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Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian and traveller, once descibed Egypt as 'the gift of the Nile', and since long before the birth of Christ travellers have been drawn by images of pyramids, the Sphinx, ancient Luxor and the Nile river. The Pharaohs, the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Turks and the British have all ruled Egypt, and modern Egypt is an amalgam of these legacies and the influences of Islam and the 20th century.

Mud-brick villages stand beside Pharaonic ruins surrounded by buildings of steel, stone and glass. Bedouins live in goatskin tents and farmers till the earth with the simple tools of their ancestors. Townsfolk dress in long flowing robes, others in Levis and Reeboks, and city traffic competes with donkey-drawn carts and wandering goats. Nowhere are these contrasts played out so colourfully as in Cairo, a massive city thronged with people and ringing to the sound of car horns, ghetto-blasters and muezzins summoning the faithful to prayer. Egypt isn't all chaos and clatter, however. It's also a diver's dream dip, a quiet camel caravan through the desert or a long lazy punt down the Nile.

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