Escape to Luxor & Giza

Egypt has been calling to our family ever since the kids were born and my mom would tell them endless stories about the hidden tombs, jewels, kings, and queens. Having signed on for a new posting in China next year, we decided to escape the excitement of National & Liberation Days in Kuwait and head for the mysterious and richly past of Egypt.
We flew into Luxor and stayed 2 nights at a fabulous, funky hostel type hotel called the Nefretiti Hotel right in the heart of Luxor. Our front door put you out into a breezeway walk through that continuously transformed itself from morning coffee stop into a lively late afternoon evening outdoor cafe with shisha and turkish cafe served non-stop. Out of nowhere local food would appear. You just had to know to order it and the guy would run away to a local take out type restaurant and then run it back to you 'to go'. Our tour guide for Valley of the Queens & Kings told us about this and as we were famished from our outing with him we sat down and kept ordering - falafals, noodles & rice, turkish cafes, yummy puddings (i forget the local names). Everything was 5 egyptian pounds which is about 250 fils which is around 1 Canadian dollar. pretty cheap and yummy. We ate till we were stuffed. Just around the corner was a great souk with all kinds of things for sale and very thirsty vendors. If you looked, you had to buy. No window shopping allowed! We had some fun with a few of the sellers. Geoff and I spent about an hour in one store that was chock full of everything from brass door knockers (I bought one) to gorgeous hanging lamps to rugs, scarfs, and general middle eastern pawn shop items.
We all loved visiting the temples, tombs, seeing the ancient drawings on the walls leading down to the burial chambers. It truly is stunning to see the intricate work that these ancient peoples spent their whole lives doing. Everything was focused on preparing for the second life. They were to work hard and tirelessly in this life and then be rewarded with leisure and pleasure time in the next life. Royalty made sure their lives were taken care of, but I wonder about all the other millions of people. Where did they all end up?