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We went to New York again for Kathryn’s birthday. We’d been once before and seen most of the tourist sites. For Kathryn, this meant we could dedicate the trip to shopping.

Apart from spending money whenever we got the chance we also did some other cool things like visit the reopened Museum of Modern Art and chill out in Central Park on a hot day.

We also went to the coolest restaurant called Tao. This was an amazing experience. We had to book months in advance and even then we could only get a table for 6pm. When we arrived, the place was already packed. They gave us a little beeper that would let us know when our table was ready and we got some drinks in the bar.
The music was loud, the room was dark and there was a massive statue of Buddha in the restaurant section. The roof of the restaurant was draped with huge sheets of cloth painted with Japanese writing. It was like stepping into an episode of Sex and the City. I wasn’t sure if I was cool enough to be there.

The food was fantastic and the service excellent. It wasn’t that expensive either. In fact, we liked the place so much we bought the soundtrack. Seriously. Recommended.

Our hotel was another good find. It was the Hotel QT. It is a funky new hotel in a fantastic location, seconds from Times Square. It is relatively cheap by New York standards and it manages this by providing tiny rooms. They are excellently designed, however, to make maximum use of space and, really, if you are in New York and hanging out in your hotel, you’re wasting your time. Also recommended.

Check out all the pictures here.

It was snowing when we left London and it was snowing when we arrived at JFK airport seven hours later. We thought the terminal was rather small for New York, until we realised the whole terminal was just for British Airways. Not much later we were met by Wendy and Greg. There was a brief moment of confusion as I thought I was expected to drive, then realised I was getting in the passenger seat. Soon we were crawling along the ‘express’-way to Wendy and Greg’s apartment in the Bronx. Unfortunately the gloomy weather blocked the view of Manhattan as we crossed the bridge from Long Island to the Bronx so the only sights we saw were the rusting shells of Buicks in junkyards and a U-Haul whose sign was missing a vowel.

We woke early the next day and spent the next few hours trying to get back to sleep; a sequence that would repeat itself until our last day in New York when we finally adjusted to America time. The weather was very cold and clear with a bright blue sky and the remains of the previous day’s snowfall still dusting the ground. Wendy had taken the day off to go into town with us and we wandered past the battered squad cars of the 49th PCT station and along the massively proportioned and exuberantly laned Pelham Parkway to the subway. New York is infested with squirrels and along with the regular grey squirrel we saw quite a few very dark, almost black ones – ‘hood squirrels.

We emerged from the subway at the corner of 51st Street into the perpetual shade of Manhattan. Yellow cabs and Lincoln Town Cars rolled slowly through steam emerging from a manhole cover. Halfway down fifth Avenue we ducked into a Starbucks to get a coffee and a donut. Unfortunately, Starbucks is about the only option if you want a real coffee in New York and I’ve never been a fan. It’s mainly the ordering process that turns me off. There are so many drink combinations and made up jargon terms that they actually have these little booklets on the counter which tell you how to order coffee. Personally, I think you sound like a bit of a twat ordering a grande – skinny – half-caf – with room – with legs. They don’t know what to do if you just ask for a coffee. And then, once you have placed your order and paid, you have to shuffle along to the end of the counter where there is further confusion as the barista tries to match up the drinks he is making with the people milling around. And you have to put your own chocolate on the top of your cappuccino. Despite all that, I enjoyed nothing more than buying a cappuccino and donut and wandering along the wide New York streets. New York is a great city to just walk aimlessly in. While it is certainly massive – and I frequently found myself staring at an Avenue that seemed to disappear over the horizon – New York never felt crowded. The sidewalks are huge and the traffic moves in orderly one-way systems.

We spent the day looking in shops, including the massive B & H Photo Video on Ninth. This place is great and has an interesting bureaucracy. After queueing at the Digital SLR desk I was sold a very nice piece of kit. Clutching my invoice and trying not to look at the bottom line I then had to go to another counter to pay for it. Once this transaction was completed I went to the collecting counter. By this time my package had made its way along an aerial conveyor, chair-o-plane style, from the salesman’s counter on the far side of the store. It sounds like a lot of faffing around, but it’s a system that actually works well. It’s the same Starbucks mentality, only without the stupid names. And with conveyors.

We had lunch in Grand Central Terminal on 42nd Street, a fabulous building whose cavernous main concourse roof is covered in figures of the Zodiac. We also stopped by the New York Public Library, the largest marble building in America.

The reason Kathryn let me spend so much money in the camera store became clear the next day when we visited Tiffany’s. There was a shiny thing in there she wanted and, as I had been allowed to buy myself a toy, there was obviously no reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to buy her one, too. The credit card had a heart attack after running it through their machine, causing a couple of phone calls to the unhelpful Barclays people in London to prove we weren’t a victim of fraud. The upshot of all this meant that the block on our card would be lifted some time in the next few hours but they couldn’t say when.

So we walked across town to the
Intrepid Sea-Air-Space-Museum. This is based around the USS Intrepid, a WWII era aircraft carrier which houses several military planes and helicopters including a Huey Cobra (complete with shark mouth), an F-14, F-16, A-16 and Concorde. You can wander around the carrier and go on a tour of a nuclear missile submarine, the USS Growler, moored alongside. I really liked it.

After collecting the little blue box from Tiffany’s we headed to the Empire State Building via Times Square. We got to the top at dusk and Manhattan was lit up like a little model around us. The Chrysler Building thrust upwards like a chrome-plated cathedral, gargoyles shaped like hood ornaments and radiator caps from a 1926 Chrysler. This building must be many people’s favourite piece of New York architecture. There used to be a businessman’s club at the top called the Cloud Club and the very top originally housed a private apartment for Walter Chrysler.

On Friday we visited the United Nations building. This is technically not part of the United States but is, in fact, a little piece of international territory. We went on a tour which was very interesting and got to see the Security Council as well as the General Assembly. Our guide was amusing because he clearly loved the UN but seemed to dislike people. Especially tour members who would not keep up.

We managed to score some cheap tickets to see Chicago at the Ambassador Theatre. And while it is actually on West 49th Street, I think it still counts as a Broadway show. It was a great show. I also thought the costumes were very nice.

On Saturday, while Kathryn and Wendy drove north to a giant factory outlet mall to spend more money, I headed into Manhattan and got off at 59th Street at the south-east corner of Central Park. The weather had been getting better and better each day and I spent the next few hours strolling through Central Park in gloriously warm sunshine. The park was busy with joggers, cyclists, roller-bladers and people just enjoying the beautiful weather. There were also a lot of ice-skaters on the Wollman Rink, an outdoor skating rink. Created in the 1860’s, Central Park is a huge oasis of calm right in the middle of the metropolis and has an ingenious system whereby five roads pass through it but they are lowered so they don’t interfere with pedestrians. Over Bow Bridge is a wooded area called the Ramble, home to thousands of squirrels and birds and about the only place you could get lost in Central Park. I bought a pretzel by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and wandered up to the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir. Circling this huge expanse of (frozen) water is a running track with an almost continuous parade of joggers. It is so popular, in fact, that there are signs requesting runners run around the reservoir in an anticlockwise direction. I headed back to the Met.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is fantastic. It houses two million individual objects including complete reconstructed rooms from French chateaux. It is sort of like the National Gallery, the British Museum and the V & A rolled into one. I wandered through the classical antiquities, an exhibition of European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840 and a small exhibition of Klee. As I was heading for the exit an amazing set of prints caught my eye and I was diverted for another hour by the Chuck Close exhibition. The good thing about the entrance fee (which is only a suggested donation) is that you can see anything in the museum including all the special exhibitions. After a couple of hours, museum fatigue started to kick in so I bought a NY Times from one of those vending machines and caught the subway back to the Bronx.

Sunday was the warmest day yet, and started with the four of us having breakfast at a real American diner in the Bronx. The portions were suitably outrageous. We then headed to Greenwich Village. The Village is a very nice place to walk and look in interesting shops for t-shirts, records and gay porn.

A ride on the (free) Staten Island ferry gave us good view of the Statue of Liberty and the financial district skyline. The World Trade Centre towers are missing from that view now. Rebuilding has begun on their replacement and in the nearby World Financial Centre there is an exhibition of all the designs submitted including the Foster and Partners submission which I liked. Catching the subway to Brooklyn, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan as the sun set behind the Statue of Liberty.

On our guide’s advice, we rose early and left for the west bank of the Nile at 6am. We were the first to arrive at the Valley of the Kings, which pleased Magic greatly. We caught a little train thing “like Disney Land” from the empty car park to the place where the men with guns confiscate your video cameras.

Guiding is not allowed in the tombs themselves, so we sat in a shaded area while Majid told us about the history of the place and showed us pictures of what we would see in the tombs themselves. The valley was chosen as a place of burial because it is dominated by the pyramidal shaped mountain of Al-Qurn (the Horn). Obviously a place where there was a natural pyramid was special. There are about sixty excavated tombs in the valley and supposedly many more yet to be discovered.

While the tomb of Tutankhamen is the most famous, there is not a great deal to see inside, so Majid suggested we visit the tombs of Ramses III, Ramses IX and Merneptah. The walls of the tombs were covered with scenes from the book of the dead describing how to get to the afterlife; a procedure which seems to require knowing a good snake from a bad one (you can tell by the number of heads) and how well you can bullshit the gods about what a great life you have lived. It is surprising how large these tombs are. While they are not so obviously extravagant as the Great Pyramids, they are quite deep and extensive and they are covered in beautifully preserved paintings. The ceilings are often painted with stars on a deep blue background.

The tomb of Merneptah contains the granite lid of one of the Pharaoh’s sarcophagi. Each tomb is staffed by a number of Egyptian men who are keen to point out features of the tombs and for a little baksheesh one of these ‘guides’ with a voice like distant thunder took us underneath and inside the lid of the sarcophagus. Fun.

Just over the hill on the other side of the Valley of the Kings is the temple of Queen Hatshepsut. This is yet another stunning piece of Egyptian antiquity. It is a three-tiered temple cut from the face of a cliff overlooking a desert plain. Before we set out across the baking dessert, Majid gave us a history lesson in the shade of a dilapidated, early twentieth century rest house. The queen who built the temple was the daughter of Tuthmosis I and was married to her half-brother Tuthmosis II. When Tuthmosis II died, her son Tuthmosis III was too young to be regent so Hatshepsut ruled as queen in her own right. This was quite a novelty at the time and she is often depicted as a man, false beard and all.

It was a long walk to the top of the temple, but it was slightly cooler at the top. Not much, though. I felt the birds circling on the rising air on the cliffs above us were waiting for me to drop dead from heat stroke. Looking out over the plain it was hard to imagine that it had once been covered in exotic trees, plants and garden beds.

Then we went to a place which is not visited by many tourists but is well worth a look. The Valley of the Craftsmen is nearby and was where the people who built the tombs lived. They died and obviously needed burying. The good thing was, being craftsmen and all, they could decorate their tombs with the same beautiful imagery they were painting on the royal walls. While the tombs are very much smaller, the paintings are even more stunning than those of the Valley of the Kings. The colours are so rich and vibrant, even after three thousand years.

As we made our way back to the hotel, we made a stop at an alabaster shop. Yes even Majid, it seems, is not above shoving some tourist trade to friends. This was a genuinely interesting shop though, and a lot of fun. First we were introduced to Mohamed 1, 2 and 3. We were then shown how the alabaster was turned from plain rock into beautiful vases and, of course, how to spot the fakes others were selling. We then moved into the shop and with the traditional bottle of Coke in hand decided to finally have an honest go at bargaining. I was quite pleased with the result and, while I turned down the offer of a thousand camels for Kathryn, everyone came out smiling. The Egyptians had some of my money and we had some more ballast for the flight home.

We stopped long enough to take a photo at the Colossi of Memnon; two great statues that are all that remains of the temple built by Amenhotep III, which archaeologists think may have been larger even than Karnak. There would also have been hundreds of statues, however these have, of course, long since vanished to museums in Cairo and around the world.

We arrived back at the hotel in time for lunch and I don’t know if it was that or the heat or something else, but that evening, while Kathryn floated in a Felucca we had booked, I had more pressing engagements with the toilet in our hotel room. That’s all I’m going to say. Oh my God.

Thank goodness we had another night in Luxor, because I don’t think I could have handled the train ride back to Cairo that night. In fact, I was pretty much out of action for the rest of the trip. I spent the next day in bed before stumbling to the train station. The next day, Saturday, was to be our special first anniversary treat. We would be staying in the Four Seasons in Cairo

If you are looking for an excellent place to stay in Cairo, I would unhesitatingly recommend the Four Seasons. It is not cheap. Actually, it is expensive, but it is, without doubt, the finest hotel I have ever stayed in. It is so fancy, the reception isn’t even on the ground floor! Whenever you pass one of the staff, dressed in sharp black suits, you are greeted with a smile and a good morning (unless it’s the afternoon). It is beautifully and subtly decorated and our room was bigger than our flat in London. In fact, I think the bathroom may have been bigger than our flat in London. Also, I never realised until I had stayed there that, yes, of course, two basins are quite necessary in a bathroom.

Our room overlooked the Cairo Zoo and the occasional lion’s roar penetrated the double glazing. Stepping out onto our balcony, the Pyramids were quite visible in the distance. I still felt like I might expire at any moment so after a light breakfast in the gorgeous breakfast room overlooking the Nile I went back to bed and watched the Simpsons and the Discovery Channel in between sleeping. Kathryn went to the hotel’s spa and had a ‘Relaxing Egyptian massage’ and ‘Queen Nefertiti facial’. I also discovered that I could get just about anything delivered to my room and ordered a bunch of flowers for Kathryn.

So, that was our trip to Egypt. It was certainly unlike anywhere we had ever been before and despite the unfortunate turn of events in Luxor we had a wonderful time. The Egyptian people are genuinely friendly and while they can come across as pushy or annoying, they are mostly just trying to earn a living. In a foreign country you just have to go with the flow and realise things are done differently in different places. With each new part of the world we set foot on, our horizons expand some more. Just when you stop looking up at all the big buildings in London you land somewhere like Cairo to widen your eyes again.

PS While we never had the courage to play our ‘wedding anniversary’ card in a hotel, we did let the steward know on the flight back, which scored us a bottle of champagne. Not too bad!

The view from our room at the Luxor Sheraton was stunning. We were on the east bank and from our balcony I could see a number of hot air balloons suspended over the opposite bank.

As I stood and watched, the rising sun gradually brought colour to the steep hills surrounding the Valley of the Kings and boats glided along the Nile in the cool of the early morning. As I was to later learn, the tombs in the Valley of the Kings were built by the rulers of the New Kingdom. They didn’t go in for those massive pyramids, so they were buried on the west bank; where the sun sets.

After a shower and breakfast we visited the travel desk in the hotel and booked tours of the east and west banks. About an hour later our guide met us in the lobby and introduced himself as Majid, although he suggested we just call him ‘Magic’ as that might be easier.

Magic was instantly likable. He was a well-rounded man with thick, slightly rose coloured glasses and was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a Tintin cover on the front called ‘Tintin and the Cigars of the Pharaoh’. He also had an interesting way of saying ‘south’, where he would swap ‘th’ and ‘s’, so it came out more like ‘thous’. It was soon apparent that he was incredibly knowledgeable. He had studied at Cairo University and had a Masters degree in Mummy Cleaning.

Majid took us first to Karnak Temple. As we stood in the shade of the great walls, Majid told us a bit about its history. He was a brilliant speaker and had funny little turns of phrase; he started off by saying, ‘Now, use your fertile imaginations to rebuild Karnak Temple in your mind.’ And then he described how it had been built and added to by Pharaohs over 1500 years, the importance of its location, how the Nile would have been much closer than it is today. He took us through the various sections of the temple, all the while moving closer to the sacred sanctuary of Tuthmosis III, and all the while moving backwards in time, hundreds of years at a step. He took us through the Great Court and showed us the little sphinx with the head of Tutankhamun before entering the most impressive part of the temple complex, the Great Hypostyle Hall. This was started by Seti I and consists of a forest of pillars, one for each of the gods. They are all richly decorated and some colour remains in the writing sheltered from the sun. Originally it would have been roofed and quite dark. It would take a better photographer and a better writer than me to attempt to convey the reality of this hall, and this would seem not to be a new problem. Amelia Edwards, the 19th-century writer wrote, ‘It is a place that has been much written about and often painted; but of which no writing and no art can convey more than a dwarfed and pallid impression… The scale is too vast; the effect too tremendous; the sense of one’s own dumbness, and littleness, and incapacity, too complete and crushing.’

There are a number of massive granite obelisks in the complex, all hewn from a single piece of stone and somehow transported and raised. But there used to be more. It seems the Egyptian people were too trusting of visitors and countless treasures have been stolen by or given away to Greeks or Romans or Arabs. Majid spoke of massive statues of solid gold that were taken by invading armies. He also seemed dismayed that the Egyptian government had given away so many obelisks. London has one by the Thames, Paris has one in the Place de la Concorde. One was swapped, I think it was the French, for a clock. Majid seemed particularly annoyed at this; the French got a three thousand year old artifact and the Egyptians got a 19th-century clock that doesn’t even work any more.

After paying too much (obviously) for a couple of hats in a vain attempt to keep the baking sun off our heads we drove to Luxor Temple. Built by Amenhotep III, Luxor Temple is smaller than Karnak, but has many interesting things to see. The avenue of sphinxes out the front leads directly to Karnak Temple and the Pharaoh would have processed from Karnak to Luxor for special ceremonies. Today he would be stopped by houses and shops which have been built over the ancient city of Thebes.

One of the most interesting things in Luxor temple is the 13th-century Mosque of Abu al-Haggag. This was built before the temple was excavated and now sits atop the temple wall, its doors some fifteen feet off the ground.

As Majid told us about the pharaohs and their gods, he would speak of the ancient Egyptian religion as if he was a follower himself. When he spoke of their beliefs he would often say we believe.

By midday, the temperature was already too hot and we returned to the resort to relax. We had seen the east bank of Thebes. Tomorrow we would see the west bank, where the rulers of the New Kingdom were buried.

We had booked a driver to take us to the Pyramids the previous day and we met Salah on the steps of our hotel early Tuesday morning. As we were driving along the eastern bank of the Nile he began fishing around behind the sun visor. This was slightly disconcerting but by now I had great faith in the driving ability of the local Egyptians. Having found what he was looking for, he thrust a pile of photocopied letters of recomendation into our hands for our inspection. He seemed quite proud of them and we congratulated him on having such good references.

We had not gone far when Salah stopped the car in the middle of a bridge over the river to show us an island which had papyrus growing on it. Salah’s English was quite hard to understand so we weren’t entirely sure what we were looking at. We took the obligatory photo and got back in the car.

Having seen where papyrus comes from, we then stopped at the ‘Egypt Papyrus Museum’. We thought it was very nice of Salah to show us this as we had thought we would just be going to the Pyramids. We got out and went inside while Salah stayed in the car. We were greeted as soon as we passed through the door into an air-conditioned gallery. We were directed to one side and offered drinks while a man demonstrated the procedure of making papyrus in what seemed like one breath. He also pointed out how to avoid buying fake papyrus which they obviously did not sell. He then gave us little pieces of paper and pencils where we could mark down all the papyrus paintings we liked. By now I could see we weren’t getting out of there with my credit card untouched. He followed us around the gallery, pointing out paintings that would be suitable for mother, father and sister. I decided to take him up on his offer of a Coke.
We stepped out into the Egyptian heat some time, and many pounds, later, after solving Christmas present problems for many. He had supposedly given me some great deal, but he talked so fast I couldn’t remember how much I had saved. It was only as we drove off that I began to notice all the other papyrus museums and institutes along the side of the road to the Pyramids.

I know I keep going on about Egyptian driving but it really is something to experience and what happened next was quite interesting. We were stuck for a little while between a truck in one lane and a slow-moving car in the other. Salah maneuvered for a moment then drove straight up between them – this is on a two ‘lane’ road, although as I mentioned the lanes are quite optional. He shook his head and said to us, ‘Mad’. I had to agree…

We were passing through some suburbs, with many of the houses built in the characteristic ‘half-finished’ style, when we came round a bend and suddenly noticed the Pyramids out the left hand window. It was quite strange. Behind us was the city and in front was the desert. As we drove passed the policemen on camels to the viewing area that overlooks the plateau, we were glad that we hadn’t decided to catch the bus; the Giza Plateau is quite an expanse of desert.

It seems a redundant thing to say, but the Pyramids are truly massive. And truly ancient. To paraphrase: you may think it takes a long time to queue for a train ticket at Victoria Station but that’s just peanuts to the Pyramids. Listen…(Sorry)
The Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) is the sole remaining wonder of the original seven. They were built by the rulers of the Old Kingdom (2686 – 2181 BC) (or possibly aliens). Evelyn Waugh said of the Pyramids while staying at the Mena House in 1929: “The Pyramids were a quarter of a mile away; it felt odd to be living at such close quarters with anything quite so famous – it was like having the Prince of Wales at the next table in a restaurant; one kept pretending not to notice, while all the time glancing furtively to see if they were still there.”

I recorded the scene on silver halide, silicon and tape. There was a kind of bazaar up there, but even I could tell I was going to be ripped off so we didn’t look.

They open different pyramids so as to give them a rest from the tourists. We went to the littlest one (62m, orig. 65.5m), the Pyramid of Menkaure (Mycerinus). I had decided to wait outside with the police and the cameras, unsure whether I had made the right decision. I stood in the shade of the Pyramid while Kathryn entered the tiny passage. When she emerged, sweating and pink faced, I knew I had made the right decision.

The other big draw is the Sphinx. It was smaller than I had expected, and the path leading to it was swarming with little children. They would tug at your clothes trying to sell you postcards and statues. You literally had to wade through them.

We met our ride, thinking we would be going back to the hotel. And in a sense we were. We would just make a couple of stops on the way. First up was a perfume shop which from what I could gather was either owned by, patronised by or started by, or just had a picture on the wall of Mohammed Al Fayed. As usual we were the only people there and, as usual, I ordered a Coke. We looked through a glass door and were shown a man producing the little glass oil bottles over a bunsen burner. The display room was huge, with bottles of all shapes, colours and sizes adorning the shelves.
We sat down and were shown a list of forty-six oils. My heart sank as the salesman produced a bottled labeled ‘No 1’. He proceeded to paint a sample from a number of bottles onto our arms, describing the variously relaxing or erotic affects of each. We rapidly began to run out of space on our arms and I figured the only way to stop him moving onto our legs was to offer to buy some stuff. We bought the smallest bottle of ‘Queen of Egypt’ and three little glass bottles. I still couldn’t get the whole bargaining thing right so I’m sure I paid three times what I should have.

As we got back in the car Salah asked if we wanted to see how carpets were made. By this time I was starting to see a pattern. I shrewdly said ‘no thanks’ and so avoided having to put our baggage allowance to the test with the thirty foot rug I would have no doubt bought. Too busy congratulating myself at that near miss, I wasn’t on guard when he suggested going to a bazaar. Sure enough, it turned out to be another shop full of crap where we were the only customers. We escaped by buying a silver scarab beetle. They didn’t even offer me a Coke. As we left I quickly said, ‘So, back to the hotel then.’

Then came the problem of Baksheesh. I never quite got the hang of this. Basically, it is tipping. But I could never figure out how much or when to give. There are people who’s job is to open doors. Baksheesh them? Well, yes, in theory. But how much? What about when you have already agreed a price for something? It is complicated by the fact that the British Pound is so strong. I could buy ten Egyptian Pounds for one of my own. Does that mean I should baksheesh more? Also, there seems to be a chronic shortage of small change in Egypt, so I began to hoard it. I developed a whole system of placing different value notes in different pockets of my cargo trousers so I didn’t have to open my wallet and flip past all those fifties (which, after all, were really only fivers) to get to the small stuff. All this meant I tended to give more rather than less. Still, I could never tell if it was an appropriate amount or not. They would just quickly pocket it without a flicker of emotion. I ended up just shoving a £50 note into Salah’s hand and I still don’t know if that was right or not.

After checking out of the hotel (God, more baksheesh for the luggage?), we got a car to Ramses Station through some of the maddest Cairo traffic we had seen. It was as if we were a stone in a river of swirling human and four-wheeled (hooved) traffic. After a comic baksheesh moment with the driver and a wrong turn down some steps in the station we finally got to carriage number 8 and our little cabin. It was small, but quite fun. Dinner – an assortment of undefined meat – was served, before our beds were made. As we were getting into bed, we heard a loud bang. We both thought the bunk was giving way, more a problem for me on the lower bed. After inspecting the bed we discovered that it was actually the outer pane of glass on the carriage window that had shattered. I went to sleep half expecting to wake up with a glassy gale blowing over me.

Instead, we woke to the sounds of my phone’s alarm at 3:30am. After picking at the breakfast of bread, cheese and olives we rolled into Luxor station where we were met by a driver hastily organised the night before. After some fumbled baksheeshing we finally got to our room at the Sheraton Luxor as the sun was rising, lighting up the Valley of the Kings on the other side of the Nile.