Aswan, relaxing and casting off

This is a police vehicle!!!

One of many

Take your life in your hands on the road and the river!

These pictures tell a cool story. You read the story from left to right or right to left depending on which way the pictures are facing



They even had graffiti in those days.

 Buffet dinner last night, was very good. Good company with the 3 Australians. Early night, amazing how tiring this relaxing thing is.

This morning it was pitch black in our cabin when the wake up call came at 7.30am. We had been awake for a while but thought it must be earlier. The curtains are very effective. Had a freshly made omelette for breakfast. Very good.

The five of us took off in the van. Hard to believe there are any drivers worse than Turkey but we have found some.First up was a visit to the high dam. This created the biggest man made lake on earth, Lake nassar. The high dam was built to replace the Aswan dam which was built in 1902. The area between the dams is protected and not even fishing or sailing is allowed. The high dam is beautiful and much more effective than the earlier model.

Then we got on a motor boat, took our lives in our hands, no life jackets and went to the Temple of Philae. This was moved 250m when the high dam was built. The island the temple was originally on is now submerged but you can see the steel support structures sticking up out of the water. The temple was very interesting, allowed to take photos inside and our guide was very knowledge able. I learned some interesting things about Egyptian Hyroglifics (spelling?). There were lots of motorboats all pushing for their space at the landing.

Then we went to see the unfinished obelisk. There is so much granite here, they use it for anything.

Then the perfume factory. When we arrived there was a boy of about 10 outside. he pushed something he wanted to sell at us and said, 10 Egypian pounds, welcome to Aswan:) We got a massage with sandalwood oil, great for my neck and bought perfume and oil to bring home.

The boat has cast off and we are on our way to Kom-Ombo where tomorrow we will visit the temple dedicated to the gods Sobek and Haroeris.It is dark now but it was lovely on the deck watching the sunset. Tomorrow we will sail to Edfu and visit the temple dedicated to Horus before sailing to Luxor for the night.

Dinner is not served here until 7.30pm so we are always hanging out for that.

High Dam

Love the Egyptian writing

On the boat the women on the staff are all cleaners and the men do all the important stuff, like direct contact with the tourists (guests). Most women on the street are wearing burkhas and even in the perfume factory the women in full burkas were only there to massage the women and the men did everything else. Security is everywhere, including tanks and machine guns. I have not been able to get good photos of this stuff as we are always going flat out in the van with heaps of other vehicles surrounding us, and I am trying to be a bit discrete in case I upset someone.Will keep trying.