A sound and light show - Karnak temple

We left the Luxor temple and went straight to the Karnak temple by van. 

The previous post in this series is here..

Walid told us exactly where to go, where to sit and how to come out of the show as fast as we can to get ahead of the returning crowd so we could be at our boat before dinner time closed.

This is my first sound and light show. Apparently a lot of historic venues do this thing. 

it was an interesting experience. We go as a group and walk through the temple at night with things being projected on the walls. 

Somehow the lighting was not optimal and the sound was all garbled for a third of the walking show.

There was also a dog that kept sittiing at my foot and walked with me the entire time. San was freaking out about the dog. It was dark and an animal at your feet is not exactly comforting if you are scared. 

Still we enjoyed the show given we could see the stars in the night sky. You can see orion in this picture right above the temple!

from a distance I thought this was a row of sphinxes.. turned out to be Ram's! 

a few more pictures.. 

that part where we sit on a gallery watching things light up randomly over the lake was not that great. It was more like something from Disney and more American than ancient Egyptian. Shakespearean voices don't set the right tone for this show. 

A video highlight of the walk through show..

We raced out to Walid's surprise. We were the first ones out to the parking lot. Have never seen a guide be so proud of his group! We went back to the boat. Was trying to shop for magnets in the shops when Walid said "don't bother. We come back here first thing in the morning. You are here at a special time. There are only two days in the year when the sun shines through the line at the Karnak temple to make it look like it is rising from the sea! Tomorrow is one of those days! you can shop then"

we were dropped off at the dock and we had to walk a block towards our boat. The walkway along the dock in Luxor is well lit in night and looked even more beautiful. 

We were back in the boat and the group was already having dinner. We joined in. The dining room team was very nice and wished us well. It was going to be our last night in the boat. 

The next morning we were to be in the reception area with our bags packed by 5AM. We told them there was no need for wake up calls. We had been up before 4:30 almost every day! Our original van was going to be back. We were going to cover a lot of places in the van and head out of Luxor.

We were given guidelines on what to tip and how. Having had local currency helped. It was interesting how they expected a larger tip when in dollars than in local currency. 

It was time to hit the bed early one more time!