My week of seeing Egyptian temples is over, and I still don't know a massive amount about ancient Egypt! It wasn't quite as impressive as I expected, I guess my expectations were a bit high. Its nice to see famous sights like the pyramids and sphinx, Karnak temple and Valley of the Kings, but its just stone ruins you've seen in dozens of photos and they're so rammed with coach loads of tourists.

I did however really like the funeral goods from the tomb of Tutankhamun which we saw in the Egyptian museum in Cairo, 3500 years old but still had wood, fabric, and flowers preserved. The stuff was so modern, there were embroidered sandals, board games, fold up camping beds, and chairs. I also really liked the tomb walls in the Valley of the Kings with the still coloured hieroglyphs and wall paintings, but I didn't really know what the pictures were showing as guiding isn't allowed in the tombs anymore so our guide Ashraf couldn't come in.

There's quite a heavy security presence everywhere, the sights are guarded by armed tourist police to deter terrorists and on the roads you either have to travel in convoys with an armed police escort (like to Abu Simbel which is fairly remote), or you have to stop and they mark your progress every ten miles along the road at traffic police checkpoints. That's so if you go missing, they know which section of the road you were last seen on. Um, reassuring..?

Its mega busy and touristy everywhere, I'm not used to seeing so many tourists after being in India and Nepal where there's very few. Every temple has coach loads of tourists shuffling along trying to camcorder everything, so there's no ancient atmosphere in any of these places and you have to struggle to hear your guide shouting above all the others!

But in comparison to India, Egypt is clean and quiet, green and non-hassly. It doesn't smell like sewage and there's no litter/animals in the road etc. Its very modern and in lots of places its like being in France. Its quite nice to travel somewhere less in your face, but its less colourful and characterful for it!

My group was nice enough, but it was large -12- and we only actually had 5 days together in the week, so we didn't really bond in the way my other groups have, which meant it was not quite so fun as previous trips.

Next today I meet a mostly different group for the next section of my trip- off to Sinai and then Jordan!