This tour was a 2 day one night tour with a night on a cruise ship. We set off on a mini bus with the first convoy out of Luxor to Aswan where our cruise ship was docked. Here we saw a broken obilisk still in the ground that had split when they were carving it thousands of years ago.

We also got a tiny boat to the botanical gardens which gave a nice shad in the heat of the day. We also bought some knifes made out of camel bones from our captain. I say captain but the boat was so small we all barely fit on it.

Finally we went to Philae temple that is on its own island. The most interesting thing about this temple is that it had to be moved in the 1960s because the construction of the Aswan dam meant that it was becoming submerged underwater. They took exact measurements and managed to move it and now it looks exactly how it did but just higher up.

Finally for this day we went to see this dam. To be honest it is exactly how I've just described so in my opinion not wholly interesting for me.

This night was spent on the boat where we had all the cheesy entertainment that you usually get on a cruise ship.

The next day we were to take a flight to Abu simbel but it was unfortunately delayed for a couple of hours this meant waiting around in a tiny airport with nothing to do. We were also very frustrated because of how badly the Cairo trip turned out we felt it was already going that way.

Fortunately this delay actually worked to our advantage. By the time we had arrived at Abu simbel all the other tour groups had left! This me want there were only around 20 of us for this massive site. We virtually had it to ourselves! We went into the less impressive temple first because then we would miss most of our tour aswell and truly have it to ourselves.

The first temple is not nearly as impressive as the first but still very nice looking. It is the big temple dedicated to Rameses the great and has four massive giants outside although after an earthquake one of the faces is missing. Again as with Philae temple these temples were moved because of the construction of Aswan dam. The funny this about this movement is that it wasn't that exact. On the same day in Feb and Oct the sun would go right through the centre of the temple and light up three of the four gods; the fourth being kept in the dark because he is the god of the underworld. However when they moved it they tried to get it in exactly the same position but the scientists miscalculated and it ended up now showing a day later. This shows how amazing the Egyptians really were.

After this we headed back to the boat and had a late lunch there. By now re the only ones left of our tour. We got a later than scheduled train because of the airplane delay rather than making us rush at Abu simbel which was nice. The train in itself was very interesting but we were on our own and couldn't see the names of the platforms because it was dark. Luckily when it got to Luxor a man was there to meet us and drive us back to the hotel! This was a very good day trip. Paul even preferred it to the pyramids because there were not massive crowds there and that really did make a difference to our experience.