Luxor Egypt and the Valley of the Kings

Standing by the Nile

Egypt as in Luxor and Giza because our shipped docked near Luxor and we took an overland tour up to Cairo and Giza for the pyramids.  Our ship docked in Safarga which is on the Red Sea and not the Nile River, so we had to travel by bus for 3 hours to get to Luxor where the Valley of the Kings is located.  A New 7 Wonders of the world site.

We arrived into port in the morning and started the immigration procedures for Egypt - noticing it is serious business in this part of the world.   Don't try to sneak into a country around here.  Then it was on to the buses for the long drive.   Long interesting drives, Egyptian roads are full of 2 things:  checkpoints and speed bumps.  We never learned the official reason for all the checkpoints but lots of theories abounded amongst us.  Our guide Mustafa told us the speed bumps were to slow traffic down to reduce accidents between cars and animals.  There were donkeys all over the place and an occasional camel.  Once you cross the coastal mountain range you go from Asia to Africa.  The southern part of Egypt along the Nile, we learned is the agricultural area and no it is not dry desert land.  We are driving alongside the Nile river canals much of the way and the people use the water to irrigate their small farms.  Much to my surprise they use donkeys in Egypt and they are actively used for farming.  The fields were small but seemed fruitful, but the people and the area looked poor.  I think our guide was trying to change that impression as he said several times it is a simple life led here and the people are happy.  However he also said that the current government is trying to invest some money in the area.

Coastal range is where the African and Asia plates collide 

Horse and Donkey carts were frequent

Foreground is irrigation canal with two white Donkey’s waiting to work

When we made it to Luxor, we promptly had lunch at the Hilton Hotel this would be our site for dinner and our hotel for the night.  It was a nice property right on the Nile River right across from The Mountain.  As in where all the tombs are.  After lunch we wandered out around the pool for a couple of minutes and that is when it hit me where I was, and I was suddenly excited.  We hopped in boats for a short ride down and across the Nile River.  In Luxor, it is important to know which side of the river you are on because there are different sites on each side and it can be a challenge to get across the river.  While on the boat ride, we saw several large river boats that do tours on the Nile to Aswan Dam when it's not so hot.  It is now the beginning of the low season because of the heat.

Hilton had partially submerged chase chairs, along with poolside bar and restaurant

The Mountain below which is the Valley of the Kings

Top - tour boat like ours
Bottom - right of my hat is one of the overnight boats

Once we crossed the river, our bus took us straight to the Valley of the Kings and Mustafe our guide explained some things for us.  Such as the longer a king reigned the deeper is the tomb and he pointed out a couple of tombs that are good to see inside and said why.  Additionally, this site was chosen for the new burials (these are newer than pyramids) because they could be better hidden, and the mountain did have a pointed top like a pyramid and the area is hot.  Oh yes the heat, it was over a 100 that day.  The heat aids the mummification process.  

VALLEY OF THE KINGS

The general admission ticket allowed us to enter 3 tombs and we bought a separate ticket that allowed us to enter the tomb of the brothers Rameses V and VI.  18 of the 63 tombs are open to the public.  The visitor center has a topographical map that shows the locations.  If you look underneath the table, it depicts the tombs.    One of the amazing things with these tombs is that the vibrant colors you see today is the original paint because Egypt does not allow for painting or touch ups so the color is how it has aged, and the statutes may be missing pieces. 

When you enter a tomb, there is/was a drawing on the wall of the deceased person and of the god of death Anubis.  Anubis is leading the deceased person to the underworld/afterlife.   After he told us about several of the tombs, Mustafa left us to tour on our own.  While it was quite hot, we were also lucky in that hardly anyone else was there so we could really look at the walls of the tombs without being hurried by others.  We were able to appreciate the tombs for the artwork.

Mountain resembles a Pyramid 

Anubis, God of Death above Carol
Rameses III above Jeff

Rameses III

This was the first tomb Jeff and I entered.  All tombs have several rooms.  You walk down a shaft of varying length (remember reign affected length of shaft) and then open into one room with another room behind it and one off to its side.  The ceiling of this one and at least one other is of a deep blue with yellow stars.  It is quite pretty and amazing to realize how good it looks after thousands of years.

Rameses V and VI

 Is a gorgeous tomb inside.  The ceiling is a deep blue and gold with scenes and Hieroglyphics from “The Book of Earth.”  We learned that Hieroglyphics were exclusive to religious writings and monuments.  Another written language was used for everyday life.

Right panels are the ceiling 

It must be a long story with all those Hieroglyphics

1 of 2 Sarcofagus

2 of 2 Sarcofagus

Tomb of Queen Tausret/King Sethnakht

Jeff and I chose to visit this tomb because it was further in the valley and less people were there.  Yep it was us and the ticket collector in it.  It was not as elaborate as the first two we entered, but it was longer.  We assumed the King had a long reign, but were wrong.  It seems this Tomb was built for Queen Tausret, the wife of Seti II (19th Dynasty) who’s tomb is next to it.   For some reason, they extended the tomb to use it for King Sethnakht (20th Dynasty). They also plastered over images of the Queen and inserted images of the King

Ram-headed bird as the soul of Ra and the terminal scene from the Book of Caverns showing the reappearance of the sun at dawn.

Sarcofagus of King Sethnakht

Ramses IV

Is the closest to the entrance of the Valley.  It is a popular tomb to visit.  Part of it is quite pretty but they suspect it was never finished for some reason because not all of it is as elaborate, there is also some Greek and Roman graffiti in it.  It too had a very pretty ceiling.  Then it was back to the bus to explore some more of Luxor.  We chose to skip King Tut's tomb since all the jewels found there are in the Egyptian Museum which we would visit the next day.

Note the Cobras

Top two photos are the ceiling for the room

Hatsheput's Temple

Hatsheput was a woman that became a man is how she is described.  Only men could become a king but she did.  Her tomb is not in the valley but it is an elaborate carved building into a mountain.  We only got to do a photo stop from the parking lot which bummed me because I had heard that it was supposed to be impressive inside.

Collosssi Mennon

Back in the bus we passed several huge statutes seemingly randomly in fields.  Reality at one time those fields were temples or monuments.  Then we had another photo stop this time at the Colossi Mennon.  Here we could go up to the large statutes and really see them.  At one time the statutes flanked Amenhotep II's mortuary temple.

Note the detail on the block he sits on

Each pair face the opposite direction with many smaller statues in between

Luxor Temple and Sphinx Alley

Now it was time to drive back to the east bank and explore over there a little bit.  We would really notice the heat here because all of this was above ground.  As we were approaching the area, our bus actually drove on a bridge over the Sphinx Alley.  They keep finding more of the sphinx today.  They were built to connect Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple which is a distance of 3Km - just under 2 miles.  Each sphinx is probably around 10 feet tall sitting on their pedestals.

As far as the eye can see

Found buried

Bottom left is King Tut and his half sister/Bride
A Pharaohs Queen and sometimes children are depicted below his knee

We make it back to the hotel in time to see the Sun set over the Valley of the Kings.  It’s been a fantastic day.  Dinner and early to bed as we get up early to fly to Cairo and see the Pyramids.  

Oman

 

Oman                                                   

We had 2 stops in the Sultanate of Oman: Muscat and Salalah with a sea day in between.  While the capital city Muscat doesn’t have the wealth and size of Abu Dhabi or Dubai, it is a modern city with stores like IKEA.  Our visit was limited to the seaside community.  Oman is not a common country to visit, but I had once seen a travel article that spoke highly of it.  It is on the Arabian Peninsula bordering the Arabian Sea.  It buts up against UAE and Yemen – we're skipping ports in Yemen.  Oman has nice coasts, mountains and deserts plus the southern part gets monsoons, so it gets green during the rainy season.

Muscat

We chose to do a dolphin and snorkeling trip in Muscat.  It was a 15 to 20 minute drive from the port to the marina where the boat was.  Along the way we saw a well maintained city and since it is the capital we saw their parliament building and a palace plus shops and a resort with a gold dome.  

Old Muscat, once occupied by the Portuguese 

Parliament

I have noticed that the Arabian Sea is full of marine wildlife.  We saw lots of dolphins on our dolphin watch adventure plus a couple sets of sea turtles mating, a flying fish, and an eagle successfully fishing.  

Upper left Sea Turtles Mating
Upper right Dauphin

Click below for a brief Dolphin video

Click [ ] bottom right to enlarge

Our snorkeling spot was up a deep narrow cove with high walls.  We were able to snorkel for an hour where we saw some coral and lots of fish.  While a fair amount of the coral was deadlooking, I did see some purple and neon green coral too.  Others on the boat were saying they saw a parrot fish, a clown fish, a puffer.  I know I saw a clown fish and then I saw just pretty colorful fish – rose one, bright blues, vibrant yellows.  On our way back to the Marina our boat driver took us through some sandstone arches and into little lagoons and pointed out a couple of very nice looking beach resorts.  The area is quite inviting and definitely a good spot for people who like the water.  We are here in the summer and it is quite hot, our guide said most people come and visit in the winter when it is cooler but still warm enough for the beach.

Two different natural arch’s large enough for us to drive a boat through

Upper left, looks like a cat on a rock
Upper Right Resort

Back at the Ship we watched the sun set over the mountains.   Our ship was sharing the port with not one, but two large Yachts owned by the Sultan.  Across the bay is an old Castle/Fort. Looking in another direction you see the Riyam monument which looks like a giant incense burner.  It’s even more spectacular at night as it lights up and changes colors.    It was built to commemorate the 20th National Day of Oman.

Sultans two yachts 

Fort on left

Riyam Monument

Salalah

I had never heard of this city before the cruise.  Which is not surprising since its populations is around 250,000.  It has a very different feel to it than Muscat because this part of Oman historically had close ties to Africa.  The people tend to have darker skin, there are fruits and vegetables that are more common in Africa.  Additionally, this is the part of Oman that gets the monsoons so there are lush banana, papaya, coconut and other plantations around the area.  Here we decided to do an excursion geared to history.  We were skeptical that there would be much to see in this port, like Sabang Indonesia we were happily wrong.  It was a Friday so we could only drive by the outside of any mosques, but we did get to tour a UNESCO Heritage site, a fruit market and sneak into a shop.  Salalalah is known worldwide for frankincense.  It is from trees that are up in the mountains near here.  Starts as a sap like maple syrup but hardens into little rocks.  This was a trading port for centuries and frankincense has always been one of the reasons why it was popular – Portuguese were here for years and various sultans.

Lush landscape along the highway

Those are farms on either side of the road

Large Hypermarket on top contrasts
Road side stands on bottom

On our tour we made several quick stops: the outside of Taqa castle which is in town, a recreation of what a farmers home used to be like and a seasonal water fall.  We spent a little more time at Bin Ali’s tomb. The castle and hut were interesting to see, but that is all I can say.   The waterfall was dry, but the stain gave a good indication of what its like in the Monsoon season.  

Taqa Castle

Recreation of traditional housing

Bigger than it looked from the outside

White-stain on the right is where the water would have been

Now Sumhuram is the UNESCO site.  It reminded Jeff and I of the ruins we saw last year in Greece and Turkey.  It was from the 3^rd century BC.  We saw tools that the archeologists had found, room types had been identified for example one area was marked as shops.  All of this was up a hill and down it further you could see some small buildings from stacked rock.  Then there was a nice harbor that probably had been enclosed at one time but now was brackish with some sea water getting in.  There were also camels down at the beach of the former harbor just wading through the water.  Camels here were almost as common as sheep were in Scotland last year.  The guides said they had found all sorts of relics that showed these people had traded with people from various places as far away as Indonesia and Southern Africa.

You can imagine guards at the entrance to the harbor
This building had a great view

Then it was on to Bin Ali’s tomb.  It is a small building that is a religious site.  The tomb is ensconced in green velvet fabric – the color green was important, but I unfortunately forget why.  Our guide explained that Bin Ali was a descendent of Muhammed and that he had done good things for the people of this area.  He emphasized that he was not a prophet because there is only 1 prophet in Islam.

From there we stopped a fruit stand to have coconut water and to oogle the market.  Jeff and I are jealous they had a much wider selection of fruits and vegetables then we have in Alabama.  We had to ask what some things were – looked kind of like a huge gourd, but most things we recognized.  Our last stop was at  a shop that opened for us to check out frankincense and a little bit of souvenirs.  After that it was time to go back to the ship.  It was 2 in the afternoon, but that is the beginning of lunch for them so we just stayed on the ship for the rest of the day. 

Frankincense