gods and replace them with their own.

Token Sphinx shot at Memphis (not in Tennessee)

Still there was a very impressive statue of Ramses II in the little micro-museum they had on site. I say micro because i estimate that there were only about 10 exhibits in the whole place, this thing being so big it too up most of the room!

Ramses II statue that fills up the micro-Museum

After that, we moved on to the main visit of the day at Saqqara. There are a few pyramids here, but all are significantly smaller than their cousins at Giza (pronounced Geez-ay). The first pyramid we saw was the pyramid of Teti, which from the external shots looks just like a mound of sand in the middle of the desert, with a load of bricks scattered on the top.

No, not just a mound of sand, to the trained eye, this is a pyramid

Shot from the other side, this is the entrance to the pyramid of Teti

Sure enough though, we reached the entrance which led down into the ground and after a few metres walking, I was in the inner chamber of the pyramid. This one was actually much nicer than the ones in Giza for several reasons; it was less humid in there, it was less arduous a trek to reach this pharaohs tomb it was less crowded, and at the end of it there was actually something to see! Yes, this pyramids walls were covered with inscriptions and hieroglyphs, so it made it all the more worthwhile to visit. The sad thing with most of these monuments is that the sheer weight of traffic (which i freely admit i was adding to) is damaging them on an unprecedented scale. My tour guide explained that when he was younger, the roof of this chamber has a blue sky and yellow stars, but the years of accumulated sweat moistening the atmosphere in the place had slowly bleached all the colour of it which seems a real shame.

A quick note about the guides, they are not allowed into the pyramids, as the Egypt Tourist board (or whoever manages the sites), wants to keep the flow of tourists moving quickly through the place, and not getting held up with guides wittering on. Therefore what usually happens is several groups congregate outside the front of the entrance are quickly informed about what to look at, and then all rush to get in there first!

Across from the pyramid of Teti is some tombs to important figures in Egyptian culture at the time, but not worthy of a pyramid (which was reserved only for the pharaohs as far as i can tell). Usually high ranking officials, priests and the like would have tombs near to their kings, the plebs would be just thrown in the Nile for crocodiles to eat presumably.


Anyway, for our tour guide, I give ten out of ten for enthusiasm about his culture, as he delights in showing silly western tourists how Egyptians discovered/invented all manner of inventions thousands of years before the concept of “patent offices” had even been thought of. I have to question some of his interpretations of the pictures though. For example a man with some reeds tied around him was deemed by the guide to be the first example of a life jacket, whereas it looked to me (admittedly i have an untrained eye in such matters) as a man just carrying some reeds. That is an important thing to note, the guides are all good fun, but there are points where I think they tell a story, because it is more exciting, rather than just sticking to the facts. So, these days whenever i go out with a guide, i take a pinch of salt with me (and my lonely planet guide book).

This pyramid was closed to the public, no tomb raiding here.....

After this pyramid we moved on to what i would consider a more impressive structure, in that it looked like a pyramid!! It is called the Step pyramid and was erected in memory of Netjerikhet (Djoser for short). It has a slight Mayan feel to it, but the guide delighted in telling us that those pesky Mayans were only a glint in the milkman’s eye when this monument was being constructed.

Viscious guard dog at the entrance to the Step Pyramid,
he was off duty today though, as it is a national holiday

The step pyramid was designed and its building co-ordinated by a priest called Imhotep (people may remember this name from the film, The Mummy). Alas, to my disappointment, any ideas of a Hollywood style re-emergence of this 4,000 year old dinosaur were soon dispelled when the guide told us that many of the tombs were raided (not by Lara Croft) and the body was, in all likelihood, dumped in the Nile.

The Step Pyramid of Djoser

After a few minutes walking around (it never seems like i have enough time on these trips out) it was time to move on, and we were going to the most interesting place of the day – a carpet school. Yep, that is right they have sneakily added this one in. In truth, it was one of the few visits i have not seen before, so i popped in to get a demonstration on how they use a loom and how many knots are needed to make a square centimetre of fabric, which is all well and good, but i want to be looking at monuments, not haggling over carpets which I couldn’t possibly get into my suitcase anyway! So, after the demonstration i walked almost immediately out and started taking photos of some date trees. Dates grow everywhere around Cairo, and to my surprise, they come in a variety of colours; red, yellow, black are ones i have seen so far.

My sixth sense told me that a visit to a school/shop was looming....

Ok, I need to rush, as i have to get showered and ready for today's adventure - i am returning to the Pyramids at Giza and also going to the necropolis at Dahshur. I will add the photos to this when i get back.

Habu, Valley of the Nobles and Ramesseum

This morning I was up, bright and breezy, ready for a trip out to the West bank to see Habu temple, the Valley of the Nobles and the Ramesseum. Once again the weather was scorching, but armed with a bumper big bottle of water, I was ready to take on Ra!!

One thing of note I should point out, that Luxor ruins are separated by the Nile and categorised into two sections; the East bank, and the West bank. The East bank being temples celebrating life, and the West bank (not to be mistaken for the Palestinian West bank) is for tombs and the dead. Interestingly this was symbolic of the rising sun in the East (life) and setting sun in the West (death). OK, that is enough of me pretending to be educational - next I will be sewing leather patches on my tweed jackets!!

The first visit was to Habu temple. Immediately I could see that these temples are not on most travel companies usual Luxor itinerary, as the temple was sparsely populated with tourists, which is always a good thing from a snapping point of view. My tour guide was a local girl called Emmi, who has been training at Luxor University and was giving me a one-to-one tour of the temples. She was friendly and informative, but I did feel sorry for her, as being Ramadan, she has to abstain from food and water from sunrise until sunset. In this particular heat that must be a nightmare to achieve.

An example of Habu temples columns - still with the original colouring

More columns, these ones were cut down and "Copticised" (sounds painful)

Sure enough as we were wending our way through the temple, we crossed paths with people lying down in the shade hiding from the sun, but Ra had managed to fire his nasty rays on some old girl’s head, and she was collapsed on the floor with heat exhaustion, being fanned by one of the Nubians in the temple whose only purpose (as far as I can see) is to collect baksheesh.

The crowd of people in shot are trying to help the heatstroke woman -
I helped as best i could, by taking a photo (how inconsiderate of me!)

As we were going around the temples I realised that quite a bit of the stuff that had been told to me over the past few days had actually sunk in, and I found myself answering a lot of her questions with semi-sensible answers.

After Habu temple, we moved on to the Valley of the Nobles. This is obviously not as grand as Valley of the Kings, but it did have some very nice artistry in the tombs. As with the Valley of the Kings, we could not take any photos in here, but for a bit of baksheesh, I managed to snap a couple while the other tourists were not looking (this is a standard arrangement with the guards).

Valley of the Nobles - look, no queues, the only people were vendors

Those Egyptians were seriously advanced. Here is
an ancient fire extinguisher in the tomb of Ramose

The tombs were a welcome break from the searing heat of the sun at this point, but it was not long enough in the shade, and all too soon we were back out on the road heading towards the Ramesseum.

However, before that I was given the little chat about how papyrus is made and the skill of these people. I knew exactly where this line of conversation was heading, having been subjected to it on 2 occasions before, once prior to the alabaster village and the other prior to the aromatherapy shop. Before she could finish her talk on it, I declared that I was not interested in seeing how it is made, or going to the shop, which seemed to disgruntle her a little bit, but I am the customer, and the customer is always right ;)

Anyway, I watched a whole video of how they made the papyrus scrolls at the Luxor museum yesterday, so did not need them to tell me.

So, we went on to the Ramesseum, which is heavily ruined, but has some lovely columns with the original paint on them. For once the Coptics had not vandalised it and overlaid the designs with their own murals. By the point you could tell it was hot because even Emmi had to stop and rest the heat was so intense (not helped by the fact she couldn’t drink water), so as she sat in the shade telling me about the columns and the history, I moved around snapping away like an American tourist.

The Ramesseum - another temple ticked off the list

A very hot me, trying to look cool at the Ramesseum

We then headed back to the hotel, and I spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding the heat of the day, watching TV and popping out to the shops for 10 minute bursts.

Tomorrow I am booked on an early morning flight to Cairo, where I aim to see the Pyramids. I am booked into the Nile Hilton, which is right next to the Egyptian Museum. I am hoping that Cairo will be considerably cooler than Luxor, and looking at the forecast on the BBC website this seems to hold true, it will be low 30s, whereas it was over 43 degrees here today.

Karnak temple, Luxor temple, Luxor museum and leaving the cruise

Ok, due to tiredness last night I have been a bit remiss on updates, so I will kill two birds with one stone and cover two days.

On Sunday we had the last official day of touring. This was based in Luxor and involved visits to Karnak temple and Luxor temple. I was suppose to have gone on this tour at the very beginning of the trip, but due to some delays I missed it. However, the fact that this cruise is on a permanent loop between touring Luxor and Aswan, I managed to get on the tour at the end of the trip, which was nice.

Karnak Temple
This was, for me, one of the reasons I wanted to go on this cruise, to gaze at the majesty of Karnak temple compound, this was the most important temple in Theban Egypt, and it is easy to see why. The sheer scale of the place makes it magnificent, and it has more columns than an excel spreadsheet!! However, this is the cultural response for why I wanted to see the temple. If i am honest, the real reason I wanted to see it was because this is where a rather suave Roger Moore dodges the hired killer Jaws in the Bond film "The Spy who Loved Me".

Karnak Temple from the front ....

and from the rear....

I was not disappointed by the sheer scale of the temple, but I have to confess to being a bit miffed that we covered the whole temple complex in about an hour. To put this in perspective, the temple is so large, I could have probably spent most of the day there snapping photographs, and yet, we seemed to be route-marched through it by a tour guide more interested in breaking the world record for temple hopping, than for letting the visitors enjoy the buildings.

Avenue of Ram-headed Sphinxes at the entrance to Karnak

Speaking of the tour guide, he was not quite as good as the previous guides we have had on the trip. The English language is a rich and colourful language full of subtle inflections to convey different meanings. This guide sucked all the beauty and colour out of the language with a monotonous drawl which really did nothing to engage the tour party to what he was saying (OK, I admit this might be a bit harsh, as his English is way better than my Arabic). All I can remember of his tour guide patois was his repeated call of "follow me" as he tried to hurry us along the tour.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of Karnak Temple, I have resolved to go back there and try and see it at a more leisurely pace, so hopefully I will get some more snaps at a later date. One of the things that was impressive about Karnak was the Hypostyle hall which, as i alluded to above, is just a hall of columns, hundreds of them.

The columns of the Great hypostile hall...impressive

What is nice about Karnak is that some of the original colouring is still on some of the reliefs, so you can picture how this temple must have looked in its heyday.

One plus of our tour guide was he did know some of the key locations to take us to get our Karnak "money shot" pictures from, and he even took a few photos of me standing against some columns with some obelisks in the background. For info, according to our guide, the obelisk (aka Cleopatra's Needle) near Embankment tube station in London was taken from this temple (in those good old empire days....).

Luxor Temple
We were hastily ushered out of Karnak temple and to Luxor temple a couple of miles down the road. Karnak and Luxor temples were once linked together by an avenue of Sphinxes, which must have been an impressive site to behold, but alas modernity meant that the town of Luxor was built right in the middle of the two, and so much of this avenue is under roads and houses now. However, there is a bit of the avenue left at Luxor Temple, and we were given about 50 nanoseconds to admire it and take photos of it before our tour guide was ushering us down towards the temple proper.

The avenue of Sphinxes that linked Karnak and Luxor temples

In terms of scale, Luxor is not as impressive as Karnak temple, but it has some charm of its own, in that a Coptic church was built on top of part of it and then, when this was submerged under soil at some date I can’t remember, the Fatimid’s (early Islamists) arrived and unwittingly built a Mosque on top of the Church on top of the temple.

The front pylons of Luxor temple (I know, it looks the same as every other temples pylons!!)

The temple also shows signs of Coptic vandalism, with the early Christians painting over the Egyptian murals with murals of their own depicting Evangelists and disciples etc. If there is one thing I have take from this tour it is that Coptic Christians were right gits, ruining all the faces of the gods on the temples as they saw them as idols.

Side view of Luxor temple....more columns!

Luxor Temple is also had the hand of Alexander the Great on it, with some friezes showing Alexander making offerings to the Egyptian Gods. I didn’t get much time to look at this, as once again, we were rushed through the temple, but I am pretty sure that Alexander was declared the descendent of Amun by the Oracle at Siwa (I would like to go to Siwa Oasis, but it is a hell of a distance from Cairo, for very little cultural benefit as far as I can see), so I imagine it would be an offering to Amun.

After that our tour guide took us back towards the boat, having covered two major temples in just over 2 hours, including the travel time!! Is that a record Norris McWhirter?! Before he left us though, he did give us a little talk about the appropriateness of tipping out ship’s staff, which I thought was a little odd, as he is not directly affiliated with the ship. Still, it probably does help to get an idea of the sort of amount he as an Egyptian feels is fair, as to be honest, there are times I feel mean just giving one or two Egyptian pounds for things.

That was all yesterday (or the day before yesterday, if you are reading this tomorrow – or, more realistically, today). Has that confused you?! Good :P

Today (that is to say Monday) was our final day on the cruise and we bagged up and got ready to go. In truth it was a bit sad, as the tour party I was with were a nice group and really friendly, so that will be missed, hopefully I will be lucky and meet people who are as nice on my onward travels.

Prior to leaving (after lunch) though, I popped along to the Luxor Museum, to compare the objet d’art in there with our British Museum. The museum is quite small, but it does have a couple of Mummies for people to have a look at. Considering they are over 4,000 years old, they scrub up pretty well, and I was impressed with them. The other objects are pretty much of a muchness, a few heads of Gods here, a handful of Greco-Roman coins there etc. But the piste de resistance (as far as I was concerned) was the chariot which was buried in Tutankhamun’s tomb with him. That was a really nice bit of kit! And judging by the size of the tomb in the Valley of the Kings would have had to be seriously crammed in there. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed in the museum, so i can't show you the Chariot.

So, after that and a spot of lunch, I finally checked out of the boat and travelled a couple of miles down the road to the Steigenberger. I was not disappointed with what I saw, it is a lovely room with marble throughout, and a lovely Nile view to gaze out on from my balcony in the evening.....that is where I am writing this from. I have not done much for the rest of the afternoon, as I am feeling a bit woozy, and dizzy, possibly due to all the sun, I might have a bit of heat exposure from earlier (I need to be mindful of this!).

My room at the Steigenberger - high living indeed.....

Well, that is all for now, I will write some more tomorrow, when hopefully I am aiming to go to the Valley of the Nobles, Habu temple and the Ramesseum.

Returning to Luxor, Esna Locks

Today has again been rather relaxing, with only a sneaky visit to Kom Ombo once more. I was not technically supposed to go and see this again, but it was a chance to see the temple in the day time, so i popped along. This was made easy because one of the chaps from Manchester has been sh***ing through the eye of a needle for the past few days and has basically been unable to see anything since the Valley of the Kings. So, i took his place on the tour.

After the Kom Ombo visit, i have been thinking and arranging my onward details. I have booked into a hotel in Luxor for the couple of days after i disembark the ship. The chain is called the Steigenberger, and i am hoping for traditional German efficiency, and lots of spicy sausages on the menu (whoever misinterprets that has a dirty mind!!). In true Basil Fawlty style, i will try not to mention the war....

Once booked in, i have arranged with my contact in Luxor (gosh, i sound like someone in a John le Carre novel!) to arrange a balloon ride as the sun rises over the Valley of the Kings. I will also think about going to see more of the tombs, and the Ramesseum, as I felt our first visit there was rather rushed. I appreciate we have seen the major tombs in the area, but i am a stickler for completeness!!

After i have done this, i will head back to Cairo and book myself in to a hotel there. We are now getting into the Egyptian busy season, so i will need to ensure i have forward planned, as i don’t fancy sleeping rough on the streets of Cairo!!

Anyway, i have not got much to write about, so i thought i will give you a general review of the ship. From the moment you arrive it feels palatial, with a marble entrance hall and wooden staircase. The people to staff ratio is very good, and the customer service is excellent.

The reception of the boat...........the man waiting offers
you towels for freshening up after being out in the heat

There is a gym on board, a swimming pool on top and the rooms are lovely and spacious, even my single berth is large enough to have a table and chairs in. The thing that is really great about the cruise is that i can sit here and write this, with my nets drawn back and just watch the Nile and the Egypt drift by....it is very relaxing.

My room for the past 5 nights...

....very plush, and colder that an Eskimo's fridge...

the sun deck with swimming pool for those who like to slowly roast....

On the downside, the internet connection is a bit flakey, as everytime we move, i lose the wireless connection i rely on (only because i am lazy and like lying on my bed as i type!), but i suppose i can always plug it in at the wall. If i am honest, a 7 day cruise is a bit too much for me. i much prefer to be out and doing things, not just milling around on a ship sunning myself, so i would only suggest a 7 day cruise if you want to temple hop and sunbathe, but if you just want to do one or the other, a 3/4 day cruise would suffice.

Tomorrow is my last day of the cruise - as i write this we are back in Luxor, so wont be sailing any further, but i have a couple more things to see here (Luxor Temple and Karnak), as i missed them due to all the kerfuffle at the beginning of my trip!

Edfu and Kom Ombo

After a good night's sleep following on from the whirlwind tour of the valley of the kings et al. yesterday, today's temple hopping was and altogether more sedate affair.

For the first time on the cruise I managed to sit down in the dining room and eat a meal with the rest of the tourists. It has turned out that I had unwittingly become (in)famous because, with the ship being full, there was only one seat not filled, and people were wondering who was missing. Then this strange chap (me) wanders on to the boat says "hi" to everyone and goes on a tour with the party (all of the parties are divvied up based on the predominant language they can speak). Then, during the tour, I almost got left behind, and the tour guide had to make the whole party wait in the blistering Valley of the Kings sun while he ran up to try and find me.

I maintain that I was only in the Tutankhamun tomb, although I might have spent longer in there than was scheduled, and I did sneakily walk up to some of the other tombs to see if the party has gone there (I knew in my heart of hearts that they had gone down to the exit, but I had to make sure...).

Anyway, after touring with the party, they were expecting to see me for lunch and dinner but I crashed out and slept instead, so people were trying to figure out if I was some antisocial misanthrope, or if I was stuck to the toilet with a severe case of Nile belly. So, to finally see me after a couple of days, I was surprised they all remembered me. I have been the butt of a few jokes about "making it back to the meeting point" and “don’t get lost” etc, but it is all good natured, and it helps me not getting lost again!! I have spoken to most of the group on my dinner table; 6 are a family party from Manchester, and 2 are a Mum and daughter (i think!) from Wales. They all seem like nice enough folk, which is always good, as we have to spend a few days together.

Today's first temple was the magnificent temple at Edfu. In order to get there they decided we should travel in a nice environmentally friendly way, horse and carriage. However, one look at these mangy nags and you can't help feel sorry for them. The horse I had was actually one of the more looked after ones, and the driver (called Shugar) did not use a whip. Another group though told of a horse that was struggling to run because one of its legs was bleeding, and instead of resting the horse, the man just whipped it harder. All this in the searing heat of the day. Poor things.

You can't see the horse's ribs, which can't be said of the rest...

Anyway Shugar was really helpful at pointing things out....school there, market there....baksheesh please.....hospital there. It was an interesting journey, but the town of Edfu is much like any other town, apart from the fact it has the bloody great big temple in the middle of it. Apparently, the whole temple is very well preserved because at some point in the past, it was completely buried in the sand, and the local town unwittingly built their town on top of it. This is an impressive factoid because the temple must be over 100 feet high.

Me employing clever camera angles at Edfu Temple, there were hundreds of people there really!

After popping to see Edfu, we were due to return to the boat but our horse and carriage was, in true taxi-style, out on another job so, instead of waiting in the blistering sun, one of his colleagues kindly offered us shelter on his carriage until he returned (for some baksheesh of course!). As we were waiting this man was proudly showing us a photograph of him with Omar Sharif (the cynic in me expected him to charge us some baksheesh for looking). Still, he was useful in exchanging some large notes into smaller notes (I had to pay some baksheesh for this). So just to be clear, I had to pay baksheesh for getting the money to pay this man baksheesh - I wonder if it was Egyptians behind the current banking crisis....

Eventually our driver returned, and I was given the honour of sitting on the front with him (yes, you guessed it, for some baksheesh). This was actually quite exhilarating though, but clearly concepts like the "health and safety executive" do not exist here as I was bouncing around almost falling off at every pothole we hit! Still it was a laugh, and he pulled over and snapped a photo of me holding the reins (baksheesh), before delivering us to our boat.

Me failing to keep a tight rein on my spending....

The afternoon was at leisure, and I sat by the window in my room watching the beautiful Nile drift by. I really can't properly describe to you how relaxing it is. I am on the side which the sun rises on for this part of the trip so it is lovely watching the sun rise in the mornings.

In the evening, we arrived at the temple of Kom Ombo, which was spectacularly lit up so we could see it as it approached. My camera is not the best in night scenarios, and so I am not sure the pics will do it justice.

Kom Ombo by night

The one thing I have been impressed with on the trip so far, is the standard of the tour guides. It is nice to see Egyptians being passionate about their heritage, and Mahmud our current guide is incredibly animated when explaining the stories of the temples, with arms flapping about wildly with every sentence.

Kom Ombo is quite interesting because the temple is actually dedicated to two gods, not just one. There are also a couple of mummified crocodiles here too, which i just had to get a picture of.

Mummified Croc grins for the camera. Say cheese......

The Egyptians link the crocodile to Nile floods (and therefore fertility) because the crocodiles would wait at the dam knowing the floods were coming, so when the Egyptians saw a crocodile, they knew the floods were coming.

As i write this, we are just arriving in Aswan, so another days adventures are just around the corner.....I will add pictures later.