Return of the blog ... Egypt: cruising up the Nile

I know... I've been a bit remiss, but now, I thought I'd bring you EGYPT! Well, not all of it, plainly but just a bit about our cruise up the Nile from Luxor to Aswan.

This is our boat, the MS Hamees. It has capacity for about 140 but we were only 42 on board, a sign of the huge drop off in tourism since the revolution.

It has the sort of elegance one would expect for a 5star boat. So much so that I decided to download Death on the Nile to my Kindle to read while we were on board.

On our first full day, Marea and I decided to take ourselves off to one of the food markets in Luxor (always a sucker for a good market) so we took a taxi and off we went.

The local produce is magnificent - if I said cabbages and cauliflowers like footballs it would be inadequate - they were bigger than medicine balls and the tomatoes were fresh and juicy but not unblemished like those in an English supermarket - all image and no taste.

We were tired after flying from UK so went back to the boat for lunch and then we set off upriver towards Om Kombo. I love the sight of passing villages, palm trees and mountains behind.

Already the traders were out, selling cloths. This looks a dangerous trade to me; they hitched themselves to our boat and were pulled along at about 15knots. I think they must have drifted far downriver during the day's trading so it was getting them home as well.

Then, the sunset and it was the first day (to almost quote another book).

There's lots more to tell, but at least I've made a start.