This is part of the Karnak Temple located on the East Bank of the Nile in Luxor. The statues you see to the left are sphinx with rams heads. They were built by Ramses III, who is considered to be the greatest builder in all of Egypts history. He had these built along a concourse that was 3 km long leading from the Karnak temple to the Luxor temple. Most of them are now gone, but the ones that have been found have been restored as best as possible.

On the left you can see a statue of Ramses. The figure at the base of the statue between his feet is of his daughter. On the right, you can see Vern, Brie, and Garrett as they walk down the lane to the temple. Oh yea, the young man in front of the Ramses statue with the white shirt on is our tour guide, Mahommed. A very nice young man, with a good sense of humor and history.

The left and right pics are of the view as you walk through the first part of the temple looking towards the back. You must walk a long way. Also, I can not tell you everything that was told to me when we visited these temples. We visited a lot of them and there is no such thing as a short story in Egypt. Just take my word that no one man or woman built these temples. Everytime a new Pharoah took over they would add to the temples so that their names would be remembered. Also, they would try to destroy the names of previous Pharoahs so that they would not be remembered. Sounds like a soap opera existence to me, but just proves that they were humans instead of gods, as they wanted to be percieved.

The pic on the left shows the obelisk located in this temple. They were built by Queen Heptuset (or that is the best i can do on spelling what i heard). One was finished and said that she was the divine offspring of a god and her mother. The other was unfinished. The columns in the right side pic were built by Ramses and there were over 100 of them. all of them were decorated and each had his name in a cartouch (again, what the word sounded like, not necessarily correct spelling....lol).

The top right pic is of some extra statues that were found in a hidden underground chamber. There were a lot more of them, but they have been loaned out to different countries to put in musuems. In the left pic is an unfinished scarab. The scarab is considered good luck and can be found in a lot of different areas. Also, there is legend about this one that says if you walk around it so many times you will get your desires: 4 riches, 7 fertility, so forth. Little to say, as soon as i heard the words fertility, i headed for the cafe......lol.

These are pics taken at the Sheraton Luxor hotel. We got off the plane from Kuwait at 4:30 am and believe me the hotel was a welcome sight. The pics show the shopping area attached to the hotel, the one of the swimming pools, and the view that you have when you are sitting in the main restraunt. Also you will see myself, Brie, and Bryce next to a small feluca boat that they use to take you on small rides on the Nile river. And yes, that is the Nile that you see in the pics. You can also see Vern in the shopping pic and you know how hard it is to get a pic of him, but I did manage to get a few while we were on this trip. Also, there is a picture of the woman that cooks the bread for the restraunt. She is actually cooking it in a brick oven out near the pool. To tell you the truth, that is some of the best bread I have ever eaten, it is even better if you throw in some hommus.

Starting at the top left, you can see one of the buildings that I find most interesting. Maybe because it calls to mind what we expect to see in this area, but it is one of my favorite buildings. Moving to the right, you will see one of the larger villas that are located in the area, it is white with blue tinted windows. The rest of these photos are of the villas being built in our area. Villas are very interesting to me. First, they are usually three to four stories high, but can go as high as five stories, according to whether or not they have a basement. Second, some villas are single family structures and others have been divided into sublets. Third, villas can have as many as 15 bedrooms, two or more kitchens, and at least as many bathrooms as bedrooms. Usually, there is at least two extra bathrooms to accomodate visitors. Also, the basement is generally used for things such as swimming pools or game rooms. There are not really any yards as we think of them back in the states. Here the value of the property is higher if the building covers most of the property. Also there is almost always a smaller building outside of the main villa or even sometimes on the roof, that is used for dawaniya. Dawaniya is a gathering of people or friends that sit around and talk. They have coffee, tea, or maybe even smoke a waterpipe, or sheesha pipe as they are called here. The main thing is that these are very large structures with tall ceilings, 8 to 10 feet tall, they include huge open areas in the middle of each floor for the gathering of family. There are two pics here that show the buildings surrounded by scaffolding. Please take as close a look as you can at these pics. The scaffolding is made out of pieces of wood hammered and tied with rope. They are not the large metal type that we are accustomed to. And they will build these things all the way up the side of the tallest building and work off of them. I have seen them in Kuwait City as tall as twenty stories. I just don't think you would get me to stand on anything like that.

Okay, first apologies for it taking so long for me to upload new photos. These pics are of the shopping area in Fahaheel. This is where most of the shopping is done if you live on the southern end of the coast. There is a pic of some of the gold shops and if you look close you can see two of the ladies dressed in abayas. Abayas are the outfits that cover them from head to toe and also, but not always include a covering over the face. The rest show the main drags leading into the shopping area and the two new malls.