Aswan

Where we stayed - Keylany Hotel


From Luxor we caught the train down to Aswan... for free! We tried to buy tickets at Luxor train station, but they told us just to purchase them aboarded the train. So, we hopped on the train and waited for the ticketman to come, and well... he just didn't appear. We thought perhaps we'd have to pay upon arrival at Aswan, but nope, noone even asked, so we just waltz out of the station after a 3 hour train trip... Choice!!!


Aswan is a lovely city, it is a total contrast to Luxor. You can walk down the souq without every Tom, Dick and Harry harrassing you, which was a pleasent surprise. The Nile is also spectatular here, it's so wide and moves swiftly, and its actually pretty clean.


We booked onto one of the early morning trips down to Abu Simbel. The minibus picked us up at 3.15am, so we could join the 4am convoy down to the site. It was well worth it too. Abu Simbel is amazing and definitely worth the effort to get down too.