Our Egypt Vacation - Day 5 - Dancer

On day 5, the cruise boat organized a show of Sufi dancing and belly dancing. The Sufi dancer was impressive with all those fast spinning moves.

Warming up



Some serious spinning



Super serious spinning



More serious spinning



Tourist from China with the belly dancer

Our Egypt Vacation - Day 5 - Temple of Hatshepsut

After Valley of the Kings, we visited the Temple of Hatshepshut, the most famous female pharaoh in Egypt.

This is also where the 1997 Luxor Massacre took place. The tourist industry went down after that terrible incident and now an armed security guard will always accompanied most of the tourist group tour.



It was a hot day and a shade was always welcomed.



Around this area, there were plenty of alabaster factory. We visited one factory and unless you know the stuff, you wouldn't know if the price quoted is reasonable or not.

Qayyum trying the manual grinding of the raw material



Manual carving



Work area



Finish product



Group photo

Our Egypt Vacation - Day 5 - Valley of the Kings

Day 5 was an early morning start to visit the Valley of the Kings.



No camera was allowed inside the tombs; the famous tomb of Tutankhamun has nothing interesting since all the items found in the tomb are now in Cairo Museum.



In total we visited 3 tombs, most of them have painted drawings along the corridor before reaching to the main room where the tomb was located.

There were still some excavation works going on in the area to search for more tombs.

Our Egypt Vacation - Day 4 - Esna Lock

Before reaching Luxor, the cruise has to past through the Esna Lock. This is where the boat went from high side to the lower side of the Nile river.



The water inside the gate being pumped out to the low side.



Cruise boat slowly being lowered down.



Another gate was also available for the cruise boat moving up from Luxor to Esna side where the process was reversed, boat floated up by pumping water inside the gate.

While the boat waited for their turn, it's an opportunity for some trade.



The guy will qoute some low price, threw their merchandise then increased their price and the haggling started.





For the kids, it was another day in the pool.





Sunset with birds - right combination for nature shot.

Our Egypt Vacation - Day 4 - Edfu

Day 4 started with a ride on a horse carriage to visit the Temple of Horus in Edfu.







Horus statue in the form of a falcon



Fisheye view of the 12 columns



The boat where all the offerings were put to their god.



Relief along the Passage of Victory



Outside view of the temple

Our Egypt Vacation - Day 3 - All Aboard

Before boarding the cruise boat, we stopped by the oldest mosque in Aswan.





The cruise was one of the major highlight of this trip especially for the kids. After check-in, it was straight to the pool.







A felucca sailing past our cruise boat.



By evening, we stopped by Kom Ombo for a quick tour. The photo below is a relief showing the king being purified by the two gods.

Our Egypt Vacation - Day 3 - Nile Cruise

We took a late night Egypt Air flight from Cairo to Aswan, our starting point for our Nile cruise.

Before boarding the cruise, we spent the morning visiting interesting areas in Aswan. The first stop was the Aswan Dam.





We then took a boat ride to the Philae Island, visiting the Temple of Isis.





Because of the dam, this temple was previously under water. This temple was rescued by removing the stone and reconstructing it in the higher ground.





One of the lens that i took with me was the Sigma 15 mm fisheye lens. It was worth buying for capturing all those landscape.

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