View Larger Map

blue pin: visited; yellow pin: transit;

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Day 1: Singapore - Doha (Qatar) - Luxor (Egypt)


9 Days Egypt map

Yay, it was a holiday season again. This time we went to Egypt and transit in Qatar for the second time. We departed from Singapore at 3 am, flying to Doha for about 8 hours followed by 3 hours transit. And then another 4 hours flight to Luxor.


Doha airport, still as crowded as the last time we were here.





Qatar airlines logo

Luxor
We arrived at Luxor around 1pm on the same day. After the immigration, the tour guide was already waiting and escorted us to our cruise to check-in. Everyone in our group was very tired, but the tour had to commence after lunch.


Luxor International Airport


Houses are quite run down.


Our cruise, King of Thebes


Lounge area


Our room


Very small bathroom

It is a five-star cruise, but I don't think it can be compared to Star Cruise. Someone in our group said that this is already quite comfortable compared to the Three Gorges cruise in China.

After lunch, we took a short walk nearby. Our cruise was docked opposite the Luxor Temple which we would visit tonight.








Old car like this is a common sight.


Horse carriages, only for tourist.

Luxor Temple












Winter Palace (a luxury hotel)

Karnak Temple (around 1500 BC)


The Avenue of Rams leading to the gate.




Osiris - god of the underworld


Papyrus style pillar


Min - god of fertility








The colors still exist, considering it was done 3500 years ago.


Hieroglyphs everywhere








Massive columns in Hypostyle hall, look how big it is compared to me. There are 134 of them.

After this, we visited a papyrus shop and the shop assistant demonstrated how the papyrus was processed before it resulted into a sheet of paper.

Luxor Temple (around 1500 BC)


Originally there were two obelisks, but one was given to France around 1800 and it is now at Place de la Concorde, Paris.




The Avenue of Rams









When we got back to the cruise, it was already 8 pm. After having dinner on board and a quick shower, we slept straight away. The morning call for the next day was 5.30 am. It was a tiring day.

No comments: