Jan on 04/07/2005 wrote:

I've have the same experience. No flash allowed, unless you give the
guard a pen....

LOL...BIC BIC. In fact any pen with non Arabic writing on it

I've no clue if a few flashes will damage the paintings.
In several temples, the guards where showing tourists the most
important drawings using a candle.
They force themselve onto the tourists, even when you tell them not
to join you. Of course all for a baksheesh.

Best time to visit the sites in the Valley of Kings etc. is around mid
day. There tend to be a few less tourists in the mid day heat and
often the guards are snoozing. We had to climb over three sleeping
guards in one tomb and then used the ticket they didn't collect in
another As far as forcing themselves on tourists etc. that can be a
pain especially when you can't understand them and when you do
understand them it becomes obvious they don't know what they are
talking about. One showed me a fresco and told me it was Horus, I kept
telling him no, it is of Tahuti (Thoth). If you know what you are
looking at and know the ropes it is easy to tell them you don't kneed
them as you are a professor of Egyptology even if you are not.

I can the imagine the soot doesn't help preserving the drawings.

Be prepared to pay a lot of baksheesh. Every photo of a person or
animals (the owner will magically appear).

I've heard about that, but, it has never happened to me. Most
Egyptians I have met are only too pleased for you to take a photo of
them, they feel honoured. On the other hand I've often thought it
funny and charming when Egyptians ask you to join them in a photo that
one of them is taking. Evidently they then show it to their friends
and tell them that it is "us with our foreign friend".