Luxor - Valey of the Kings

OMG - Gobsmacking, Unbelievably amazing.

The Venus brochure says "Just when you think you have seen enough temples and tombs to last you a lifetime, we visit the West Bank of the Nile in Luxor and the infamaous Valley of the Kings. See where the Kings of Egypt were mummified and laid to rest with all their treasures. Amazing."

And it was. There are 63 tombs on this site and we visited just three of them. Carved into the mountain, and one of them with a long tunnel and seemed like thousands of stairs. They told me only 230, but it seemed much more than that. But wow, worth every step. And luckily the knee is holding out okay, but I am walking very carefully and watching every step on this uneven ground.

To think that these tombs are 3,000 years old. The carvings and paintings are amazing, and to think all carved without the use of modern technology. It is just to hard to comprehend really

It was very warm today - the temperature being up around 30, but it is a dry heat so quite bearable. I got a touch of sun on my face, so had quite a glow when I got back to the boat but all good.

Leaving the tombs we had the usual alley of salesmen, and it was here I got married! A guy came over wanting to sell me yet more pashmina. He asked if I was married - I put out my hands and said "Yes - I have two husbands." He took hold of my hands and said "Ah good - I will be number 3, so we had our photo taken and that was it - I now have an Egyptian Husband. I then had to buy a scarf - for 60 pound to support my husband, we did the Egyptian touch check and air-kiss each side and I left him there, with the other girls laughing their heads off. So that's two proposals and one marriage so far.

After lunch we visited Karnak and then went on to Luxor after dusk. The Venus brochure says "You will be gob-smacked by the huge columns at Karnak, and by the fascinating history of Luxor temple, having been home to both Muslims and Christians." As yes we were gob-smacked. In fact I need a word stronger than gob-smacked.

Karnak is huge, and even now they are still uncovering statues. There weren't a lot of tourists around - we were here late afternoon, having left the boat at 3.30pm. We were subjected to the usual screening as we entered - bags xrayed and searched etc, and there were a lot of Tourist Police around - there was an incident with a terrorist scare and the perpertrators being killed back in June 2015.

We were followed by a Tourist policeman,and a number of times I tried to snap his photo but he was watching me closely and he ducked behind the columns. Finally he came up to LL and asked her if she had been to Luxor before, because he remembered her.!!!! Not sure if that's true or just a line he was using, but I then convinced him to have his photo taken with us. He made us promise 'no internet' and I assured him I work in a police station and we would not post the photo on the internet.

From here we went on to Luxor temple and again, gobsmackingly beautiful and we learned that this was at one stage all under the sand. And I am talking about columns over 40 feet high here. It was beautiful seeing it night with the statues lit up. It looked magical.

Back to the boat for dinner, and three very tired ladies traipsed up the stairs and were all soon asleep. It had been a huge day, a tiring day. Loads and loads of information from Mervat about the mummies, the gods, the kings, and by now the names and dynasties are all becoming mixed up in my mind. But the interesting thing is that we all beginning to recognise and understand the hyrogliphics .