TOPDECK Saturday 5th May

We're back in Cairo today at the Indiana Hotel. Our train got in two hours late and I think I only got about two hours sleep but the show still goes on and by 9.30 am we'd washed and had our brekky and were back on the road again. This mornings destination was Saqqara and the Step Pyramid.

The Coptic Churches were our stops before lunch. We also visited the Ben Ezra Jewish Temple and a church where the Holy Family were once believed to have lived. Below is one of the tile mosaics that was at one of the churches.

After lunch was the Khan El Khalili Bazaar where I scored a toy camel and a couple cotton blouses for a grand total of five pounds!! Bargain!! The men in this market place literally pounce on any unescorted white women and even with Shihab and Ben I still had a hard time fending them off. This picture shows a common street where the markets are with some high tech road works going on in the middle of the street.

Tonight our group goes to the Giza Sound and Light show at the Pyramids and Sphinx. I think I've developed some kind of tummy bug from swimming in the Nile (Peter also has it and he and I were the only buggers silly enough to swim...) so I'm staying in tonight and have given my ticket to someone else.

TOPDECK Friday 4th May - Luxor

We rose before the sun again today and headed off for the West Bank (before it got too hot to be wandering round the desert...) First stop was the Valley of the Kings where our entrance fee allowed us to visit three different tombs - except for Tutankhamens, which cost extra. Our guide Sam (with the unfortunate mouth foaming habit...) took us to Ramses iv, Thutmes iii and Sety ii. The main differences between these tombs are that they were built in different centuries (11th, 13th and 15th BC) and you can see how the heiroglyphics had developed through these times but once again we were not permitted to take any photos inside the tombs...

On the other side of the Valley of the Kings stands Hatshepsut Temple. This is an enormous temple built into the side of the mountain and has been well maintained. Some of the coloured paintings are still visible and the entire structure is still mostly intact.
The Colossi of Memnon was our last West Bank visit and these two statues lived up to their name. They were huge!!

Before returning back to our boat for lunch we caught a little dinghy across the river back to the East Bank to wander through Karnak Temple before it got too hot.

The towel men had struck again when we returned to the boat with this cute monkey/bunny things hanging from our ceilings. The rest of the afternoon was free time for sleeping, repacking etc before checking out at 8pm to board the train back to Cairo - a mere 8 hours away...