The crooked taxi driver that wanted €15 to take me to Luxor yesterday eventually took me this morning for about €3. Then we ended up at the wrong hotel but it will do. They all quote crazy prices here. I was in the souq this arvo buying something and the guy started at 650. That is just crazy so I started at 10. I eventually got it for 50, and would have probably paid 100 if he started reasonably.

I went to the Luxor temple this morning. It is massive. The original shrine built by Hatshepsut was enlarged by Amenhotep and then Ramses II enlarged it again and took all the glory for building it.

There is a lot of the structure still standing and you can see where they have made repairs. I'm not sure if I like it or they should try to repair it like new? I suppose if they do it might look a bit dinky and we would all complain about the botch job? There are over 50,000 rocks and pieces just lying out the back cos they can't find a place for them.

I decided to walk to Karnak to see the temple there. Well I got lost, found myself, got lost again and eventually gave up. I will have to pay a horse and cart to take me there in a couple of days. Tomorrow I'm going to the West Bank to check it out. Everyone who is anyone was buried there.

I finally made it to Karnak. The other day when I got lost, if I had kept walking for another 500mtr I would have made it. The temple is huge. One of the biggest. Religious site ever built. The hypostyle hall, with 134 columns is worth the entry price alone. Most of the columns are still well illustrated and the walls are in good condition as well. The rest of the place was just a pile of rocks. There were no complete statues and only 1or2 had faces. The others were lost by time or vandalism. I sta for ages looking at some of the columns but they were hard to take photos cos they were so close together. I hope the photos come out OK.
Today I'm on the bus to Hurgada to swim in the Red Sea.