Egypt - Living it up in Luxor!

We woke up early in the morning and jumped on a train to Luxor, we splashed out for first class seats (£4 each...bargain!) Anyway we jumped on the train and noticed that there were bullet holes in some of the windows.... very reassuring! We headed up country following the Nile and reached Luxor at about 10am, We made a quick stop to our hotel before heading out for the day exploring... We headed straight to Luxor Temple, this is a huge temple in the middle of the city that has had quite a bit of excavation done to uncover. The place is huge and you can just imagine how imposing it would have been with the avenue of Sphinx lining the way between there and Karnack temple. After this we headed across to the mummification museum to learn about the mummification process... a bit gross but obviously very effective as there were mummies on display that were thousands of years old.

We then decided to get a bit of lunch and a drink on the riverfront before heading off to Luxor museum... one drink turned into another and another.... before we knew it we were the life of the restaurant and our table grew as we invited other tourists and the wait staff to join us! After racking up over a £1000 bill (thankfully Egyptian pounds not English ones) we decided to leave the museum until later and headed back to the hotel. We caught an Egyptian Ferrari back (this consists of a blinged out carriage pulled by a hopefully semi healthy horse), this was a very amusing ride - particularly when Shane jumped out of the carriage mid way through traffic to climb to the top of a water fountain in the middle of the roundabout! Jase quickly decided that Shane needed company and Paula was on photo duty to capture the moment... the whole while this was looked on by Egyptian military police with enormous guns.... luckily they were laughing too! That was our Christmas Eve and it proved to be a very early one to bed for all!

The next day we were up at the crack of dawn literally to head to the West Bank, we saw Christmas Day 2007 in from a hot air balloon floating over the Valley of Kings and Queens. Our cheesy American trained pilot did nothing to dampen the spirits and we spent about an hour and a half cruising over the area. The scene was absolutely incredible; there is almost a perfect line where the irrigation from the Nile stops and the desert begins only a kilometre or two in from the banks of the river. We took soooo many photos! Our next stop was supposed to be the Valley of the Kings although there had been a miscommunication between the hotel and tour company and after some negotiation between myself and the tour guide we were able to reschedule that tour for the following day. So instead we headed to the Luxor museum (finally) and had a look at some of the artefacts on display... this was a great museum... except for the corrupt guards who would allow people to take pictures of the mummies for a small 'baksheesh' of course... not coool!

We had our Christmas lunch again on the river and drank some of the worlds worst champagne... sorry terrible sparkling wine.... before heading off to horse ride through the sugar canes! This was interesting... The rest of the guys were off like a shot, my horse wasn’t so keen... she didn’t like to move unless the guide was cruising along with us on his donkey! Anyway it meant that I had great chats with the guide and heard all about his star crossed lover situation with a French girl... very interesting!

The final stop of the day was to an English pub for a traditional English dinner and entertainment... I don’t know about you but a belly dancer, snake charmer and a parade of dancing horses are regular Christmas entertainment at our place! We left the pub early as Jase wasn’t feeling to well and everyone else was pretty jaded from the big day out (and the big night before), we caught a service taxi from the pub and had a near miss on the way - a car full of people and small children pulled out in front of us, no one had seatbelts or restraints and it had the potential for absolute disaster! Luckily no one was hurt...

The next morning we got up to head to the West Bank, Jase had taken a turn for the worse and was not getting out of bed - so we left him rugged up at the hotel to sleep it out of his system. The first stop was the Colossi of Memnon, there are a pair of enormous statutes that were part of the entrance to a temple. The statutes are all that remain! The next stop was the Valley of the Queens, we visited three tombs, one which belonged to a queen and the other two were for her children. The survival rate for newborns was pretty low so the tombs for the children began construction as soon as the Queen became pregnant... not very optimistic at all! The tombs themselves are incredible - they consist of a number of chambers that hold the funnery treasure and then the burial chamber itself where the sarcophagus is stored. The walls and ceilings were covered with the murals and paintings depicting the life of the person and a number of gods to assist the person through to their afterlife.

We carried on to the Valley of the Kings and went through another three tombs, these were even more impressive! They started building the tombs as soon as the King ascended the throne and just kept going until he died… some of the tombs were over 300m deep and were in construction for over 70 years!

When we got back after our trip to the West Bank and Jase was not in a good state, the other boys began to start dropping slowly as well ... dramas! We had a plane to catch so it was a case of packing everyone up and getting to the airport! Doctor Bayliss was on the case and managed to make the trip a little easier on the guys by dispensing various stoppers, starters and antibiotics as required! Lucky for them we were off to Sharm El Sheik for some 5 star relaxation!