Week Seventy-Six

We're wakened at about 06.00 by the sun and another ticket inspector: he's presumably woken everyone on the train (that's thoughtful). Surprisingly, about 20% of the passengers have managed to get out without us noticing. We've also managed to cross (back) over the Nile without noticing (Giza's on the west bank, and we're now going down the east bank). Outside the window is farmland (the first real farmland we've seen since the Suez Canal corridor) and behind the farmland is nothing - the nothing is punctuated by occasional barren mountains. We drift off again until about 09.00 when we're approaching Luxor - we seem to be a little early, so the train waits for ten minutes just outside town (presumably to let something else get out the way). Over to the right we glimpse some thick, high sandstone walls which may be one of the temples - and possibly some things that may be columns (the windows are kinda dirty): gosh. Otherwise it's green, green fields, and cows, and large egrets with big, laboured wing-strokes - so I guess we're really out of Cairo.
We eventually start up again and shortly after (there have been Egyptians standing ready since before we stopped) pull into Luxor (al-Uksor) Station: it's pretty standard fare for a station, and boasts an impressive ring of touts outside. There are a couple with horse-drawn carriages, half a dozen taxi drivers and a large number of representatives/managers/cousins/brother/other relatives/etc. for hotels. The number thins as we distance ourselves from the station building, but they're still jumping out at us a few blocks away. Incidentally, what is it about Egyptians that makes them think that we want to a.) stop and chat or b.) have a look round their alabaster/papyrus/souvenir shops when we're quite obviously lugging 20-25 kilo rucksacks around?
Anyway, we already have a hotel-checking circuit worked out of five hotels and we follow that (adding an extra one en route, pausing for a glass of tea in another - Milla liked that one) before stopping at our penultimate listed location. £2.30/$3.65 per night for an en-suite with breakfast, and a nice clean place - that'll do us. It's taken us a little while (we spent a couple of hours looking; and then returned to the one where we'd left our padlocked rucksacks - Milla's choice; and then we spent a short time recouping in the room and having another cup of tea), and it's early afternoon by the time we set out to have a look round Luxor. Actually, we don't. We find somewhere to eat first, and since they're pretty quiet, it takes them ages to get our food ready - so it's almost 15.00 before we set out into Luxor itself.
It's a pretty straightforward kinda town - the Corniche runs north-south alongside the Nile (Luxor's on the east bank, on the site of ancient Thebes), and there are two or three largish street parallel to it. The station's a bit inland, and a road runs straight from it to Luxor Temple, branching around either side to meet the Corniche. South of the Temple are the famous old hotels, like the Winter Palace and the Wena Hotel; north of here, most of the roads run straight for 3km or so to the little village of Karnak and its Temple.
The Temple in Luxor is pretty unmissable - it's not actually that high, on account of sitting in an excavation pit, but it's pretty much at the centre of town and is about 400m long (800m if you include the cute little line of stone sphinxes which stretch away from the entrance). It's all sandstone and columns (very non-Greco-Roman columns) and also contains a mosque which they didn't move when they cleared out the village. We walk all the way round it, identifying that the entrance faces the Nile, and at the northern end we find the Brooke Hospital for Animals (set up by some woman - English, I suppose - to provide treatment for horses and donkeys), a line of fire engines, the police station and a catholic church. We also find, at the south-eastern end, and northern end, and in the streets around, a seemingly endless number of little black horse-drawn carriages (or "calèches", which I'm assuming is French) offering (nay, insisting on) rides around the town. There's a similarly insistent crowd of regular taxis patrolling the streets as well and, along the Corniche opposite the temple, felucca captains/touts/owners offering cruises around and along the river - the pricing for the little single-sail boats seems to be by the hour. So, Luxor is a fairly constant barrage, even excluding the stallholders, cafés/restaurants and regular shopkeepers.
We find a little tourist bazaar, all T-shirts and sphinxes, postcards and spices (mostly the usual junk), and also what appears to be the main souq/shopping street. We follow this for a couple of kilometres (seriously - minimarkets, tourist stalls, household goods), dodging calèches filled with bored-looking tourists, before eventually doubling back into town and making our way back to the hotel. We've seen a lot of Luxor, but nothing specific so far: tomorrow, the temples.

We're up later than yesterday: 07.50 for Milla and a few minutes later for me - she's a whirlwind this morning and is downstairs arguing with the breakfast staff (he's trying to cheat us out of an egg) before I'm even capable of leaving the room. We're out of the hotel by 09.15, which isn't great but is okay for a fairly full day: we head straight down to the river, on account of now knowing our way around Luxor (gosh - the number and variety of places which we now "know our way around" is getting quite impressive), dodge the felucca owners/captains who line the shore waiting for tourists, and find the ferry pretty much facing the entrance to the temple (next to a line of moored feluccas). There are a number of little launches which also offer to take us across (presumably if we don't want to wait for the big boat), but we give them a miss - the local ferry price appears to be 25pt, but tourists pay 1EP and can only buy return tickets (2EP), which I guess keeps return business away from the launches.
At any given time there seem to be three ferries operating, gliding gracefully sideways across the Nile: we're off in only a few minutes. On the Luxor shore, and on the ferry, and once we step off there's a steady barrage from taxi drivers - mainly offering their services for the whole day, but sometimes just the trip up to the site. We considered hiring a bike for today, but decided to check the place out on foot first, since we have to luxury of a few days here: if the site turns out to be all mountains and rough trails, then bikes would be a waste; if it turns out to be massive but flat then we'll get them for tomorrow. Today, we set out on foot - it's three kilometres or so along a straight road from the ferry landing to the ticket office at the edge of the site. First we go through the village of New Qurna, which the government built to relocate the locals from inside the site (the village of Qurna), several decades ago - with even less success than the Jordanian government had at Petra. And after that, we hit the Colossi of Memnon.
Um - they're two big seated statues: one is a monolithic block, the other (restored in antiquity) is made up of large sections. Both are now so old and eroded that they resemble giant pigeons, staring out towards the Nile. Actually the Colossi of Amenhotep III (or Amenophis III, if you're French), they stood at the front of his temple: now they stand at the front of a fairly barren rectangle, spotted with a few bits of stonework, and are pretty much surrounded by fields. Here, much more than anywhere else we've seen, it's quite obvious what the Nile means for Egypt - it's created a green and fertile strip from top to bottom (or vice versa): the border between green and desert is a quite clear line. Most of the temples (rather than the tombs) were built right at the edge of this fertile strip, which explains why many of them have all but disappeared under the ploughs.
There are separate tickets for the various sites (most tickets include two or three tombs), and you have to buy them all at the one ticket office: we pick up several, for the tuff in the low-lying ground to the north - we'll see how our timing goes. Bizarrely, the ticket office doesn't have change and we end up losing 25pt (3p) - goddam. Prices add up pretty quickly, even with a 50% student discount, and we're disappointed to discover than Nefertari's tomb (limited to 150 tickets per day, normally) is closed for restoration - again. Everything else seems to be open - or, at least, everything else on the ticket list: obviously with 62 tombs in the Valley of the Kings, over 100 Noble's Tombs, etc., there's only a relatively small percentage open at the best of times. Off we go, then, avoiding another clutch of taxi drivers at the ticket office.
Our first stop is the Ramesseum - good ol' Ramses II's mortuary temple. It's all in stone, all columns, but is surrounded by mud-brick houses and storehouses. It's also pretty big. We start off in the Second Court (it's where the path takes us): it's full of schoolchildren (who soon depart, thank god) and on two sides has columns fronted with statues of Osiris. Slightly less unselfishly, the walls of the Second Pylon (on our right) are covered in scenes from the Battle of Kadesh: there's a river filled with Hittite dead, Ramses mowing down lines of the enemy from his chariot, Ramses loosing arrows, etc. Ramses is always, easily, the largest figure in the reliefs. We know from Istanbul, of course, that there was a mutual defence pact signed afterwards and that Ramses had to marry one of the Hittite king's daughters: from the reliefs here, it's amazing there were any Hittites left. The best things about the reliefs is that there's still some colour surviving. Also in the Second Court is the famous black head, sitting on the ground, and the even more famous collapsed (originally 60ft high) Colossus of Ramses - it's crashed down and taken out half the southern columns on the way. Sadly it's a lot more damaged and worn now than when a.) David Roberts painted it or b.) it inspired Shelley's Ozymandias. The face and expression are no longer sharp, and it's well on the way to becoming a pseudo-pigeon like the Colossi of Memnon.
Inside from the Second Court, the Hypostyle Hall is still half-standing - again with good reliefs and colour. It's not nearly as impressive as the one at Karnak, but it's still pretty damn impressive. Off to one side is Ramses' mother's temple, now only foundations, and there are a succession of smaller rooms with columns leading towards the chapels at the back. We return to the front of the temple and clamber down to the First Court (each court/hall was built higher than its predecessor, with connecting ramps: the ramp here is long gone/blocked). This is the least well-preserved part of the complex: the First Pylon is fairly derelict (and seems to have houses built against it on the far side); Ramses' Palace, which looked onto the Court, is only foundations. In fact the sole remaining features of interest are a.) the good view into the rest of the complex and b.) the still-remaining, nicely-carved feet and toes from the Colossus. We leave after an hour or so, feeling that our first site here was pretty successful, and cross the tarmacced road into the jumbled old village of Qurna: it's all one-floor houses, deep pits in the ground, and walled descents to little underground doorways, most of which are locked and all of which are numbered. The first batch we come to, covered by one ticket, are the tombs of Userhet, Khonsu and Benia: young kids mob us as we approach, normally trying to flog crappy little dolls but often just asking for/demanding sweets, pens or money.
We start the three virtually adjacent tombs with Userhet: it's staggeringly impressive. Three rooms, covered wall-to-wall in painted scenes, and the level of preservation gets better and better towards the back. The painted relief-work is almost bright in places, and all behind large panels of glass and lit with striplights. We are seriously well-impressed - it's like a ten-fold better version of the Old Kingdom tombs we saw at Saqqara. In Khonsu's tomb there's a little crypt chapel at the back and there's a painted statue of him just sitting there, watching the visitors. Lastly (there's a lot of steps involved, and the guardian is getting badly out of breath), the tomb of Benia has a whole collection of little statues in niches, of him and his family. Here there are paintings of people offering stuff to him, rather than more traditional scenes of him offering stuff to the Pharaoh, so we was presumably more Noble than the others. Naturally, after our little circuit, the custodian asks bluntly for baksheesh: we kept shooing him away when he tried to show us around, so we equally bluntly don't give him any.
Next up is another trio of tombs, nearby, the first of which is that of Ramose: it had a few outer chambers, now open to the sky, and past the gate is the largest room we've seen yet. It's a hall of bundle columns (thirty-two of them), mostly concrete, with a skylight. There's relief work along the back wall, and a painted frieze running higher up around the left-hand wall - there's also a lot of unfinished work, which has just been outlined in black. Images include the usual, together with a good collection of the professional bare-breasted mourning women (I'd like some of them at my funeral, please), and some really interesting Akhenaten/Nefertiti scenes - Ramose was a local governor during both Akhenaten and his father Amenhotep III's reigns. There's a doorway, blocked with stones, into an inner hall (also with columns), and a tunnel leading down one side of the hall (presumably to a burial chamber underneath) - the custodian shouts at Milla when she sets off down it with a torch. We leave there without paying any baksheesh either.
Next up is another Userhet, in this case spelt Usarhet: an unfinished tomb for a royal scribe, it has one statue (a second is absent, presumably in Cairo) and a bunch of daily life-type scenes, including quite a good hunting one. The most noticeable thing about the tomb is that it's not lit: the custodian stands just inside the door with an aluminium foil-covered board and reflects light towards wherever he thinks you're looking - it's all a big Fifth Element (Light, Aziz!).
Last of this group is the tomb of Kha-em-het: it has a number of chambers with tons of really high-quality light relief-work and seven or eight statues dotted around in little niches. It's very stylish (he was another scribe) and, despite a blackened roof in places (presumably locals lived in the the tombs, as at Petra), becomes Milla's favourite. One surprising observation from the Tombs of the Nobles so far is that a number of them appear to be linked by little tunnels - I don't know if this was by design or accident, or by tomb-robbers, or archaeologists . . .
We break after this tomb for a shared coffee and beer at the little café ("Resthouse") beside the Ramesseum, owned by a descendant of one of Carter's original workers. It's about 14.00 when we head out again, and we decide to hit the furthest site on today's list - the Temple of Seti I, way to the north. Officially all the tombs and temples close at 17.00 - we've heard that in practice, especially the less-visited ones, are unattended from 16.30 or even 16.00. We shall see. The walk to Seti I's Temple turns out to be a long one, of course: about forty minutes from the Resthouse, out past the fringe of civilisation, and turning right at a police checkpoint (serious police with serious guns - there are a lot of them here, and in Luxor). Lonely Planet's map turns out to be deceptive, so there were a couple of occasions when we were quite convinced that we were lost and, in fact, weren't going to see anything else today at all. We eventually reach the temple (catching us a little by surprise), which is instantly obviously as good as Ramses II's (we were figuring it would probably be small and dull): it looks like we're not going to be able to use up all of today's tickets after all.
As at the Ramesseum, the Outer Court is pretty much foundations only, as is the palace that looked onto it (it had a "Window of Appearances", from which Seti I could show himself to his adoring public). The Second Pylon has some good reliefs, and the Hypostyle Hall inside is looking pretty good: the best parts, just as the temple is beginning to crumble away again at the back, are the decoration in the network of chapels at the very back. We don't feel we agree with some of the test on the explanatory panels, but the decoration's particularly good - as are a number of the richly-painted, still in situ ceiling panels. Unfinished when Seti I died (oh - it has a good position, since it's the first temple if you cross the Nile directly from Karnak), his temple was completed by Ramses II. This has resulted firstly in a lot of the decoration suddenly becomes quite crude and hasty (a rushed job, I suspect, since Ramses probably wanted to save money and may have wanted the workers to start on his temple) - instead of light relief work with the background carefully chipped away, the reliefs become sunken with raised sections only (sometimes) in the middle; and secondly in a number of big wall reliefs about Ramses II and what a generally great guy and dutiful son he was.
Avoiding the particularly persistent custodian, we exit the temple after the best part of an hour and head back south: our joint targets are Hatshepsut's Temple and a group of tombs (the "Assasif" tombs) covered by two tickets. We cut through one of the tiny, nearly contiguous Egyptian villages and back onto the road lined with papyrus and alabaster shops/"factories": at one of them there's actually a line of guys sitting under an awning chipping slowly away at largely shapeless lumps of rocks. These will presumably eventually turn into the little vases, Tutankhamuns, scarabs and so on which grace the souvenir stalls all through Egypt. First up here is the tomb of Anch-Hor, but finding it is problematic: we wander the sands flanking the approach to Hatshepsut's Temple for a while before flagging down the right man in the right hut (the guardians stay in high huts overlooking "their" tombs).
It's unusual, compared with the tombs we saw this morning, and seems faced with/built from mud bricks. A passage leads down to an enclosed but open courtyard (open to the sky, high above) covered in reliefs, some of which are unusual - a number of other passages/chambers lead off from there. Incompetently for us we get into a baksheesh situation with the custodian and end up giving him a couple of extra pounds - he also shows us the remains of a mummy in one corner, under a cardboard box, which is reasonably revolting. Other than the reliefs in the courtyard, there's not a lot worth commenting on.
The second Assasif tomb is that of Khem-Ef, again down lots of steps and again with a (much larger) open courtyard at the middle. It's easily the largest tomb we've seen today or, rather, complex of tombs since there's whole networks of rooms off the courtyard which seem to have been for other people - they're mostly undecorated: the effect feels more like a mastaba than anything else. The final chamber, high and long (we share it with a French couple) is filled with partially-painted reliefs in various states of repair: our torches are starting to give out, after a long and hard day, and the reflected light (another custodian with a foil-covered board) doesn't really compensate. The scenes are okay, but fairly standard stuff - there's a lot of "line-dancing" going on: one of the common relief themes is a line of gods or people (sometimes multiple copies of the same god), all in exactly the same pose, as if caught in the middle of some strange disco moves.
The sign from the road lists more than these two tombs, and we're sure that the big board at the ticket office also listed more than two tombs here - the custodians determinedly profess ignorance of any others, though. It's after 16.30 by now and, although we have two sets of unused tickets, I feel it's pointless trying to see them: Hatshepsut's Temple is too big to see in the time left, and the third Assasif tomb (Pabasa) . . . well, the guardians here are already getting pesky for baksheesh and obviously reckon it's time they went home. Milla disagrees (we've had an underlying argument running since Anch-Hor's tomb) and sets off to see Pabasa: she returns shortly after, not having seen the tomb, since the custodian started pressing for baksheesh before they even got there. Instead we head off, pretty much straight across the broken walls and excavation pits in the sand around Qurna, back to the Resthouse by the Ramasseum for a couple of beers while the sun sets over the Theban Hills. It's reasonably idyllic (except for a group of kids pestering us for gifts of pens, simple baksheesh, or to come and stay overnight in their "beit-house"), but gets quickly colder once the sun goes down.
We head off on foot, the 1km back to the ticket office and then the 3km down to the ferry (in the dark), which is still running: the fact that we had to buy return tickets is the only things that deters us from taking a faster private motor launch instead. We'd thought of visiting Luxor Museum this evening, or seeing Luxor Temple by night (Milla hasn't seen it), but we're so tired that we just go for something to eat. We return to the "Amoun" (sic) restaurant, largely because it's inhabited by four cute and almost identical kittens, each with a slight squint. There's a bit of hassle over Milla's salad (she's trying to get something which is marinated, but first ends up with just a plate of sliced cucumbers; then with "Egyptian Salad" which is chopped vegetables soaked in vinegar and crusted with salt; and finally a simple plate of chips), and then we trudge, limping, back to the hotel and empty half the Sahara out of our shoes before retiring early to bed.

A new notebook today - a soft-cover Egyptian one, which'll bend in my daybag, but hopefully won't fall apart: it has pretty thin pages which my pen may or may not seep through - I guess after the first page I'll know whether I can use both sides. Today, meanwhile, starts the same as yesterday: we're up bright and early, have breakfast, walk down to the ferry and catch one of the little pick-up buses on the other side (local price of 25pt this time) up to the ticket office. Today's our day, theoretically, to finish everything - in practice, neither of us actually believes that: there's still too much to do. We have a couple of tickets still left from Wednesday, and buy enough new ones to complete the 70% of the site which lies north of the ticket office. Essentially we have Hatshepsut's Temple and a bunch of Nobles' Tombs to see: after that, the time will determine what we can see on the south side and what we have to leave for a later day. At the ticket office, we also ask for the official position on the Assasif Tombs - the guy at the Student Ticket window hasn't a clue, but the guy at the regular window tells us that only two are open: damn - that means no Kiky and no Neferhetep after all . . .

Today's Friday and that, we discover, means that not only are there a lot more Egyptian visitors but there are also a lot more kids: it seems that most of the do go to school after all. This situation is compounded by the fact that the tombs we want to see today are in and around the village of Qurna, where the majority of kids seem to be living: we had (optimistically) observed a large number working in the fields on the way in - but it turns out to have been a minority. There are hundreds of children around the village pestering us for sweets and baksheesh and pens, offering to act as guides (or trying to force themselves on us as guides), trying to sell us their crappy little dolls. Since we're the only thing of interest in Qurna today, a number of them simply hang around and follow us - great.

We have seven tombs to see here, so we plan to do three or four en route to Hatshepsut's Temple, and the remainder on the way back. First up is the tomb of Sennofer, a prince: it's several rooms, mostly down a deep stepped slope underground. The second room is large enough to have several square-cut columns inside. It's also about the first tomb we've seen, of the Nobles', which is entirely protected behind glass/plastic panels. The painted ceilings are knobbly and wavy, and quite low: it's an excellent tomb and mostly comprises large pictures of Sennofer (with a dinky little short beard), his sister and his wife sitting around receiving offerings, worshipping gods, or getting high by sniffing lots of lotus flowers.
Covered by the same ticket is the nearby tomb of Rekhmire, a local governor: his tombs has a transverse chamber and then a long, long principal chamber rising at the back (with good echoes), cut deep into the hill. At the very back is a stela/false door, but his actual body was presumably entombed in a deep niche high up towards the back. There's all sorts of interesting scenes on the walls, like Rekhmire receiving tribute and gifts from far-off places: chariots, panthers and giraffes, vases and (apparently) children - gold and silver, incidentally, are normally portrayed as trays of large white and yellow rings - kinda like doughnuts.

Our second ticket of the day (in both cases the custodians accept our unused tickets from Wednesday, which is a relief) also covers two tombs, those of Nakht and Menna - these are both further back from the road, further up into the hills. We start with Nakht, who was some kind of astrologer: his tomb's really just one decorated chamber, with a small second room behind it (this second room has a deep pit in the floor: as with many of the tombs we've seen, it seems he was actually buried quite deep below the decorated rooms). There's a lot of famous stuff here, including the little statue of Nakht himself with the mystical poem to Ra/Amun inscribed on the front: there's a copy in the antechamber (which is now a little museum about the tomb), and a copy in the niche at the very back - the original was lost on a ship sunk during WWI. The little painted chamber also includes a lot of the familiar scenes from postcards, T-shirts and so on: the blind harpist; the three female musicians; the men harvesting grapes and making wine; and excellent family hunting scenes on boats - using boomerang to hunt birds and spears to hunt fish.
Menna, our last tomb of the morning, had a comparatively dull tomb - like Nakht's, it's all paint on plaster rather than relief work. He was an inspector of fields and many of the scenes depict his scribes wandering around farming landscapes making notes: two interesting scenes are of a woman feeling unwell and being comforted by a friend/co-worker, and of a man being beaten (he presumably cheated on his tax return or something) while another pleads for him to be spared.

It's taken us about 20 minutes to see each tomb, with a few minutes wandering between them, so it's about midday by the time we trek across the barren landscape behind the village across to Deir el-Bahri ("Northern Monastery") - the temple of Queen/Pharaoh Hatshepsut. We spot a little convoy of tourists on donkeys, in the middle distance, heading the same way (odd, since no-one here has tried to get us to take a donkey ride).

As well as being one of the largest and most obvious sites on the west bank (it's low and white, on a couple of levels, built against the cliffs and is fronted with lots of columns), the temple is also about the busiest. About 25%-35% of visitors today are Egyptians (it is Friday), 50% organised tour groups of 10-25 people each, and the rest is little clusters of presumably independent foreigners: these foreigners, as elsewhere in Egypt, are mostly French with large minorities of English- and German-speakers. It's a bit of a shock to see the crowds, and quite a frustration for Milla - she's been particularly looking forward to this temple. We start on the ground level, which is curiously deserted (the other visitors, seeing the big ramp in front of them, seem irresistibly drawn to immediately climb it). There's a colonnade on either side of the ramp, comprising one row of square-fronted columns backed by one row of round columns: the wall behind them is covered in reliefs. The entire construction appears to be mud-bricked, fronted in stone.

We check out both sets of reliefs - those on the left appear to depict the creation of monuments: interestingly, it looks as if they transported giant obelisks along the Nile on several parallel boats (ie. sideways), rather than on one super-long one. The reliefs on the right are of various gods, together with a nice scene of birds flying among the papyrus: there's a large sphinx figure on one wall, which has been chipped away. In this temple it's particularly difficult to tell who did what damage. Almost immediately after she died, Hatshepsut's successor Thutmosis III had most of her images defaced; Akhenaten then destroyed most of the references to Amun; and since then Christians and Muslims have done their share of damage as well.

We progress up the ramp to the broad second terrace, and join the masses of tourists milling about these: here, too, the ramp up to the next level is flanked with columns and reliefs on the walls behind. Those on the left are reasonably intact, depicting the expedition to Punt (Somalia) which was also saw a relief describing in the Egyptian Museum: there are scenes of boats, and the Red Sea (we recognise a number of the species of fish), and the myrrh trees, and loading/unloading spice - we look for images of the King of Punt's grotesque wife, but can't see any. One the right and (not surprisingly) much more damaged are scenes of Hatshepsut's divine birth and coronation. We can make out the usual crossed-legs sex scene, and Hatshepsut's pregnant mother, but there's nothing really recognisable after that point. There are also two chapels at the back of this terrace, one on either side: the right-hand one, to Anubis, is okay, but small. The left-hand chapel to Hathor (which Milla was especially looking forwards to) is more disappointing: it has interesting Hathor capitals on the columns, but is seriously mobbed by tourists. There's apparently an undamaged relief of Hatshepsut right at the back, but the last couple of chambers are closed to visitors and it's too dark to see much through the gate, even with our torches.

There's a colonnaded walkway across the top of the second ramp, with a number of the columns still fronted by statues, or bits of statues: behind that is the third terrace, lined with the remnants and stubs of columns - again the actual sanctuary, stretching back into the cliff, is closed to visitors and again it's too dark to see anything inside. The reliefs are pretty dull here, and many have been vandalised with red-painted crosses (the building was used as a monastery for a long time): our most interesting discovery here, as it happens, is a little group of three nouveaux riches Romanians going round at the same time - Milla exchanges words with them, but decides she doesn't like them much. And that's about it for Hatshepsut's Temple (oh - there was a relief of Opet, the hippopotamus god, whom we haven't seen around much), which was very disappointing considering the high hopes we had for it - still, at least we saw it without being gunned down (this was where 70-odd people were killed in '97). Possibly that was due to the large number of armed police patrolling the area, as they are throughout the west bank and Luxor itself.

We detour via the Ramses Resthouse again (this time we notice they do nice-looking but quite pricey food as well), before visiting the last three Nobles' Tombs, a group known as the Khokha tombs. These three are furthest up the hill towards the back of the village: they open onto a shared courtyard in a deep pit, at the bottom of a ramp. The first two are actually joined, and consist only of a single room each: Nefer-Sekheru (who had three wives - presumably the three women of whom there were statues in the tomb), and through a little passage Dhutmosi (who had two wives). Both tombs have paintings (no reliefs) in great colours, and excerpts from the Book of Gates - they presumably didn't have space for the whole thing, so selected only favourite passages and hoped these would be enough to get them through to the afterlife. Virtually next door is the 2-room tomb of Nefer-Ronpet, from the time of Ramses II: he seems to have been known by another name in later life, and is only called by that name in the second chamber (showing how long it took to prepare these tombs). The custodians here are particularly insistent with their demands for baksheesh, almost aggressive, but we still don't give them any (later generations will thank us).

And so that's it, after 13, for the Tombs of the Nobles: they're kinda like miniature versions of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, with just excerpts of the great afterlife texts and often just paint on plaster, rather than carved reliefs. The colours, after 3,500 years, are remarkable (even though, after so many, we were getting pretty blasé): the pictures throughout were mainly scenes of their work, or of them offering/being offered to, or just of everyday life. There were an awful lot of people sitting around sniffing Lotus flowers (I must try that), which seems to have been what they had instead of television. All in all, the Tombs of the Nobles get a solid 6/10 on the ruins scale.

There are three distinct areas left to see on the west bank - the Valley of the Queens (3 tombs open), the temple of Ramses III and the Workmen's Village (3 tombs open plus a temple): by now we probably only have time to see one (yes, the west bank will take four days to see). We opt for the temple of Ramses III, since it's probably the smallest and easiest to see, and is closest to the ticket office. As with the temple of Seti I, this one's right at the edge of the cultivable land and has modern (comparatively) houses around and adjacent to it. Scarily, on cursory inspection, it's huge - probably at least the size of Luxor Temple, and we only have an hour and a quarter before it closes.

There are two gates leading into the complex - one aligned with the main axis of the temple and one next to it aligned with the smaller Temple of Amun in the outer courtyard. The main gate is in layers, rather than just a gap in a huge pylon - it's covered with reliefs, and has a couple of battered but still stylish grey granite statues of Sekhmet: it's very high and impressive and takes us into the outer courtyard. From there we check out the other gate, which is much better preserved and has an intact and brightly-coloured ceiling way way above our heads: the walls flanking this gate are equally good. By the time we've come back inside the main complex, wandered the half-dozen rooms of the Temple of Amun (which looks as if it was dedicated to Amun-Ra and Amun-Min) and explored the "Tomb Chapels of the Divine Adorers" with our torches (it's also in the outer courtyard), it's obvious that we don't have enough time to see the whole thing.

We spend our last twenty minutes generally wandering and getting a feel for the place - there are two pylons, two peristyle courts, a hypostyle hall (the remains of the columns here are only a metre or so high) and a large number of chapels at the back. Most of the reliefs seem copied from the Ramesseum and, although Ramses III spent most of his reign at war, you get the feeling that the battles depicted here are ones in which he didn't actually participate. The first Pylon in particular, in addition to scenes of Ramses III with Ra-Harakhty and offering prisoners to the gods, has a lot of scenes which look surprisingly like the Battle of Kadesh. The workmanship throughout isn't great, but the sheer scale of the reliefs obscures this - individual hieroglyphs, carved very deep, are often 30cm tall: in fact, to get a good appreciation of the scenes represented, you have to stand as far back as possible. As with the other sites we're seen, there's a lot of neatly-carved 19th century graffiti on the walls (chipping neat letters in stone seems, surprisingly, to have been a skill they possessed): more unusually, here there's some Greek graffiti on the way in as well.

They chase us out of the temple at 17.00, and we take the bus and ferry back to Luxor: en route I notice that modern Egyptians are still using amphorae of water, held in little metal stands and with a lid and cup attached - this fascinates me, but Milla apparently spotted it ages ago. We nip into our favourite Amoun restaurant for a quick and easy meal (we did buy instant noodles on arriving in Luxor, but haven't had a single one - instead we're eating out all the time). The staff are so fast and efficient today that we tip them (by the amount of the student discount we normally get). After that we go for a late evening wander around palely floodlit Luxor Temple: Milla hasn't seen it by night before - unfortunately there's a couple of tour groups in, and the place totally lacks the atmosphere it had when I was in and it was deserted.

Milla's not feeling good, so we head back to the hotel and almost immediately have a surprisingly major argument sparked by the way I wash clothes: Milla later lapses into unconsciousness, and I remove her glasses before going to bed myself an hour or two later.

An odd day. Milla's still feeling very unwell, so I leave her sleeping: after four pretty active days, it's probably about time for a rest anyway. I write through the morning and, just about the time she gets up (11.00) have a little snooze myself: she meanwhile makes a couple of mugs of coffee, and discovers a fellow Romanian in the kitchen downstairs. I wake after an hour and a half, drink my cold coffee, write for another hour and a half, and then go downstairs and find them still talking. He's a strange kinda guy, travelling alone, skipping much of the stuff which we would consider essential, and he's labouring under the impression that most of the temples are still under construction (hence their partially-complete state, rather than as a result of the passing millennia).
Late afternoon and evening see me struck down with whatever mystery condition has been afflicting Milla - it hits rapidly and severely and I'm soon in bed, shivering, with aching bones, a headache and a temperature of 38.5. Bleh. Suspects are an infection, a virus (favourite), dehydration or heat exhaustion: at 22.00 we decide we have to eat something and go to a nearby restaurant. I only get halfway through the soup before I feel so bad, dizzy, nauseous and so on that I have to return to the hotel: Milla follows after ten minutes, with everything in a doggy bag. After some slow eating and pills, we both retire to bed again without setting the alarms.

We get up around 10.00, both still feeling pretty awful, and spend the next few hours slowly having breakfast and washing clothes. Our condition improves significantly a little after midday, mine more so than Milla's (after all, I got into Benylin Day and Night quicker than she did), and we do some writing and more washing of clothes - it's oppressively hot outside, but at least that means our clothes hung on the terrace are taking almost no time to dry. Being, effectively, in the middle of desert also means that liquid evaporates really quickly: if you have a shower and spill water all over the bathroom floor then you can just leave it for a few hours and it'll be bone-dry again.
The Luxor Museum is open in two sessions - until 13.00 and from 16.00 to 21.00: not having enough time to do anything major off our list for this area, we set off at 16.30 to have a look around. Outside there's a hot, dry wind blowing. We meander down to the bank of the Nile and walk along the pleasant Corniche, passing the Mummification Museum on the way (we'll see that some other day). Luxor Museum, further along towards Karnak, is pretty busy and pretty expensive (30EP for foreigners, 3EP for Egyptians): it's obviously a popular evening thing to do with tourists who've seen the temples on the west bank during the day.

Pride of place in the modern building goes to the "Cachette" statues, found in a little cache (obviously) beside Luxor Temple: 26 New Kingdom pieces (I'm sure they don't have that many on display) dating from 1400BC-1200BC, from grey and pink granite - they're mostly intact, and are among the best we've seen. Highlights were a great Amenhotep III with very oriental features, and Horemheb offering to Amun: not for the first time, we look at the half-Nubian features and the body shapes and conclude that the ancient Egyptians were definitely not Arabs (who seem to make up 50% of the population now). The rest of the ground floor is mostly statuary (from 2100BC onwards) as well, with clear highlights being a calcite double-statue of Amenhotep III with Sobek (Sobek, the Crocodile God, has lost a bit of his snout over the ages), and an excellent statue of Tuthmosis III.
Upstairs is a mix of stuff: items from Tutankhamun's tomb; a re-assembled relief from Akhenaten's (later destroyed) contribution to Karnak Temple (lots of building scenes, and scenes of him and his mother Tiy worshipping Aten - which is interesting); a couple of Akhenaten heads; an early relief of Hatshepsut, which originally showed her as a consort but was later modified to show her as an albeit-breasted pharaoh. There's also some later stuff: Roman and Coptic gravestones, Alexandrian and Greco-Roman coins, Islamic pottery, Coptic metalwork, etc. - nothing special. Overall, though, it's an excellent little museum - not that many items on display, but they're mostly really good.
Enforcement of the no-touching seemed erratic inside - we saw one attendant helpfully move a sign for a couple taking photos of each other leaning against the Sobek statue (!), and the same attendant shouting "No Touch!" at an older woman simply reaching out to it. Milla also observed a scene where an attendant confiscated a camera from an Egyptian girl (!) after warning her several times about using the flash: she and her friends became loud and aggressive and she ended up venting her fury on a nearby statue of Osiris. Lovely.

We have an evening meal at our usual Amoun Restaurant, shop briefly for a boat cruise to Aswan (they're all way too expensive, but we keep looking), put in a small amount of internet time, argue ferociously in late evening and end up going to bed at 01.40 or so. We're still optimistic that we'll get up early enough to do something tomorrow.