Edfu was our first stop as we made our way south towards Aswan. Here was where we met our new guide. He spoke English better than our first guide, but overall was not much more competent then the first guide. The temple is located at some distance from the port, so row after row of ... (read more →)

Early the next morning, we left for Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel borders Sudan, and there is heavy security. Tourists from Aswan are forced to join an early morning motor convoy to the site, several sleepy hours away. All manner of tour buses jostle for position as they race to the site. Once there, we ... (read more →)

Kom Ombo to Aswan isn’t a very long trip. At this point, we’d had it with our tour guide. We were supposed to be taken to the Unfinished Obelisk, the High Dam, and Philae Temple. However, these three things could be easily combined with a trip to Abu Simbel which we knew we were doing ... (read more →)

Vaguely re-assured, we headed out that evening by ourselves to the Karnak Temple sound and light show. There are various shows throughout the evening in various languages – although to be honest, the language was sort of irrelevant. As is typical for sound and light shows, the narration was over the top and vaguely annoying. ... (read more →)

The next day the horror of our cruise began. We were surprised that the guide was supposed to pick us up only at 10 – quite late, considering that this was to be our only day to actually see Luxor. He took us to the boat, which was moored not alongside all the other ... (read more →)

The bus to Luxor was half an hour late. We were lucky to get seats. You can’t buy seats in advance (as it’s not an originating point), so there’s just a mad scramble to get seats as the bus pulls in. A family we met on the bus told us that they hadn’t been ... (read more →)

The Sheraton had arranged a taxi for us to get to the fast shuttle boat to Hurghada. We had to go through security as if we were getting on a plane. The boat, run by International Fast Ferries(http://www.internationalfastferries.com/html/index.htmll) was modern and nice, but it rocked a fair bit. Ian was feeling pretty green by the ... (read more →)

There are no direct buses to Sharm-el-Sheikh from Mount Sinai- it’s necessary to go through Dahab. The one bus for Dahab leaves at 1pm. We took a taxi down from the Monastery (which doesn’t accept credit cards by the way, but does accept US$), and instead of taking 2 buses to Sharm, we arrived at ... (read more →)

We took the Upper Egypt Company direct bus to St Catherine’s. It’s a 9 hour trip. It took us about 2 hours to get out of Cairo, owing in large part to a 1 hour stop at another bus station on the edge of the city. No one seemed to be in a hurry.
Heavily ... (read more →)

We arranged a 4 night cruise through Hamis Travel in Cairo. They came recommended by the Lonely Planet. It was a planning disaster. After several email exchanges (with long periods of silence from them), we had arranged a price of $500 US for a 4 night cruise (per person). We were told the name of ... (read more →)