Back in World War II, my Dad flew planes for the Fleet Air Arms (the air-born part of the Navy). For a while he was stationed in Egypt and for some reason, his tales of that land have always stayed with me and it is a place I have always wanted to go to…

Sign in the travel agents’ window: Egypt. Sharm el Sheik, 1 Week. £220.

WHAT?!!! I’ll have some of that! – Lets go in and get the news!

In the travel agents, the orangest man ever sat us down and we told him about our interest in going to the Egypt and the ace offer and asked for more information. So he tried to make us go to Tunisia…:

"Oh my Goodness! – Tunisia is just SO fabulous you can go into the desert and….

"Well actually we wanted to go diving in the Red Sea"

…"and then you can go to the Kasbah…"

"We really wanted to take in the pyramids…"

…"and the people are just SO friendly – it’s just the best place – there are these stalls and…

"Um we heard that the temples at Luxor are very impressive and the Valley of the Kings would be really nice to go to"

…"and then you can go out for a kebab and smoke shish – it’s all so a la carte! … Where I live…"

"Actually Gil’s vegetarian, um we have to go now – thank you for your time – bye"

So… We waited outside the shop until he wasn’t around (no, really!) and snuck in and booked our holiday with a lady called Rachel, who was really nice and that’s why I’m writing this journal about Egypt and not bloody Tunisia!

An early start with a kind gesture from Mat who gave us a lift to the airport saving us £15 and doubtless earning him a delightful stuffed camel!

Check-in was relatively painless and after a brief nosey round the shops and a bite of breakfast we made for the departure lounge where we looked across the airfield towards the dawn which, given the cold, outside gifted us a lush view of the bleary world colouring the first cool rays of the winter sun.

Today’s travel was basically a sacrifice of a day - given that we got on the plane at breakfast time and disembarked at tea-time.

The take off just after dawn was beautiful and as with any holiday where you leave on a week-day, the imp inside is gloating at all little people falling away far below – rutting into the regime of their day-to-day lives while you soar overhead on your way to far off adventures and possibly, questionable lavatories.

My planned intent to immerse myself in a socially ignorant world of music was dashed by the bloody CD player not working (the bastard thing worked again the minute we got back!). So I was stuck with reading and, God forbid, talking the Gil!

Fortunately, my book was good (Terry Prachett), Gill can talk and even the in-flight telly stuff was reasonable – given that I fancied watching the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory earlier on in the year but couldn’t find anyone to go with – finding the same film on the flight was a welcome surprise.

Backs and legs got a little sore after a few hours and going to the toilet was as much about stretching ones legs as it was ablutions!

A couple of sights are maybe worthy of note – the first was the image through the window of the shadow of the plane on the clouds below, held inside a double circular rainbow – beautiful!

Second was the view over the South Mediterranean as we sailed over azure seas holding occasional islands captive – like molehills in a huge blue field!

Finally the view of the Egyptian mountains as we flew over the western-most tip of South Asia, initially bathed in a glorious orange-pink sheen, the impressive crags became more sinister and foreboding as the sun fell out of influence and the mountains assumed a more austere and brooding countenance.

At the last, as the plane began its descent and circled over the Red Sea, the sea and land were the same shade of shadow with only an occasional reflection of the light defining land from water.

And then we landed. In an African country yet on Asian soil (Egypt spans the two continents – one of very few countries to do so).

Now… loyal readers may recall that earlier this year I acquired a new hat in Spain – not any old hat this, no, this hat was MY hat. The culmination of days of searching – of refusing to accept an inferior cranial adornment – of holding out for true hat-love.

So, this dipshitforwitsidiotgormlessidiotidiot man who simply HAD to spring up out of his seat to form a wholly unnecessary queue to get off the plane first – for why?! What worldly advantage does one get from being the first off the plane to get straight onto an airport bus??? – and then of course he’s stood there for ages while they wait to open the doors – and he’s getting tired – and possibly wondering why he felt the need to stand up so unnecessarily early in the first place and he’s tired of holding his bag… so Numb-nuts dumps his fucking bag right on my bloody hat!

Flattened, crumpled and damaged!!! – My hat – MY hat! – little twat!

So disembarking from the plane, the smell of otherness was overwhelming. There really is such a thing as the smell of a hot place – and arriving just after sundown, the air seemed used and spent. All foreign and exciting like!

So anyway – nursing my poor injured hat we made our way through baggage reclaim, passed the visa desk – where they did us for £20 just to be able to leave Sharm later – at first I thought they had given me the wrong change (I have been warned that some Egyptians are prone to do this) – when I questioned this and was proved in error the guy behind the desk asked if I was Scottish…

Anyway we found our way to the transfer bus and the half hour journey to the hotel was spent trying to see out at the city streets in the darkness but truth be told there wasn’t much to see!

On arrival at our hotel – the ‘Falcon Hills’ we checked in – dumped our stuff in our rooms and came back for a well deserved and long overdue beer – which, true to form, didn’t touch the sides!

Some food and more beer later we shuffled off to bed – excited and relieved – tired but fired, and ready for anything the next week could offer!

It’s always kind of freaky waking up in a strange place – but there’s also something delicious about those moments of initial consciousness where having realised where you are, you take stock of yesterday – realise that there is no work for you and you can start making plans!

Having slept-in spectacularly, we only just made the breakfast run and sat slyly taking in the surroundings and fellow guests – trying to recognise people from last night and wondering what everyone else’s story was, as well as taking stock of the food.

The breakfast food here is all savoury bar some extremely ‘odd’ looking egg and miscellaneous sausage things that even I felt deserved a wide birth! – The Orange juice was… funny – almost like orange squash rather than fresh juice and the tea was… different… There’s something about coming away and sampling food unlike the overly processed rubbished we are used to back home – everything seems ‘funny’ until you get used to it.

After breaky and with an hour or so to fill before our meeting with our holiday rep, Big Gay Tim, we opted for a swim in the pool and a general chill which was pretty apt because the pool was absolutely FREEZING! I just about froze my dignity off! – But at least the sun was roaring down to both dry us off and warm us up.

The rep meeting was the usual strained affair of reps trying to be suitably upbeat and bouncy – while working off their own hangovers and holiday makers grunting in response to the reps ill advised banter-based questions… "Who likes drinking then?..." etc

However it wasn’t the run of the mill sun-seekers shit we were interested in, Gil and I wanted to get out of the resort and if possible (time and money allowing) see something of Egypt.

Sharm is located on the Asian side of the Red Sea, it is basically on Asian soil and as such is hundreds of miles away from the main Egyptian sites near Cairo, Alexander, Luxor and Aswan – however we were still hopeful of being able to explore as much as possible.

Tim gave us a series of outing opportunities and some of these were just so inviting – the chance to go to the temple at Petra in Jordan looked unmissable, as was the trip to Mount Sinai – where Moses apparently conversed with a bush (I know some people bit like that), however in the end we opted for a full day in Luxor and in the Valley of the Kings – flying out at dawn and returning at dusk and two day excursion to Cairo taking in the surrounding environs of Giza and Memphis.

It was heartbreaking to pass up on some of the options but we still spent a small fortune (more than the holiday itself) on the excursions – and we had to remember that this was meant to be HOLIDAY, not a tour of duty.

So that left the rest of the day unaccounted for – but not to someone with need to snorkel like me! We bolted some food and got the bus to Old Sharm, where the markets and Sharm Bay are to be found.

This allowed us a chance to obtain a coach-eye’s view of the town, though in reality there isn’t THAT much of beauty to see in the sprawling dusty suburbs. Hemmed in between the Sinai mountain range and the Red Sea, Sharm is a sub-desert oasis of human friendly habitat, a town that was basically made for the tourist industry in the last 50 years.

For some reason the place is gorged over a huge area so between suburbs there are vast sandy/dusty plots of land eagerly awaiting development – but for now, merely a desolate mash of rubble, plans and future dreams… and blokes sitting around smoking tabs trying to figure out how to make money!

The bus dropped us off at the beach and we duly ignored the sun loungers and went straight for the shore. The beach is all but hidden from the wide sea in a sheltered bulb of a bay with a small peninsular of land jutting out from the main land almost encasing the bay as a lagoon.

To be honest, the vast majority of the bay was pretty crass and plastic. From across the bay the strains of some nasty Euro-pop tunes were being blasted out over the myriad of loungers, parasols and plastic water slides. Where we were however, was pretty relaxed and venturing into the sea, even more so.

We had taken our snorkel masks, though weren’t expecting to see much in such a busy touristy bay - however once submerged in the aqua-marine world, even the busiest man-made environment offered up some its natural secrets without hesitation.

Even in just 3ft of water, below me dozens of holes in the sea-bed housed little big-headed fish who lay by their burrows but scuttled back in the hole at the first sign of danger (or a hippy snorkling over head!)

A little further on we encountered a platoon on really long fish – maybe 2 ft long just hanging motionless in the seaweed. They seemed really sinister for some reason – possibly because they hardly seemed to move – they just… hung there – in a motionless wait… for some reason they put me in mind of the star-destroyers from Star Wars… - no, I don’t understand me either.

Best of all though was a small underwater mangrove of seaweeds and algae-covered rocks which housed a pair of fairly large (3ft or so) Morray eels. These monsters were just lurking in the shelter, coiling round each other and themselves in a snake like jumble of fish! It was a real thrill (to a saddo like me) to watch these big eels gazing straight back at me… And to think, I could have been at work right now ploughing through e-mails!

After a while we returned to terra firma and after 20 minutes or so drying and warming in the sun – we decided to have a walk to the old market plaza to take in something other than the beach!

The walk to the plaza was a ten minute easy saunter along the beach and then the main road. Roads in Egypt are very noisy places… because the drivers here like their horns. A lot.

The taxies cruise up to you all sly and quiet, like a surreptitious pick-pocket from a Dickens novel - and just when they are right in your face, they blast a blarting tattoo on their bloody horns and shout ‘TAXI!’ Of course being British we always have to give an awkward smile and sheepishly apologise: ‘No thank-you!!!’

The old markets of Sharma Bay are a warts ’n’ all, mercantile maze of hustle, bustle, haggling and fiscal brow beating. The stall-holders NEVER ever stop trying to make money. EVERY passer-by is approached, greeted and if possible hoodwinked into being dragged kicking and screaming towards the till.

The observer in these streets will, from time to time, spy a westerner (Flowery Bermuda shirt, cargo shorts, expensive sandals) wandering around with a bemused and slightly concerned expression on his face, wondering just exactly how he came to be walking along the street clutching a carrier bag and checking it’s contents to make sure it really does contain a badly assembled singing camel…

The banter goes something like this:

Him: "Hello – hello – my Frrrriend!"

You: "Um – hello" (mumbled)

Him: "How Arrrrrrrre you today?"

You: "Er lovely thanks – um how are you?"

Him: (Ignores your question as you aren’t asking for a price) "Wherrrrrrrrre arrrrrrre you from?"

You: "Er Newcastle… in England"

Him: "Ahhhhhhh Jess Newcastle – Newcastle is a the best, footy-ball united, Alan Shearer – I LOVE Newcastle! – You come in my shop I do good price forrrrrrr you"

You: "Er… non thanks"

Him: Yes – you come – come in my shop-yes, come in my shop – gooood price – just for you"

You: "Really I can’t - oooh look there’s my bus…"

Him: "Is Good price – you come in my shop…"

Repeat the last 4 lines ad infinitum with the outcome that A) – You escape only to walk into an IDENTICAL conversation ten steps down the street or B) – You are plus one carrier bag, one singing camel and minus some money.

The stalls themselves, consist of lots of Shisha (an Arab pipe thing), t-shirts, stuffed toys and general tat or tea’s and herbs and spices or meat…

The butchers in this area is very much – er hands on… You pick you preferred meat – and then they kill it right in front of you – now THAT’s fresh.

We nosed around some of the stalls, ignoring some of the sellers and chatting with others. The merchants here are incredibly friendly – but only because they want your money! - You have to admire their style though.

One guy we got chatting you was telling us what a numpty Tony Blair is and what a complete gyt Gorge Bush is (no arguments from us!) and instead of trying to make us buy something – he actually ran into his shop and brought us out a lovely carving of a hippo –which at his insistence as he gave us it is called Tony Blair!

We made our way back to the bus stop but were running a little late and the bus was zooming towards us having already made the stop – But given the general ambivalence towards traffic rules here I figured he might stop if I hailed him and true to form (and very kindly) he did!

A snooze and shower later, we went down to the hotel shuttle bus to go the 4 miles or so to Narma Bay – the night-time ‘place to be’ after sun down.

Down-town positively crackles with expectation and vibrant enthusiasm. People call across the street for you to come to them, to their stall, to their restaurant. Maitre-D’s sidle up and try to ooze you into their steak-houses, waiters pop up right in front of you assuring you that you like their food!

"You come here yes?"

"Er – no!"

Hey you – PAY ATTENTION TO ME!"

…and of course if there’s anything guaranteed to make me ignore a person, it’s them demanding my attention!

The streets are lined with fabulously over-the-top decorations and super-naff illuminations successfully take you from 5000 yrs of history to tatsville in an instant! That said, I quite liked it – it all adds the overwhelming sense of LIFE in these streets!

It is impossible to get a moment to yourself in this place! – Misanthropes and shy bairns beware!

As it was three and a half hours til the bus came back, we were content with having a look around, checking out as many of the menus as appealed and allowing the constant noise of nagging people to wash over us.

After a cyclical tour of the town and most of its eateries (Mainly steak houses – and as Gil is veggie – this presented something to search for) and a quick look in the Hard Rock café for a prezzie for Zoe, we opted for a Mexican-ish restaurant, plopped ourselves down and caught our breath.

A few beers and nachos and a sneaky Tequilla later we decamped to one of the many street-side bars for a beer and, in the name of keeping Gil quiet, a shisha.

Shisha is officially termed a tea – but you smoke it… no, I don’t get it either. Basically you choose your flavour (strawberry) and they load it with hot water and some flavoured tobacco stuff and then you basically inhale the flavoured vapour and of course puff out the smoke.

Personally, I’m not one of life’s smokers but Gil was so incredibly childishly keen to try it that I had no alternative but to acquiesce! The experience of lounging back on the futon style sofas and watching the mad world of Narma bay’s street life flow past while puffing on this bloody huge great bong and necking a beer was certainly charming enough… how bohemian!

Eventually time called and we made our way back to the bus rendezvous point, where the couple next to us to ‘got’ by some completely barking made Egyptian man – or pest as would be equally applicable – who wouldn’t stop yabbering at them – still rather them than me!

Once up and about, we ventured into the strong Asian heat to get to Shark Bay – apparently one of the best snorkling and diving spots in Sharm.

Our transport epitomised the Egyptian way (i.e. there is no morals!) of getting through the day.

So… we emerge into the sunshine and immediately we are approached by the same gaggle of taxi drivers who yell over "taxi" to us every time we poke our heads out of the building.

We surprise both ourselves and him by responding in the affirmative.

"Ahhh yesss my friend – where are you from? (etc etc etc)"

"Er Newcastle – um how much?"

"Ah I love Newcastle – I do you good price my friend, price for friend not for tourist"

"Right-oh – lovely! – how much"

"Good, good price, no bad price friend price"

"Thank you – so how much?"

" Is price – ver cheap"

"How. Much.?"

"800 pound"(Egyptian)

"WHAT? – Get to Falkirk!"

"Ok – How much?!"

"Not 8 bloody hundred, sunshine!"

"You name me friend price…"

Eventually we settled on a price which was still more than it should have been but fully half the price he gave! – That said he was pretty chatty and quite informative and he offered to come and pick us up afterwards as part of an all inclusive ‘friend’ price!

Although he did go to great lengths to tell us there would be no taxies there when we wanted to leave – which of course there were! There are absolutely no scruples here regarding lying, cheating, fraud, robbery and theft! For a country where the religion is held in high esteem, there seems to be a clause for sins when it comes to money!

Once at the bay we were stung for the entrance to the beach which again was more than we had been told it would be, you never quite know who to trust here! We finally got on the bloody beach and after a walk up and down the sands and being pestered to go on some excursion, we finally got to sit down!

That said, we didn’t stay sat for long! – Within 5 minutes I was heading for the sea with my mask in mits! The sea seemed cold but in reality was ok – what WAS memorable though, was it’s contents…

There is always the initial shock of having to completely submerge in cold waters – especially after being nicely warmed by a fierce sun! So Gil and I spent a minute or two whimpering and wussing out, until we eventually entered the sub-marine world, and what a world!

Everything changes when your parameters are underwater light, sound, perception, everything. Starting with breathing. The core of everything becomes your breathing, for a start it’s pretty much all you can hear and you notice the regularity and consistency of your inhalations. The tubular constant ebb and flow of breath becomes a very calming noise and once the shock of submergence has dissipated and your breath calms and slows, the very act of breathing becomes a near yogic experience.

And then there’s the sights… scooting along the seafloor even in just 3 ft of water the amount of life is stunning.

Rocks and young corals hold velvety clams, opening and closing with the waves pull while around them little fish of all colours, some so small as to be invisible to the eye above the waves dart in and out of unsuspecting bather’s legs and feet. There is a veritable metropolis even just 10 feet from the shore.

This isn’t just a microscopic place though –just a couple of feet from the beach, fish up to a foot long are milling around in their blues and reds along-side their clam and minnow cousins

As you venture further out and the sea floor becomes less sandy and more coral and rock, the life becomes ever more diverse and yet more spectacular.

Here the fish are typically a couple of feet long and the colours span every shade the rainbow. Parrot fish, boasting the most stunning summer-sky blues and aqua marines nibble at the coral with their beak like mouths. Lion fish lurk in among the corals – shunning the open water and limelight that the other fish blithely accept.

As the coral falls deeper away, huge reed-green Napoleon fish up to 4 and 5 ft long, cruise up from the deeper waters, occasionally joining the shallow feeders but ultimately seemingly happier in the darker blue water.

There are also huge bait-balls of fish, hundreds and hundreds strong, milling around, each following each other like a flock of starlings at sunset. The many individuals act as one unit, almost like a cloud of fish ebbing and flowing in a sky of sea.

The deeper sea holds a different citizen grouping to the coral and algae-rich denizens of the sunshine slopes but being deeper and the fish being further away, the view is more of a panorama. The shallows allow a more personal encounter with these marine aliens, the fish are so lithe that they ensure you don’t barge into them, although occasionally you’ll feel the feather-lite flick of a fin or a tail or even the odd nibble from an overly inquisitive mouth!

The water is warmer here and gliding through the beautiful briny, you sometimes happen across a warm current – like walking into a shop with hot air curtains in the winter!

All around, little Nemo fish attend their feeding, long thin stripy – battle-cruiser-fish hang balefully motionless, spotty fish, wiggly fish, little fish, big fish, bright fish, black fish, ghostly white fish – floating like some ethereal fish spirit, flat fish, thin fish, fish with beaks, fish with teeth, all swim through their lives while I gawp in happiness through mine

And so it is that it’s suddenly an hour and a half later when you emerge from one waterlogged universe unto another air filled one wearing the biggest dopiest smile and with the most acute mask-strap lines disfiguring your phisog, and collapsing breathless with happiness onto a towel you allow yourself to be stroked back to warmth by the blazing heat from the Midday sun.

Half an hour later we found ourselves tucking into the most um odd burger thing a doorstep of the weirdest textured cheese ever. A pair of kittens were prowling round for some scraps and given the standard of food I’m pretty sure they must have done quite well!

I managed all of half an hour’s sun bathing before getting twitchy and feeling the need to re-immerse myself in the hypnotising show in the sea! My wonder never being sated for all there was to see only made me crave more.

By the time I resurfaced again (again about an hour and a half later!), the sun was losing some of it’s power and drying and warming up took a full 5 minutes!

Then the beach guard (?!?!) came up and asked us for our tickets… which we duly showed… and then he came up again and asked for them again… We bought the tickets off him, he came to check them, and needed to check again?!?! A little boredom setting in there I feel.

Nutter.

Then a camel walked past us. Which was nice.

As the sun sank behind the Sinai mountains and the temperature dropped to merely warm we took a last walk along the beach – dipping our toes-ies into the lapping waves and wondering were that bloody camel had come from.

Making our way out of the beach area we passed a colony of egrets (small heron like birds) settling down for the night – which was a very peaceful sight – then on to our waiting taxi driver – and finally back to the hotel. Tired but happy

We settled for dinner at the hotel and an early night as tomorrow looks set to be a long day…

There’s something wrong about getting up at 3.30 in the morning. Very wrong. However the early start was SO worth it…

We were picked up at 4am and taken to the airport for our flight across the red sea and the Nile to the ancient city of Luxor.

The early start at least allowed us a view of the gorgeous sunrise from the shy sun’s first tentative foray in to the morning, to it full glorious resurrection!

The flight took about an hour and was one the those small planes that only hold about 40 people and that allow you to feel a little more a part of the flying experience – You can see the ground as you don’t flying particularly high and you can always hear the engines… hopefully.

Bienvenue, Wilkommen and Welcome to Africa!

On landing at the desolated Luxor airport we were led through the terminal onto our bus just as an eagle soared overhead searching for the day’s first thermals.

Our guide was spectacularly chirpy and seemed more like a bad comic! Though she was thoroughly knowledgeable and I couldn’t help but like her straight away.

As we drove out of the town and into the countryside, I realised that something seemed different to the Egypt I had got used to for the last couple of days… this Egypt was green. The Nile delta and river is pretty much the only source of freshwater in Egypt and as a result the area around it is lush with strong vegetation, trees, plants, crop and marshes and life.

In the fields egrets and wading birds enjoy the marshes while above, hawks and crows exploit the warming air to circle effortlessly on the breeze.

After half an hour or so, we came up our first sight of history: the Twin Colossi of Memnon.

These figures guard the now lost mortuary temple of Amenophis III and are all that remains of what was in effect the gateway to the Valley of the Kings. The red quartz statues stand 18 meters high and represent the seated pharaoh.

As our first sight of ancient Egypt, this was a special opener. My whim to come to Egypt was based on feelings not books, so I was certainly not particularly well versed in the sights we were to see – which heightened their impact on me.

For some reason these colossal figures really move me – especially now as they sit weather-worn and detached from their initial role as guardians of the temple. They still remain motionless and proud, STILL guarding the entrance to the valley.

The sides of the figures are festooned in hyrogliphics complete with the catuch to identify the temple. Apparently before restoration work was carried out, the wind used to whistle through cracks in the stone, producing a tolling sound which used to attract visitors from across Europe, believing it to be the god Memnon singing to his mother.

Staring out to the distance with impassive composure, the twin statues beg an awful lot of thoughtful attention…

Memnon was a fantastic start to the day and left me feeling fired with enthusiasm and hope for the rest of the day – feelings that were to prove well founded…

From the magnificence of the Colossi of Memnon, we left the plains and struck out for the hills and began to lose ourselves in the higher ground of the west bank of the Nile en route to the Valley of the Kings.

Within half an hour we had climbed up the winding route through the Valley floor and stood before the King’s Valley.

It was bloody hot.

It was also a little odd. Like I said before I wasn’t exactly littered with expectation beyond my wildest dreams coz I have some pretty weird dreams, however I wasn’t expecting to get on a children’s play train to be transported from the coach park to the tomb plaza…

Around us guards with guns keenly guarded the coach park armed with their shooters and a scowl you could open tins with.

Our guide was fantastic. She would take us to one side and explain the sights we were about to witness and give us a quick history lesson as well as tipping us off about what was good and what was rubbish (for example: to suggest we didn’t bother looking in the tomb of Tutankhamun as without all the gold, it’s a bit rubbish). So by the time we got to see the various sights, we shad some contextual knowledge to inform our experiences.

Oooh I haven’t told you about the devils teardrops have I?

On the first night in Sharm I sat outside for half an hour reading before bed – it was ace and groovy, hearing the night time noises of crickets and occasional taxies moaning past etc.. and anyway, I was bitten to bits by these bloody … things

So anyway, these bites got worse and threatened to turn cellulitic (poisonous) and by the time we hit Luxor they were pretty major league manky. My right leg had swollen from the calf right down to the foot and the ankle was all puffed and red and the bites themselves were weeping quite prodigiously. Nice.

While we were standing listening to the guide I could feel tickles of irritation oozing down my leg as the bite sores spilled out and down my legs. Not once or twice but continuously throughout the day, I kept having to mop these rivulets of gunk from my legs and all told, it was pretty nasty… which is why I’m telling you now.

So having heard a condensed history and contextulisation of the tombs we were free to check them out.

So we went straight to the toilets which were quite astonishingly foul. Some dirty old mingers hang around outside the doors trying the sell you toilet roll, and the smell… Well, the smell was… special.

Then we were ready for the tombs

The Valley of the Kings is a serpentine road winding up through the hills under the gaze of a particular peak which by no mere quirk of fate is exactly the shape of a pyramidal cone. The earlier dynasties of Pharaohs and Kings had flaunted and extolled their legacies by building awe inspiring pyramids proclaiming their might, power and riches to the whole world… and these were looted and the treasures lost forever.

The later dynasties therefore wanted to hide and preserve their tombs – away from pillaging and tomb desecration and so the Valley of the Kings became the new burial place for the Egyptian kings.

Looking down on the West bank of the Nile delta some hundreds of miles south of Cairo the tombs were hidden in the hills, away from thieves and looters. Over time and with the decline of the Pharaoh’s reign, the tombs were lost to the world for millennia. Until the European treasure raiders plundered ancient texts and discovered the site of Valley in the early 20^th Century. Howard Carter’s discovery and the last tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922 was the last of 62 excavations/plundering (make up you own minds!) – more of which later. (* newsflash – apparently a new tomb has just been found)

The rock tombs are excavations into the limestone rock of the valley, consisting of corridors burrowed into the hillside with side chambers housing great treasures and elaborate wall paintings. The corridors end in the burial chamber wherein lay the Sarcophagus holding the royal mummy.

The walls are covered with scenes glorifying the dead king, depicting the Pharaoh’s quest to accompany the god Ra on his journey to the underworld. The art work is elaborate and mind blowingly delicately painted, festooning the entirety of the tomb walls, ceiling everything. Even after thousands of the years the colours are vibrant and striking, each character beautifully crafted and the uniformity of some of the more repetitive characters become quite stunning as a panorama – and yet on closer inspection, every one is unique.

The tombs were actually commissioned and built during the lifetime of whichever king was knocking about at the time and therefore the longer the reign of the Pharaoh, the more elaborate and ornate his tomb (This is why the most famous tomb of all: Tutankhamun – the boy king, is one of the least impressive structures).

For this reason it was the tomb of Ramses VI which was the most jaw dropping. The golden walls were ablaze with thousands of figures and hieroglyphs, telling tales we could only guess and marvel at.

It was weird being herded along the tomb’s corridors, bleating accordingly at the varying depictions and panoramas. It brings into perspective the enormity of the task of deciphering the hieroglyphs, which until just over100 years ago, were a complete mystery.

Although underground, the sense of confinement wasn’t as intense as I thought it might be. Trying to imagine how the decoration would look – 75 ft into the hillside by torchlight some 3000 years ago, however, gave the whole experience a little more depth (no pun intended).

Emerging from the tombs of antiquity into the roasting heat of right now was worth a rueful grin. The millennia old frescos of one of the worlds oldest and most successful civilisations was replaced with human pandemonium, guides all holding gaudy umbrella’s, bustling here and there, desperately trying to reign in wayward stragglers and gormless tourists!

The heat under the roaring sun was incredibly intense and people were flagging quickly. We returned to the coach with the obligatory waiting for a couple so immersed in their own selfishness they had to hold up everybody else – there’s always one isn’t there?

We retraced our steps down from the Valley of the Kings for a brief stop at a pottery making thing, place.

The boys put on a good show and were very amusing – but basically this was ‘feed the economy’ stop and somewhere between obligation, hard sell and maybe a little of our own interest we found ourselves buying various bits of junk!

We then went to the other less well known part of the Valley area given over to the Queens of Egypt – yep – you guessed it – the Valley of the Queens.

Here we took in ‘Deir-El-Bahari’, site of the temple of Hatshepsut (pronounced "hat-cheap-suit").

Hatchepsut was a widow from a young age and is regarded as one of the strongest queens for managing to hold onto her throne despite the expectation that it would be taken from her by a high ranking male, For this reason she is fabled as appearing in public dressed in male clothing to show her strength.

She held onto the throne until her son was old enough to inherit it but he then desecrated the temple after her death and much of what was at the temple is now lost – including an impressive avenue of sphinxes. Children can be so hurtful sometimes.

The temple is still an impressive spectacle however – sitting at the foot of a domineering wall of rock, the three tiered monument sits like some archaic wedding cake at the end of the valley.

As the approach to the temple is so protracted – a half mile walk or so, there is plenty of time to take in the majesty of the building. The ground floor pillars – some 100 ft across shore-up the first and second floors with a central stair way leading right to the top. The scale of the building is really only apparent when trying the get a photo, which to get the whole temple in requires you to be about 150 ft away!

On the top layer some statues remain of the queen and standing with them looking back down the avenue, one can just make out the greenery of the Nile delta simmering in the midday blaze.

Indeed by this time it was just after noon, and the temperatures where playing somewhere between ‘scorching’ and ‘wears my hat?’.

Once back on the bus we headed back to the city of Luxor for some lunch and well earned drink at a hotel. As it was a buffet affair and Gillian had about 13 different helpings, while I just sat their oozing from my various sores! Having been on my feet all morning the swelling in my legs had spread down to my ankles and my feet were turning all red and puffy! – nice!

Once fed and watered, we then repaired to the temple of Karnak – to allow our lunch to settle amid a backdrop of wonder.

The site of Karnak temple – right in the centre of Luxor is, at 65 hectares, the largest man-made site in the world.

The entrance, through an avenue flanked with twin lines of sphinxes with the heads of rams and then between these two vast walls or ‘pylons’ built by the Ethiopian kings circa 656 BC is impressive, not to say intimidating. The sense of the importance of the site is almost as overwhelming as the twin walls of the pylon entrance itself.

Once through the first courtyard you then pass another imposing pylon wall of stone beyond which lies the most amazing ‘halls’ I have ever seen.

The gargantuan pillars in the hall, all 134 of them, make being there a Lillyputian event, dwarfed and belittled as you are by these colossal columns ranging from 18 to 22 ft in height. The pillars are built in the likeness of huge papyrus reeds with the whole hall assuming the character of the reed bed where Isis looked in vane for her husband.

The pillars are all immaculately and painstakingly etched with exquisite hieroglyphs depicting scenes from Egyptian mythology and religious teachings. High up in the Gods of the hall some of the original colours still remain, out of the bleaching gaze of the sun.

Standing there gawping in gormless wonder at these huge pillars, from some angles, all but blocking out the electric blue sky, one gets to feel how ridiculously small and insignificant one really is. It is difficult not to dwell over-long in this huge yet claustrophobic hall. The sense of antiquity and historical enormity here is a very humbling and yet honouring experience.

Through the next pylon, the temple opens up somewhat as you pass beyond the papyrus reed-bed hall and into the court where two huge obelisks dominate the attention. These are the towers of Thutmosis I, at 22 meters high and Hatchepsut, which at 29 meters is the highest in Egypt.

Even from a distance these two spires dominate the complex, striking high to the heavens and defying both 21st century engineering understanding and ones own sense of wonder. Scientists still don’t know how these monstrous structures were erected. Modern-day experiments to erect similar structures have all failed spectacularly.

Beyond the north-south axis lies the Sacred Lake, fed by the Nile. The lake was used to purify the statues of the gods and the priests. Though in truth – now it looks a bit manky!

Making our way back through the complex we paused (well Gill and I did – some of the others didn’t seem that arsed) to try and take in the spectacle around us and to try and absorb the experience.

Of course this introvertial revelry was periodically interrupted by wide boys trying to get money for nothing - you are lining up your photo and some bloke, a kid, a guard, whatever - comes up and beckons you over. They point at a bit of wall and urge you to take a photo – then hold out their hand for payment – and most of the time all they’ve showed you is a nondescript piece of wall!

It’s amazing how many gullible tourists were got this way – I just ignored them or shooed them off – Not to be rude but with everything else going on around me I can’t be bothered with getting ripped if all I need to avoid it is to not be really gormless.

Our next port of call was the Luxor Temple on the other side of the town. This complex mirrors the Karnak set up, so much of our wonder was duplicated, though not diluted. Much of the description of the buildings, therefore, doesn’t required repetition – if it does – just go back 10 paragraphs.

The two temples were at one time linked by a direct road with one Temple housing the Queen and the other housing the King.

The Temple at Luxor took on a curious atmosphere as the sun sank low in the sky and the colossal structures acquired a rusty red hue, not to mention some stunning shadows and colour contrasts.

After taking in the Luxor Temple we crossed out of the complex and watched the sun sinking into the Nile as the occasional Feluccas (traditional Egyptian boat) drifted idly by. With the sun huge in the sky - still warm to the skin and the constant selling of some wide boy pretty much pushed to the outskirts of my attention, standing looking across to the West bank was a wonderfully serene time in a day so packed with wonder, hustle and bustle.. and weeping bite sores…

And that was that. Next stop – airport.

Our guide while struggling with umpteen carrier bags and boxes was stopped going through the beepy machines and ended up having to take his shoes off… No one checked the contents of his BAGS however!

And then we found ourselves waiting at the airport for an hour – in a day so full of get up and go, it felt so wrong to be sat there getting bored.

Still, it allowed for some people watching – part of our group was a family from up our neck off the woods – ALL wearing footy tops: the dad and two boys in their Sunderland shirts and the Mam in her Newcastle stripes… You cross oceans, continents and time to explore the world and just when you think you are removed from the mundane drudge of home it comes and greets you like a long-lost friend you never really liked!

Back at the hotel and our room cleaner guy had been busy – check this out:

I don’t know what it is with the people here but there is some real ingenuity going on in the most surreal aspects of life – towel sculpture is never a canvas of art I have anticipated until now.

Lovely though!

After the excitement and exhaustion of yesterday, (this is meant to be a holiday, remember?!) it was something of sigh inducing moment when the alarm went off at 3am- that’s NOT a typo folks – and blinking back the sleep, we got it together for our daft o’clock bus pick up to go to Cairo.

Various sleepy grunts welcomed us as we stumbled onto the coach and settled back for a 7 hour journey back across the Nile to the capital.

Obviously bus journeys are rarely worthy of mention but a couple of things warrant note:

1. How boring a seven hour bus journey is.

2. The appearance on the coach of an armed guard – the checkpoints are so strict across the land that we were afforded our very own armed escort.

3. The appearance of a couple who… um warranted our attention… um… for the sake of argument, lets just refer to them as Mr Dudwey and Tingtong…

4. The quite frankly evil pong Gillian conjoured up at the stop we had which was without doubt, way beyond fetid.

We entered Cairo (population 10 million – lordy!!!) – or at least the outskirts around 6:00am and spent the next few hours sifting through the increasingly mental traffic mayhem.

The early morning smog smothered the view which mainly constituted nefarious vehicles belching exhaust fumes, car horns blarting constantly and for reasons which to this day elude me, the sight of a man sweeping the hard shoulder of the motorway… No, REALLY!

Presently we collected our guide for the next two days and made for our first stop, the ancient mosque of Alabastor.

Staggering off the bus, bow legged, knock-nee’d, and huffing and puffing to stretch out, we went to the worst toilet in the world first.

With a stench to rival Gillian’s previous effort, the toilets here looked every bit as nauseous as they smelled… and they smelled… every bit as rank as they looked! And then when I’d finished, this gummy, rhumey-eyed manky looking old crone came wobbling over moaning and offering me some poo-paper… ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Anyway – toilet tribulations over, we ventured over to the mosque where our guide explained to us the significance of the building, its history and its quite stunning architecture.

The mosque also known as the Mohammed Ali Mosque is the most elaborate Mosque in the capital. It follows an Ottoman style and was built from 1824. There are two minaret towers reaching 83 meters high – and, just as Mohammed Ali wished: ‘playing with the clouds.’

The main prayer hall was beautiful with some quite stunning features including a fantastic array of circular lanterns which together made an elaborate constellational display of lights – Beautiful.

As we emerged from the Mosque, the morning smog was lying still quite obstinately and our guide explained to us that in better light we would be able to see the Pyramids at Giza… but not today – Doh! That said, just gazing out over the city sprawling into the haze and the horizon was an impressive sight.

From the city top Mosque walls we wound our way down to the city proper to explore something of the real town.

Though we undertook all aspects of the trip gamely, I must admit to being a little frustrated at not be able to get at those pyramids… my bit was well and truly chomped!

We were pretty much dumped at a city centre plaza and told to go shopping but most of the stalls were closed and in any event the area looked pretty… uninviting .We ventured into a couple of the stalls but nothing really took our fancy – no matter what the sellers tried to convince us!

Presently we returned to our rendezvous café where I was propositioned…

This guy who worked (I presume) at the café all but begged me to arm-wrestle him… no – I don’t know why either. So going on the premise that I might not get to arm-wrestle some mad Egyptian man in Cairo again, I rolled up my sleeve, fixed the arm wrestling guy a steely stare, and was duly completely and utterly whitewashed.

Twice.

Next stop was the National Museum at Cairo. - Ah if only we had more time!...

Here is where the infamous death mask and sarcophagus of Tutankhamun reside and what a sight they are.

These chronicles OBVIOUSLY ignore the other quite breath taking artefacts in the museum as our own time and my own typing patience are limited! – however some of the sights do deserve some elaboration.

When Howard Carter rediscovered the tomb of the ‘boy king’, among the quite staggering array of treasures he found the sarcophagus complex that was Tut’s (excuse the familiarity) coffin house.

Within the underground tomb, Carter found a huge sarcophagus box easily the size of a room. Inside this he found another box identical except in dimensions and decoration details, still easily large enough, however to hold a room. The inside of the second box held a similar cargo – like some morbid Russian doll death-bed complex and inside this a forth. Eventually the forth sarcophagus gave way to an elaborately decorated coffin inside which lay – yep – you guessed it, another coffin and inside this… ANOTHER coffin.

Inside the third coffin however lay the now legendary the mummified remains of the Boy King: Tutankhamun – complete with his gleaming gold death mask.

The mask itself is almost alien.

The immortal stare of the dead king holds an other-worldly nuance. Like a omnipotent being, safe in the knowledge of their absolute… I don’t know what?!!!.. absoluteness?

There seems to be a surreal serenity about the countenance of the face in the mask. The eternal stare of such a beautiful, perfect face is one so striking and arresting that it affected me deeply.

And yet this lay inside the wonderfully decorated coffin, itself a life-size (no pun intended) representation of the dead king and even this was captivating to behold. The myths and hypnotising mysteries of the Egyptian legend seem to come from a sense of deitification of the kings and Pharaohs. – It seems they believed in their own superiority among or even over humans so completely that everyone else started to believe it too…

So THAT’S how the politicians do it!

Elsewhere in the museum we went into the mummy tomb which housed a selection of mummified corpses up to 3500 years old. The everlasting grins of death spread across their obstinately preserved faces giving the room an eerie atmosphere.

Before long, our time at the museum was over. I was amazed to find some members of our team already waiting and apparently bored!!! Oh look there’s Dudley and Tingtong…

We were then whisked off for lunch after which we had to endure a less than riveting visit to a papayrus (paper) museum.

Given the length of the day (we didn’t mange to sleep on the bus) it was a pleasant surprise then to be taken straight to our hotel… from where we could see… The PYRAMIDS!!!

Actually we could see a lot more than the pyramids because there was a mini lake complete with flamingos.

The hotel was a swanky 5 star affair with pool, gym and lots of poncing about by the porters. Truth be told we were a little unsure of what would be expected coz we aren’t normally allowed in posh places! So we didn’t know whether to tip or not or when or how…

Following a welcome shower and a bit of a slob, Gil and I ventured out to our early evening entertainment…

For a nominal fee, our group were offered the chance to see a night-time sound and light show on the pyramids at Giza. I was amazed to find out that we were the only ones to take on the offer – I mean – how many chances are you going to get to see a sound and light show at the Pyramids???

The show itself was fabulous if a little bit, um, theatrical. It was all very Orson Wells-ish but hey – a show at a venue like that… you surely can’t be TOO over the top!

From a panorama of blackness, the pyramids and the Sphinx were bathed in a lush shower of lights and glows while a voice from the very Gods – gave a commentary covering in just 50 minutes, 5000 years of history.

It was definitely one of those reflection moments: Here I am sat with a beer in the balmy evening watching an illuminating (sorry about the pun) show at one of the most famous and iconic places on earth. That’s a memory worth keeping next time it’s too wet to pop out for lunch from work!

The whole affair was worth a rueful grin but I’m so pleased we did it regardless. If I thought the light and sound show was bizarre, then the sight and sound of a dozen not-very Scottish pipers marching up and down, butchering ‘Scotland the Brave’ was truly an experience too delicious to miss!

Speaking of which, we were good and ready for our dinner by the time we made it back to the hotel.

We successfully avoided having to sit with Dudley and Tingtong and wolfed down our meal. One of the group we chatted to was minus their partner who was apparently hugging the toilet back in their room… bless!

The chance to live it up in swankyness was tempting but we have another full day tomorrow…

Ooh I almost forgot – you know those insect bites I was banging on about earlier?... well they came up as something slightly more sinister than a volcano of puss… as the picture testifies:

Tuesday 13 December

Cairo (day 2)

In some ways it’s a real shame to stay in a posh hotel for just one night… still it’s a good chance to eat loads and loads of ace breakfast!

Soon enough, we were on our way, though not before the Scotch man in our group refused to pay part of his bar-bill (funny how stereotypes persist isn’t it?...)

First off, we headed out of the town and away from the Pyramids!!! – but the excursion was definitely worth it.

Memphis is the site of one of Egypt’s oldest cities – indeed Memphis was the capital of the old kingdom

The site houses a vast array of treasures including a 12 metre high statue of Rameses II and a fabulous alabaster sphinx, which while not as huge and awe-inspiring as the monster at Giza, was delightful, never-the-less.

…Not least as the hawks and egrets soared over-head and our own anticipation for the rest of the day was rendering our mood somewhere between good and better.

It was getting good and hot as we explored the complex and by the time we returned to the coach the shade was the place to be.

A half hour drive from Memphis and we rose above the tree line to the desert plateaux at Saqqara to see our first pyramid – well, one of THE first pyramids actually.

The step pyramid of Unas is an example of the earliest pyramids and how the pyramid culture evolved. The first pyramids were basically piles of tombs, one on top of the other, which by basic rules of geometry requires the higher tombs to be smaller dimensions than the lower.

The pyramids here, while nowhere near as huge as those still to come at Giza, are still a phenomenal spectacle.

Once through the entrance hall to the complex, you are greeted by a huge forecourt maybe the size of four football fields with some outcrop buildings scattered across the court. At the far end sits the impressive step pyramid of Saqqara.

Built in the 3^rd Dynasty, the pyramid was the resting place for Djoser and in this isolated wilderness makes for an impressive death palace.

From the far end of the complex, the pyramid looks merely very big, imposing and, well you know… old. But with every step towards the building and given the size of the forecourt there’s a lot of them, the scale of the structure because ever more impressive.

By the time we reached the foot of the pyramid, the summit was eclipsed by the steeped sides and the size of this ‘medium’ sized structure is brought into focus… its bloody enormous! Given its older vintage the state of decay in some aspects of the stone-work is somehow appropriate. Indeed this adds to the sense of antiquity of the place.

Circumnavigating the structure allowed us to admire its forbidding elegance from every angle and in the mid-morning heat, beneath a cloudless sky, this huge tomb was truly a sight to behold.

At the back of the pyramid there was a room which had a little spy-hole, the only chance to look inside. Within, was a room with two death-masked statues guarding… who knows what?

There was something about sneaking a peek inside, like we were getting a chance to see something that we were officially not meant to… without invading anything! It felt like we were getting a privileged view into this mind-turning world, just a little insight, but a priceless one nevertheless!

The vast plateaux here allows you to see other pyramids in the distance, giving the whole area a sense of ethereal alien-ness. The horizon is dotted with similar structures, impossibly far away, making a map of temples for some sky-bound eyes. Maybe.

Of course the locals were up for making a fast one where they could, and even the Police came up to us to try their luck!

The only other thing that arrested my attention here was the enormous waspy things that occasionally went clanging past knocking bits of masonry out of walls and randomly flattening the odd camel. OK maybe a BIT of exaggeration but you get the idea!

So where-else does one go to have lunch when exploring the antiquarian treasures of the ancient world…? The Hard Rock café, obviously…

I came to Egypt looking for a shot in the arm of history and culture and went to the kind of westernised institution I hadn’t even got round to sampling back home!

We found ourselves saddled with Dudley and Tingtong which necessitated conversation, which made for an interesting hour… Not least when Dudley informed me, apropos of nothing, that his ‘wife’ was pregnant. It was all I could do not to ask if he knew the father.

And then there was the Hard-rock café dance! Sigh.

Finally, with no other reasons to deny us access to what we are all dribbling with eagerness to see, we crossed the city and made for the plateaux of Giza to experience the Pyramids, the Sphinx and surely the quintessential Egyptian experience: camels!

As we pulled up to the bus-park, our guide told us all a few basic rules: basically don’t get ripped off and don’t let anyone hold anything for you.

As we emerged into the blistering sunshine the first thing to hold our attention was the view of a policeman… on a camel. Of course there’s no reason why not but to our naïve eyes it looked a little… odd! – no, not odd – but different… and fab at the same time!

We made our way towards the first pyramid and the colossal size of the thing began to warp all sense of scale. More immense than huge, dwarfing gargantuan and tweaking the nose of enormous, the Pyramids of Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus quite frankly are awe-inspiring.

The first: Cheops, made for a mind boggling introduction to the super-sized structures. As we reached the foot of the giant, the enormity of the stones themselves came into focus. Each stone was a monster, a cube of stone up to 15 cubic ft. it wasn’t until Gil stood in front of one that the sense of scale became evident.

Picking a stone at random, Gil was completely dwarfed by it, Then consider that each pyramid consists of enough stones to completely surround an area the size of France. THEN understand that each stone was brought from the mines of Aswan hundreds of miles south of Cairo… Beyond mind-boggling!

As we were getting to grips with the enormity not only of the structure before us, but also of the whole concept of the site, we were approached with a bizarre proposition:

A group of giggling kids came up to us and motioning to their camera asked for a picture, so figuring this wouldn’t be a danger favour I nodded and reached for the camera – but the kids still laughing shook their heads and said ‘no no picture, you – picture, you..’ eventually light dawned and I realised that they wanted to take photos of us!

Beats me why, but it seems that there, in the shadows of hallowed antiquity they were more bothered about having their photo’s taken with us than with exploring the pyramids. People can be weird…

Not once but three times! and each time, every one in the group wanted a picture of just them and us… eventually the Police came over and told one group to leave us alone! Crackers!

OK a little culture break: The pyramids were the tombs for the Pharaohs during the first half of the Pharaonic period. There are approximately 98 Egyptian pyramids and those at Giza are the most striking and well preserved of these – not to mention boasting the largest dimensions.

The pyramids themselves symbolise the rays of the sun reaching earth but also affect a stairway to the sun and heaven. Burial inside this vessel to the after-world would guarantee the Pharaoh’s re-union with the sun God: Ra, and so just as the sun rises following night, so the Pharaoh would be reborn… or something.

Anyway – at least this goes someway to explaining why the pyramids are there.

Cheops is the largest of the pyramids and is also the only one of the seven wonders of the old world still in existence. According to the chronicler Herodotus, it was built by 200,000 workers over a period of 20 years. It consists of 2,200,000 blocks of limestone, each weighing in the region of two and a half tonnes. The pyramids reached 2230 meters on each side (now 220) and stood 146 meters in height (now 137)

The Pyramid of Chephren is slightly smaller than Cheops but looks larger as it is built on a slightly higher plain.

While Cheops is seen as the Daddy of the Giza tombs, Chephren held a special place for us because we got to go in it…

Descending out of the blazing sun through the earth bound entrance to the pyramid, you quickly drop down into the temple’s foundations and seemingly into the core of the earth itself.

The descent, a lumbagically challenging stoop for a good few minutes, leaves the world of the living outside and the sense of claustrophobia starts off as pretty intense… and gets more so.

The air is very close here, stifling and hot, arid and spent – and still the descent carries on. The subtle lighting is enough to see your way but does little to penetrate the sense of darkness all around.

Eventually the ramp bottoms out somewhere way below the surface, in the very bowels (no pun intended) of the pyramid. For a while the path leads forward with an antechamber on the right, a perfect excuse to let others pass and to absorb some of the experience of being so… deep.

A walk along and then the path ascends back up into the pyramid itself, no longer underneath the earth, you are now inside this huge tomb. Millions of tonnes of rock are above and around you. You are completely entombed.

Crouched low, (and fervently wishing I didn’t have back issues), we carried our ascent up into the centre of the pyramid and eventually emerged into the funeral chamber – the very heart of the pyramid.

After the claustrophobia of the tunnels, the tomb is a lofty space but still very much a tomb. Here in the absolute core of this monstrous temple, the sense of awe and ones own insignificance is pretty intense. Mixing wonder and jaw-dropping amazement with very obvious issues of mortality, this is a place way beyond any experience I’ve known.

Here, the dizzying confinement, the vertigo inducing sense of utter incarceration is a surreal experience. This is a real life oxymoron. So closed it feels almost infinite – the sense of space-time difference, lends some credence to the incredible lengths the ancients went to in creating these Behemothic tombs.

At the far end of the chamber lay the coffin, where the sarcophagus would have been placed along with the dead king’s treasures before the chamber door was closed and the nothingness of complete blackness would be all you knew…

Fantastic!!!

In truth I didn’t want to leave – the whirlwind of experience and being was simply too overwhelming to give up.

Even the air – so stale and dead, compressed and weighed down by stone, time and death is something SO different and so inspiring that even now I can almost smell it…

Our rebirth into the land of sunlight, sound, light and life blew away the cobwebs of the tomb and standing there blinking mole-ishly into the blinding sun, while kites, eagles and vultures circled and called overhead – it took a while to re-adjust to our new life after death!

As we stood there awash with experience and wonder, desperately trying to catch up with ourselves we were taken to the far end of the plateaux to allow photo’s of the entire complex and for me, a little something different…

Our guide had explained to me a fair price for my next trip so I was ready for the guy when he tried to charge me 6 times the going rate – I took off my shirt and handed it to him. He got the joke and we agreed terms and then I was taken over to Abraham the Camel, my new best friend for the next few minutes.

Hey man I’ve ridden Elephants before and that was ace so as soon as the guide said we could get to ride a camel I was mad for it!

Sitting there before blast-off I remembered wondering what it would be like to sit on a camel while it stood up – and then I found out.

It’s like falling inside-out upside down and right-side in all at the once. The world moves to a series of angles and movements that make no sense – it seems that you are destined to end up on the floor… and then you are up and grinning like an imbecile, desperately holding on to the reigns for dear life.

The ponderous gait of a moving camel is the most obscure form of travel I have ever enjoyed. It took a while for me to ease my buttock-clenchingly tight grips of the blankets beneath me and chill a little to enjoy the trip. 4 knees all moving at unnatural times and directions somehow achieve fluid motion despite the odds. The whole experience was an absolute blast!

The world wobbles round in a drunken – perpetually falling, never landing moment from camel-back – but you really do feel like the king of the world up there!

STRONGLY recommended!

Once back at the - er - camel park & ride thing, I stopped for a photo with Abe while he playfully tried to chew my shoulder!

Final port of call was the Sphinx. Access to this leviathon was through kind of maze complex - but the point is that to get to the vantage point to see the statue, it is always out of sight - until you are actually there...

Returning to the group wearing the biggest dopiest smile, we then made our way back to the coach and bade farewell to the Pyramids and indeed Cairo.

Making our way out of Cairo a few things struck me (mentally!):

What a completely astonishing couple of days we’ve had – and including Luxor, what an amazing half week it’s been – pyramids, tombs, temples, oblix’s (is that right? – Oblixes? Obli? whatever), pharaohs, kings, mummies, death masks, sarcophagus’, flamingos, deserts, camels and … ah yes that bloke who was sweeping the Hard shoulder yesterday?... well he had graduated to sweeping the CENTRAL RESERVATION!!!

Nope, still don’t get it.

So long Cairo! – Thanks for coming.

The journey back was like the journey there but backwards, Dudley and Tingtong were being sickly, the scotch fella had to stop the coach for… uh – you know… a special stop… and then he asked if anyone had any Imodium and I wriggled incessantly, desperately trying to find a comfy part of the sodding seat.

Finally we arrived back in Sharm around 2am and head buzzing and bums numb we tumbled off the coach into the night and back to what for now passes as reality. Bed couldn’t come too soon.

However there was a strange being on it…

No alarm!!! - Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

The delicious luxury of not having to beat the dawn to consciousness was sublime. After the whirlwind of the last 3 days, Gil and I decided that today was to be spent at OUR leisure, to OUR schedule at OUR whims.

Breakfast gave way to a late morning breeze down to the local beach which as guests at our hotel we had free access to… but we didn’t know you had to supply some kind of pass! Doh!

It was tricky not to go radge at the poor little fella who initially wouldn’t let us in but a mixture of our own persistence couple with his good will eventually led us to the beach.

Culture break: I don’t know what other peoples experiences are over here but there seems to be a near pathological need to stick to the rules and to occasionally go over them, again and again… until one decides that one isn’t going to obey them, then they can go hang! It’s a case of all or nothing…

So anyway 5 minutes on the beach, and I’m getting twitchy so we are in the sea before you can say: "Oh for crying out loud John stop fistleling and go and snorkel"!

Following days of travel, it was welcome return to the turquoise bosom of the sea!

Although Shark bay had been advised to us as the best snorkling / diving, the bay at Sharm was no less stunning – in fact possibly more so for the reef structure:

The Sharm bay shelf is very shallow, almost to the point of flatness until about 15 meters out, it drops into an abyss deeper than you can see, even in these clear waters.

In the shallows, parrot fish and rainbow fish pick their way through the coral constellations while at the edge of the reef huge Napolean fish patrol the vertical formations. Every now and then a cloud a small black fish would fearlessly engulf me – darting all around me and even occasionally favouring me with a friendly nibble!

One highlight was a spotted ray lying motionless on the seabed – the occasional gill or eye movement, the only sign of life. Despite being bright green with vivid yellow dots, the ray was actually fantastically camouflaged given the turquoise nature of the water.

As ever when underwater, time left me behind and it was an hour and a half later when I re-emerged smiling, happy and with the facial disfiguring strap scars that only too long in the sea with a snorkel mask can provide!

A lazy lunch later and we returned to the beach for some more of the same for no other reason than – because we could.

As the sun sank into the evening we happily squelched our way back to the hotel for a shower and nap before venturing back the bubbling metropolis of Narma Bay for out last Egyptian night out.

I won’t bore you details about the night except to say that I had a camel curry. Rode one, one day – ate it the next! In truth is wasn’t the most beautiful curry I’ve had and the meat was just like badly cooked beef but at least I know what its like now.

Interesting menu though:

To keep Gil happy we decamped for another Shisha and beer and then in a moment of extra double hard hardness we bought a couple of beers to smuggle back into the hotel (which they won’t allow) so that we weren’t tied to the bar.

A leisurely beer at midnight following a leisurely day with no hassle was probably the best way sign off our last full day in Sharm.

Last day! - Sob!

We had to have all our gear out of the rooms by 12:00… so I buggered off down to the beach for a final snorkel BEFORE breakfast! – Gill thought I was mental – but I just wanted to get as much as I could out of this stay – and having the beach and water all to myself was an added bonus!

Once we had vacated our room and dumped all our gear behind the counter downstairs, we set off for Old Sharm market to spend the last of our pennies on… well, tat basically.

We had a rough agenda with a couple of whims in mind – but first, we had to run the gauntlet of dodgy merchants trying to lure is into their shops and then trying to rip us off silly.

This is something of a pantomime but if your hearts not really in it, it becomes something of a pain in the arse! The will was good at first, but after some superhuman haggling with the worlds hardest barterers, I was losing interest in the game and just wanted to buy my tat without the Monty Python-esque hassle of arguing over prices!

We wandered back the beach where we first came last week, just to chill and pass the time until we were chased off the loungers we’d snuck onto without paying!

Walking back, the taxi’s were all beeping in and cruising up saying "taxi" and I was thinking ‘Yes. I KNOW!’ – oh dear – this looks like a bad mood looming. We had ages to kill before the bus back to the hotel and we’d spent all our pennies on shite – so we couldn’t even get a taxi!

Eventually the bus came – though not before we’d got bored and cranky.

Back at the hotel, we had some lunch and with nothing else for it, retired pool-side with a couple of beers and our books.

The pick up and run to the airport was remarkable for the sight of wild camels grazing near the roadside and then for the pandemonium of the Airport check in!

It was complete mayhem, the queues were enormous and the sense of absolute chaos almost palpable.

Some dreadful woman stomped straight to the front of the queue and demanded to be let in – it was a heart-warming moment when the doorman said he would call the airport police if she didn’t go to the back of the queue – Sometime, just sometimes I love it when the Egyptians stick to their guns! Of course me and countless others telling the silly cow to ‘get to the f**king back and queue like everyone else’ probably didn’t improve her mood – and that makes me glad too!

Our flight was called and the queues were so awful that in the end I had to rely on being 6ft, broad and ignorant to get us to the boarding gate before closing. And that’s it, I guess!

You get on a plane in one country, hot and baking, amid the perfumes of exotic smells and bohemian otherness and get off again back home where it’s dark and manky and raining…

Newcastle just ISN’T the same as Egypt.