I felt like a hick from the woods stumbling into the big city with wide eyes and total amazement. The train from Aswan to Luxor was the nicest we've seen in Africa.

We're talking as good as or better than Amtrak here. Air conditioned, big padded reclining seats, glass doors and clean. I suppose it goes without saying that there was no crowd of women, children and animals jammed into the aisles... no two hundred pound sacks of rice shoved into the overhead rack. Uniformed men offered snacks and drinks for sale... quietly. And this was second class. We've arrived in civilization a few weeks early. I didn't expect it till Europe.

"The Mickey-D's was just opposite Luxor Temple."
A girl who'd done this same trip a couple of years ago had sent me some information on Egypt. When I first read it several weeks ago I didn't really understand why she'd made it a point to tell me where the first Egyptian McDonald's is located as you come north from Sudan. As we rolled into Luxor... after weeks in the middle of nowhere, I understood. She'd said the Mickey-D's was just opposite Luxor Temple. We got off the train, checked into the first hotel we saw... and headed for Luxor Temple.

At around 9:30 people were still walking the streets of Luxor and the Temple wasn't too hard to find. But we didn't see any fast food. We turned a corner, heading toward what looked like a typical bombed-out building. Feeling a little depressed that we were not going to find McDonald's, a bright yellow vertical light appeared over and behind the ramshackle building. We rushed out into the street, paying no mind to the charging taxis and horse carriages. Like a lighthouse in a storm... the Golden Arches loomed overhead.

"We're still getting used to paved streets."
Inside the McDonald's was nothing short of stunning. Remember... only four days ago we'd been in Wadi Halfa, Sudan. We're still getting used to paved streets and restaurants that actually serve food. Most amazing was that everything at McDonald's of Luxor, Egypt was exactly the same as a McDonald's at home. The overhead menus, the cash registers, the french (or is that freedom?) fry machines, the straw dispensers.

I had a Quarter-Pounder with Cheese, Super-Sized Fries and a Sprite.

The funny thing is neither one of us goes in much for fast food back home... espeically McDonalds... but we've been looking forward to this since Khartoum.

Luxor has much more to offer in the way of ruins than does Aswan. The next day we took a minibus out to Karnack Temple, a vast site that was home to various Egyptian kingdoms for 1,500 years. And that's just one of the sites around the city. The camera broke at Karnack, so I won't have a lot of photos to offer, but I probably couldn't explain them very well anyway. It's working now and should be fine.

"We took the locals' ferry across the Nile and walked."
Yesterday we trotted off to the other side of the Nile to see the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. Generally this is done in the back of an air-conditioned tour bus, as it's several miles across the river and up to the ruins. Being in a budget-minded state, we took the locals' ferry across the Nile and walked.

This is the old city of Thebes and the two Valleys are where dozens of Egyptian nobles were laid to rest in incredibly elaborate tombs. King Tut's here, but you have to pay an extra fee to go in his tomb... which is said not to be very impressive. We skipped it and saw a few others which were amazing. I have photos.

"I'm short about fifteen US dollars."
Today's pretty much a day off before getting on the night train to Cairo, where we should arrive first thing in the morning. And for the first time in Africa, I tend to believe the train schedule. We've been sorting out an ATM problem from last night. The machine charged my account six hundred Egyptian pounds but only gave me five hundred. So I'm short about fifteen US dollars. The manager at the bank was nice and said "this is perfectly normal." He claims the machine knows it shorted me and everything will get credited back to my account. We'll see.

And I really should mention our amazing hotel. Freshly painted, totally clean, new furnishings, hot water and friendly management. Four dollars a night... two dollars per person. I like Egypt.