Skip to main content

Spring in Egypt Part 10 - Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut Temple

Early in the morning on the 6th day of the tour we checked out of our rooms on the cruise went on a bus ride to pick-up the early risers who signed up for a hot air balloon ride. By the time we got there the balloon ride was done, so they joined us on the bus and we drove to our next destination, The Valley of the Kings.







The Valley of the Kings is a burial site for many kings and nobles from the New Kingdom. Our entrance tickets gave us entry to any three tombs with some exception. The famous King Tut's tomb is located in this valley and to enter it you will need to pay a separate ticket.

The outside of the valley really didn't look like much. It was hot and dusty. We went into three different tombs as recommended by Michael and loved each of them. The paintings and reliefs were very clear and colourful, and the fact that they were thousands of years old is just mind-boggling. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the tombs without a camera ticket.














Dusty!
After entering 3 tombs of our choice at the Valley of the Kings, we continued our journey to Hatshepsut Temple. I personally don't find this temple too exciting, they've only restored a small portion of the temple and the process was still ongoing. However, the history of Hatshepsut herself is very interesting. According to Michael, she was the one and only known Egyptian female ruler. Even though other female royalties were well known, they were 'wives of pharaohs' instead of being pharaohs themselves. Later on there was Cleopatra but she was not Egyptian.

That being said, Wikipedia stated that there were other confirmed female rulers...





























Now do you remember that I mentioned that in Luxor I had changed my camera ISO to 4000? Well I had forgotten to change it back to normal and a bunch of my pictures taken with the Olympus were overexposed. The very same thing happened in Shanghai after new year's eve pictures. Worse than a donkey, I didn't learn from my mistake. Shame on me!

So now lets just call them artistic photos....





There were still some paintings visible at this temple...













A game of "which one's our bus?"



From Hatshepsut temple, our bus dropped us off for a short walk to a hotel/restaurant for lunch. We each paid 150 EGP for freshly made food. It was delicious! I have to admit that I love Egyptian food and I was worried for nothing. I had prepared a bunch of granola bars for just-in-case and I barely touched them throughout the trip. I had multiple servings at almost every meal I was worried I would double my weight by the time we had to go home!






After lunch we walked to the dock area and boarded a boat to cross the river... I tried going up the boat front but got scolded so I went back to sit like a good girl. Lol...






Our bus was already waiting in the parking area where the boat dropped us off. We got on the bus and continued our journey. Next: the Karnak Temple.






Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Nintendo Switch Sleeve Tutorial

Hi! I'm Kirana from woofkiki.blogspot.co.id . I am going to write an introduction for this blog post. We bought a Nintendo Switch in Japan.  I really liked it and played with it almost everyday. If you're wondering what a Nintendo Switch is, it is a video game where you can basically  "switch" everything. The joy-cons and even the game! You can also connect it to your TV. It would be nice to bring it around with you, but when you put it in your bag... Oh no! The screen scratched! So, this is a sleeve that will fix that. Let's get started!😊 Kirana Now the tutorial (by Kirana's mom)... 1. Make your pattern according to the picture below. It is basically a 6"x24" rectangle with a semi circle at one end. Note: this is not a printable pattern 1. Cut your outer fabric, lining, and batting(optional). In this tutorial, I used minky for lining and a pre-quilted fabric for the cover, so I didn't need extra batting. For batting, I recomm...

Motykas in Asia 2016 Part 7 - West Java

One day after we arrived in Jakarta from Phuket, we went on a road trip to Bandung, West Java. We were on a roll! Hahaha. Our first destination was the White Crater, a beautiful place located in Ciwidey, outside Bandung.  We left our home at around 7 am and arrived at the crater at almost noon. It was a loooong drive. Nonetheless, the view was breathtaking. It was a bit chilly up there, even the Winnipegers pulled out their jackets. :D The crater was pale green with strong sulphur smell, they recommend a maximum of 15 minutes at the bottom. Around the crater were serene looking tree barks with little or no leaves. During a certain time of the day, there would usually be fog coming down over the crater but we didn't get to see it. We spent about an hour at the crater and we moved on to the Rancabali Tea Plantation about 3 km away for some pictures. Miss Kiki was so...

Spring in Egypt Part 9 - Luxor Temple

At the time when we arrived at Luxor temple it was already after dusk and it became a little difficult to take photos. I compensated by setting my camera ISO to 4000 to make tripod-less picture-taking possible even though the grains became more visible. Just like the previous nights, the moon still looked round to me. I wasn't sure which one of those moons was the actual full moon. We walked around the temple first with Michael for explanations about the temple. In the distance we were able to hear the adzan calling the people for prayer. Situated in the east bank, the construction of the temple was started by Amenhotep III, continued and finished by the famous King Tut and Horemheb, and then added on to by Rameses II and finally by Alexander the Great. Unlike the other temples we had previously visited, this temple is not dedicated to a single cult/god. Instead, it is used as a place to rejuvenate kingship. May of the kings were said to have been coronated at this temple. ...