"The Great Temple of Abu Simbel" Temple of Abu Simbel by Sambawalk

You may know about the history of the Abu Simbel from the travel guide books and about what we see today was relocated from the lower ground before the high dam was built.

The practical information about the visit of Abu Simbel is that travellers can only reach this place, which is about 280km from Aswan by the convoy. It leaves at about 4am in the morning and the one way journey was about 3 hours.

When I was there, the convoy accompanied about 50+ big coach and minibuses. It was quite amazing in terms of the journey when every bus was speeding at about 100km/hour, overtaking one another, in order to reach there first. I sometimes wonder the purpose of this kind of convey as the police car was only in the first and the last. Who cares what happended in the middle. All travllers would stay there for about 2 hours before the whole troop of buses heading back to Aswan.

To beat the crowd, you should head to the ticket office to purchase the ticket 65 EGP (May 2006) and then go into the temple. This is the same if you want to capture pictures of Abu Simbel without anyone standing behind you. (see my pic :-)

It is sunny and remember to put on sunscreen and hat.