Our journey to Aswan started with a successful navigation of Cairo's metro system. This proved incredibly easy and at less that 5p each for a 20 minute journey, probably the best value underground in the world! Our overnight train left from Giza station which, in contrast, has to be the worst place on earth to catch an unfamiliar train. Despite having a few platforms and being a pretty major transport hub, the station has no terminal building, no departures board (actually no signs of any description!) and seemingly no staff. As such we remained unconvinced that we were in the right place until a train pulled up at roughly the right time which they allowed us to get on!

Any anxiety about the train itself soon went out the window when we saw that it had probably the best cabin out of all the sleeper trains we've caught so far on this trip. A private cabin, with its own sink and comfy seats that converted into flat beds. Dinner was served aeroplane-style by the sweetest old dude, complete with dickie bow, and most excitingly . . . a wine and beer menu (minus the Claridge's price tags!). After a disappointing couple of days and apprehension of what to expect Gemma was beside herself with excitement - amazing how little things can be so pleasing! We were not, however, excited enough to enter the belly dancing competition taking place on board. Although you don't see those on train too often we, rather unsportingly, declined in favour of staying in our cosy cabin with a bottle of red and our books!

On arriving in Aswan we pulled off the rare feat of finding our hotel on foot, without getting lost and were instantly hit by the lovely warm sunshine. Being winter and 1200km further North, Cairo was pretty chilly (again!) with fleeces needed by day and multi-layering by night (Gemma was glad of the extra jumper kindly donated by Marian!).

Aswan is much less stressful and pretty laid back compared to Cairo. We instantly felt more relaxed here and decided to maintain that mood by not trying to fit too much in or visit any of the sights further away. On our first day we had a long lunch at a restaurant floating on the Nile and then took a peaceful afternoon felucca ride around the islands looking onto the various surrounding tombs and ruins, all accompanied by a very old and very smiley felucca captain.

One thing that is very present here is high levels of security. The Egyptian authorities are clearly very concerned about the risk of terrorist attacks. Cairo's main streets and tourist sites are watched over by a heavily armed police presence. Entering Sharm El-Sheikh you pass through so many checks that it is like a border crossing and hotels are heavily guarded with airport style security scanners. Here in Aswan the only way to leave the city either North or South is by police convoys that leave at certain times of the day. Our train had armed guards on it too. It is all a little disconcerting . . .

Our second full day we booked a friendly taxi driver and paid a visit to the Aswan dam, an ancient quarry site and the Temples of Isis. The Aswan Dam and its newer neighbour, the High Dam, are not so high or impressive in themselves (maybe we were a little naive in expecting the type of enormous heights that you see in James Bond!). Though what is impressive is how much water they hold back. It looks like an ocean.

The Temples of Isis (which have been moved from their original, now flooded, location) were marred (unsurprisingly!) by having to have a row with the man on the boat about the fare. All through Asia we found the haggling experience quite good humoured, but here it is an aggressive battle of wills. Grrrrrr!

The temples were nice though and the Egyptian race redeemed themselves by us being offered a free ride back with a tour guide and her clients and our lovely driver who was, for once, very grateful for his tip!!

We can also add two more "world's largest" to our list - world's largest manmade lake (result of the dam) and world's largest single stone carving in the shape of an obelisk, at the quarry - or at least it would have been had they not broken it 7 months into carving - gutted!

Tomorrow we join the police convoy North, in a minibus bound for Luxor . . .