I have had police escort until six kilometres before I reached Luxor. Luxor is one of the eminent cities of Egypt. Luxor is fondly known as the “World’s greatest open air museum” with their historical temples built around the same time the Great China Wall was built. This temple has been improved over time during the New Kingdom period in Egyptian history by at least three known Pharaohs including King Tutankhamun. Luxor sees to an annual tourist of at least 12.5 million people from all over the world. To say that the Luxor area is a major attraction for tourist in Egypt would be an understatement. Luxor has a population of 490 thousand and depends largely on tourism for their economy. Luxor also depend a lot of farming, particularly sugarcanes and bananas as they grown extremely well in the weather of Egypt.

Before Luxor, I have passed through Abu Tig, SOHAQ and stayed the night at Nag Hammadi on the 3rd of September. Till Nag Hammadi, I travelled a total of 200 kilometres but only 70 kilometres on my bicycle and the rest inside the vehicles of the police. There was a little accident during the journey. As I had insisted on cycling, they let me and since they were driving, I was too slow in catching up with them so they offered to tie a rope to my bicycle and drag me along instead. Somehow the rope got tangled. The front of my bicycle is slightly damaged as well as the cyclist board I have attached to my bicycle. After Luxor, I have travelled 235 kilometres and am now at Aswan (Syene). Today is 7th September. The weather is ridiculously burning as always and I have noticed the more downwards to Sudan I go, the hotter the weather gets. By hotter, I mean a huge difference of at least 10 to 15 degree Celsius from Cairo and Cairo is already boiling. It gets so stuffy, hot and bothering at times that I cannot go to sleep no matter how hard I try. When I spent the night at a small town called Ibfu, I literally drenched the bed with water to cool myself at night to have a peaceful sleep. It did not work, not even after the third time I had soaked the bed with water. It is unimaginable hot here; I have never faced this kind of weather conditions anywhere else in the world. I really wonder how the locals live here.

So the next day I woke up with fever and flu sleeping on wet bed. It must also be due to the scorching heat and water contaminations from the water I drink from taps and from any drinking wells I find. Diarrhoea has not left me in peace ever since I arrived in Egypt. I am hoping my immune systems gets stronger over the next couple of weeks.