well i had it in my mind but now my girl wants to see the pyramids next yr..soo pyramids it is...as long as she does all the planning and the other boring stuff
thought you were going to Shangri La via London, Prof?
Egypt: the Tombs near Luxor and the Pyramids at Giza and the wonderful museum in Cairo are fantastic, but the only way to do it is first class (I was on a P&O cruise with my mum).
She stayed on the ship to go up the Suez, but paid for me for my birthday to get off at the south end of the canal and I was driven to Luxor to see the Valley of the Tombs etc.
Luxor is gorgeous, you must go there, walking around the Valley in 40/50c and going down into the cold dark tombs with the glorious coloured hyroglificks (sp) is breathtaking.
After that I was luckily invited to a mad loud wedding by the guy who drove me around all evening in a silver carriage with a horse and I therefore missed whatever the rest were doing although I found out later they were attempting to go on the nile in a sailboat but there was no wind, then they queued up for yet another buffet.
I tried to find booze, which was hilarious, there isn't any. I got back to my hotel about 3am after my taxi man took me to his stables where he lived and showed me what he was wearing under his smock and I screamed.
Then I flew to Cairo first thing in the morning. I spent the 2nd night at Giza in a 5star hotel with an amazing view of the Great Pyramid and again stayed up all night... There was no way on God's gorgeous earth I could have slept with that all lit up outside my window...
The dinner on the Nile cruise with the belly dancers and the whirling dervish is fun (...if you miss out on the buffet and go up on deck and look at that fantastic view and the incredible lights). You can see from the upper deck when the dervish is about to perform and follow him downstairs.
Don't do the camel ride, just take photos of someone else, meet some locals instead, but do see all the tombs and museums... Cairo is awesome, you must see the golden Citadel and the walled City of the Dead.
We had blokes with machine guns sitting at the front of the coach and a jeep going ahead of us to hold up each intersection to let us through.
It's very touristy, but worth seeing. A very exhausting two days. I'm amazed they didn't arrange for me as part of the tour to climb to the top of one of those towers at dusk and shout.
Can't post pix, it says the file is too big.
xL
you'll need a visa
