We ended out stay in Cairo by getting on a night train destined for Luxor. I tried to keep notes while the train swhooshed through the darkness, but it became too shaky to write so I just sat and watched how Kemet fleeted past our window. The water from some canal alongside the tracks gleamed now and then, lit up by the roadlights on the other side. Sometimes a palm tree reflects itself in the water, giving a reminder of what landscape we´re travelling through. Night traffic seemed fairly sparse, even though lights from houses and villages reveal the countryside to be rather closely peopled here while we´re still not too far off from Cairo.

Going by night train in Egypt is as comfortable as can be expected. Not too much space, but you make do. Everything you need is there, it´s clean, reasonably comfortable, you are being served food but well.... there my recommendations stops ;) Exhausted by impressions and sight-seeing in the Cairo area, and with the help of those blessed earplugs I sleep soundly until wakeup call early next morning. Getting off the train means a hurried shuffle with baggage after a too hasty breakfast. At the station our bags are eagerly gripped by helpful porters, each expecting their (in my opinion shamefully low) little 'baksheesh'. Helpful hands get us all into minibuses and soon we board our home for the next seven nights to come; the 'Melodie':

Melodie, a very comfortable little ship with a relaxed and friendly athmosphere.

Luxor is quite warm already at 7.30 in the morning and we get a reminder that we are over ten hours train ride south of Cairo, where the temperature had called for sweaters the night before.

Karnak - another unfathomable place. It is far too big to cover in one visit so we decided on going back later. Unfortunately time wasn´t enough for that, so there´s one more thing I have to go back to Egypt for. There are also areas tourists aren´t allowed into. I regret that vey much. This visit together with the group wasn´t too bad though. We stayed for quite a while and we frequently drifted off from the others into the veritable forest of mighty columns in the Hypostyle Hall. I worked my camera into collapse due to heat and possible drifting grains of fine sand, for once I spotted the still colored cartouches up under the ceiling, there was just no stopping me. I should have closed the lid in between every shot but there was just no way of any in-between shots at all in that place!

These columns with all their lovely hieroglyphs, they´re often badly damaged, especially at the bottom and as far up as humans can easily reach! Walking among them you can get the impression of being in a mysterious forest full of light and shadow, of 'chiaroscuro', where things happen quickly and fleetingly; one moment a Divine figure is glimpsed far beyond the columns, only to disappear with your next step, next moment a row of ankh and djed signs march past in uniform simplicity. When you bend your head backwards to look at the ceiling, everywhere you see the cartouches of past kings, most of them still with the original color, and between them the light from the blue, blue sky pours down.

We are ushered away from tempting reliefs towards the two remaining obelisks erected by Hatshepsut and Thutmose I. The throng of people is unbelievable, often you can´t see a thing for some group is in the way. The guides have to yell at top of their voices to make themselves heard and sometimes the cacaphony of sound simply leaves you with no choice than to go away without having seen what you came for. I wonder how come they can´t organize this a bit better for there are areas with much less people so it should be possible to lay out a functioning route. Well, that´s just me, a Swede, brought up within a well organized society with a penchant for peace and order...

The Festival Hall (or Memorial temple, as some call it) of Thutmose III also gets a quick stop before the guide decides we have had enough and takes us to the Sacred Lake there to give us half an hour free time. Had enough??? Us three friends linger while the rest of the tour members quickly scatter and disappear. We trace our steps back through the 6th to the 3rd pylons, take another look at the Hypostyle Hall and then we aim for the little Temple of Ptah located northeast of the main temple of Amun, and close to the surrounding ancient wall.

It´s a small temple, yes, but pretty well preserved. There is a rectangular courtyard with lovely reliefs and three shrines, one each for the Triad of Memphis: Ptah, Sekhmet and Nefertem. The left shrine room is empty long since. The middle one still has the statue of Ptah but is sadly headless. What has happened? Was the statue upended by early Christians, or did somebody simply steal the head to add it to some private collection? We will never know. The rightmost shrine however still houses the statue of Sekhmet, magnificent and lovely!

It´s getting near departure time for our Nile cruiser so we have to leave the rest of Karnak for next time.

View from the boat across the Nile towards the West Bank.
Despite the hazy day, those mountains are where the Valley of the Kings, Deir el Bahari, Deir el Medina and many other sites are located.
We are coming back!