Luxor and Karnak were cool.  I think the Temple at Karnak would have been way more awe-inspiring but for the following:

a) completely built around, so it’s down a side street

b) unbelievable crowds, all with guides shouting in various languages

c) screaming kids (why would you take them there?!)

d) a small child with an electronic game that played tinny music constantly

e) not enough time to stand and appreciate

f) lots of people talking very loudly who had absoloutely no respect for the fact that it was supposed to be a house of worship. Granted, a ruined house of worship of a now-defunct religion, but still, please?

Valley of the Kings was good, except for:
a) too many stairs!
b) guards screaming at us about not taking photos, grabbing you wherever and whenever they felt like it
c) standing with my dad and hearing him being told that his wife isn’t allowed to take pictures either.

Dad is astonished at how annoyed that made me, being mistaken for his wife. I find it offensive. Am I wrong?! I think it’s a bleeding cheek to make an assumption like that.

Didn’t go down into Tut’s tomb but dad did and said that, although the colours were amazing, and looked like the paint was still wet, we missed very little. There were only a few inches of paintings. He felt a little swindled at having paid so much just for that one tomb (which cost more than the other three put together), but as it was all included in our tour price, it wasn’t that big a deal.

The next day, in Safaga, a shopkeeper asked my dad how many camels he wanted for me! Egypt is great! I’ve now been propositioned four times! (Oh, no, hang on, three times, the other one was in Oman)

Petra was amazing. I walked down into the Siq but the uneven surface made me dizzy so i had to sit down for half an hour at the Treasury to stop the world spinning. Wandered a bit, not very far. Some people went miles, but I saw what I came to see. (The Siq is the gorge leading to the city and the first building you see is the Treasury. They were used in Indiana Jones and I’ve wanted to see them ever since I first saw the film.) Dad wished he had come when he was ten years younger, so that he could have done and seen more.

Yesterday was Sharm el Sheikh and I went to St Catherine’s Monastery. Saw the Burning Bush and the well where Moses supposedly met Zipporah (i think that was his wife’s name, anyway) and the Church was beautiful.

Interestingly, we had Aaron’s tomb pointed out to us twice: once in Jordan and once in Egypt… hmmmmmmmmmm…