All language subtitles for The.Nile.Egypts.Great.River.with.Bettany.Hughes.Series.1.3of4.1080p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org.eng

For 5,000 years, this land, Egypt,

and the epic civilisation
it gave birth to

has been shaped by one thing
more than any other.

This awesome river.

The River Nile.

The Nile helped temples to rise...

...pharaohs to rule...

and pyramids to be built.

Without the Nile,
there'd have been no ancient Egypt.

So I'm making the historicaljourney
of a lifetime.

A 900 mile adventure along the Nile,

across the whole of Egypt.

I'll explore
Egypt's greatest achievements...

It is truly wonderful, isn't it?

...and find treasures
hidden for thousands of years.

Oh, my God,
that's a sheer drop down there.

This is my chance
to travel this fabulous land...

Oh, lovely!

...and experience it
as the ancient Egyptians did,

from the River Nile.

From pharaohs to slaves,

from facts to fantasies,

I want to explore first-hand,

and to understand
how this river shaped

one of the world's first
and greatest civilisations.

Join me
as I uncover 5,000 years of history

along the River Nile.

So far, on my journey up the Nile,

I've explored many of the treasures
that helped to create ancient Egypt.

And now, as the river gets busier,

I'm coming to one incredible stretch
that reveals a huge amount

about the Egyptians' obsession
with life and death.

This river gave rise to

one of the most captivating
civilisations in the world,

and a jewel in the crown
is where I'm heading now.

Luxor.

300 miles south of Cairo,

on the east bank of the Nile is a
famous city full of ancient wonders.

I love visiting Luxor,

and I'm certainly not alone.

This is a stretch of the river
that's welcomed everyone

from Tutankhamen
to Winston Churchill,

from Cleopatra
to Agatha Christie.

It was
travellers from the Victorian age

who helped to make Luxor
super fashionable.

Here they could swap
the British winter

for 30 degree temperatures,

and 5,000 years of culture.

But it didn't come cheap.

The trip from Cairo to Luxor
cost an eye-watering £12,000

in today's money.

But to one Victorian traveller,

that was small change.

Queen Victoria's son,
the Prince of Wales,

the future Edward VII
came to the Nile,

and he so loved it
he came back twice.

Now, he travelled
in quite some style.

He had six steamships,

decorated with friezes
of Anthony and Cleopatra,

and behind them, he had a barge
carrying 4,000 bottles of claret,

and 3,000 bottles of champagne,

plus what
every good dahabeah needs...

A donkey.

Donkeys were used to fetch supplies
from the banks.

But it seems today the Nile has
brought the shopping to us.

Oh, hello! Oh, hi!

You like a special price?

I'm sure special price!

These very enterprising boys...

Yeah, that's beautiful!

...have hooked on
to try and sell me a dress,

and a tablecloth...

Shall I come down?

Come round this way! OK.

Hey! Hi!

Darling. English? Welcome!

0h, my gosh! English?

English, yes.

Very good!

It's a lovely towel.

I would get one,
but I've already got one at home.

Nefertiti!

That's Nefertiti.

That's...actually quite nice.

I'm going to buy that one.

I'm going to buy it, actually.

I'm sure my husband would love that.

He'd look very nice in it!
LAUGHTER

Show me the one
for my husband again?

LAUGHTER

Wait, wait, no, no, no!

Oh, my gosh!
APPLAUSE

Thank you!

That is my years of cricket practice
with my brother in the garden.

Now I've...
I think I've got to buy it.

Put in the bag. Four. Four.
OK. Oh, my God.

Four.

Oh, OK! Four!

And here on the Nile,

there's even contactless payment.

I've got to throw the money back
in a plastic bag.

One, two, three...

Thank you!

Isn't it great that everybody sees
there's an opportunity?

And actually, I think it's...

huge!

SHE LAUGHS

Luxor is the number one
tourist destination on the Nile,

with spectacular temples and tombs,

scattered across
either side of the river.

There's tons to see here,

so the crew are going to moor up
for a couple of days.

Because I want to see what
these spectacular sites can tell us

about the Egyptian experience
of life and death.

After difficult times in Egypt,

it's brilliant to see
so many tourists

flooding back to the city here
on the east bank.

But I'm crossing straight
to Luxor's famous west bank.

It's only a short hop
across the river,

but for the ancient Egyptians,

this was a highly symbolic journey.

I'm moving from the east bank,
the land of the living,

to the west bank,
where the sun sets,

and where the ancient Egyptians
buried their secrets.

The land of the dead.

Which, of course, ironically means
that in terms of stories

and archaeological discovery,

it is very much alive.

Three miles inland from the river

is a place
that's very close to my heart.

The legendary Valley of the Kings.

It was the fabulous treasures
hidden beneath these barren slopes

that first sparked my interest
in history

way back when I was five.

And one discovery here
sits above all others.

It was made by two Brits,

archaeologist Howard Carter,

and wealthy aristocrat
Lord Carnarvon.

Carnarvon and Carter had actually
worked together for 15 years

before they discovered
the tomb of Tutankhamen.

Carnarvon was really passionate
about what he did in Egypt.

I mean, he loved being here.

He learned some Arabic,

the locals called him Lordy,

and he wrote that he drank thick,
black, Turkish coffee every morning.

But he also poured money
into these excavations,

and at one point he was hiring
up to 275 boys to do the work,

so the two of them
were really, really serious

about trying to find something,

and once they did...

it was the discovery of the century,

and captured the imagination
of the world.

In the heat and dust,

I really get a sense
of what it must have been like

digging here 100 years ago,

as Carter and his team
searched for a long-lost tomb.

After five years of hard work,

on 26th November, 1922,

Carter and Carnarvon scrambled down
this very passageway.

It's a story
that's been told a number of times,

but it is always worth
the retelling.

When Carnarvon and Carter were
about to break into the chamber,

Carter looked through a tiny hole,

and describes
the glint of gold everywhere.

"What can you see?" said Carnarvon.

And Carter simply said...

"Wonderful things."

Tut's tomb stunned the world.

And it's been drawing crowds
ever since.

\Mm-hm.l

But the truth is Tut's tomb
isn't actually that remarkable.

It's surprisingly small
for a pharaoh,

and the decoration looks
a bit rushed,

even, in some places,
a bit second-rate.

Yeah!

Yes.

Yeah!

Exactly, yeah.

It's now believed
that Tut was buried

in a tomb originally prepared
for someone else.

Perhaps Tut's own tomb wasn't ready.

That would make sense,

because we know he died
when he was just a teenager.

Worth the effort, coming here?
Definitely.

Definitely for me.

And the boys? The boys... Well...

They're boys, aren't they?

LAUGHTER

Luckily for those who need
a bit more convincing,

the Valley of the Kings also boasts
the most spectacular tombs in Egypt,

and, just a few metres away,

there is an absolute showstopper.

Tutankhamen's tomb is the most
famous in the Valley of the Kings.

But to my mind, his neighbour's tomb
is even more intriguing.

It shows us the ancient Egyptians
at their most brilliant...

and badly-behaved.

Just round the corner
from Tut's tomb...

Because, of course,
this is a whole city of the dead,

so there are burials everywhere.

...there is a real showstopper tomb.

If you want to get
a sense of what a burial was like

when a pharaoh has pulled out
all of the stops,

then you should come here
to KV Nine,

although actually
hardly anybody visits it.

KV Nine stands for
Kings Valley Number Nine,

a pretty unassuming name
for an absolutely jaw-dropping site.

It's five times the size of Tut's,

and instantly more impressive.

So this is what a royal tomb
really should look like.

It stretches over 100 metres
deep into the rock.

The walls are covered
with images and ideas and stories

that are supposed to guarantee the
successful journey of the pharaoh

through the underworld,
and on into the afterlife.

Several images show
that journey being made

on a flat-bottomed Nile boat.

KV Nine is, for me, the high point

of over 1,000 years' worth
of Egyptian tomb building.

The 3,000-year-old decoration looks
as though it was painted yesterday.

But look a bit closer,

and you'll see something
that shouldn't be there.

Graffiti, in Latin and Greek.

Some of it dates back
at least 2,000 years.

People have been coming here
for centuries.

Some just to visit...

...but others to loot.

Tombs like these
were protected with curses.

"May death come on wings to he who
enters the tomb of the pharaoh."

But there were some who clearly
took no heed of that warning here.

Within just 20 years,

the tomb was robbed.

This massive stone sarcophagus
was smashed,

and the mummy inside
was desecrated with an axe,

and all the treasure was stolen.

The world's most famous cemetery
is also a crime scene.

All the tombs discovered here
in the Valley so far

have turned out to be robbed.

But the truth is
this isn't just random looters.

Quite often, it's the men
who built the tombs themselves,

or it was
an officially sanctioned robbery,

so it's one pharaoh
getting their own back on another.

This was
a pretty risky business, though.

In ancient Egypt, the death penalty
wasn't actually used that much,

but you could be killed
for robbing a tomb.

And the manner of death
was pretty horrific.

You were either impaled,

or burnt alive.

It wasn't just the rich who were
fascinated by both life and death.

Almost two miles across the hills
from the Valley of the Kings

is a remarkable,
and very different site.

Deir El Medina,

a village that was home to

the workers who built
the pharaohs' tombs.

It contains extraordinary evidence

that, for me, brings
these ordinary people to life.

It's a 40 minute walk
from the Valley of the Kings.

So I'm now treading in the footsteps
of the ancient Egyptians

who made this punishing journey
to and from work

every few days.

And we're now walking up
the main street of the village.

You can see that the houses
are so close together. Yeah!

Egyptologist Yasmin El Shazly

has spent 15 years
studying this unique community.

People are normally
very interested in the kings,

but I think the average Egyptian
was much more interesting.

Yeah. Because, normally,

royal...art and architecture
are full of propaganda,

so that's not who they really were.

But this is the real thing.

And more than just mere builders.

Deir El Medina was home
to craftsmen and women.

You had a community full of,
you know, talent.

You have the best artists,

the best scribes,

the best craftsmen,

so it's very special.

So it means that we haven't just got
a village of people,

but of articulate people,

of people who are kind of used
to expressing themselves.

Yeah, exactly.

And luckily for us,
they expressed themselves

on something that survived
for 3,500 years,

and against all the odds.

North of the temple over here
was a pit

that was probably dug to be a well,

but it ended up being a dump.

Inside the pit,

archaeologists found
thousands of ostraca.

Ostraca are chips of limestone
that the workmen used to write on.

So imagine someone going through
your garbage,

how much information
they would get...

Unfortunately, yes!

"About your daily life.

We found legal documents,

letters to the living,

and letters to the dead,

love songs,

even the attendance of the workmen,

and the reasons
why they were absent from work.

And why were they absent?

Sometimes they were celebrating
a festival of a certain god.

And could it sometimes be not
just because they were celebrating,

but because they have a hangover
after the celebrations?

That's very possible, too.

They used to drink a lot of beer.

CHUCKLING: OK!

I love the idea of people nursing
sore heads here,

going, "Oh, just tell them
I can't come into work today,

"it was too much last night."

Very true!

I've been given
incredibly privileged access

to one place in the village
that's only just been opened,

after years of restoration.

It belonged to a man guilty of much
more than simply skiving off work.

Oh, amazing.

This is brilliant,
this is what I was looking for.

So this is
the tomb of someone called Paneb.

I think that's Paneb,

and that's almost certainly
his wife behind him.

And there's Anubis, representing
the god of the underworld.

Paneb wasn't royalty,

so his tomb is much smaller than
the ones in the Valley of the Kings,

but even though he wasn't famous,

we still know
an amazing amount about him,

thanks to evidence
discovered in the village.

And the story it tells...

is shocking.

Paneb stops being
an ordinary worker,

and elevates himself somehow,
to become a chief workman.

Then the plot thickens.

One of the labourers accuses Paneb

of stealing building material
from a royal tomb

to construct his new burial place.

Not only that, but there are 16
other charges levelled against him,

and this is really serious stuff.

So he's accused of adultery,

of sexual abuse
of the women in the village,

of falling into
kind of drunken rages,

so that he's incredibly violent,

and even of killing someone
to cover up his crimes.

Now, we don't know
what happened in the end to Paneb,

but, for me, what's so brilliant

is that we've still got
these intimate details

of ordinary Egyptians' lives.

Their affairs, their intrigues,

the bullying, the social climbing,

and the scandal.

It's been a long day in the desert.

I'm heading back across the river,

to Luxor's east bank.

This is one of the hottest
and driest cities in the world,

where daytime temperatures
can hit 50 degrees.

HORNS BEEPING

So, as the sun sets,

the locals come out,

and Luxor comes alive.

MIZMARS PLAY
TRADITIONAL MUSIC

The ancient Egyptians used
to welcome visitors

to celebrate the joy of Ka,

to love the spirit of life.

And that warm welcome
is still definitely on offer.

MUSIC SLOWS

So I was dragged in here
by these kids

who said
there's something going to happen.

How brilliant to see that dancing,

and actually,
when we think of ancient Egypt,

we often think of it as something
being rather stiff and staid,

but actually
they loved their festivals,

and their music and their dancing,

and their beer drinking.

Beer was the kind of staple drink,

and they had festivals
of drunkenness up and down the Nile.

So they were
the original party people.

Where are we going now?
Oh, we're off.

It's tempting
to burn the candle at both ends,

because tomorrow
I'm up super early,

for one of the highlights
of my journey.

Egypt's most famous temple.

With my lovely dahabeah moored up
for a few clays,

I'm exploring the ancient wonders
surrounding the city of Luxor.

Today I'm visiting
the city's famous monument.

HORN BEEPING

But, after a night on the town,

there's one stop
I have to make first.

Hi. Hi, salaam, can I get a coffee?

Coffee. Coffee. Sugar? Sugar.

Ahwah...mahut? Mazboot.
Mazboot. OK.

OK, thank you, shokran.

I cannot get through a day
without an Egyptian coffee,

and it's actually very appropriate
that I'm drinking it here

because this is one of
the first places in recorded history

where we know that coffee was drunk,
and in Cairo, actually.

Some people think
it came from North Africa,

some people think
coffee came from Yemen,

but when it was first spotted,

goats ate the coffee beans, and they
danced around in this wild way,

so they noticed
it was probably going to be

quite a useful stimulant,

but as a result,

there were sections of society that
thought it was the devil's brew,

but even if it is the devil's brew,
bring it on.

Shokran, thank you.

Oh, lovely.

Perfect.

Shokran.

Thank you.

Oh...

Oh, I can smell,
he's put cardamom in,

that's really lovely.

Uh'.!

Oh, my God, I love that.

First caffeine hit of the day.

That is heaven in a cup.

HORNS BEEPING

Now I'm ready to face the crowds
at Egypt's greatest temple.

HORNS BEEPING

I'm travelling by roads today,

but at the time
of the ancient Egyptians,

I would certainly
have been getting from A to B

by travelling down
one of the waterways... Whoops!

A little bit of a bump in the road.

...because people used the Nile.

And it's just really cool,

because here you've got all kinds
of different vehicles on the road,

from taxis to tuk-tuks.

Salaam, hello, hi!
HORN BEEPING

And it would have been the same
on the ancient waterways,

so you had little cargo ships
and barges,

and then these grand,
royal processional boats.

In the far north of modern Luxor
is the vast temple of Karnak.

It's 4,000 years old,

and still the largest religious
complex anywhere in the world.

What really strikes me, always,

is just how rammed with people
it would have been in ancient times.

So, in fact, all these tourists
are completely appropriate.

We know that
over 80,000 people worked here,

so it would have been a riot
of colour and sound and smell.

You'd have had
the noise of drums and cymbals,

and the smell of incense
and burnt meat,

and priests with their shaven heads
and hairless bodies,

abstaining from sex
so they were pure,

rushing around
to keep the gods onside.

I'm always blown away
by this place.

Everything about it is so intense,

and so much larger than life.

When people come here,

they always talk
about its size and scale,

and it was massive.

So the whole complex stretched about
a mile long and half a mile wide,

and covered the area of
about 168 football pitches.

But today,

I'm here to see something
that's a lot smaller,

but, in its own way,

as impressive.

In ancient times,

Karnak Temple would have been
bursting with astronomers,

mathematicians, and scientists,

all buzzing with new ideas
and inventions.

And one of those inventions was

this humble-looking bucket.

For the priests,

it was really important
to perform their rituals

at the exactly the right time,

and of course, during the day,
you've got the sun,

and you can use sundials
to measure hours,

but what do you do at night?

Well, the ancient Egyptians came up
with this really clever idea.

So what this is
is a replica of a water clock

that was found here at Karnak,

and what the priests would do is
they'd fill it up with water.

As the water dropped down
one notch in the clock,

that would measure an hour,

so they could tell the time exactly
during the night.

The Egyptians followed
a 24-hour clock,

12 hours of day
and 12 hours of night.

But the nights grow shorter
and longer throughout the year,

and this water clock
allowed for that,

with different
measured scales inside

for different times of the year.

So let's see if it works.

SHE LAUGHS

GIGGLING

I think they'd have done it slightly
more professionally than me.

It's definitely dripping!

And I guess we have to wait an hour
to see if it can tell the time OK.

Simple but brilliant.

And from 1500 BC,

these devices would have appeared
in temples up and down the Nile.

Back on the Nile,

there's a Luxor treasure
from a very different age.

I've just spotted
this boat moored up on the bank.

SS Sudan.

It was built in the 1920s,

and in 1933,
it hosted a very special visitor.

I'm going to see
if I can get on board, somehow.

Hello! Hello.

Hi.

Can I... Can I come on?

Yeah, but please can you
come on the other side?

From the other side? Please.
Great, thank you.

Amazing, thank you very much.

Thank you so much for letting me
come on. Bettany. Amir. My pleasure!

Oh, so lovely!
And is it OK to come on?

As I step on board the SS Sudan,
I'm following in the footsteps of

one of
the world's best-selling writers.

Agatha Christie.

Oh...

That's very kind! Thank you
very much. You are welcome.

Lovely! I've been on a hot boat.

But where... Just show me round
because I've only ever...

I've seen this from the outside.
This way.

Oh, great! Yes, this is
the original steam machine. Yes.

With which the boat was sailing
Agatha Christie, she was on board.

Yeah. It's not still powered
by steam, is it?

It's steam, and... Yes.

And do people come on board
to travel here

because of Agatha Christie?

Sure, because of this,
the oldest steamer ship on the Nile,

and sure,
because of Agatha Christie. Yes.

Agatha Christie isn't just
a giant of the literary world,

she was a globetrotting history buff

who travelled the Middle East
with her archaeologist husband,

excavating ancient sites in Iraq
and Syria.

In 1933, the couple's adventures
brought them to Egypt,

and to the SS Sudan.

This is the Royal Lounge.

Uh-huh. Yes.

Yes, it's got that
kind of luxurious feel, hasn't it?

I just love it because I can
so imagine Agatha and her husband...

Yeah. Exactly, yeah.
..sitting and reading and, you know,

enjoying a cocktail or four
in the evening.

Agatha was so inspired
by her time on the SS Sudan

that she wrote a book
set on a paddle steamer

sailing down the Nile.

The result was one of
the bestselling murder mysteries

of all time,

and what else did she call it...

but Death On The Nile.

You... Me? Yeah.

OK, will you hold that?
Yes, with pleasure.

Just give it a big tug?

Exactly. Three times.
OK. Three times.

FLUTING TOOTS

Bye! Thanks!

It's full steam ahead
for the SS Sudan.

But for me,
there's a humble water taxi waiting.

Because I have one last trip
to make to Luxor's west bank.

Perched at the foot of the hills,

looking back across the Nile

is an awe-inspiring monument.

This stunning temple
can be busy with tourists,

but get here just after dawn,

and you can have the place
to yourself.

This was the crowning glory
of one of my all-time heroines,

the female pharaoh Hatshepsut.

A remarkable ruler,

and, brilliantly,

a woman
ruling in a man's world.

So, here's lovely Hatshepsut.

Now, the thing is, of course,

at first glance, she looks like
any other male pharaoh,

she's got her king's skirt,

and even a little pharaonic beard.

But we know
this is definitely Hatshepsut

because that's her name
in that cartouche up there.

But isn't it fascinating that,

despite all her progress,
and pioneering ideas, and power,

this amazingly potent female pharaoh
had to be represented as a man?

In ancient Egypt,

men inherited the throne.

In fact,
there wasn't even a word for queen.

So when Hatshepsut found herself
in charge,

after her husband's early death,

she realised the only way
to rule Egypt

was to be better than any king.

You get the sense
that she wanted to outdo any man.

This temple, for example,

was unlike anything
that Egypt had ever seen before.

Its design was very progressive
and internationalist,

and this whole complex would
have looked completely different.

It would have been a riot of colour,

there were ponds,
and lines of incense trees.

It's almost as if Hatshepsut
was trying to seduce her people

with her sophistication.

The temple walls tell us more
about this intriguing woman.

She sent delegations out
across the seas

to get incense and ivory and gold,

from places other Egyptian rulers
hadn't managed to reach.

And the point of all of this

wasn't to prove
what the Egyptians traded in,

but that Hatshepsut
could make it happen.

Archaeologist Dr Zbigniew Szafranski
has arranged for me to see

a part of the temple
that's usually off-limits,

and that gives us intimate insight
into this remarkable woman's life

that goes way beyond
the official line.

Hatshepsut was volcano of ideas.

In political, military,
and religious fields.

She was really brilliant,
I may say.

So do you think she is one
of the reasons

that ancient Egyptian civilisation
became so great?

Yes, yes. We know
a lot about Cleopatra, for example,

but in my opinion,

Hatshepsut was even more clever,

and she was one of the greatest
persons in the history of the world

at the time.

But Hatshepsut had a secret.

It seems she had
a bit of a soft spot

for one of her courtiers.

He seems to be present everywhere.

Yes, yes.

So can you show me
where he is, here?

Look in the niche.

Oh, gosh, yes!

This is Senemut.

Not a member of the royal family,

and yet beautifully depicted all
over the queen of Egypt's temple.

Because he's just a commoner,

and they don't normally
get represented

in a place as sacred as this.

That says something about him.
Yes, yes.

He was very gifted person,
a very talented person.

Senemut oversaw
the temple's construction,

and tutored Hatshepsut's daughter.

It's long believed that his talents
captured the queen's attention,

and perhaps even her heart.

Presumably, because the niches
were always closed with doors,

so that image would have been
hidden, wouldn't it? Yes, yes.

The door of the niche
was opened inside,

so nobody knew about his presence
inside the holy place.

By hiding him
behind closed doors,

maybe Hatshepsut was trying to keep
her relationship with Senemut

under wraps.

But as the most famous woman
in Egypt at the time,

it can't have been easy,

keeping a lid on
a juicy bit of gossip like this.

I've heard there's more evidence
of this scandal

up in the hills above the temple.

It's pretty perilous to access.

But archaeologists think

this is where the temple builders
took their breaks,

sheltering from the sun, and
catching up on all the latest news.

I hope this is worth
that scramble up the hill!

SHE GROANS

In a skirt!

Oh, my gosh.

This is it!
Oh, that is amazing.

So this little scribble on the wall
here is close on 3,500 years old.

Now, obviously it shows
a man having sex with a woman.

But there's something
really special to notice here.

The woman has got
this thick royal wig on,

so it's probably showing a queen,
or Hatshepsut herself.

So there are two possibilities here.

Either this is feeding off a rumour

that Senemut and Hatshepsut were
actually lovers,

or it's just a guy
having sex with Hatshepsut herself,

and this comes from a time

where there was a woman who was
the most powerful female on earth,

doing amazing things,

and the guys sitting here
in this little cave

wanted to remember her like this.

3,500 years on, sometimes it feels
like very little has changed.

After two busy clays and nights
in and around Luxor...

...and some well-earned shore leave
for the crew,

it's time to set sail,

and continue my journey.

Sadly, I've got to leave Luxor,

but there are lots of discoveries
and delights still to come.

I'm heading for Egypt's more remote
and enthralling south.

I'm leaving
the hustle and bustle of Luxor

to travel deep
into Egypt's beautiful south.

It's much quieter here,

but we're not entirely alone.

CHEERING

So surreal!

That's so random.

Wow.

Another dahabeah,

and flying a Union Flag, too!

But if these are Brits,

they're continuing the grand
tradition of sailing down the Nile

that started centuries ago.

SHOUTING IN ARABIC

I love the fact the crew,
they all know each other,

so they have
a bit of information exchange...

HE SHOUTS LOUDLY

And just along the bank,

there's something else I am
determined to pay my respects to.

It's not a temple or a tomb,

but I think it's the unsung hero
of ancient Egypt.

The humble donkey.

BRAYING

There's a lovely guy who was
working his fields a moment ago,

and he's now...

bringing us his donkey, I think.

Oh, my gosh...

We're being offered a cow as well.

Thanks, Islam, thanks.

Thank you very much. Welcome.
Thank you.

Hello. Hello, morning.

Nice to see you.

How do you do? Hi!

Hello! Morning. Hi.
Oh, you're beautiful!

Is it a girl or a boy?

A donkey. It's a donkey?
Yeah, I know it's a donkey!

Oh, he's lovely.

Lovely, isn't it?

Really lovely.
Very beautiful donkey.

He might look sweet,

but he's actually
as tough as old boots.

Donkeys can pull
up to twice their body weight,

and even in these temperatures,

they can go without water
for an astonishing three days.

Apparently he loves swimming,

so we're going to go
for a little dip... Oh!

...in the Nile...instead!

LAUGHTER

Hello, little one.

There, is that nice on your mane?

Yeah?

So, at the end of...

At the end of every night,
as you go down the Nile,

you see people bringing the donkeys
and their horses in

to give them a cooling bath.

It's just such a lovely sight,
and totally timeless.

They definitely did this
in ancient Egypt,

we've got pictures of it.

And they deserved a bath.

It was donkeys that did huge amounts
of hard work

in fields, and on building sites.

It's a bizarre thought.

None of the pyramids, the temples,
the tombs I've seen on my journey

would have existed if it hadn't been
for these gentle beasts.

So, although this might seem
slightly odd,

it is in fact completely appropriate

that we are treating this random
donkey a bit like a pharaoh,

and giving him his own personal bath
in the waters of the Nile

because, after all,

it was the donkey that built the
great civilisation of ancient Egypt.

Thank you. Thank you.

SHE GROANS

Very wet shoes!

Oh, my God, my shoes are too wet!

Oh, my God!

LAUGHTER

We're now 35 miles upstream
of Luxor,

and the captain's just told us
that we've got to slow down

because we're approaching
the Esna barrage.

This is one of six dams
along the Nile in Egypt,

used to control the annual floods,

and in some cases
to generate electricity.

The ancient Egyptians
also built dams and locks,

so that they could regulate
the flow of the Nile, too.

So it's a kind of
20th-century equivalent

of a very ancient practice.

And it makes our sailors
very unhappy,

because they say they get rather
claustrophobic when they go inside.

You OK?

All the traffic on the Nile here
has to go through one lock

that's not much wider than our boat.

But the dam is
the gateway to the south.

Behind me lie the familiar sights
of ancient Egypt.

And ahead lies the lesser-known,
and even more intriguing south.

But getting there is proving
a tight squeeze.

SHOUTING IN ARABIC

It was slightly more tense
than I thought it was going to be,

because we got a lot closer
to the sides,

and there was a lot of
kind of frenetic rope action,

but the boys did amazingly,
and we are through safely,

and now we are continuing
our journey south.

Hello! Good luck!

Next time...

...I sail into the beautiful city
of Aswan.

Now, that is how I like my views.

L'lljoin the crowds and the rising
sun for some ancient Egyptian magic.

And as my Nile journey ends,

I discover a 3,000-year-old message
from a pharaoh.

Amazing.

And it's just all appearing
right in front of our eyes.

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