Golden Palace Luxor

... 3-4 ft tall... Badaway (29) began telling me about his family and how he makes money as a taxi driver...(all the days before it had been so easy to shrug off the people getting in your face to buy stuff, seeing a 5 year old child holding up postcards), ...he went on to tell me how his dream is to finish this house, make 2 stories, have a salon and kitchen, 'but first, i will get a roof' he says. as the ...

Last day on board boat but a busy day at Karnak &amp; Luxor temples which <br>were fabulous. Elia did his usual excellent job at enlightning us <br>about them. He has done an excellent job this week and I feel that <br>I've learnt more about ancient Egyptian history this past week than <br>the last 40 years.<br> <br>It's been a ...

... facade of her temple is very iconic and different compared to the others as it is a tiered monument. The inside is a bit lacking, only containing a few statues. Since the area is crazy hot, a few of us were getting pretty exhausted and decided to call it a day without exploring very much. After getting back to the East bank we just walked around and got some amazing street falafel and mousaka inside a pita from a local vendor on the side of Luxor temple ...

... the Valley of the Kings we were taken to an Alabaster factory. The process of carving the alabaster was explained and demonstrated and then we thankfully entered the air-conditioned showroom. The array of items available was impressive and we also learnt about the intricacies of smoking a water pipe. Some of the staff appeared more interested in watching the historic visit of President Obama to Cairo which was being shown live on the television ...

... persist for so long? I say useless because all of the energy and technology that was put into building pyramids or tombs or sarcophaguses or preparing temples or this and that was overly concerned with the afterlife and not life on earth. What could have been accomplished had people focused on living and not dying. The stuff in the Cairo museam, the craftsmenship, the creations, etc. reflect a civilization with amazing skill, artisitic ability and ingenuity. It ...

... sites here in Luxor, the Karnak temple and the Luxor temple. The first is really cool because it started as a small temple to the sun god Amun-Ra. But each successive pharoah wanted to make their mark by adding and modifying this site. Over centuries, it grew to a huge development, comprising several temples, courtyards, a sacred lake, sanctuaries, masses of huge columns, dozens of small sphinxes, several, obelisks, and much much more. It was a very sacred place and the scene of ...

... at artefacts that are up to 5,000 years old, they are executed with such skill and artistic talent, seem so fresh and are so free of blemishes (not in all cases of course).  We hope that the pictures with this blog convey some of this.  The sheer quantity of artefacts is also staggering, especially when you hear that the majority of the artefacts of the ancient Egyptian civilisation probably remain to be discovered.  If you take the industrial revolution as the ...

... you land exactly. The jeeps just follow the balloon and see where it ends up, and we ended up drifting into the side of a very large hill, just managing to clear power lines at the last minute which was pretty hairy. The pilot shouted at us to adopt the landing position, and the next thing I knew , we crashed into the hill with such force. The sheer jolt of the landing sent a massive shockwave of pain up my body. It honestly felt like every bit of my insides were just hanging ...

... things to eat on the drive because we didn't have time to make a proper stop. We then stopped for people to use a proper bathroom and to have a drink. For most of the ride I listened to my ipod until we got to a petrol station. Mohamed and the driver were worried that we would run out of petrol. While we stopped Mohamed stopped to pray and I can't help myself from watching. I know that it is a private moment but there is something about Muslim prayer time that I can't turn away from ...

... three of the sixty or so tombs, and we went along with the recommendations given to us of visiting those of Ramses III, Ramses VI and Ramses IX. Descending down into the passageways was another hot and stifling experience, with not much personal space between me and the rest of the pack of visitors. But what an experience it turned out to be. The tomb builders had carved dog-leg turns into the hillside when they were getting too close to pre-existing ...