I am a huge Poirot fan and have seen Death on the Nile, both the Peter Ustinov film and the David Suchet television programme many times. As I was going to be spending 10 days cruising on the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea, I didn’t want to be spending more time in a boat on the Nile, but I was going to see some of the sights featured in the screen adaptations.
I spent all of my third day in Egypt, not on a boat, but on the train. The journey should have been 10 hours, it ended up being almost 12 hours. I got to Giza Station in good time and was waiting about an hour for the train. I spoke to the Station Master who pointed out where I needed to wait and I sat down. I had someone else who worked for the railway service try to move me, but I refused and stayed where I was. A little girl with grubby hands was trying to sell me tissues but I didn’t have any change. She hung around for ages and kept showing off her counting skills, which weren’t very good, she managed 1, 2, 3, but it all went a bit wrong after that, she kept saying 1, 2, 3, 7, 6. She became fascinated with the combination lock on my suitcase and I just let her push the numbers around until she got fed up and moved away.
I had a window seat on the train and it was a single seat so I didn’t have anyone sitting next to me. There were a bunch of noisy Germans in the carriage and quite a few locals. Me and the Germans travelled all the way to Luxor. Most of the Egyptians got off in Asyut. The journey and the scenery was less interesting than I expected, a lot of the time you couldn’t see the River Nile and we also passed through a few very built up cities. I kept intermittently falling asleep. When we finally rolled into Luxor we were about an hour and a half late because we’d kept stopping for no apparent reason along the way which put us further and further behind.
The journeys by train are long, but they’re a good way to travel in Egypt. I didn’t have to battle through airports and had a basically relaxing day looking out of the window and dozing as the train rolled through the Egyptian countryside, desert, Nile Valley and cities. I used several trains during my week in Egypt and while they weren’t without minor issues, they were generally a good choice of transportation.
As I got off the train a bloke asked me if I needed a taxi and I bargained hard with him. Someone grabbed my suitcase, even though I told him not to and then another porter started fighting with him over who would carry my case. The interloper won and wasn’t happy when I only gave him £5 in Egyptian currency for carrying it. I shouted at him that I told him I didn’t need anyone to carry it for me. I’m never sure how much I’m understood when I shout at these pests, but they must know from my tone that I’m angry. They generally don’t expect you to shout and make a scene, I was learning that was the best approach. As a woman travelling on your own you need to stand up for yourself.
I was delivered to the Hilton Hotel by the taxi driver who I paid the agreed price to. Then I tried to sort out my day the next day.
After seeing the Temple of Hathor at Dendera in Death on the Nile with David Suchet and reading about how colourful and beautiful it was, I had decided this was something that I did want to see while in Luxor and included it in my itinerary.
One of the hotel staff got the local tour organiser on the phone who wanted ridiculous money from me to provide me with a guide for the afternoon, so I declined. To get to Dendera I would need to take the train to Qena and then a taxi to Dendera.
As evidenced by my travel to Luxor that day, trains in Egypt don’t run on time, the timetables are more of a suggestion than anything resembling reality. The journey back especially would have been a case of turning up at the station and then just waiting for a train to arrive with no idea if I’d have to wait for 5 minutes or 5 hours. I didn’t fancy waiting at the station for hours on end, so I took the advice of the concierge and booked a taxi to take me to Dendera in the morning, it was going to cost me about £40 in English money and I decided that it would be worth the money for an air conditioned car that would take me all the way to the temple complex without me having to wait for trains and search for taxis at the station.
Next morning I had a very nice breakfast in the restaurant and then went to get in my air conditioned car to Dendera. The Egyptian idea of air conditioning simply means that both front windows wind down! If this car had ever had air conditioning it had broken long ago. First off the driver had to get a permit to go to Dendera as there are police checks all the way along the road. We were stopped several times to check paperwork, but it wasn’t as extreme as at the Hilton where they take security very seriously and have a mirror so they can look under every car before they let it into the complex! I didn’t mind the police checks, I appreciated that it meant they were doing everything they could to keep us safe.
It took about an hour and forty five minutes to get to Dendera and there were a couple of buses in the car park, but it was by no means heaving with people. The Dendera Temple complex featuring the Temple of Hathor. The first hall you walk into is the most impressive with coloured columns with the head of Queen Hathor at the top of all of them and a coloured ceiling which represented the night sky and the zodiac.
The next room had a blackened ceiling and many of the room decorations were either very faded or had lost their colour totally. I didn’t have a guide with me, so I didn’t get the significance of everything, but I’d read my guidebook and was quite happy to wander round just taking things in on my own. I had a selfie stick which turned into a tripod which you aren’t strictly supposed to use without buying a photography ticket, but the guards didn’t seem to be bothered and there weren’t enough people around to warrant it being any bother to anyone else.
I went onto the roof, but to go right to the top you needed an extra ticket which I didn’t have. I could have given some money to the guard, but I didn’t want to encourage him even though I ended up looking in a room that was being renovated and giving a tip anyway. Preservation means little to the guards in Egypt, they will let anyone in to look if they can make some cash. Having said that, this was a wonderful painted carving of the goddess bowing down to kiss what appeared to be the sun. However, after that I refused any more offers and for the rest of my time at Dendera I was left alone to wander and set up my tripod and take photos at will. All the tour groups had left by now so the temple was pretty empty.
I chatted to a Japanese girl travelling on her own in Egypt for a month and she didn’t have a guide either. There was a small building that was the Temple of Isis in the complex and then I walked all the way round the outside of the Temple of Hathor as the exterior stone was beautifully carved. Then I went back to my car.
I really enjoyed my trip to the Dendera Temple and going somewhere that was quieter was definitely very nice.
On the way back the driver was badgering me to let him take me to Aswan even though I told him that I had a train ticket. I’d miss Edfu he told me. I only had so much time and I had a plan, I wanted an afternoon in Aswan.
He then wanted to take me around the Karnak and Luxor temples that afternoon. I told him no, I was going to have a rest and decide what I wanted to do. This was becoming a real nuisance.
I relaxed in my room for a short time and then decided that I would walk to the Karnak Temple. As I’ve often discovered when visiting touristy destinations, no one ever walks anywhere. They have cars or guides or taxis to go everywhere. So me walking down the street from the Hilton hotel to the Karnak Temple was a real novelty.
As I turned off the hotel drive onto the street, the taxi driver was lying in wait for me. I told him that I didn’t want a taxi I was going to walk. Even though the Hilton is a flash hotel, the street I was walking down now was anything but flash. It looked relatively poor in the eyes of this Yorkshire lass.
All the buildings appear to be inhabited, which I concluded by seeing all the washing hung out on the balconies, but a lot look like they’re either being built or falling down. I think they give this impression because a lot of them don’t have glass in the windows. They’re open air windows like they used to have in medieval castles. Maybe glass isn’t practical in the heat, although I would strongly object to staying in a hotel in Egypt with no proper windows.
As I walked down the street I was a source of fascination to the local inhabitants, I was polite and said hello, especially to the children and then I came across a group of schoolgirls waiting for a bus, who I would imagine were around 14 or 15 years old. When I smiled and said hello they were very excited and asked me if they could do a selfie with me. About 4 of them pulled out mobile phones so they could have a selfie with this weird English woman in a red jumpsuit and an Australian hat walking down the street instead of riding round in a taxi.
I got to the main road and started walking to the entrance to the Karnak Temple. It was quite a long way round to the entrance and a man with a horse and carriage started pestering me to ride in his carriage. I told him no and finally told him horses made me sick which he understood and then he left me alone. I had completely run out of patience when I came out of the temple later that afternoon and another man with a horse and carriage just got screamed at with a “get that horse away from me”! I think everyone within earshot was a bit shocked by my complete overreaction and no one came near me after that! I was told that the horse and carriage drivers are the worst scammers. They give you a ridiculously cheap price to get you into their carriage and then drive you to an out of the way back street so you have to pay them all the cash you have on you to get back to somewhere you recognise.
I wanted to buy a Luxor Pass as I was going to be in Luxor again before my cruise and it was the most economical way to see things. It cost $200 USD and I had my passport with me for inspection and my photograph. The man who was doing my ticket said he needed a copy of my passport and asked me for money. I pretended not to understand determined that I was not going to give him any more money. I got my passport and my pass and then when he demanded money again I told him no and walked off. He didn’t follow me.
When I got to the entrance of the temple I showed someone my ticket who asked to look at it and then he tried to take it off me and ask me for more money. I snatched it back and walked off. I’d paid my money, I wasn’t going to pay another penny.
It’s such a shame that the people in Egypt, actually no, just the men in Egypt, are such hideous humans to tourists, because the things in Egypt are beautiful.
Despite all of this, the Karnak Temple is amazing. The papyrus columns in the hall are so beautiful. From the photos I’d seen of them I thought they were just carved orange stone, but they are painted in a wide variety of colours. You don’t need a guide to walk you through to appreciate just how awesome these colourful columns are.
I asked an Aussie tourist to take some photos for me. The tourists here are well aware of what the guards are like, so they will usually be happy to take a good few photos for you. A guide would have been useful here to bat the security guards away. Any that approached me I barked “leave me alone” at them. I’m an inherently polite person so generally it was not easy being so rude to people, but I got so sick and tired of these awful Egyptian men I frequently lost my temper.
It was beautiful at the Karnak Temple, I would thoroughly recommend it, but it was definitely spoilt to a degree by pests following me around trying to get money out of me. I’ve travelled in Latin America and never encountered anything anywhere near as bad as it is in Egypt. I read it was the worst place in the world for being hassled and I can believe it. It would be quite difficult for it to be even worse than this.
There were more coloured halls within the Karnak Temple, but after an hour and a half I’d seen enough. I walked back to the hotel and I was getting tired, the heat and the hassle was draining. I decided that I would spend £4 on a taxi to take me to the Sound and Light show that evening, meantime I needed a drink.
The Hilton was as comfortable as you would expect and my corner room gave me a partial view of the River Nile. However, if I went out to the swimming pool area I got a full view of the Nile.
It was happy hour so I ordered 2 blue lagoons at the pool bar and sat at a table sipping my drink watching the sun set over the River Nile. It was a nice way to spend an hour or so and very relaxing following my afternoon at the Karnak Temple.
The taxi arrived in time to take me to the Sound and Light show. The show was going to be in German so I had to get a headset for translation. By the end of the show I was not feeling well. I was ready to vomit and I had a bad leg which had now become very painful.
As for the Sound and Light show, don’t waste your money, it’s rubbish. You’re led down the avenue of rams and then to the hall with the coloured columns. They don’t light up very much and the story was boring. Finally you walk to a seated area overlooking the sacred lake where you can see a few lit up palm trees reflected in the water. At one point in the commentary they mention fireworks, so I got my hopes up and then they were dashed when the show came to an end and there were no fireworks. A few more lights go on, that’s it. Yes, save your money, don’t bother. I discussed it with some other people who agreed the Sound and Light show wasn’t worth the effort. I’d have been better staying at the hotel pool bar for the evening.
In conclusion, the highs of the day were the relative tranquility of Dendera, the coloured columns and ceiling at the Temple of Hathor and the amazing papyrus columns in the Karnak Temple.
The lows were the dismal Sound and Light show and being constantly hassled by Egyptian men. They were enough to turn anyone’s holiday into Death on the Nile 2! There would have been quite a pile of bodies!
You can make your own way around the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, but a guide at the Karnak Temple would have been a good investment and I would advise any woman travelling alone like me to engage one here. I would have also benefited from a verbal explanation of what I was seeing rather than just relying on my guidebook.
The West Bank of Luxor was to come a few days later at the end of my holiday in Egypt. Tomorrow I was going to Aswan.
I travelled to Egypt in April 2022.
I travelled from Giza to Luxor by train. You can buy train tickets online. Tickets are only available 2 weeks in advance and the website can be temperamental. The website address is enr.gov.eg It is very slow to load. My first class ticket cost £255 Egyptian pounds, approximately £11 sterling. Since December 2022, non-Egyptians have had to pay foreigner fares. A first class ticket between Giza and Luxor now costs $45 USD for tourists. You can also buy tickets at the station.
I stayed in the Hilton Hotel in Luxor on the East Bank a short distance from the Karnak Temple. I booked my room through the Hilton Hotels website. My partial Nile view room with breakfast cost $120 USD per night.
I visited the Temple of Hathor at Dendera by taxi arranged by the concierge at the Hilton Hotel. The return taxi ride cost approximately £40 sterling.
Entrance to the Dendera Complex costs £120 Egyptian pounds, approximately £6 sterling. You pay for the ticket on arrival at the complex.
The Luxor Premium Pass costs $200 USD. It is valid for 5 days and covers all the sites on the East Bank and West Bank in Luxor, including the Temple of Karnak, the Temple of Luxor and all tombs in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. You have to buy it in person at one of the temples or in the Valley of the Kings.
I flew to Cairo with British Airways from Manchester via Heathrow. A one way flight from Manchester to Cairo via Heathrow takes approximately 4 hours and 30 minutes and cost £237.
You will need a visa to visit Egypt. I applied for my visa online through the Egyptian government e-Visa portal website. A single entry tourist visa costs $25 USD and is valid for 3 months.
Read my other posts about my time in Egypt
First Day and First Impressions of Egypt
The Pyramids of Giza, Dahshur and Saqqara
