A lazy(ish) day

Captain Cat and son

The last time I came to Luxor I stayed in a hotel called the New Pola. It is also on the Corniche, but of a standard which, while perfectly acceptable for the money - the room with a Nile views was in the region of £15 per night - was not anything like the standard of what I was expecting when I booked my room at the Pavillion at the Winter Palace. A hotel room is a hotel room…bed,bath,chair, wardrobe etc. If a hotel has a pool, great. If it has somewhere nice to sit to have a drink, better still. But these days, with my proverbial 'ship' probably by now having foundered on some far off outcrop of rock I do not expect to stay in the lap of luxury….at least not too often!

What I do however enjoy when I am travelling is to go and enjoy the facilities of a good hotel, even if I am not staying there. When staying at the New Pola I would venture out every morning to one of the better hotels in town and enjoy their breakfasts. The best, by a long way, was that served at the Steigenberger hotel. A bewildering array of 'stations' as they are called, serving just about everything imaginable and much unimaginable (the sort of revolting stuff Germans like for breakfast!) which was wonderful. Humans being what they are the guests would all huddle inside the restaurant eating their breakfast, when outside there was a glorious garden, warm sunshine, no people and if you walked far enough there were tables set up on the very banks of the Nile with extraordinary views in either direction with Felluccas, Cruise boats and other assorted rivercraft passing right infront of you.

I would quietly collar a waiter and ask him, very nicely…which means slipping him a few Egyptian pounds, whether he would mind if I set myself up a table by the river and sit there having breakfast rather than inside. As is usual in Egypt the response was a big smile and words akin to 'absolutely no problem' and so we would troop through the gardens and set up my boiled eggs, bacon, rolls, marmalade, coffee, orange juice - freshly squeezed of course - fruit plate and anything else took my fancy by the river. I returned there almost every day and it was always a wonderfully relaxing moment of the day.

But one day I ventured further afield as I had heard about the Winter Palace hotel as being somewhere a cut above the rest and a sort of modern throwback (if you'll pardon the contradiction) to when hotels were specifically designed for a class of person rather than for a class of tourist. I arrived at the Palace as it is called actually at dinner time in the evening, ostensibly for a drink and possibly dinner but was told I was inappropriately dressed and therefore couldn't come in. There were a number of other people in the same boat who were remonstrating with the poor doorman, taking offence, making a fuss, and storming off puce-faced, having been firmly put in their place, probably never to return.

Being something of a snob, for which I have never particularly felt the need to apologise, I I took it differently, returned to my hotel, put on a proper shirt, a clean pair of trousers and returned, keen to spend an evening amongst other similarly enlightened people…and there were quite a few who had taken the same view as me, not surprisingly almost all French! 

I was let in with a huge smile of welcome. I passed through the lobby and went outside. What greeted me was something I had never seen before. A huge park with the most wonderful gardens I think I had ever seen - other than maybe those at the Marmounia Hotel in Marrakesh where I also did the same thing once - beautifully illuminated (uplighters under the palm trees) immaculate lawns, bougainvillea trees flowering everywhere, illuminated fountains, white gazebos with rattan chairs and tables, a small area for enjoying a shisha pipe at teatime, a massive swimming pool with one of those bars you swim to in the middle. It was just wonderful. It was one of those few occasions when I wished I had  made my millions after all…..!

Well, after much research I discovered that the French company Sofitel, who run this place on behalf of the Egyptian government have a rather clever wheeze to make the place profitable. They have the Winter Palace which runs to a minimum of £400 a night for a room, more for one with a Nile view, and then they have the Pavillion Winter, which shares the same facilities as the main hotel, gardens, pool,restaurants etc but charge on average £100 a night. It is located at the side of the park and it was where I booked myself into for this trip. I got a good deal booking more than 2 weeks in advance, and so got a room for £60.

IN the event I had to cancel my trip due to the troubles. I sent a tongue in cheek email to the hotel asking whether under the circumstances I could change my booking, expecting the answer to be that as the deal was one where I could not change my booking under any circumstances, they were very sorry etc etc. I got an instant answer back….saying yes of course I could change my booking, as if I came on the dates I had mentioned they had actually closed the annexe due to lack of interest, and would put me up in the Winter Palace itself at no extra charge.

I arrived at the hotel and sure enough was shown to a room with a wonderful view of the Nile. I sneaked a peek at the price of the room displayed not the door. €900 a night was the going rate! I am the only person staying in the hotel, apart from one very elderly English gentleman who refuses to vacate the Pavillion hotel he is staying. Delightful old buffer who wanders around the grounds all day on a walking frame. Very much of the old school….and probably an Egyptologist of the first order.

I have spent the last few days charging around somewhat, being the restless type, and so decided that today I would take advantage of the surroundings and have a lazy day by the pool.  I got up late, enjoyed my breakfast, delivered by a waiter in full livery on the dot of 8.30, on the balcony outside my room. There followed a languid bath in which I read more of Tony Blair's book and played my newest iPad game …eh, in which one is required to direct a screwed up ball of paper into a waste paper basked on the other side of a 'room'…..a very mind expanding and very addictive game!

After spending far too much time on the internet downstairs - there is internet in the room but I can only access wireless internet, so have to go down to the lobby - playing with photos, talking to people on Msn and generally wasting time, I went out to the pool and bagged one of…ooh, 50 free beds. It is very surreal this as i was the only person by the pool, pretty much in the same vein as I have been the only person almost everywhere I have gone on this trip. I ordered a beer (the bottle came in an Icebucket…ha!) and settled down for a good read

I kept it all up for about an hour, then paced about a little, took some more photos of the garden but then I am afraid I got up and decided I would seek out Captain Cat and go for another Fellucca ride on the Nile.  Cat was there and soon we were sailing along in a fairly stiff breeze towards what is known as Banana Island. It was a glorious evening, quite mild with a cloudless sky.

Banana Island is not actually an island at all, but is part of the West bank and basically contains a large banana plantation - with loads of green bananas - an ex crocodile farm, and a rather cute white Donkey that brayed at me when I turned up. I took a video of the said braying and then played it back to it. It cocked its ears and listened intently to what I assume it thought was another Donk in the vicinity. Everyone seemed to find this highly entertaining !

I sat down at the cafe and had an absolutely filthy cup of coffee before rejoining Captain Cat for more sailing. By this time is was sunset and as we were returning back downriver the evening call to prayer started. The call to prayer comes at you in waves. It also starts rather quietly and grows in a sort of crescendo and each mosque seems to be a few seconds behind the next one and therefore the resonance of sound is something to be believed. 

All I can say is that sailing down the Nile at sunset, without a sound in the air, drinking a glass of mint tea, with cranes and other assorted birds flying about and the call to prayer resonating from both sides of the river was an experience the equal of which I cannot remember. Absolute magic.

We arrived back at the Fellucca harbour infront of the Winter Palace and Cat made us all another cup of tea which we drank in silence, taking in the sounds and sights of the river at dusk.

Dinner was a pretty poor affair at one of the restaurants overlooking the Nile. Cat and his son joined me for a drink, after which I returned to the hotel for more reading, playing with photos and writing up blogs!