Day8

DAY 8: Valley of the Kings & Queens

The noise of someone trying to open my door woke me suddenly! "OK I'm up thank you," I blurted out, but there was no response, all I could hear was the sound of a pair of feet shuffling away.
I tried to focus my eyes in the dark and looked down at Mickey Mouse who told me it was 3.45 a.m! I very nearly
got out of bed before finally coming to my senses. Why was I being woken so bloody early? I did not have to be downstairs for the tour bus until 8.30.
The night porter must have knocked on the wrong room, or worse still someone was trying to rob me! No it couldn't be it must be that someone had been trying to get into the wrong room.
I lay there for about another ten minutes alert for any further intrusions without hearing another sound, and soon relaxed enough to drift back off to sleep.

Mickey was at it again at 7.30, it seemed that I had only just dropped off and yet a further three and a half hours had passed! Where does the time go when you are asleep, I personally reckon it speeds up!

After a nice hot shower I went down to breakfast and entered the room to encounter a nightmare! Sat there grinning and waving at me across the table were the three Canadians who had been on the trip to Abu Simble from Aswan. The nightmare scenario was that they were staying at this hotel, and as if that were not bad enough they were also going on the bus trip this morning. Oh that's just great! I said to them through gritted teeth, thinking this should lead to another riveting conversation about nothing lasting the whole bloody day.
The Canadian guy asked me what room I was in, and then apologised after I told him. It seems the person at my door in the early hours had not been the porter, it had been him. He had gone to the bathroom in the dark and not having the sense to switch on the landing light had tried to open the wrong door!

The God's were smiling and my luck was in when the minibus turned up, thankfully there was not enough room for everyone, and as such this meant as I was on my own I would have to wait be picked up by another one due shortly.   I wouldn't need the cotton wool for my ears after all.
When the minibus I was to travel in did turn up I was again the last one in, so once again ended up on the bloody fold down seat! In the bus already were a married couple from Spain, two Germans who were on their honeymoon, a couple from Sweden, an elderly couple from England with their middle aged son, a lone man from France and then of course there was the guide and driver. This was going to be a fun little day with such a cosmopolitan cast.

. "OK everybody, everybody OK, Listen everybody everybody listen, now we are all on the bus, we are now all on the bus, the drivers name is Mustafa, Mustafa is the name of the driver, my name is Aladdin, Aladdin is my name. Do you know my name from the children's story? my name is from the story we tell children"

Yeah and mine is Captain Hook, why the bloody hell was he saying everything twice!

And so it went on for the next five minutes, but seemed like an hour with Aladdin who was to be our guide for the day, explaining the travel plans in short sentences, and every sentence was repeated twice each time.
I didn't think he would ever finish what he was saying as he rambled on and on. Please go easy tiger it's only bloody early in the morning, I'm tired and my brain can't take in all this double information.
"Everybody at the back of the bus listen, back of the bus everybody listens yes?" It was funny, but I knew it would start to irritate me after a while, and I was now starting to think a two-hour monologue on cream cakes would have sounded more interesting!

The first place we were to visit today would be what remains of the funerary temple of Amenhotep the third. Originally the largest complex on the West Bank it is thought that this area was even bigger than that of the temples at Karnak, but all that remains today are the two large statues known as the Colossi of Memnon, which are the first things that most visitors to the West Bank see.
This area was once filled with hundreds of statues, but over the years these have been taken to other places by different pharaohs and Governments to be placed in various museums around the world.
The area where the original site stood was eroded over the years as it sat on a flood plain of the Nile, but these two gigantic statues remain simply because of their height, which made them stand high above any floodwaters.
Apart from taking a few pictures of the statues there is nothing else to do or see here on this barren stretch of sand just off the main road into the valleys of the Kings and queens. We only stopped for a couple of minutes, which was about all the time anybody would really need to spend here.

Next on the itinery was the Valley of the Queens, situated a couple of kilometres South West from the more well known Valley of the Kings. Here was where the Queens from the 19th and 20th dynasties were buried along with other members of the royal families in tombs dug out of the rock.
Out of the seventy five tombs to be found here only five are open to the public, with the most famous of them all being that of the queen Nefertari, who you may remember I said was the wife of Rameses the second. It was he who had this tomb built especially for her. This tomb is described as one of, if not the finest tomb in all of Egypt, which just goes to show how much Rameses thought of her as none of his other wives, sons or daughters had any thing like it.

It would have been nice to actually visit this tomb, but unfortunately it is not that easy as just turning up you have to book in advance because they only allow 150 visitors a day. Ever since the tomb was reopened to the public in 1995 it has been booked solid every day.
The Queen Nefertari tomb was first discovered in 1904 by the Italian archaeologist Ernesto Schiaparelli, but unfortunately he was not the first one there. The tomb had been robbed before he discovered it, and all that remained were the remains of the Queens mummy, which had deteriorated badly.
What the grave robbers could not take were the splendid relief paintings that adorn the walls of this tomb, most of these depicting the Queen in all her glory along with text that recites verses from the famous book of the dead.

Needless to say we did not get to visit this tomb, which incidentally costs a rather expensive 100 Egyptian pounds (Ł14.00 English) to enter, this is expensive compared to the usual entrance fee of around 20 pounds for each tomb. Also for this money you are only allowed to spend about ten minutes in the tomb!
The two tombs we did enter were of lesser Nobles, but none the less they were of some interest and gave a good insight into the makeup of a Pharonic burial tomb. The first tomb we visited was that of Prince Khaemwese who was a son of Ramses the third, this was a smallish tomb with lively decoration that has scenes on the walls of offerings and tributes that are painted in the most vibrant colours, that even to this day remain in remarkable condition.

The second tomb we visited here in the Valley of the Queens was that of Queen Titi who was the wife of one of the numerous Ramses' of the 20th dynasty. It is thought that it could be Ramses the fourth, but no one can be quite sure.
This tomb was for a long time abandoned and even used as a donkey stable by the local people many hundreds of years ago. Since it's discovery it has been preserved somewhat and now offers some insight into its former glory, with some interesting limestone relief decoration on its walls.
Most of the tombs in the Valleys of both the Kings and Queens follow the same kind of design, with the entrance being dug out of the rock face and a sloping access that descends about six to eight metres before levelling out. Once you are on the level you walk along a corridor where there are usually some chambers off to the left and right. The actual burial chamber where the sarcophagus would be placed is to be found at the end of the corridor, which can be anywhere from around 25 to 100 metres inside the tomb.

Back on the minibus Aladdin was still giving his repeated sentence explanations, but by now I had tuned into his wavelength and was able to let a lot of his spiel go over my head.
The road between the two major valleys passes the village of Gurna, which is situated approx half way between the two, and it is thought to be situated on top of large number of as yet undiscovered tombs.
The village which has stood here for well over one hundred of years, has in all that time changed very little and is made up of a large cluster of brightly painted mud brick dwellings, situated at the base of the mountainside and gradually working their way up here on the West Bank.

Gurna village was of great interest to me having read some intriguing articles on the place, and I hoped that we might get a chance to look around the place.
It is said that most of the tomb robbers who have over the years desecrated the final resting places of the Nobles came from this village. Even today stories abound with tales of present day inhabitants, who it is argued are still working under the cover of darkness to find the many, as yet undiscovered tombs.

Aladdin explained to us that as recently as two months previously the police had raided one of the homes in the village, where they soon discovered an underground shaft being dug in house of a suspected tomb raider! I suppose you can believe that people would still be trying to find these hidden treasures, which by all accounts still fetch vast sums of money on the international black market, being snapped up by rich Egyptology artefact collectors.
Anybody among the eight thousand or so fellahin peasants living in this rather run down and very poor looking village would, I dare say, love to find something of value to get themselves out of the poverty they live in.

The Egyptian government for it's part has been trying ever since the 1940's to get the villagers to move away, even going so far as to build new dwellings a little way from the current village site, but the villagers are adamant they will not be moved. They claim that the places they were being asked to move into are not nearly big enough for their extended family groups.
They also claim they are only being asked to relocate to improve the look of the West Bank, which is a major tourist attraction. The Government meanwhile insist that it is purely to benefit the people, and nothing to do with the fact that if the village were moved they could then explore this part of the valley looking for more tombs.

Very few places that one reads about, or for that matter sees on television ever live up to their expectations, and when we reached the entrance to the Valley of the Kings I felt this would again be the case.
To get to the actual valley we had to board a road train similar to those you find in major tourist attraction parks like Disney world, the trains here were a little shabby looking and were definitely lacking in a rigid maintenance program. The double talking guide Aladdin informed us (twice) that we could walk the short way up and over the hill into the valley, but by paying the nominal one pound fee on the train we would be helping the young people of the area.
These so called young people had started up this service with the aid of a government grant, which was aimed at helping the local young people find much needed employment.

Of course no one in the group minded helping out the under privileged in this way, and all were quite happy to not only pay the one pound fee, but also save themselves a long walk up the hill in the sun.
But I did wonder about this so called good cause, because of all the people who I could see were working in connection with this little operation, not one of them seemed to be any younger than about fifty years old.

The point where the road train sets down it's passengers leaves you a short walk up over the brow of the hill, and it was here where I realised that the Valley of the Kings was just how I had imagined it would be.
On catching my first sight of the valley I soon forgot all about the Mickey Mouse road train that had brought me up here, and all my thoughts of how this place was becoming commercialised instantly disappeared.   It was at this point that I suddenly realised I was now looking at a truly remarkable sight.

There was not the slightest thing in my panoramic view to distract from this almost surreal setting, a setting that as far as I could see must not have changed that much since the Pharaohs had been interred here all those thousands of years ago. Apart from the obvious man made pathways that led to the various tomb openings in the rock face, there was very little to distract me, and then it finally sunk in that I was now truly "walking in the shadows of the Pharaohs". It was easy to see why this site with it's snaking ravine cut into the rock was the chosen resting place, this was the place where the great tombs of Ramses the second and Tutankamen could be found, along with all the others so far discovered.

The tour we were on included the admission price not only entry into two tombs in the Queens Valley, but also into three of the many tombs here in the Kings valley. These had been chosen by our guide Aladdin on the basis of which he thought were the best value for money after checking which ones were actually open, as only a few are open at any given time.
And probably more to the point, these were the tombs he had all the information for well rehearsed.
We would not be going to see the most famous of all tombs in the valley that of Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 by the renowned archaeologist Howard Carter. This tomb according to Aladdin was very expensive for what it was, he said it was a smallish tomb and that anything worth seeing from it had been removed and was on display in the Cairo museum. This was Ok by me as I would be visiting the Museum when I got back to Cairo, so hopefully would get to see all I wanted to while there. I had seen the Tutankhamun exhibition many years ago when it had been on show at the British museum in London, so it would not be that new to me, but none the less impressive enough to see again. And of course they do say that the tomb is cursed, with the legend saying anybody who enters is destined to suffer from a macabre end!
Well at least that's how the story goes in Hollywood.

The first tomb we went to was that of Ramses the third who was the second sovereign of the 20th dynasty, and the last truly great Pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom. For it was he who inflicted heavy defeats on a coalition of the so-called "Sea peoples" and Libyan tribes. Scenes from the great battle on the Nile Delta are illustrated in the relief's that cover the walls of the temple of Medinet Habu, where Peleset prisoners, who later settled in Palestine and called themselves Philistines, are shown along with other Sea Peoples.

Tomb number two on our tour was that of Ramses the 6th.   Known in ancient times as the tomb of Memnon and later as the "La Tombe de la Metempsychose" by the scholars of the Napoleonic expedition of 1798, this tomb was discovered by the Englishman James Burton. Like other great Ramesside tombs, it's entrance is high, about 400 metres above the valley bottom, exactly the opposite of the deeply dug tombs of the sovereigns of the 18th Dynasty. The front part is the oldest and was begun for Ramses the 5th.
The final, enlarged plan is quite linear, with two corridors and two antechamber's preceding the sarcophagus room. The latter has an "astronomical" ceiling, entirely decorated with scenes of the sky and with some frescoes narrating the creation of the sun.
The leitmotif is that of the sky goddess Nut, this is repeated twice, and towering above all and enfolding the western sphere. It is also possible to quite clearly see the many Coptic and Greek pieces of graffiti scrawled on the walls, which indicates that this tomb was know of, and visited in ancient times by what could have been the first recorded instance of archaeologists.

Our final tomb to visit was that of Amenhotep the 2nd. This tomb was discovered in 1898 by Victor Loret, and is considered to be one of the most interesting in the entire valley, in terms of both its decoration and architecture.
In the burial chamber can be found the great quartzite sarcophagus, which when discovered still contained the mummy of the Pharaoh, complete with a garland of mimosa flowers around his neck.
In a smaller chamber just off the main burial chamber, Loret found the sarcophagi of nine more Pharaohs, which include those of Amenhotep the 3rd, Thutmose 4th, Mernptah, Seti 2nd, Senakht, Ramses 4th, Ramses 5th, and Ramses 6th. Why all of these were stored here one can only speculate, but it is known that the priests of Amon were so devoted to their deceased Kings, that in order to afford them an undisturbed afterlife, and to avoid profanation of the tombs, they began surreptitiously transporting the Royal mummies from one burial site to another.

I will quote below a short piece from a book written by Giovanna Magion "The Valley of the Kings", which I believe gives a good insight into just how serious tomb raiding was over the years in the Valley of the Kings.

"These transferrals were so frequent that Ramses 3rd was buried all of three times! Finally, they decided to prepare a practically inaccessible secret hiding place in the mountain of Deir el-Bahari, where they had a shaft dug to a depth of about twelve metres. A long corridor led off from the bottom of the shaft into a spacious room. At night and in great secret, with only a few torches to provide light, as stealthily as the tomb raiders themselves, the priests took the Pharaohs from their sarcophagi in the Valley and laid them all to rest in this cave in the mountain, each with a name shield around the neck for identification.

Some had died recently, some centuries before, some had reigned for short periods and others for decades; some had once been the most powerful rulers on earth. It made no difference. Now they lay all together, in sparse order, one alongside the next.
Ahmose, the founder of the 18th Dynasty, lay beside the conqueror Thutmose 3rd; the great Ramses 2nd close by his father Seti 1st. All in all, the bodies of the Pharaohs, which were to remain, hidden in this anonymous tomb in the heart of the mountain for three thousand years numbered forty.

A young tomb robber named Ahmed Abd el-Rasul, from the village of Qurna, discovered this hiding place by pure chance one day in 1875: for six years he and his brothers succeeded in keeping the secret and became rich from the trade in the objects they gradually stole from the Royal mummies. Then the secret came out and on the 5th of July 1881, after lengthy questioning, the young Arab led Emil Brugsch (brother of the famous Egyptologist Heinrich and at the time vice director of the Museum of Cairo) to the entrance of the shaft. It is hard to imagine what the scholar must have felt when the flickering light of the torches illuminated the mortal remains of forty sovereigns of the ancient world!

A few days later, the mummies were packed and carried down into the valley, where a ship was waiting to take them to Cairo. What happened then was both strange and moving: on hearing that the Pharaohs were leaving their centuries old tomb, the peasants of the valley and their wives crowded along the banks of the Nile, and as the ship slowly passed they rendered homage to their ancient Kings, the men firing guns in the air and the women keening laments and scattering dust on their heads and breasts."

I think that this explanation shows just how far the priests went to foil the tomb raiders, and also shows how greatly the Pharaohs were revered. Further more I think it also echo's some of the sentiments from the villagers of Gurna who say they are in general good people, and also see themselves as the keepers of the valley, and not as the Government say tomb raiders.

So that was it, we had seen the five tombs that the cost of the trip included in the price of 100 Egyptian pounds, which I suppose was good value as you would have to pay about 20 pounds per tomb if you visit the valleys on your own. And of course we still had a few things to see on this day tour of the West Bank.

If you want to take pictures in the tombs, this is allowed providing you don't use flash and of course pay the additional fee, which is between five and ten pounds per tomb.
With the light levels so low in the tombs it would be hard for the average tourist with a compact camera to record any images without a flash, unless of course they had a really fast film such as 800 or 1600 ASA, but who really carries this specialist kind of film with them while on holiday?

I could have taken pictures in the tombs, with my camera being a digital SLR it has the facility to up rate the speed settings at the flick of a switch, but felt it would be hard to take any kind of decent pictures with the amount of people milling around. And as far as paying for each tomb goes, it is quite easy to bribe the man on the entrance with a little baksheesh; they will even let you use flash if you give them enough!
Lot's of people were using flash, which was quite annoying to me, as they had been told not to! They either did not realise, or worse still, did not care about the damage exposure to extremely bright light can cause to the paintings on the walls of these tombs. I think they call it irresponsible tourism!

KV5 is the simple name given to one tomb, which although not open yet, and not envisaged to be open for quite a number of years yet, is the most recent and some might say most significant find in the Valley. This tomb found by the American archaeologist Kent Weeks in 1995 and hailed as the greatest find since Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun, is the largest ever discovered anywhere in Egypt, and is thought to be the burial place of more than fifty of Ramses 2nd sons!
Old Ramses was quite a ladies man it would seem, and is thought to have fathered up to one hundred offspring. The obvious way to find out if all of these mummies are related would be to do some DNA testing on them, but this is not allowed under the ruling of the Egyptian Government, so this mystery looks set to run and run for quite some while to come.
So far Kent Weeks and his team have uncovered over 110 chambers and corridors within the tomb, and it is thought there are still more to be found. It is estimated that the tomb will not be fully studied for at least another seven or eight years, with slow progress because some of the foundations are weak and need to be made safe before any further excavation can take place. When this tomb is finally restored and given the all clear I would imagine it would be the number one, must see tomb in the entire Valley.

In total we spent about two hours in the Valley before moving on. Once back in the minibus Aladdin told us a couple of times that he was now going to take us to a small alabaster shop where we would be given free refreshment and a demonstration in the art of vase making. In return for this kindness all we had to do was have a look around the shop, and he was at least honest enough to admit that if we did buy anything he would receive a small commission from the shop owner.
This was fine by me as the shop was just across the road from the base of Gurna village, and while there would not be enough time to actually explore this place, it would at least allow me to take some pictures of the area.

I suppose the demonstration was quite informative and entertaining in it's own way, with the man who was doing all the talking explaining quite clearly how you could tell real alabaster from the more common marble, sold by unscrupulous traders as genuine alabaster.
Apparently real alabaster is translucent, a lot lighter and considerably more fragile then marble. This was quite a revelation to me, as I didn't really know, or very much care for that matter about this form of stone carving. There was no way I was going to buy any of these alabaster vases, or even one of the many intricate ornaments that were lining the shelves of the shop because they were so expensive, and not only that, I could not really carry them safely in a rucksack.

I took a quick look around the shop in order to appear slightly interested and get myself a refreshing cup of tea. While the many shop assistants were busy explaining their wares to some very uninterested would be customers, I slipped out of the shop and crossed the road to take some pictures of Gurna.
About five minutes after I had sneaked out of the shop the rest of the tour group came trudging out, none of them had bought anything I noticed.

We had one more site to visit on this tour, which was the really quite spectacular looking Hatshepsut Temple. This Temple received a great deal of notoriety as recently as 1997 when a large group of tourists were gunned down by extremists who ran amok at the site. This incident coupled with the bombing at the Cairo museum a few weeks earlier went a long way to virtually wiping out tourism in Egypt.
With the rest of the world in shock at the seemingly senseless actions taken by these extremists, against people who had no influence whatsoever on the political situation in the country, people simply stopped visiting Egypt as a holiday destination.

Tourism is again picking up slowly but surely since the Government has cracked down on these maverick groups, and with the introduction of the special tourist police force, people now seem to have a lot more confidence in the countries security measures.

Hatshepsut temple is a three tier structure of monumental size, with the top tier being cut into the rock face at Deir el-Bahari on the other side of the Kings Valley, the other two tiers are freestanding structures, considered by some to be the finest examples in all Egypt. I got the impression of a Roman Greco inspired building from first impressions when the minibus pulled up into the car park.
Originally the path that led to the steps of the first tier was flanked on either side by a row of Sphinxes, just like those at the Rameseum in Luxor. These Sphinxes unfortunately are no longer there, but with a little imagination it is not that hard to generate an image in your mind's eye, and so get the full picture as to how it would have looked.

Queen Hatshepsut had this rather grand temple built here in the Deir el-Bahari valley consecrated to the goddess Hathor during her 20-year reign, it was originally designed as a funery monument to both her father Thutmose 1st and to herself. But needless to say successive rulers felt it was not quite to their taste and so added to it, giving it a more splendid appearance with each addition they made.
While the Temple itself is a very large and imposing place when viewed from a distance, I found that once you climb beyond the first two terraces and enter into the main temple at the top, it becomes quite small, or at least smaller than you would imagine. Rather than explain all about the various statues and monuments that were here, I will let you form your own opinion of the place from the pictures included.

Aladdin and the driver Mustafa were keen to get us back to Luxor as soon as possible now that we had come to the end of the tour, so we only spent about half an hour here at Hatshepsut temple.
I was the last one to be dropped off as I was going to the station area to pick up a couple of cartouche pendants I had ordered from a local jeweller.

I was fairly dirty looking now after spending the best part of the day walking around dusty monuments, so decided on returning to the hotel for a clean up. Walking from the station area I realised that no matter how I tried to avoid it, I was going to have to get some new footwear, as after all today's walking around my boots were now looking almost completely knackered. So rather than go back to the hotel I went to the souks area in search of some new boots, only to be disappointed with the footwear on offer. Most of the shops sold only shoes and sandals, which were no good to me as they would not be in the right size or style.
Shoes it seems, for some reason are relatively expensive in Egypt, don't ask me why!
I struggled on with my boots still flapping away like mad as I walked. They were now so bad that even the shoeshine boys were not bothering to approach me; probably knowing they would be on a loser for sure.
They must have thought that anyone who was wearing boots in such bad condition would not be able to afford a shoeshine anyway.
It was now around three thirty in the afternoon and a little early to eat, so I went to the river where I sat on a bench for the best part of an hour trying to save walking any further on the soles of my boots. The hawkers even left me alone, what with the state of my dusty trousers, shirt and filthy boots I really must have looked bad.

Sitting on the bench I watched the sun setting over the Nile with the large sailed feluccas passing gracefully back and forth, all taking tourists for early evening sunset rides. With darkness now falling the busy evening commotion was starting with the street traders and those sailors who were not taking tourists for sunset sails, they were all now busy setting out their, tables, carpets and utensils preparing for the end of today's fast. The sight of these preparations for the sumptuous evening meal reminded me that I also had not eaten all day, so feeling instantly hungry off I went in search of my own meal.
I found the "Chez Omar" restaurant while walking around the back streets behind the souks and quite near to my hotel. Here I sat watching the world go by, I was out on the restaurants small veranda that jutted slightly out onto the busy road. I had some chicken kebab with salad and French fries, all washed down by two coca cola's and the bill for this small feast only came to 18 pounds, which I thought was excellent value for such a good meal.

Feeling a lot better I returned to the hotel for around seven, then had a lovely hot shower and changed into some clean clothes making myself feel human again. Unfortunately there was very little I could do about the boots, other than to clean them up as best I could.
I had decided to check out this evening and catch the night train back to Cairo, this way I could at least cover the 600 miles while I hopefully slept and so have another full day in Cairo.

I left the hotel around eight and walked to the station area where I took some tea in a café just across the road from the station. While I sat there a commotion started, I looked around to see a grown man beating a small boy unmercifully.
The little barefooted and dirty looking urchin, who could have been no more than eight or nine years old, had apparently tried to steal from the man. He was only saved from a further beating by the intervention of an elderly shoeshine boy, who wisely stepped in to explain to the man that if he continued he would probably kill the boy. While all this was going on, the majority of the people who were sat in the café did not even take the slightest interest in what was happening! I was having to wrestle with my conscience to hold myself back from intervening, and have to say was only too pleased to see the shoeshine man step in.   It can be a very dangerous thing to do when you intervene in any kind of domestic scene when in a foreign country.

When the man had come to his senses and stopped the beating, the sobbing boy got up and ran away as fast as his little legs would carry him, he then stopped at what he thought was a safe distance and started shouting what I can only assume was abuse at the man. This made a few people around me start to laugh, but only served to embarrass and make the man even more angry, so much so that he began to chase after the boy. Thankfully the man was totally unfit and no match for the boy and he soon had to give up the chase.

While I stood on the platform waiting for the night train to Cairo I got talking to four young lads from America. They had come over to Egypt for a long weekend from Israel, where they were working on a Kibbutz. This was American thanksgiving weekend so they took the opportunity to spend a long weekend taking in the sights of Luxor. They were telling me how nice and easy things were in Israel and that they did not feel the slightest bit intimidated by the troubles there.

The Arabic man who I was sat next to on the overnight train said hello to me when I got on the train just before departure time at nine thirty. That was the last word I heard from him all night, he did not even move for the next nine hours, and was sleeping soundly for the majority of the time. I for my part slept on and off for a good part of the journey, and would say that I had at least five hours sleep behind me when the train pulled into Cairo on time at 7.am.