Okay, I seriously want to finish the Egypt blogging now. I barely remember what happened anymore anyway :P I've been told that I don't sound like I had much fun, so I'll try to put a bit more sunshine and rainbows in this post.

But first!
More bad things, because complaining is fnu:
*14-year old boy in our group was molested. Some Egyptian man at the market offered him a free shirt, then felt up his penis.
*Waiters on the boat were annoying -- pulled on my hair, kept calling my name every 5 minutes (no hyperbole) while I was eating. Wouldn't let me ignore them -- kept bugging me until I acknowledged them. Tried to trick me into giving them our room number. Folded napkins into penis shapes and smacked the boys in the face with them. Refused to set the table for us on the last day, then asked for tips. My uncle gave them tips, because he's generous like that. But he gave them Egyptian pounds, and they wanted USD, so they asked for more. He told them to shove off.

Some good things:

Abu Simbel (a.k.a Wolf Creek)
*Woke up at 2:45 AY EM so our bus could join the convoy to Abu Simbel. At about 5, I took a peek out the window, and it was pitch black and looked like a scene from Wolf Creek. Saw the sun rise over the desert. Very pretty.

Abu Simbel is huger in real life than the pictures show. Inside it was packed, and it was really hot, which made everyone cranky. It was winter too, so it must be hellish in summer. We saw graffiti from ancient asswipes, eg "Francois 1792". Other than that it was good.

Here Ramesses has his hands flat on his knees, which means he is a merciful king.


Monument for Queen Nefetari, his wife (NOT Nefertiti, who was Akhenaten III's wife). The smaller statues around their feet represent their children.

Kom-ombo Temple (a.k.a. The Temple of Offler-the Crocodile-Headed-God)



William and I went around pointing at anything crocodile-headed, exclaiming "It's Offler!" No one got it but us. Anyone who reads this and gets it can have a gold star. Lined up for ages to see the mummified crocodiles. It was damn hard to take a good photo of one, because it was so dark and I didn't want to disintegrate them with the flash.

Click to see an "interesting heiroglyphic". I forget why this was relevant, but I took a photo anyway. Enjoy.

Luxor (is ultimate)
I like Luxor. The temperature was good, and stuff was a lot cheaper than Cairo. There was lots of stuff to see all around the same area, so we didn't spend hours on the bus.


I've forgotten what this temple was called, but I think it was built by Ramesses II. Anyway, from memory it's one of the best (perhaps THE best) preserved temple. This one still had a lot of its colour, and lots of pictures of ancient Egyptians smiting foreigners.


Er. I think this is the East bank of Luxor. Wherever it is, it's pretty, and I like this photo.

People at Mum's work said "Who took the photos? They are a kickass photographer."
Mum said "No, we just have a good camera."
Thanks a lot, Mum.


After that, we went to the valley of the queens. Apparently Queen Hapshetsut's nephew/stepson/son-in-law(how incestuous!) got his men to chip all the images of her off the walls. Okay, fair enough. But why go to all that trouble and leave most of the statues intact? If you really hate someone, put in the effort and destroy them completely.

I don't have pictures of the Valley of the Kings, because we couldn't take photos inside the tombs, and the outside looked like lumps of sand. Your ticket entitles you to visit three tombs of your choice, except for Tutankhamun's one which costs 70 pounds extra. All the good stuff from the tomb is in the Cairo museum, so don't waste your 70 pounds. All the stairs were really steep, and one woman wearing PLATFORM SHOES tripped. Huh, well. The first tomb was very interesting, the second tomb was moderately interesting, and only William and I went into the third tomb. The layout and the art of each tomb was pretty much the same. By this stage, everyone was Egypted out, and wanted to go back to the boat and play 7-card poker.


Karnak temple is the biggest one, and took around 2000 years to build. There near the lake, there's a statue of a scarab beetle. Our guide told us that if you walk around it clockwise XX times, you'll get married within the year. If you walk around it anti-clockwise XX times, you'll get pregnant. My aunt and her friends went clockwise, but they were the only ones. LOTS of people were going anti-clockwise, including men and little children. I think our guide lied.
There was a funky drawing of the fertility god near the entrance. He only had one leg and one arm, because he was so good at sexing, he didn't need both. Haha. Egyptians are funny.

By the time we got to Luxor temple, it was night time. I think it looks evil in this photo. (Or rather, it would if the photo would upload. I'll do it later. I hate the internet :( )

Then our travel company screwed up our flight back, and it was very trying. It all worked out in the end, except for them.

~the end