This is what Wikipedia says:
The Valley of the Kings also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, rock cut tombs were excavated for the pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom (the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt).
Below is our first view of he Valley of the Kings from the tourist entrance. We came early and it wasn't too busy.
Everyone gets a ticket (shown below) and the ticket entitles you to visit only three tombs. 200 EGP = $16.30 CAD
There's a decent map where you can choose which tombs to visit. Our guide suggested the three that he thought were most interesting and most of us went with his suggestion. Each tomb had a guy who would punch a hole in your ticket as you went in so you could not scam an extra tomb or two.
The three our guide suggested were: Rameses II, Rameses III and Rameses IX
The tomb of Tutankhamun is not included in the ticket though and you have to pay extra to visit this tomb. These guys don't miss a trick to get more money out of you. They also charge extra if you want to take pictures using a proper camera. Pictures with your phone are free though. Anyway, I paid extra to go in the tomb but all the pictures are from my Samsung phone.
So here's some shots from inside Tut's tomb.
The entry was is pretty similar to all the tombs here. A long walkway with scads of wall carvings and oriental tourists in face masks. I guess they heard about the curse of King Tut's tomb and weren't taking any chances.
And again the defacement of the carvings.
King Tut's scrawny feet...
and his scrawny head. I didn't believe this was actually King Tut but apparently it is.
A few more pics from some other tombs. And these are the original colours. It is against the law in Egypt to ever change anything about these ancient sites. So the damage to the faces cannot be repaired, graffiti cannot be fixed and colour cannot be added.
A few more shots of the Valley of the Kings. There are many more tombs to be discovered here.
After the Valley of the Kings we visited the Al-Deir Al-Bahari Temple. The temple of Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut was significant in that she was a female pharaoh.
On the way there we saw another thing that we would see over and over again in Egypt ... a policeman with an automatic rifle just hanging out. Sometimes they'd be behind barricades which made us wonder WHY??? Do they know something we don't know??? Anyhow we were not killed by terrorists so it's all good!
The below picture of Hatshepsut's temple courtesy of Wikipedia.
I took the following pics.
The colour still fairly vivid after 3,500 years...amazing. What must it have looked like when new.
The thing around Terri's neck is a "whisperer"...I have one too but it's in my pocket. I can't stand something hanging around my neck. It's a radio receiver. Our guide has the transmitter and he describes what we're seeing and we don't all have to crunch in or try to get in front of the rude 6 foot 6 fucker who always has to be in the front.
The next stop was the Medinet Habu Temple.
That's our guide Aziz on the right side of the pic. And again you can see the pharaoh wailing on his enemies just left of centre.
Another wailing in a different part of the temple. He's got all his enemies by their long hair and he's pounding them with a club or something. And his face is gone.
3,500 year old colour...amazing.
One last stop before we get to our Nile river boat.
The Colossi of Memnon. FYI: colossi is the plural of colossus
And again some ignorant fucker has destroyed the faces.
So late afternoon we finally get to our Nile Riverboat on which we'll spend the next four nights. The Sanctuary Sunboat III
The "swimming pool" on he top deck.
The cabanas.
The outdoor cocktail area. We will spend a bit of time here I'm sure.
The bar. We're here to be introduced to the crew.
That's the crew.
Liquor is not included on this cruise and below is our very first bar bill. There will be many more but not as many as I expected. More on that later.
150 Egyptian pounds for a glass of decent wine $9.30 US so not real cheap but what you'd pay in the USA I guess. 70 EGP for a Sakara beer, which is Egyptian beer and pretty good. About $4.35 US. At least there's no tip added to the bill nor a place to add one. This will change as we go on to Jordan.
One last excursion after our evening meal - The Luxor Temple.
On the way to the temple I saw the only two bums we saw in Egypt. Maybe it's just one bum and his guidance counsellor. Quite unusual anyway.
We've seen four or more ruins today. It was a verrry busy day for sure. I can't even remember what was significant about this one. Afterward our guide took us to a local market...what a nightmare...all the vendors were like sharks in a feeding frenzy.
One interesting thing is hey have a few hundred thousand pieces of stone they're still trying to put back together. Good luck!
Done.