Luxor Temple

In the south of Egypt, there are many ancient temples and loyal tombs, especially in Luxor. It's worthy to spend a few days here to go through the earliest parts of Egypt's history and heritages.

Luxor Temple is on the east bank of the Nile, which is not far from the hotel where we stayed. We spent one evening visiting this great temple, which was built by King Amenhotep III in the 14th century BC. It was quite beautiful when the lights came out to illuminate the temple complex.

The Southern Egypt

These photos were taken during the road trips between Aswan and Luxor. The views of the beautiful countryside and the simple life of the folks in the south of Egypt fascinated me.

Abu Simbel

There are two temples in Abu Simple, which were originally built by Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 13th century BC. The temples were relocated in the current location on the western bank of Lake Nasser to avoid the flooding from the lake.

Most travelers to Aswan would visit Abu Simple, one of the top tourist attractions in Egypt. We met a backpacker later and realized that it's possible to go there by a local small bus, but it would take a whole day since there are very few buses to go back to Aswan. It's easier to go there through the tours arrange by hotels. We were picked up at the hotel at 3:30 am. After we got there at 7 am, we spent two hours to tour around the temples to see the massive rock statues and the reliefs inside the temples.

Aswan-Nubian Villages

Aswan is in the south of Egypt, and the weather there was hot, hot, hot... When we were there the first day in July, we stayed in the hotel and didn't go outside until the evening because of the unbearable heat. We didn't know the sun was going down there earlier than in Cairo. When we took a felucca to Nubian Villages in Elephantine Island, it was getting dark.

We were not able to spend a lot of time to see the villages, so the felucca owner guided us through the narrow streets to have a quick view of the colorful houses and country-style landscape. We revisited the villages in the next day by taking a ferry to go through the clean and beautiful Nile River.

Egypt Black & White Desert

In order to visit the Black & White Desert areas, We came to Bahariya Oasis and looked for a safari tour. Because of very few tourists this summer, we, two, had to pay more to get a car for this tour. Therefore we embarked the journey on a Land Cruiser with a driver and a cook.

Our driver and cook, young and energetic, liked to listen to Arabic songs in a loud and high volume in the car. On the way to the desert, they shopped the vegetables and fruit and then picked two watermelons from a friend's farm. The melons were a fantastic treat in the heat. We went through the Black Desert area, Crystal Mountain and then entered the White Desert National Park. When it's getting dark, we camped at the New White Desert area, where they set up a fire to cook a Bedouin dinner, potato stew and grilled chicken. Our cook is also a talented musician. He drummed a big water container and sang several local tunes.

In the next day's morning, I got up early to see the sunrise. Soon after the breakfast, we visited a couple of spots on the way back to Bahariya for catching a bus to Cairo. Overall, it was a lovely trip to see black stones over numerous mountains, white and cream chalk rock formations and a small white fox which came twice for the food that we left for him.

Siwa-Sand Sea

Siwa Oasis is in Egypt's Western Desert, where we joined a desert safari tour to see the beautiful sand dunes and the sunset. The driver of the four-wheel vehicle brought us (two plus a Korean girl) to this vast sand sea. We did downhhill sandbording and then went to see the cold and hot springs.

Our driver, a nice guy, cooked Siwa tea for us when we took a break at the azure-colored cold spring spot. We had a wonderful time until I was hit by this crazy driver's car. When I was away from the group to take photos of the sand dunes. He drove the other two and disappeared. Then his car appeared again, approached me and hit me directly. We had to rush back to the hotel to put ice for stopping some internal bleeding which caused the big swollen on my leg, hand and lip. I was shocked by what happened and still couldn't figure out why he did this to me. A joke? After this incident, I continued the journey in Egypt with my injuries.

Siwa Oasis-Salt Lakes

There are several salt water lakes in this oasis. We visited two of them, including the biggest one, Birket Siwa. We was told that from Fatnas Island we could have the best view of the sunset at the lake. However a boy who gave us the donkey ride dropped us at the spot where we had to walk through water drained but muddy field to reach the lake. There was no other except us being there. Because we didn't know how to get back to the village, we hurried to leave and couldn't enjoy the beautiful sunset fully.