The following day we set out in the morning to explore Islamic Cairo. We started out at the Mosque of  Ibn Tulun. This Mosque is very photogenic, although different from others we’d seen. Most of the Mosque was outside – or at least most of the Mosque that we saw. It’s a very photogenic ... (read more →)

We wandered around looking for a new hotel having left the Berlin Hotel when they switched us to a new room without asking while we were out during the day.  When we found the Lotus Hotel, a member of the ‘hotel staff’ followed us up to the reception.
We have learned that when ... (read more →)

The hotel we had tried to book in advance, the Berlin Hotel , refused to give us a reservation unless they personally picked us up at the airport to guarantee we would keep our reservation, and also to avoid taxi drivers demanding a ‘finders fee’ for bringing us to their hotel. We didn’t want to ... (read more →)

The next day we woke up early and headed back to the West Bank. Although we’d visited it already on our "tour" with Hamis Travel, we wanted to head back and actually see some things. We got a local ferry across the Nile (by the way, this is much faster than the long detour ... (read more →)

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 →)