Oasis of temples and castles
Kharga is clearly different from the image most people of an
oasis out in the desert. It has been the most important town in
the development plans for the Western Oases, and has presently a
population of more than 100,000 people. And when the
architecture is totally dominated by concrete blocks and wide
roads, the result is that few tourists use more time than
necessary in town. During my oasis circuit of 2004 I met several
Western travel guides telling me that they omitted Kharga all
together, because there was nothing to see. That is totally
wrong, Kharga has sights from 3 millenniums.
Kharga means in Arabic "point of departure", in opposition to
Dakhla, "point of entrance", which lies further to the west.
The population of Kharga are Berbers with roots back to the time
when the oasis was a station on the famous 40 Days Road between
Sudan and Egypt — famous because of the merchandise; slaves.
Map of kharga
Bagawat Necropolis
Temple of Hibis
Temple of Nadura
Qasr el-Ghweita
Qasr el-Zayan
Ain Umm Dabadib
Qasr el-Labeka
Ed-Deir
Modern city and oasis
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