Aswan

Tombs of Aswan by night

We took a sleeper train from Cairo to Aswan. The train made Tanya promise to never criticise Larry's comfort levels again (I personaly think the train tiolet was the clincher on that one).

The city is 12hrs South of Cairo and on the banks on the Nile. We set up camp on a cruise boat, and spent a day touring the city. The Aswan toombs dominate the skyline, and at night are beautiful. They are over 3,000 years old, and we had a nice private walk through them... when I say private I mean, a guide and a strange man carrying a sub-machine gun. If you feel uncomfortable being around guns, don't come to Egypt. There are strange heavily armed men everwhere.. and they all seem ignorant to whom they point their gun at.

The small temple on the top of the tombs made for a nice walk, and gave a great view of the city.

We visited the Temples of Philae and Komombo (Sobek & Haroeris)... which were very nice. It is difficult to appreciate these were all made before Christ. The condition of some of the statues and reliefs are amazing. Many of them are still painted in vivid colours that seem to have defied times efforts to fade them.

All of the temples were impressive, however, they all looked better at night. Most of them were open quite late to allow night photos...and we tried to visit the good ones right on dusk.

A guide tried to tell us that this hyrogliphic shows a doctor....I rejected that as nonsense as it is clealy someone making a cocktail.... it appears the Egyptions were truly party people..... but tying to get booze here now is a bit more problematic. 



I have no idea which god this statue is of....but I assume it represneted all of the pidgeons who had taken to crapping all over the temple.