Luxor : Temple images

The temple of Hathshesput down from the valley of the Kings and above Luxor's west bank

We did the tourist thing while resting the legs and headed to the main sites of which Luxor has many. We headed out first thing to the Valley of the Kings which I have no images of as they are prohibited and wont allow cameras in. There are some 62 tombs in this narrow desert valley. Its believed that there could be up to 200 in the area. Its an incredible sight with huge cliffs surrounding and in various places small entranaces leading in to the tombs below one of which is 350 metres below ground. We looked into three of them. Heading in you head down a long tunnel covered in hyroglphs and paintings spelling out the story of that kings reign. At the end is the main chamber which one or two have coffins in, huge casks of granite which was shipped in from Aswan, there must have been a fair few people squished in this process. From there it was onto the next temple at Hathshespt for a look and then a couple of others along the way. The centre of Luxor also has the 'Luxor Temple' which we saw last night. All pretty amazing to see and works as the perfect rest venue. There is a noticible lack of tourism attacks in the 90's at the temple shown above and the recent revolution has definitely put people off by the looks. A few years ago you would have waited two hours to get into a tomb not now you can just walk freely in between them. The locals though are suffering as a result with many of the shops looking almost shut down and the camel guys having to sell their camels in order to get by. Just as a point of note a camel will cost you LE4000 which is about 500 pounds, I would be tempted I have to say to trade my bike for a camel it would certainly be easier going on the legs if a little slower. It would certainly be better to be a camel than a donkey who seem to get a very rough deal here. One thing of note is that my 'donkey treatment rating' (DTR) in the developing world has a very low score for Egypt, although you do have to look at the bigger picture I guess.

The Ramsies temple which is the best one intact in the area with huge walls and courtyards

Giant obelisk at the Luxor temple cut from one stone and moved from the quarry in Aswan down the Nile when the floods where happening in order to help move it down river 

Giant guards on the Luxor temple I barely reach the toes to give some idea of height. 

Paintings in some of the remaining roof pieces of the Ramsies temple.

Hyroglphs at the temple of Ramsies  

The huge statues standing guard to Ramsies temple which lies behind, the valley of the kings is up and left in the hills behind which we saw in the morning although no photos are allowed.