Nile cruising hasn’t always had the best reputation... cramped cabins,
conveyor-belt excursions, a fair-to-middling chance of food poisoning.
But the bar has been raised this season with the arrival of the Oberoi Zahra,
the first genuinely luxurious boat to float down Egypt’s main artery.
You still get to marvel at how the Nile’s lush banks of date palms and Moses
grasses fade away to endless biscuity biblical desert and distant mountains;
you can still spy on the riverside villages where naughty, stick-wielding
boys tease the family camel, much as they might have two centuries ago; and
you can still watch their fathers in rickety feluccas, expertly spearing
fish for that night’s supper.
You’re just doing it from the spa bath on the main deck of a luxurious ship,
glass of hibiscus-flavoured champagne in hand.
Forget poky, windowless cabins: Zahra’s 27 suites are twice the size of the
average New York hotel room. Interior design is unintimidatingly modern –
matt-black rattan recliners, clotted creams for the raw-silk and leather
furnishings, with chestnut horsehair rugs for added texture – but the
winning feature is the picture windows, providing gorgeous views from the
plumply feathered bed, the lounge area, even from under the vast rainforest
shower.
The boat has a glamorous bar, a cigar lounge and a cinema (which, of course,
shows Death on the Nile). There’s an outdoor pool, a gym, a hairdresser’s
and a spa, with four huge, flower-strewn rooms and Thai therapists.
(Treatments are ayurvedic rather than Egyptian – how could they miss the
trick of a Cleopatra milk bath?)
The dining room’s backlit alabaster walls are beautiful, and the affable chef
is happy to tear up the daily gourmet suggestions (from risottos to Asian
prawn rolls) and head off-menu – the Middle Eastern and Indian dishes were
the tastiest. Of course, the $64m question is, will this Egyptian kitchen
give me gyp? Unlikely. Several guests complained that the food was so good,
they’d put on weight. There’s no pleasing some people.
In all, it is quite a billet for the eight-day drift through 5,000 years of
civilisation, tripping down the gangplank at regular intervals to take in a
glorious temple or do a spot of souvenir-hunting in the souks. Cruising from
Aswan to Luxor, the first-night excursion was the sound and light show at
Philae temple, a place that is the result of not one but two impressive
feats of construction.
A consequence of the building of the Aswan High Dam was that Philae’s original
site had to be flooded, so, amid great controversy, Unesco supervised the
painstaking eight-year relocation of the entire complex, stone by crumbling
stone, 500yd west to a higher island. The “light” bit of the show was not
half as tacky as it sounds: the added dimension that the cloak of shadows
threw on the delicate wallpaper of hieroglyphs and elegant architectural
lines was awesome.
I could have happily done without the “sound” – the script was comical and the
delivery very Rada-reject-does-Dame-Judi – but, overall, the drama of the
darkness was magical. Back on board, there’s a resident astronomer to
interpret those starry, starry nights.
During the day, each suite is assigned a personal guide, who choreographs
tours with the smoothness of Anton du Beke’s foxtrot. Guests never wait:
Oberoi’s black Mercedes van lurks like a CIA surveillance unit to whisk
clients from the boat to various sites. Guests never queue: the guide
fast-tracks every entrance turnstile with the efficiency of an Olympic
hurdler.
This five-star hermetically sealed bubble even extends to hawkers, who proffer
their wares from a discreet distance.
If your jaw doesn’t drop every five seconds in the Valley of the Kings, do
check you still have a pulse. It is humbling to witness the magnificence of
this culture’s ability to balance technical skills (more than 60 tombs have
been excavated, some burrowing more than 300ft into solid rock and
containing dozens of chambers) and sophisticated creativity (every
high-street fashion trend borrows something from these incredibly vivid
designs).
Sadly, you will be in the sort of snappy crocodile that the ancients did not
worship. But Oberoi’s clout occasionally extends even to crowd control. One
night, Edfu, the best preserved of the pharaonic temples, was opened just
for Zahra’s guests. As the sun set, 10 of us strolled through Edfu’s
118ft-high pylon and stood in its vast courtyard, with just its 32
intricately carved columns for company. I felt as privileged as any high
priest.
Susan d’Arcy travelled as a guest of Cox & Kings (020 7873 5000, www.coxandkings.co.uk
), which has seven nights, all-inclusive, on the Oberoi Zahra and four
nights, B&B, at the Mena House, in Cairo, from £1,815pp, including
British Airways flights from Heathrow to Cairo, domestic flights with
Egyptair and all shore excursions.
Other tour operators featuring the Zahra include Carrier (0161 491 7650, www.carrier.co.uk
), Bales Worldwide (0845 057 1819, www.balesworldwide.com
) and Kuoni (01306 747002, www.kuoni.co.uk
)
