We had been unsure until recently that we would ever make it to Egypt, the whole country was in turmoil when our world voyage set sail, however, we were assured that they had turned over a new leaf and all was good in the Land of the Pharaohs.

Queen Mary 2 was berthed in Safaga the nearest port to Luxor, but still a three hour journey by coach through the sandy desert. Our trip today was to take fourteen hours to Luxor and The Valley of the Kings.

Safaga is a small dusty port with little to offer us. Our convoy of 22 coaches was escorted by armed guards and each coach had a suited guy upfront wearing a gun. Our guide was called Bagat and was very typical excited Egyptian, he never shut up! Never to miss an opportunity, he even had his own sales shop on the bus selling T shirts, postcards and jewellery. The journey was interesting through the slums and poverty housing with the workers in the sugar cane fields, helped by their mules. It was obvious to us that we were very welcome, the Egyptians had certainly missed their tourist trade recently and we had friendly waves back at us.

We headed to Luxor and the sand turned to green vegitation where the land is irrigated from the Nile, but still lots of poor housing and rubbish. Our first stop was at The Valley of the Kings, we were greeted by the Egyptian men selling their wares, more aggressively than their Indian counterparts, the older men dressed in a Galabaya, a long robe down to the ankles but the young men wore trendy jeans and T shirts, we didn't see many women.

The Valley of the Kings or City of the Dead as it is known is a huge excavation site. We went down into two of the tombs but no photographs were allowed inside. The walls were covered with Egyptian drawings and art and many thousands of years old. The area has 64 tombs and more are still being discovered.

The two statues of Amerephisll was our next stop, these were huge statues in the middle of a field, hard to imagine that they have been there forever. We crossed the Nile and could see the cruise boats before we stopped for lunch in a hotel on the banks.

A quick picture stop at the Luxor Temple and we were at our last stop today, the Temple of Karnak. This is an enormous site still under excavation and the size of the structures is vast. Here are avenues of ram headed sphinxes, courts and pylons and an hypostyle hall with over 100 huge carved pillars.

On our way home all the mosques were illuminated and calling for Friday prayers. After our three hour return journey we were completely exhausted but looking forward to our day of doing nothing in Sharm el Sheikh tomorrow.