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...
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