Up earlier than usual (8.30) for an hotel breakfast and then walk to the ferry, which leaves from behind Luxor temple. On the way to the temple, a man struck up a conversation with us. Of course he wasn't just being friendly. When we admitted to him that we were on our way to the ferry for the valley of Kings, hi said he had a taxi and clearly wanted to take us. From then on he proceeded to follow us. We tried to lose him by looking at the temple, but he followed us. We tried a couple more times without success. 
We even tried to take a different route to the ferry but got called back by him and a number of others. When we got to the ferry, he sat a few eats behind and must have detected Fiona' anger, because when we got off the ferry, he apologized. I then started negotiating a price for the trip. He started at 80LE and I said I would not pay more than 10LE. After long negotiation, he agreed to take us to the ticket office for 10LE. I figured, he had put a lot of time and effort into this process and that it was either him or someone else. He then took us to a ticket office but ont the one we wanted to go to (he was ell aware of where we wanted to go). I was livid. On top of this he had no change.I made a comment that I would keep his card to warn people against him at which stage he said that he wanted his card back. We walked off up the road to the valley of the Kings and then away from the road (as he was following us in his taxi). At the point he was about to get out of his taxi and try to follow us on foot, we jumped into another taxi that had stopped. For the record, if visiting the West Bank of Luxor, I recommend avoiding Ali Gahalan Hassan Ahmed Taxi Driver 480 (he is also the owner of Luxor West Bank El Boirat) I promised that I would mention him when I had the opportunity!
The driver of the new taxi was a whole different ball game. He took us to the correct entrance and gave us his card so that we could phone him when we were ready to go.
The visitors centre at the Valley of the Kings, while large was a big disappointment. The place was poorly lit and computers had been removed leaving bare wires. For one of the major tourist attractions in Egypt, the place was generally in poor condition. We watched a short video of Carter and Tutankhaman and then went out to buy our tickets. The ticket man said only U12 or student cards get a discount. We hauled out Guy's passport (clearly Lauren wasn't even in the running!) in the hope that he would not work it out. He did, but still let Guy through. Fortunately we avoided the little motorized trains that would take us to the entrance to the valley. As it turned out it was about 300 m further on but there was a small hill in the way, so that when you go on to the train, you would not know how far it was to the entrance. When we got there, we had to hand our cameras in. Of course the man doing the cameras wanted to tell us which were the best tombs to visit (you can choose three from 8 tombs plus the two that you have to pay extra for). As it turned out, we probably could have smuggled a couple of cameras in which was a pity as later (outside the tombs) there was other stuff that would have been good to record.
The first tomb that we chose was Ramses III. It was very impressive with outstanding wall murals which were kept safely behind glass. Normally this would have been a fairly long tomb, but because the roof had fallen in, the end of the passage had been closed. We took a long time viewing the tomb enjoying each of the stories elaborately painted on the walls and trying to take as much in to our memories as we would not have any digital record. Then it was back into the sunlight to be once again attacked by people selling books and trinkets.
Next we saw the tomb of Tausert and Setnakht (Tausert was a queen - no a real one - so the ladies were keen to see how they were remembered) . This was a longer tomb and apparently seldom opened. It had a sarcophagus and although the wall murals were not as impressive as the first tomb they were very different in that they had a variety of musical instruments and very different scenes. The burial chamber was particularly impressive.
After completing this tomb, we decided to walk to the top of the hill so that we could view the temple of hatchepsut. This turned out to be easier said than done. We first followed a path left and after a bit of a walk, realized that this would not get us to the top. Fiona took the opportunity to have a wee and we went back to follow the route that a lot of other people seemed to be taking. After fighting off a couple of 'guides' we found a way up to the top. Actually (as it turned out) there was a shorter way but this would have meant following another group and possibly getting involved with another guide. As it turned out we were able to walk along the ridge of the hill with amazing views of the fields below leading ultimately to the Nile and then away from the Nile to the desert beyond. We were sorry that we had not smuggled at least one of our cameras in as the picture from here would have been magnificent.
A short walk took s to another part of the ridge with a sheer drop below to the temple. Fortunately we had got binoculars so we were able to focus in on points of interest. We sat down to eat our packed lunch and take in the views - enjoying the respite from the insessant efforts of people trying to sell us things. After about an hour, we decided to head back down to see the final of the three tombs. It was a short walk ( now knowing were we were going!) and we were back in the valley by 3pm.
Our last tomb was Ramses IV. This tomb had been opened for a very long time and had had coptic christians living in it. As a result at the entrance was some graffiti from themand many of the reachable faces had been defaced. In spite of this, the murals were very vivid with blues, whites and reds being used extensively and making the overall effect very different from the tombs we had seen before. There was also a very large sarcophagus in the burial chamber.
Well satisfied, we finished our tour of the valley at around 3.45pm. The man who took our cameras remembered us and counted his fingers to work hout the hours that we had been there (I was worried that he was planning to charge us for keeping the cameras!) - obviously it was not common for people to take so long. We walked along the route back to the ticket office taking some last pictures of the area and phoning our taxi driver (Mahommed) who had brought us there to take us back, thus being able to avoid haggling for prices for the return trip.
On the way up he had mentioned to us that his family had a ceramics factory so when he arrive we asked him if we could see it. He took us to a large ceramics shop with a man outside chipping at stone. The owner (an old guy) then took us through the process by which they make ceramics in the valley and his assistant did a demonstration. 
Then it was time to go in to the shop..... As I mentioned, the shop was large and much like the hundreds of other shops in the market, but I figured that if we were going to buy ceramics that this would be a good place to get them. The old guy brought us some mint tea and explained how the shop was laid out. Fiona, Lauren and Guy each chose something that they were keen on. Eventually (after we had finished our tea) the negotiations began. In the end we spent more that we probably should have but figured that the experience was worth it.
Mahommed took us back to the ferry and we returned to our hotel - just missing the sunset much to Guy's disappointment. After a drink, Fiona and I went out to get our train ticket leaving the kids in the hotel. We located the necessary window in the train station where there was quite a commotion going on and a lot of people leaving without tickets. When I got to the window, my fears were confirmed. The man told me that the trains were fully booked for 7 days and that we would have to try the bus. 
Fiona remembered where the bus office was (not far from the train station). We went in to a run down office with a man sitting behind a metal desk who told us that we should need to return the next day if we wanted tickets. The bus would take 12 hours and was the same bus company that we had used to go to Aswan (not a pleasant concept). We returned to the hotel and quickly decided to return to find the Superjet offices. 
Re-tracing our steps, we found it - but it was closed. After returning, we decided to go back to Hagar's for supper and enjoyed the excellent stew while Guy had the half chicken. They also gave us some great pure lemon juice (probably mixed with sugar cane juice) The total cost was 150LE. We returned back for our evening drinks and bed.
