The RAII was as posh as it looked from the outside. It seemed gleaming and new, but no doubt it had been up and down this stretch of water as many times as all the other boats that formed the crawling queue up and down the Nile.

The rooms were beautiful and the people working on board were generally friendly. Mind you, they could afford to be, unlike some men we met out on the streets selling their wares. I think mostly the traders regarded myself and mum with casual disgust. After all, what were two women doing wandering about the streets without a husband?

Having always been travel sick on boats in the past I was a little bit wary of going cruising, but on the river you hardly knew you were moving, except that the fields and palms kept drifting past. We cruised overnight and on one morning I threw open the curtains of the cabin only to be greeted by the chaos of a bustling local street, braying donkeys and car horns and shouting, not forgetting the heavy air full of spices and diesel fumes. It was magical.