The travels of Tim and Megan: Egypt - Part 3: Luxor to Cairo

Friday

On Friday we had a 5.30am wake-up call - it would have been 4am had we chosen to do an optional hot air balloon ride over Luxor and the Valley of the Kings - and a massive day ahead of us. We were greeted in the hotel restaurant by a rather officious waiter who told Tim that he could not sit at the table he was about to sit at, but instead had to sit right down the far end of the restaurant miles away from the buffet, past a couple of dozen empty tables. Given that it was not yet 6am, he's lucky he didn't cop a smack in the face. If there was one disappointment about our stay at the Steigenberger Nile Palace Hotel, it would be the waiting staff - they seemed to go out of their way to make things difficult for us, rather than help us.

After breakfast we hopped on the bus and headed out to the west bank of Luxor to the Valley of the Kings, picking up the part of the group who had been hot air ballooning on the way. They had a super time, however, their balloon basket landed in the middle of a farmer's crop field and the farmer was rather upset, charging towards the basket brandishing a garden hoe as they landed.

Even though it was early in the morning when we arrived at the Valley of the Kings, it was very very hot out there and there wasn't a lot of shade from the sun. The Valley of the Kings is a valley west of Luxor where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to the 11th century BC, tombs were constructed for the kings and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom. There are 63 known tombs in the Valley of the Kings, the most recent being discovered in 2005.

The royal tombs are decorated with scenes from Egyptian mythology and give clues to the beliefs and funerary rituals of the period. Almost all of the tombs seem to have been opened and robbed in antiquity, but they still give an idea of the opulence and power of the rulers of this time. We visited the tombs of Ramses IV, Ramses I, Ramses IX and Tutankhamen.

Prior to arriving in Egypt, we assumed that Tutankhamen and Cleopatra were two of the most important figures in Egyptian history, as they were really the only two names we had heard much about. During our tour we heard almost nothing about Cleopatra and just a little about Tutankhamen, when we visited his tomb and saw some of his treasures at the Egyptian Museum. Tutankhamen was eight or nine years old when he became pharaoh and reigned for approximately ten years, dying aged 19. In historical terms, Tutankhamen's significance stems mainly from the fact that his tomb was discovered almost completely intact — the most complete ancient Egyptian tomb ever found.

Tutankhamen's tomb was discovered on 4 November 1922 by Howard Carter and it made history because of the enormous amount of treasure found in the burial chamber. Inside, amongst all the traditional funeral trimmings, the things that stood out were the Pharaoh's sarcophagi - the royal corpse was encased in three mummy cases. The first was made of gilded wood, the second of gilded wood set with precious stones and the third of solid gold. The golden sarcophagus is one of the greatest masterpieces of goldsmiths' art of all time. It contains 200kg of gold and is 1.5m high. The second and third coffins reside at the Egyptian Museum, while we saw the outer coffin in the tomb.

The tomb of Tutankhamen is also unique in that it still contains the king's body. This was another of the highlights of the trip, seeing the small corpse of Tutankhamen lying in its coffin, mainly wrapped in white mummy cloth, but with the head and feet exposed. Most of the treasures from the tomb are now housed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo - more about them later.

From the Valley of the Kings we took a short ride to Queen Hatshepsut's Temple. Against its stark mountainous backdrop, the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut is a breath-taking sight. It is very different to any other temple we saw in Egypt - it rises from the desert plain in a series of imposing terraces. It was constructed for the Queen in the 18th Dynasty and sits adjacent to the much older Temple of Montuhotep II, the ruler of the 11th Dynasty. In 1997, 58 tourists and four Egyptians were massacred here by Islamic terrorists in what has become known as the "Luxor Massacre". Apparently there are bullet holes in the walls of the temples from the attack, but we did not see them.

Next stop in a busy morning was the Valley of the Queens. In this region, around 80 tombs have been found, although most of them are badly damaged, some showing traces of fire and others having been used as stables. The tombs mostly date from around 1300 to 1100 BC. We visited the tombs of Queen Titi and Prince Amunherkhepechep, son of Ramses III (those of the pharaoh's offspring who died in childhood were also buried in the Valley of the Queens). Next to the prince's coffin, on display in a glass cabinet, was the skeleton of a 5-month old foetus, believed to be the prince's younger brother. Both tombs were decorated with beautiful wall paintings in bright colours.

We had a quick chance to freshen up back at the hotel before grabbing some lunch at McDonald's, which we ate on the bus while we travelled to the Temple of Karnak. McDonald's in Egypt seems to follow USA's lead of serving everything in giant size - a large coke comes in more of a barrel than a cup and fries are pretty much delivered in a sack. As some of our tour group was departing in the afternoon to head to Dahab on the Red Sea coast, we had a quick tour of the Temple of Karnak.

At the heart of the immense Karnak temple complex lies the Temple of Amun, dedicated to the king of the gods. With its endless courts, halls and colossi and huge sacred lake, the scale and complexity of the sprawling temple is overwhelming. It is the largest temple complex in Egypt, covering an area of more than 40 hectares! From its modest 11th Dynasty beginnings, pharaoh after pharaoh added to and changed the existing buildings, seeking to make their mark on the country's most important temple. No expense was spared and during the 19th Dynasty, around 80,000 men worked in the temple as labourers, guards, priests and servants. The temple lay buried under sand for more than 1,000 years before excavation work began in the mid-19th century. Today the massive task of restoration continues.

The highlight of the Temple of Karnak is the Great Hypostyle Hall, supported by 134 gigantic columns. We liked the rows of sphinxes leading up to the main entrance to the temple (the ones that used to lead all the way to the Luxor Temple) and we also enjoyed wandering around the ruins beyond the Hypostyle Hall, sitting on broken statues and carvings. The Temple of Karnak has recent claims to fame in that it appeared in the Lara Croft video game, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation as well as in the film The Mummy Returns.

We had a few hours to relax back at the hotel before heading to the Luxor train station to catch an overnight train back to Cairo. We sat down by the pool and had a drink and a chat to the rest of the gang. We had heard from Melissa and Trevor that a restaurant just down the road from the hotel, ironically called The Ritz Restaurant, did a really good curry - to quote Melissa, "the best curry she had ever had". So the two of us, along with Tim and Tania, went along to The Ritz for dinner. We all had a curry, Tim had a chicken curry with vegetables, while other Tim, Tania and Megan all went with a straight vegetable curry. Aside from the fact that Megan found chunks of chicken in hers (lucky she's not a dedicated vegetarian), we all agreed it was the most disgusting curry we had ever tasted. It was a horrible green-brown colour that looked like something out of the sewers and it had a gritty, sandy texture.

Given that we had a 9-hour overnight train ride coming up and we were all terrified of getting the runs, Megan and the others only ate about half of theirs. Despite it tasting horrible, Tim ate all of his - one because he was hungry and two because he figured if it's going to make you sick, eating half or eating the lot won't make a difference. Luckily, none of us got sick, but we figured Melissa had got us good and proper!

We were not on the comfortable sleeper train this time, so we had to slum it in the seater train. However, the seats were actually pretty big and the whole experience was fine - we all got a decent sleep and the train left on time and arrived on time, so no complaints. Except that other Tim returned from a toilet visit looking rather traumatised - so the rest of us held on until morning!

Saturday

We arrived in Cairo around 8.30am and caught a bus to a hotel in the city centre - not as nice as our previous hotels! To add to our tired, crabby moods, there was no water in the whole hotel when we arrived, so we couldn't have much needed showers. However, we had breakfast and a couple of hours' rest before Sobhy took the group on a guided tour of the Egyptian Museum.

The Egyptian Museum is home to most extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities in the world - that's right, it has even more than the British Museum! It has over 120,000 items! The undoubted highlight was the large collection of artifacts from King Tutankhamen's tomb. Many of the artifacts recovered from his tomb were things that the king had used during his life, such as thrones, beds, chariots that he had ridden on hunting expeditions, a decorated chest, which was most likely used as a closet or suitcase, ivory and gold bracelets, necklaces, and other decorative jewellery and alabaster vases and flasks. The tomb is also home to many weapons and instruments used by the King.

The most well known artifact in King Tutankhamen’s tomb was the famous Gold Mask, which rested over the bandages that wrapped around the king’s face. The mask weighs in at 11kg of solid gold, and is believed to represent what the king’s face really looked like. Next to the Gold Mask were the two inner coffins of Tutankhamen (referred to above). They were both stunning, particularly the 200kg solid gold coffin!

Obviously we didn't have time to explore everything in the museum, but other items of note were the collection of animal mummies - including an enormous mummified crocodile, human mummies and a number of big statues.

We had time for a quick shower back at the hotel, as the water had just been restored, before we set off for another guided tour to a perfume factory and the famous Khan Al-Khalili markets. Tim wasn't feeling up for a perfume factory visit, so he strolled the streets taking some photos of the real Cairo. The perfume factory was out in Giza on Cairo's west bank and parts of it looked very poor. We had been told that over half of Egyptians live below the poverty line. There was a lot of rubbish in the streets, crumbling dwellings and broken down vehicles. There was also a massive empty plot of land filled with rocks and piles of rubbish, where there were several sheep and goats "grazing"...on what we are not sure. It was all a bit sad.

Meanwhile Megan was treated to a real show in the perfume factory. The perfumerie was a treasure trove of pretty, jewel-like small bottles and large medicine bottles of flower essences. We consumed a lunch of Egyptian coffee and tomato pasta, while listening to a lecture as to how Cairo produces a significant percentage of all of the flower oils used by Dior, Chanel, Gucci and other fashion houses in their perfumes. We smelt and tried to identify several famous mixes (including Eternity by CK, Issey Miyake and J'Adore) before being let loose to purchase at will. Megan picked up some pure rose essential oil, which can apparently be used to perfume your laundry or bath, as well as a straight perfume.

The final stop on our tour was the Khan Al-Khalili markets in the Islamic district of Cairo. The area spans several blocks east to west and a mile north to south. It is made up of a number of markets selling everything from souvenirs to spices. It was a lot more crowded than previous markets we had visited and the sellers seemed more aggressive than the others too. Beyond the markets, the area is crowded with beautiful mosques, houses and palaces, which provide a welcome distraction from the incessant sales pitches.

Megan bought a little glass perfume bottle and we acquired a little clay sculpture of an old Egyptian man reading a book (see photo below). Our bus ride from Islamic Cairo back to our hotel was rather slow due to the rush hour traffic. The pollution was pretty bad in Cairo - a number of our group noticed that they had sore throats and eyes - not cool.

We went for dinner with Tim and Tania and Damian and Karen to a little place near our hotel that we nicknamed "Molly's" because the Arabic writing of its actual name looked a little like "Molly's". The food was great - shish kebabs and meat shewerma plates with plenty of pita bread.

Sunday

We had the luxury of a proper sleep-in for the first time in a couple of weeks on Sunday morning. After a leisurely breakfast and packing up our bags, we farewelled the gang and headed out to the airport. We were pretty knackered after a really full-on week but we both think that this was one of the best trips we have been on! And special thanks to Sobhy who was a brilliant tour guide and helped make the trip so fun.

Country tally:
Megan 28
Tim 24
Bear 24