I like Aswan. Perhaps it’s because we’ve been away so long from any kind of shops with options and decent merchandise – not to say this is Madison Avenue by any means. Merchandise of cheap t-shirts, inexpensive to absurdly overpriced gold and silver and more kitsch tourist knick-knacks. Streets around the hotels are spotted with military soldiers carrying rifles. Since the massacre of tourists in Luxor three years back, security has been ultra tight in Egypt. Tourism adds US$1 billion to the Egyptian economy and the government certainly wants to ensure that revenue continues.

Here I’ve seen Coptic crosses, stone steps with thousands of years of history, locals smoking sheeshas outside coffeehouses, spices of every color and variety, greasy falafel (fried chickpeas and spices) stalls, the tourist bazaar, scores of feluccas with white sails along the narrow, winding river and too, too many tremendous cruise boats cluttering the legendary Nile.