At Ramses station in Cairo, we bemusedly encountered our first experience of Egyptian bureaucracy, as we attempted to find the right ticket window from which to buy our first class overnight train tickets down to Aswan (well for less than UK £10 for a 14 hour journey, why not?!)

Tickets in hand, we were able to take our seats on the train, where we spent the night restlessly between consciousness and sleep, interrupted continuously by the train attendant walking through the carriages monotonously moaning "shay" (tea), and were asked three times to have our tickets checked!

Early the next morning, the train finally drew into Aswan, where we eagerly bundled off and out. Outside the train station, a man attempted to interest us in a hotel, but we firmly told him we'd already made arrangements. We hadn't, but given it was the off-peak season, we knew it wouldn't be hard finding somewhere to stay.

We quickly found where we intended to stay, they had plenty of rooms, and even better, the staff were friendly and not pushy. So we dumped our stuff there, and went out to explore the area - the nearby streets of market stalls selling spices, food, clothes, jewellery and various tourist tack, and to look at the river Nile and its plethora of restaurants.

ABOVE Stefan by the river Nile. Elephantine Island is on the other side of the river

RIGHT View of the Nile from the Aswan Moon floating restaurant, which sells Nubian food

LEFT and BELOW View across Aswan from the rooftop of Nubian Oasis Hotel

In the markets, we found the stall holders that succeeded in attracting our attention friendly, amiable and humourous, particularly one that Stef was bantering with while haggling over the price of a bracelet.

At another stall, a man tried to interest us in his spices, but over a couple of evenings he realised he wasn't going to sell us any, (I think telling him neither of us knew how to cook with spices gave him the hint finally!) and was content to just spend time sitting chatting to us, drinking tea, and trying to convince us that Aswan deserved more than a few days visit! (We were only in Egypt for a total two weeks though, and hadn't even seen any of the major sites in Egypt yet!)

Through our hotel, we booked to go to Abu Simbel (50 km from the Sudanese border, and 297 km south of Aswan) by microbus. Leaving at an unearthly hour, we and tourists from several other hotels in the area were bundled into the microbuses and driven there in the dark. Our microbuses were apparently escorted by armed police vehicles for security, due to fears of terrorist attacks.

Offloaded at the entrance to the site, we descend en masse on the Great Temple of Abu Simbel, carved directly from a single slab of rock, and where we are greeted by three and a half collosal statues of Ramses II. We are to see Ramses in several more guises inside the dark temple, and at the Temple of Hathor.

It's hot and humid inside the temples though (the microbus organisers were sensible in that respect, timing the visits before the full impact of the midday sun)... and I join Stef and an Australian in the shade of a tree, topping up our suntan blocks!

ABOVE Great Temple of Abu Simbel - the 22m high statues of Ramses guarding the front of the temple bear testimony to Ramses' ego

RIGHT Temple of Hathor, which was dedicated to Ramses favourite wife Nefertari

BELOW Great Temple of Abu Simbel and Temple of Hathor, and a scattering of tourists in front of them. This is the first time during our visit to Egypt that we see so many tourists!