The next day, up bright and early again at 4am, it was off to Abu Simbel, which is pretty much the number 2 thing to see in Egypt:

Here's my very original pose in front of it:

There was no way in hell they were allowing anyone to take pics inside that place, so of course, I went nuts snapping away:

What's not generally known before you get there (well, at least not to me), is that there are two temples there, originally carved out of the mountainside for Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 13th century BC, as a monument to him and his queen Nefertari. The complex was relocated in the 1960s, on an artificial hill above the Aswan dam reservoir (otherwise it would be at the bottom of lake Nasser).

That evening we went on a Felucca ride around Kitchener island:

I had a go at piloting the boat at one stage. It's bl00dy hard steering actually as the rudder is pretty big:

Off to Luxor the next day, stopping off at Kom Ombo temple (in honour of the crocodile-headed god Sobek):

Hieroglyphics showing the crocodile god receiving offerings

The next temple on the list that day was the Edfu temple (couple of millennia old):

The temple starts off huge at one end, and gets smaller inside the court yard...

With the large pillars getting smaller the further in to the temple you go...

Which all leads to the alter at the other end of the temple:

By Tony Baker: email