Climbing the Giza pyramids is forbidden, but that only makes some people try harder.

"Pyramid climbing had been permissible up to the 1980s until Egyptian authorities forbade it following the deaths of several climbers. Despite the ban, the Great Pyramid is still climbed periodically as author Graham Hancock had done, generally in the dead of night. Sometimes guards are bribed and guides hired to show intrepid climbers the way up. Other climbers prefer to forgo paying unnecessary bribes and find ways of avoiding opportunistic guards.

"Interestingly enough, the leading nationality of these thrifty nocturnal climbers are the Japanese. Young Japanese travelers in Egypt have made pyramid climbing a virtual profession. They even have a handwritten book about how to do it in one of the hotels in Cairo...

"The Japanese book had listed the southwest corner of the pyramid as the safest place to climb. Here, the pyramid resembles a high-stepped staircase of steady, firm blocks. It makes for easy climbing, but we made the mistake of scaling straight up the middle of the west side rather than the corner... The west side was steep and crumbly. There was nowhere for us to stop and rest. It was tricky business climbing as our feet kept slipping out from underneath us and our hands kept losing their grip from time to time. Our only comfort was that we had promised each another if one of us should fall to our horrible gory demise, we would not scream out during our death plunge so as to give away the other.

"We eventually achieved the summit in about half an hour. At the top of the pyramid was a small flat area the size of a Japanese apartment where several people could sit. It was also large enough for several thousand mosquitoes to gather and dine on weary climbers."