Early to bed…

I think it's Friday night - not sure because this week is seriously lacking any reference points. However, tomorrow we're flying up/down (delete as applicable) to Luxor to see the Valley of the Kings. The Pyramids will wait for another trip.

The downside of that visit is that we're having to wake up at 4 in the morning to go to catch a plane but we should be back early enough to grab a late dinner.

The last couple of days have been fun. It was windy yesterday and really rather (relatively) cold and today was a bit nicer but we've just had an excellent time.

The evening shows have been getting progressively more bizarre, although we're missing tonight's. After Wednesday night's multi-lingual karaoke last night we had Egyptian entertainment. And not a sand dance in sight.

No what we did have was a belly dancer showing some guests how it's done but they seemed to have brought their own bellies. We also had something I'll just describe. A bloke in a floaty dress / skirt which he could spin over his head - and indeed the audience's heads (as he proceeded to do over every single one of us over the course of about 10 minutes) - who also could carry many plates in more and more implausible ways as the routine went on. And on.

We gave up and came back to our room just as blokes in orange came out waving sticks about. Taking a break from keeping protestors in check presumably.

The entertainment as a whole has been good actually. The hotel animation team have been engaging and fun during the days and have put on a good range of things to do.

At dinner we seem to have made friends with a waiter who speaks excellent English, if we make allowances that he learned all his English from watching "Only Fools and Horses". I'm sure I heard him use the phrase Diamond Geezer which I haven't heard since Steve Wright used to be on Radio 1 in the afternoon.

Strange cockney affectations aside Ahmed is a lovely bloke though as has been pretty much everyone we've come across.

Tomorrow in Luxor represents the half way point of our time in Egypt and that's really rather sad. Except there's Christmas in there to confuse and delight us all too.