That’s so heavy. Do you have a gun in there?

It’s hard to know how to answer such a question when first going through the security checkpoint at the hotel in Cairo. After all it’s not every day a guard appears to be so flippant.

Metal and explosive detectors may make a visitor baulk initially, but that’s perhaps an indication of just how important tourism is to this country’s economy.

Past experience and present threats have left the authorities in no doubt as to how carefully that precious trade must be protected. And quite quickly it becomes a simple part of the visitor’s routine to pass through a control – just in case.

Off-the cuff remarks don’t normally go down too well with security guards. So of course even though their ribbing at the heaviness of the holdall seemed good-natured enough, common sense advised playing it straight, and owning up to lugging around an overweight laptop instead.

Strictly speaking there had already been a frisking of sorts as the taxi from the airport pulled into the hotel “compound.” It was engine off and a quick reconnoitre by a guard and his dog before being waved on to drive the remaining 600 metres.

So security, police and checkpoints seem to be a given here in Egypt.

Police are everywhere – at least in the capital. Whizzing past public buildings on the main avenues, their presence isn’t too unexpected. That is after all what can be found in many major cities anywhere in the world.

But Cairo seems to post additional clusters of differently-uniformed officers on most street corners,

Then of course there are the multitude of traffic police – out in force at each and every crossing and roundabout, vigorously waving their directions while chatting with passing drivers. Once again it all comes across as too good-humoured to be taken seriously.

Guaranteed full employment it would appear as the traffic lights, which should be controlling the flow seem to be set permanently flashing on amber, with motorists and pedestrians competing against each other for priority.

And of course who can forget the tourist police. They are huddled around every major monument ancient and modern, once again coming in quadruple packs with three watching and one checking as visitors file through the detector.

And there’s a thing. With belts, bags, cameras, mobile phones and all manner of metal passing through, the poor machine seems to be on beeping overload as the hoards make their way ever onwards. Not an eyelid is batted by those ever-vigilant law enforcers. Clearly everyone in principal is a potential suspect, but at the same time they all make the security grade.

Similarly the smooth passage through the airport when alarms shrieked as baggage and passenger went through the detector seemed to attract only cursory attention.

All right so there was a brief frisk from one of the – yet again several does it really take so many – guards, but it seemed to be more of a bored formality than a serious search.

Perhaps it was also because it was a domestic flight terminal only, but all the same it came as quite a surprise and leaves room for thought. As does the fact that last-minute passengers managed to scoot past the final security check with full bottles of water in their carry-on.

So that was security for what it’s worth in and around Cairo. Full of good intentions and certainly the sheer numbers to enforce whatever controls might be deemed necessary. But there’s also a sense of awareness that the tourist doesn’t want, or need, to be harassed constantly.

Pyramid perils

More tales of the road as our driver hurtles along at breakneck speed from the hotel to the pyramids of Giza on our first day of sightseeing. His course sees him bobbing perilously between lorries, cars, the occasional horse and cart and the more frequent donkey dragging an overladen trailor of vegetables. Oh yes and let’s not forget the odd camel or two.

I quickly realise that this makes France’s infamous Arc de Triomphe look like a doddle to drive around, and count my lucky stars that we hadn’t even thought about a hire care. I briefly wonder why there are no Egyptian formula one drivers (lack of money I muse) but my attention is quickly diverted. “Hang on isn’t that a 1970s Peugot 504 taxi headed straight towards us – on the wrong side of the road?”

I’m so Zen that it doesn’t seem to matter. I’m not buckled up and have long since stopped worrying about the future. And yes of course it’s on the wrong side of the road, but with one deft manoeuvre our driver has avoided a head-on collision and instead cut in front of a gas-belching truck. Our only concern now is to wind the windows up as quickly as possible.

Nor am I really listening to the guide, who is trying to give us centuries worth of ancient history in just a few minutes – less than 60 seconds for each of the 30 Pharaoh’s dynasties. Instead I’m gazing through the window, gaping at 21st century life – which I’m having enough problems grasping never mind what has gone on before.

Cairo is enormous - around 25 million people we’ve been told – and it’s one of those places where the very rich rub shoulders with the extremely poor – and it just seems to be the natural order of things.

It’s all very difficult to arrange in one’s pea-sized brain, especially as there’s also the cultural element to factor in. I shouldn’t but I do, stare at women in headscarves – by far the majority here it seems – and wonder what all the fuss is about back in Europe. Here they seem to just get on with life, wear the thing proudly and accept it. But heck, what do I know, I wonder to myself. Maybe it is after all just a way of keeping women in their place. And then I see a couple wearing the whole black caboodle from head to toe, with just their eyes peeping through. I’m even more incensed and horrified, staring further in incomprehension.

The pyramids soon provide me with another distraction. Boy is it hard to keep one’s focus in this country as the ancient and modern collide with each other so frequently and so noisily.

There are the young boys desperate to sell me any kind of nonsense for a few Egyptian pounds, and there are the tourists all striking the same stiff pose as the camera lens clicks for what must be the umpteenth time in a gesture we know has been and will continue to be repeated ad nauseam over the years.

I try hard to join in, but I feel embarrassed and superior and anyway, the guy perched on his camel as we drove past, would have made a far better picture. Except now I’ve been told even if we had wanted to take a photo of him, we would have had to pay for the delight.

Still I marvel at the sheer effort there must have been in moving all that stone in worship of a pharaoh. Not strong on the original thinking I guess. But would anyone be willing to do the same for Posh n’ Becks or Brangelina today I wonder if they decided they needed immortalising in the same way.

A quick lesson on mummification from the guide takes the stomach to unchartered territory so far on this trip. Perhaps that’s still to come with my steadfast refusal not to be persuaded against eating the fresh fruit and veggies.

Time for a quick peak at the Sphinx, minus its beard, which apparently the British museum still refuses to return, although quite why yet again escapes me – and the tour guide wasn’t much help on that front either.

So the whistle stop is over and Aswan beckons. Internal airlines will test my steel.

Page Viarge

After piling off the bus, which brought us from the 'plane to the gate – just how we managed so successfully to be first on and of course last off will remain forever a complete mystery – we shuffled towards a mass of waiting tourist reps.

Each was waving a board rather like one of those exits from an Italian motorway when you can’t find the sign for where you want to go because it’s lost in the sheer of multitude of advertising boards.

Miraculously enough though, through the wood we did managed to see the trees. There holding aloft our names was Omar Sharif (or so he claimed) in appalling French. His English was apparently better, but there was no real proof. He promptly provided us with our visa (included in the price clearly) on a “page viarge”, which neither we nor the other couple he had collected understood, but which turned out to mean two blank pages in our passport – one for the stick-it-on-yourself visa and one for the official stamp. His English really was better than his French as I wheedled the explanation out of him.

Luckily the interminable wait for the luggage was accompanied by some light entertainment in the form of one veritable mountain of a local man shouting very “largely.’ No idea what it was all about of course as my Arabic only goes as far as to say “thank you.”

And that’s courtesy of Michael, in whose care Omar Sharif left us after we had cleared customs He was there to usher us into our taxi. The welcoming melee was to be expected and far from disappointing as drivers set up a honking serenade to see who could get closest to the pick-up points.

One family successfully managed to try to stuff far too much luggage into a waiting car and a mad woman headed straight at a throng of people, hitting the horn relentlessly to clear her path. It obviously worked as within minutes she had parked, and engine still running, hopped out of the seat to shower what surely could only have been her mother with a such a joyous embrace it would have been impossible to view her driving and parking skills as delinquent.

We’re eventually bundled into our taxi and driven off rapidly to our hotel.

Ah yes on the roads, the Egyptians are something else. There are lanes for sure, complete with solid white lines for no overtaking of course and panels indicating what you should do. But what the heck. This is a free world. This is still a democracy – of sorts - and there ain’t nobody gonna tell anybody else how to drive.

But there is one rule of the road and that seems to be “SOUND THAT HORN” and the longer, the more often and the louder the better!