Egypt and the Nile

Mike and Judy Henderson
September 29 - October 10, 2018

I'm going to leave this map on each page so you can see where we are.

10/3/2018 (Wednesday) We go to the Valley of the Kings today. We were up at 4:45am this morning for a 6:30am departure.

Uniworld offered an early morning hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings, with a 4am departure. I'm not sure that an Egyptian hot air balloon ride is as safe as I'd like, but everyone who went returned safely.,

Here are some of the balloons over the Valley of the Kings.

We left by bus and I was able to get a picture of one of the balloons as it was coming in for a landing.

We stopped for pictures before entering the valley proper, and there were vendors selling souvenirs. Here's one of the vendors.

From here we could see some tombs of the workers in the mountain.

A closer view of some worker's tombs - taken a bit later.

Then we arrived at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings. This is the entrance facility.

This interesting exhibit in the reception hall is a sheet of plastic molded to the shape of the valley, with flags indicating the various tombs.

But the really interesting thing is that if you looked under the plastic sheet, they indicated the passageways of each tomb.

Uniworld paid our entrance fee, and that gave us access to three tombs. We could choose any three tombs (except Sety I and Tutankhamen, each of which had a special additional fee.)

There was also a "camera fee" of 300 Egyptian pounds (about $16.75) per person if you wanted to take pictures, which we had to pay individually.

We took a "train" from the reception hall to the location of the tombs.

The first tomb we went into was the tomb of Rameses IV

Looking down the entrance hall.

A little further in.

Some of the wall decorations.

The sarcophagus of Rameses IV.

More wall decorations illustrating some beliefs held by the early Egyptians about the voyage of the Ka after death.

Another illustration.

And one more.

I did find great beauty in the tomb.

Then we went to the tomb of Sety I. This tomb was reputed to be the most beautiful and they charged 1,000 Egyptian pounds per person extra to visit it. That's about $56 per person.

I'm afraid it's a bit of a racket. When we entered the tomb we were told that photographs were prohibited. However, when we got down into the tomb, there was a guard who put his hand out and showed us into blocked off rooms and allowed us to take pictures. I'm sure it was just another way to get baksheesh from the tourists.

We had to walk down a long steep set of stairs to enter the tomb. Once we paid the baksheesh I took a few pictures.

Some wall decorations.

These were more colorful.

A bull.

Coming out of the tomb by those same steep steps. This tomb was absolutely, positively not worth $56 per person. The wall decorations, in my opinion, were no greater than we saw in other tombs.

Then we went to the tomb of Rameses III. The entrance.

Some of the wall art.

Additional wall art.

Just a few more pictures of the wall art.

The last tomb we visited was the tomb of Ramesses IX. It was very colorful. I'm going to post the pictures here without comment.

After we left the Valley of the Kings, we went to Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple. The temple has been restored and looks almost new. However, both Judy and I were hot and tired - and Hatshepsut's Temple really isn't that interesting - so we didn't spend much time in it.

We did go all the way to the top. Here's a shot of the statues on the third level.

After leaving the temple we stopped at an alabaster store for a demonstration of how alabaster vases were produced in ancient times. And, of course, they sell alabaster vases and other products:-)

Here are three workers of the alabaster, each doing a different job. The worker on the right is rough shaping the alabaster. The next worker drills a hole into the alabaster, and the last worker uses rasps to shape the vase.

Here's the third man who shapes the vases.

After leaving the shop, we headed to the river where we boarded a boat to cross the river and get back to the River Tosca. Here are some typical "group" boats, boats big enough to transport a group of people.

Here's the boat we took.

Heading across the river. The crossing allowed us to get back to the ship quickly. Suggestion to Uniworld: Do this in the moring instead of having us ride the bus across the Nile. The traffic was terrible and it took us a long time in the morning to get to the Valley of the Kings. If the bus had gone early and met us at the dock on the opposite side of the river, it would have saved us a lot of time. Another alternative could have been for our ship to cross the river at night and dock on the opposite side of the Nile.

As we left Luxor, I took this picture of the Temple of Luxor. You can see how close to the river it is.

As we went up river (south) these guys tied their boat to our boat and tried to sell scarves to the guests. I don't think anyone bought anything. And I don't know how they would get the scarf to the guest and get the money back. Perhaps they just wanted a ride up river.

After dark we came to a river lock. Here we are entering the lock. with a view of the ship just ahead of us in the lock.

Judy and I both bought a jellabiya (also spelled galabiya). Judy is modeling hers.

And here I am in mine.

It was Egyptian Evening in the dining room, so we all dressed appropriately.

After dinner, we went back to the cabin and I worked on this blog for several hours.

Our adventure continues here