3:15am a taxi took me to the airport for my flight to Abu Simbul.  At the time, flying is the only way to get to the site.  The flight took only 30 minutes.  After landed at Abu Simbul airport, a transfer bus carried us to the entrance of the temple.

It is surely a magnificent site, especially knowing the whole temple had been moved up 60 some meters from its original location.  In the 1960's, the Egyptian government decided to build the Aswan Dam.   As a result, many settlement along the Nile river bank will be flooded, that includes the famous Abu Simbul Temple.

In 1963, engineers began working to save the great temples and statues of Abu Simbul from being submerged in the water. They cut them into huge chunks and hoisted them to the top of a cliff, in the face of which they were originally carved, for reassemble. The cost, which was estimated at 36 million dollars, was largely met by contributions from the United States, Kuwait, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).