Luxor

Took a night bus from Cairo to Luxor. It was probably the most comfortable night bus we've taken on this trip and was a very smooth journey - we even arrived in Luxor half an hour early! We took a boat from the East Bank to our apartment on the West Bank and had a slow day of napping, swimming and eating to recover from our hectic few days.

The next day, we visited Karnak Temple (the 2nd largest temple complex in the world after Angkor Wat) and Luxor Temple on the East Bank. While both the temples, statues of pharaohs and hieroglyphics were very cool to see, we had more of an adventure getting to/from the temples. As we are staying on the West Bank, we have to walk to take the public ferry across the Nile. On the 10 minute walk to the ferry, we were hounded by relentless boat drivers - one even kept touching Cass's arm until she had to yell at him to stop. We were then hounded by taxi drivers when we arrived on the East Bank, where two drivers almost got into a fist fight over our business so we quickly jumped into a horse carriage passing by. The horse owner said it would cost 30EGP to get to one temple, and 60EGP return. We thought it was a good deal, so we paid him 50EGP for the first half (we didn't have change) and he waited for us outside Karnak temple and took us to the 2nd temple. It turns out that he wanted 90EGP total, not 60EGP. He also conveniently forgot that we already paid 50EGP and wanted an additional 60EGP on top of that, plus a 10EGP "tip" for his horse. It's not a lot of money, but we were annoyed that he was being dishonest so we argued with him until we just gave him 40EGP and walked off. We had heard about people being relentless and likely to scam you in Egypt, so we weren't too surprised that this happened, but still annoying that it's everywhere and you have to constantly be on your guard.Read more