Tombs and Temples

Saturday 31 December

This morning we checked out of our rooms and departed the boat at 8am after an early breakfast. We took a mini van and our first stop was the Valley of the Kings. As with other tourist places in Egypt we had to walk past all of the shops on the way to the entrance of the Visitors Centre. If Disney is known for having people exit its rides through the gift shop, Egypt has gone one better by getting people to both enter and exit ‘through the gift shop’!

The Valley of the Kings contains about 63 tombs of the Pharoahs which were dug into the hills. The Kings started making their tombs this way after the period of the pyramids because using this type of burial place took less time and effort to create compared to building a huge pyramid. Our ticket enabled us to visit 3 tombs of our choice and Ahmed suggested the tombs we should visit. These were those of Ramses I, III and IV. The tomb of Ramses III had the most colourful wall carvings of figures and hieroglyphics. Ramses I’s tomb was the very deep and steep and was an example of an unfinished tomb. It is thought it wasn’t finished because he died before it could be finished. Finally we visited the tomb of Ramses IV which also had very colourful walls but these were the first ones we’ve seen anywhere in Egypt which were protected by sheets of glass in front of them.

We also visited the outside of Tutankhamen’s tomb and Ahmed also told us about the history of its finding. As there was a separate entrance fee for this and we had already seen the King Tut display in Melbourne and more in Cairo we decided not to go inside.

On the way out Jade and I looked at some green stone Egyptian cat carvings and after some bargaining I bought one for Jade for her birthday that is made of malachite. It looks very nice and will be a great memento of her trip here. Some guys chased us all the way back to the minibus with various books, statues, shirts, etc, etc. Wow. It all gets very overwhelming sometimes.

We next visited the funerary palace of Queen Hatshepsut. You’ll have to forgive my spelling, as I’m not checking it. This palace is built in front of a hill and is in a very different style to other buildings we’ve seen. For one it has square columns, which aren’t decorated. This may be because Ahmed told us that 60% of what we were seeing was a modern reconstruction and 40% was original. While this building looked grand from a distance there wasn’t as much to see up close.

We left there about 12.30 and because we were hungry Ahmed had arranged to get some pita bread sandwiches for us at a local shop. These were very inexpensive and very delicious. Mine had potato wedges, tomato, red pepper, chicken and something like tabouli in it. It was less meat based with more vegetables, which is the way I like things. Jarrah had a meatier sandwich, which he also liked. I would like to get the recipe for the sandwich I had, as it would make a great school lunch sandwich. While we were eating we stopped at the Colossi of Memnon, which once stood in front of a temple. They were rather damaged and as they were right by the road it was just a quick hop out of the van for a photo.

With our morning tour over we headed back to Luxor on the East Bank of the Nile and our hotel—the El Luxor Hotel. Like the hotel at Aswan this hotel also had a beautiful and large reception area with the couches upholstered in a rich red patterned fabric and the coffee tables topped with beaten polished and etched copper tops.

Our rooms were the best we’ve had in Egypt and were truly 5 stars. Polished stone tiled bathrooms, beautiful fluffy bed coverings, teakettle and cups, flat screen TV (our first in Egypt), comfortable chairs and round coffee table and a fabulous balcony with table and chairs overlooking the Nile. The kids had some trouble flushing their toilet but otherwise we couldn’t fault the room. Too bad the nicest hotels we’ve had have both only been for one night each!

We had some time to rest up which we spent enjoying a cup of cocoa in our rooms and watching TV. There is a movie channel that we watched on the Nile cruise, which has good movies showing all the time.

At 3 we went downstairs to meet Ahmed to go to the Karnack Temple—the largest temple anywhere in the world. This was the temple we went to for the sound & light show so we already knew something about it. But there is just so much history to remember and to take in that most of what Ahmed told us was either new or reinforced things he’d told us from visits to other temples and historic sites. We had some time to walk around on our own before returning to our hotel. The kids and I got ice cream cones on the way out. I am missing some of my usual sweet treats and this filled the bill for me.

We had a few hours to wait for dinner at 8.30 and filled this in in our rooms by resting. Paul and I got involved in watching the movie The Last Samurai. It was in English with Arabic subtitles, which was fine when they were speaking English—but when they spoke Japanese we were out of luck.

At 8.30 we went to dinner at the hotel restaurant. Our tour company Peregrine had shouted us a complimentary ticket to a gala New Year’s Eve dinner. When we arrived we found that the dinner was a set menu or 8 courses designed to be spread out over the evening along with entertainment. We’d had a pretty big day and especially with the kids weren’t up to eating that much food over such a long period of time and some of the dishes weren’t really to children’s tastes so we asked to cut straight through to the main course except for Jade who had the appetizer of braised prawns. The restaurant manager wanted to know why we didn’t want to eat all of the courses but was very accommodating when we explained that the children needed to eat and go to bed. The main was of veal steaks in a mushroom sauce and was very nice. Jade and I had dessert which was a pyramid of strawberry mousse with a strawberry sauce, choc dots and half a fresh strawberry on the plate. We finished with coffee and tea and for the kids this was the first time they’d had two cups of tea in one day since they’d had a cup at breakfast.

Just as we were about to leave at 9.30 the entertainment other than the DJ started with the entrance of the Pharaoh wearing his tall golden crown and his Queen to the march from Aida followed by 4 soldiers and 4 dancing girls. They did a dance in the ancient Egyptian style then processed out again. Five of the guys returned wearing brown galabeas, white head cloths around their heads with the top of their heads exposed and carrying bamboo poles. They did a very entertaining pole dance spinning the poles around and slapping them on the floor. Then the girls returned in belly dance outfits but ones, which covered their whole bodies, and they did a belly dance in the middle of the men. The men and women also danced around each other in couples. We stayed to the end of the dance and were glad that we had the chance to see it. It was after 10pm by this time and Jade was very sleepy so we went back to our rooms and to bed.