Day 19: Luxor - Esna, Egypt

Viking Amun Riverboat

10 January 2026

Today was the day for the Valley of the Kings – the long awaited day!

It was gorgeous weather – blue sky with a light breeze. We set off by bus across the bridge to the West side of the Nile. In ancient times, the Egyptians all lived on the east side, as the soil was extremely fertile from the annual flooding. The west side was just desert, where everyone was buried. These days, people live on both sides, and the Nile no longer floods because of the dams, but everyone basically lives in a narrow strip of land on each side which has easy access to water and there is desert beyond that. Lots of desert in Egypt!

The Valley of the Kings is a desolate place – full of limestone cliffs and mountainous piles of rock. It feels a bit like you imagine the surface of the moon might look (except for the tourists, of course). You can see why the Pharaohs thought no one would be able to find their tombs. The Valley of the Kings is just one valley among thousands. Archaeologists think this particular valley was chosen because of the pyramid-shaped rock formation at the top of the cliff. The Pharaohs were very keen to be buried under a pyramid! And once one Pharaoh was buried there, the others all wanted to be buried nearby.

Speaking of tombs, there are over a 100 in this valley, and there are tomb entrances every 10 metres or so. You would have thought they would have accidentally come across other tombs all the time while building new ones. (Perhaps they did.)

Apparently, craftsmen weren’t killed after decorating a tomb but they were never allowed to go back to the east side of the river. They, and their families, were required to live permanently on the west side and never communicate with their relatives on the other side again – in order to preserve the secret of each tomb’s location. (They believe the first tomb robbers were actually the artisans themselves, which makes sense.) And they were required to keep working on the tomb during the lifetime of the Pharaoh. It was considered bad luck to stop work and declare the tomb finished, so they just kept digging and decorating until he died, upon which they immediately started work on the decorations for the mummy and sarcophagus. Pharaohs had to be buried within three months of their death so they had a limited time. As soon as one Pharaoh was buried, the new one started work on his own tomb.

As Tutankhamun died unexpectedly at the age of 19, his tomb wasn’t even ready and they buried him in someone’s else’s with minimal decorations on the wall. They spent the entire three months working on the death mask and statues and artefacts to be buried with him. We went to his tomb first, which was an amazing feeling, but it’s true that it is by far the smallest tomb in the valley – only 4 small rooms – and we were only able to visit two of them.

Surprisingly, they’ve kept his mummy in a special temperature-controlled case in the tomb – although there is nothing else there besides a few wall paintings and a stone sarcophagus. It’s hard to understand how so many items were stuffed into such a small space. His mummy is small and rather sad. Just his head and little toes are visible. The most famous mummy in the world!

After Tutankhamun, we visited four other tombs, which were all much larger and highly decorated from floor to ceiling. The most elaborate is of Seti I, which goes 480 feet under ground in a series of corridors and small rooms. There are hieroglyphics and carvings on all the walls and the ceilings are colourful and also full of images. The most interesting room is actually a side chapel which was obviously abandoned before it was finished. Seti I must have died and the workers were instructed to stop work and go to the burial chamber. The walls are full of half-finished drawings in charcoal (or some other pigment) and it is fascinating to compare the drawings to copies of the final versions in other rooms.

There were, of course, lots of tourists in all the tombs – although Seti’s was so big they were spread out much more. Luckily, we got to Tutankhamun’s early and it wasn’t too crowded. But I felt I would scream if I saw another person pose with a stupid expression in front of a 3,000 year old carving or in front of Tutankhamun’s mummy! (Imagine feeling a photo of Tutankhamun wouldn’t be enough without your own face in front of it.)

Our ticket gave us access to five tombs – Tutankhamun, Seti I and then three others of our choice. I would have loved a ticket that gave you access to everything because there were dozens of tombs open which it would have been good to visit. Some had almost no visitors because they weren’t highly decorated, but I would have still liked to see them – especially without lots of other tourists breathing down my neck.

We spent two hours at the Valley of the Kings, which actually wasn’t enough. They then piled us on to the bus to visit Howard Carter’s house nearby. He lived there for 17 years and did all his work on the tomb of Tutankhamun from there. Lovely!

We went from there to the temple of Queen Hatshepsut – the only female Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. It was an enormous structure built into the hillside (and visible from the balcony of our boat back in Luxor on the other side of the Nile!) You’d swear it was a modern structure, it is so regular and so non-Temple looking. There wasn’t that much inside, as it had been vandalized by her stepson after her death, but it was wonderful to see.

You had to navigate the obligatory market to get into and out of the site, and the sellers are relentless in trying to get you to buy something. If you catch their eye or engage with them they will wrap scarves around your neck or try to hand you something. The tour guide told us to walk straight through and never make eye contact, unless you actually want to buy something. Also, never go into their shops as you will struggle to get out. Do all bargaining at the front of the shop. It spoils the atmosphere and makes it very difficult to buy anything at all!

After this, we came back to the boat and set sail immediately downriver for Esna. We had a nice lunch, sat on the sun deck and enjoyed the view and then, after dinner in the evening, we were treated to a performance by a whirling dervish. It was fascinating! He spun non-stop for 20 minutes – maneuvering scarves, tambourines, ribbons and layers of his skirts. The highlight was when he pressed a button and his skirts lit up with LED lights. An odd but interesting performance.