http://www.independent.co.uk/ By Gill Harvey: The fissured limestone cliffs are a deep orange-yellow against a startling blue sky. Millennia of desert winds and scouring sand have blasted them, but still they tower in timeless majesty on either side of the track as the taxi comes to a halt. I clamber out. As the whine of the engine dies, all is silence but for the guardian calling out that he's turning on the generator. I'm probably the only tourist to have visited the Tomb of Ay all week. He returns, unlocks the tomb and switches on lights. I descend the steps and enter the cool interior.
The world of the ancients unfolds. Ducks fly out of papyrus swamps; royal barques sail across the afterlife; the king's sarcophagus rests in the centre of the burial chamber. On one wall, 12 baboons sit on their haunches. Because of them, the locals call this place the Valley of the Monkeys. It seems incredible, but we're a stone's throw from Luxor's Valley of the Kings, where hordes of tourists troop to and from their tour buses. Here, I gaze at the walls alone.
Back in the taxi we give a lift to the guardian, who talks animatedly in Arabic. Ahmed, my driver, translates: "He says there are jackals here. He sees them often, at night."
The guardian nods, and points out of the car window. I realise there must be tracks. "Can we stop?" I ask.
Ahmed obliges and I get out to inspect the ground. Sure enough, dog-like paw prints criss-cross the white limestone dust. I think of Anubis, the jackal-headed god of embalming, and his arresting black statue discovered in Tutankhamun's tomb. I shiver with pleasure. Moments like this bring Egypt's history uncannily close to the present.
A few days earlier, I was in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo facing that very statue with its aloof, 3,300-year-old stare: another spine-tingling moment. It's hard to exaggerate the splendours of this museum, of which the treasures of Tutankhamun are only one highlight. Given the museum's touring exhibition (currently at the O2 in London) I was expecting it to feel a little diminished - but no. Even the removal of 130 exquisite pieces cannot dent the collection, which is mind-boggling in its extent, diversity and richness. The amount to discover here - and in Egypt as a whole - is enough to last a lifetime.
I'd arrived in Cairo to research my next novel, to be set in the New Kingdom, when the ancient civilisation was at its height. It's five years since my last visit, but it only takes one ride in a battered Fiat taxi and some good-humoured banter to make me feel glad to be back.
One of the first things I tackle is how to cross the road. My hotel is in Garden City, close to the swirling hub of traffic that is the Midan Talaat Harb, a focal point of downtown Cairo. I remember the first time I watched people crossing here; how they seemed to merge and blend with the stream of fume-belching, honking Fiats, Peugeots and buses in a kind of death-defying dance routine. It was an art I mastered once; it's time to do it again. A hand raised, Moses-like, to arrest the sea of cars, I'm soon ducking and diving with the best of them.
When hunger strikes, I conduct a quest for koshari in the downtown side-streets. Koshari joints are café-esque, no-nonsense establishments, and I'm served this tasty carb-fest in a stainless steel bowl with a matching beaker of heavily chlorinated tap water. It's a mound of pasta, rice and lentils topped with fried onions and spicy tomato sauce, all for just 20p.
I take a train south to Luxor. When I arrive, I take the ferry to the west bank, settle in to a smallish hotel and set myself a routine. Skipping the hotel's white-bread-and-omelette breakfast, I opt for the local fuul, mashed fava beans swimming in melted butter; ta'amiyya, a superior version of the humble falafel; pitta bread, salad and sometimes cheese. Then I explore ancient sites before the heat kicks in.
My visits to the Valley of the Monkeys and the Tomb of Ay are a new experience: like all visitors to Egypt, I've always been spoilt for choice. There are so many sites on offer - and they're universally magnificent. In a series of tombs, I gaze at scenes of captive giraffes and hyenas, the collection of taxes, the making of wine, the wailing of paid mourners at funerals. I wander among the ruins of Deir el Medina, the ancient workmen's village that housed the pharaohs' tomb-builders. I ride a donkey up the golden limestone crags to survey the necropolis below - the mortuary temples on one side, the Valley of the Kings on the other.
In the afternoons, I enjoy life on the west bank. Despite the rate of development in the main town to the east, the west remains peaceful; the hotels and restaurants - mostly small and independent - are rarely full. And the villages, accessed by hired bicycle or horse, are sleepy. I creep up on hoopoes and egrets to take photos, or drift along the Nile in au ofelucca until the sun goes down. Later, I play pool, or smoke apple-flavoured sheesha and chat.
People are warm and hospitable. They're after business, of course; but once I've settled on a taxi driver, the negotiations calm down. I'm invited to drink sweet black tea, with the other taxi drivers, felucca captains or donkey owners. As I do so, I suspect that what I saw in Cairo applies all the more here. There seems to be a growing gulf between ordinary Egyptians and the millions of tourists who visit each year.
In Luxor, the issue comes into focus. While still a draw for the culturally curious, the Nile has a new label: cheap sun. And while Britons might still top the list of arrivals, Russia is next on the list; Egypt's tourism minister, Zoheir Garranah, has China and India in his sights, and hopes for an annual total of 14 million tourists by 2011. One presumes they will come mostly in groups. Garranah claims that for every million tourists, 200,000 jobs are created, but I'm amazed at the sheer size and uniformity of the hotels that have sprung up along the eastern riverside. The owner of a small boat or single taxi sees nothing of the package business flooding in. Unemployment officially runs at about 10 per cent; the real figure may well be much higher.
In Gurna, part of the west bank necropolis, I'm shocked to see what's happened to the colourful houses that used to nestle among the tombs. They've been reduced to rubble, their occupants moved out. The residents of Gurna have long been accused of tomb robbery, but there's little left to rob - more likely, this is an attempt to sanitise the area for mass tourism. The irony is that the majority of tourists rarely visit these tombs, known as the Tombs of the Nobles. There's no time. On crammed schedules, they're whisked straight past and on to the Valley of the Kings, the temples of Hatshepsut and the Ramesseum. But for those who do explore here, the mud-brick houses used to be part of the charm.
Ahmed takes me to see where the residents of Gurna live now. It's a vast housing estate - row upon row of identical dwellings in a barren, featureless setting. I wonder how they're supposed to survive out here. Tucked out of sight of tourists and the income they used to provide, it's a desert in more ways than one.
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