Jazīrat Muţayrah

We woke up at 4:30am this morning ready to be picked up by a bus at 5:15am as we are going on a Hot Air Ballon ride over the Valley of Kings, Valley of Queens & Valley of the Nobles.

We got taken to the bank of the Nile where we boarded a small boat to go to the West side of the Nile. Once on the West side we got transported by bus to the clearing, where many Hot Air Balloons were getting ready to take off or already taking off!

We lifted off and to Katie’s delight she found the ride to be a lot smoother than what she thought it would be! We went directly over the Valley of Kings then turning to go over the Valley of Nobles, then got a great view of the Valley of the Queens. Our pilot gave running commentary of what we were seeing while he was navigating the Balloon.

We went in for landing and were not coming in correctly so they threw a rope out to drag us to the correct area. This was a very comical thing watching 6 guys get yelled at by the pilot to pull us to the right direction in the farmers paddock.

We offloaded eventually & after giving a ‘voluntary’ tip for the ground crew… which was a box getting shaken in front of you until you pay to be let out! Mohamed had a bus awaiting us to take us to see the Valley of the Kings, as part of our tour we got an entrance ticket to see three tombs. Majority of us paid for extra tickets to see Rameses 5&6 tomb & Tutankhamen Tomb.
Once through the entry gate, we got a golf cart up to the tombs, Mohamed showed us the three best tombs to enter that we could see included in our entry ticket.

Katie and I started in RameseV & VI tomb which is one of the most intact tombs. Seeing it was an extra ticket it’s was quiet & colder than the other tombs.
The second tomb we chose was Tutankhamen’s tomb which again was an extra ticket purchase. His Mummy is still in the tomb but all his collection is in the Egypt museum in Cairo. It’s amazing to see all the Jewels they fitted into these tombs as it is one of the smallest tombs in Valley of the Kings. Tutankhamen’s tomb took longer to find as they found Rameses V & VI tomb and didn’t know that Tutankhamen’s tomb was directly underneath the entrance way to Rameses V & VI Tomb.
Our third tomb and the first included in our ticket was the tomb of Ramese I, this was a hastily burial tomb and only had painted walls not scripture walls. The walls are preserved magnificently, but seeing it is a deep tomb, and with the amount of people there, it was very hot and humid.
Our fourth tomb we visited was Ramese IX, this amazing carvings with bright paint on the walls and you head down to where they found the mummy coffin. It was humid & people were trying to cut the line leading down to the bottom, which was fun to watch the reactions of some!
Last tomb we visited was Ramese IV which consisted of a corridor down to the mummy coffin with painted & scriptures walls.

We left the Valley of the Kings to head to an Alabaster factory, this where we got a demonstration how they make vases and souvenirs out of Alabaster stone.

After the Alabaster factory we had lunch organised in a locals house. It was a delicious meal with chicken, moussaka, potatoes and local breads.

We had the afternoon free to freshen up for the overnight sleeper train. We ended up at the pool with others from the trip having a few beers and cocktails. We freshened up and repacked ready for the train afterwards
and having one more beer and cocktail on the roof before our departure.

At the train station, we had ordered from Mohamed a dinner encase the train was late. Amazingly the train was right on time so we got on, settled in & got the train dinner that we shared one just picking at bits of it.

This train seemed older than the last and everything rattled so we knew we’d be in for an interesting sleep.Read more