The next day it was off to valley of the kings, with a quick stop to check out these guys along the way:

The valley of the Kings was pretty cool, with all of it underground. I took a snap of the model they made, showing the underground chambers:

The valley itself isn't that great, all you see are the entrances to the chambers:

There was no way in God's green Earth they were allowing people to take photos inside the chambers, so of course, out came my camera. What was really, really cool was seeing the hieroglyphics in all their colourful glory! All the hieroglyphics you normally see were all originally painted but the colour has disappeared over the centuries. Because the burial chambers have been kept safe from weathering, they still look awesome.

Here is Rameses the 1st burial chamber, which is the most colourful tomb:

Here are come cops who said "hey, come here and get your photo taken with us!" Of course, they wanted a tip after...

We also checked out Rameses III's tomb (the biggest) and Thutmes III's tomb. Here is the climb up to it:

The climb down in to it:

And the snaps I wasn't allowed to take in it (honestly, I probably took more photos in there because I knew I wasn't allow to take them):

It was cool sneaking photos whenever the guard walked around the pillar. At one stage Meels pulled out her phone for the light on it to look into the sarcophaus and the guard ran up to her to say "NO!" and to get money from her so he could use his torch instead... which provided a great distraction for me!

Grant and I also went for a nice relaxing and cooling stroll up one of the "mountains" to take a snap of the valley below:

PHEW!!! OK, that's enough for now! I'll start work on my hot air ballooning page now! Stay tuned...

By Tony Baker: email