Worthless and Weak

Yesterday, I decided to go with a booked tour for the west bank of Luxor, as I think I may enjoy having the guide there and the structure. It was pretty good, but the guide didn't know that much, there wasn't too much that he told me that I didn't already know. Also, some of the other people in my tour group were kind of getting on my nerves a little bit, which of course can't be blamed on the tour company, but that is the nature of the beast.

Also, one of the stops was to see the alabastor "factory," to see how stone things are made.

Of all those things, I probably liked the Temple the most, then the Valley, then the light show, and then the Collossi.

The Temple of Hapshetshut is incredibly striking, it is very large, with a three tiered structure, it looks almost greek. ( i really wish I could upload photos.. Maybe when I get to Aswant I will).

The valley of the kings has 60 or so tombs from the new kingdom, Almost all of them are pharoes (hence the name). Unfortunately, as far as we know, all the tombs have been robbed. Most of these were done so in ancient times, probably towards the end of the New Kingdom, the last to be robbed was Tutenkhamun's, in 1922 by archeologist Howard Carter, the contents now mostly reside in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. What's great about the Valley though is the tombs, while very hard to get to, many of them are quite big and all of them have fabolous decorations of hyroglyphs inside.

The Collussi of Memnon is very impressive; it was originally the site of a giant temple, but was destroyed by repeated floods. Now, the most impressive things left are the Two Collossi guarding the entrance, each is about 50 feet tall, and they don't sing anymore.

THe light show at Karnak was fun, a little hokey but it was pretty good, it was of course impressive, mainly because it was just Karnak.

I'm also feeling much more comfortable in Egypt today than I was the last two days, I feel much better walking through the Souks and finding bargaining to be more fun and less stressful.

Labels: Egypt, vacation