It’s hard to say what defines a luxurious experience of Egypt — the Balinese massage as you cruise down the Nile on The Oberoi Zahra; your first view of the illuminated Philae temple from a boat on black waters; a moonlit rendezvous with Cheops, the largest of the pyramids of Giza, from a suite at the historic Mena House. In Egypt, immersing yourself in history can be a luxury. It depends on how it’s done.
One way, highly recommended, is to follow the trail of gorgeous Oberoi properties across the country. A stay at the Mena House Oberoi — originally the palace of Khedive Ismail, grandson of Mohammed Ali, built in 1869 – makes Cairo, in a word, unforgettable. There are few experiences in the world to beat waking up to the Pyramids, the view from your suite interrupted only by a few palms and a delicious pool. Paralleled only by breakfast at the foot of the Pyramids in the historic café, Khan el-Khalili (once the Tea Lounge, the place to be in 20th-century Cairo; the perfect setting for a colonial Great Gatsby) — green leather, dark wood and mellow brass, and the sun pouring in through French windows that look onto a wonder of the world. Oh, and drinking in the view with an Egyptian red at the bar by twilight, the Pyramids lit; it seems, just for me.
History haunts the corridors of the Mena House: it’s in the latticed shadows set off by the lovely brass lamps, it’s in the wood-panelled suites of the old wing — the Om Kalthoum Suite especially, an ode to the many post-concert nights the Egyptian singer spent in the hotel, now lined with her songs and the most gorgeous of paintings. (Robert De Niro was just here last month.) It’s in the stunning pieces of furniture — sofas, doors, tables — inlaid with ivory and mother of pearl, wooden screens with patterns that blend the modern and the very ancient, from the lounges, bedrooms and harems of the Shaarawys, one of Egypt’s first families.
We had to drag ourselves away from the view and the history (and the pool), to walk to the Pyramids, just up the road from the hotel. After numerous incidents with touts, we placed ourselves in between the Great Pyramids to just take in the scale of this feat of architecture (the massive stones here were laid with a negligible margin of error — less than 8mm — compared to the over 20mm margin of error in the recently relocated temples along the Nile), and the headiness of being a few metres from the Sphinx.
The drive from Mena House into the heart of Cairo — a dusty, frenetic but mesmerising city — can take from 20 minutes to an hour, but you’re completely absorbed by silver-topped palaces and minarets as far as the eye can see. Our first, and longest, stop was at Khan el-Khalili, the most charming souk in Old Cairo. We plunged into its streets and layers of history — Turkish, British, French, 19th-century Egyptian; and found the Naguib Mahfouz Café (ask anyone, or spot a red-capped maitre d’ among the crowds), the ‘surprise’ of Khan el-Khalili, an elegant café-restaurant, where the writer apparently wrote many of his more famous books. It’s now run by the Oberoi, and serves some of the best koshari and hibiscus-and-tamarind juice you’ll ever taste. The manager readied us for a few hours of hectic bargaining, but the silver jewellery and brass lamps, the perfumes and leather-bound books — and the occasional mosque you’ll happen upon, still inlaid with azure — make it completely worth it.
As night falls, Cairo comes alive. We walked the streets of downtown Cairo at Talaat Harb, and then near midnight, on the Nile waterfront, to see the cafés and clubs fill up. Crowds — dressed to kill, and heavily eye-shadowed — throng the streets and charge the atmosphere. Before retreating to our abode beneath the Pyramids, we found Café Groppi to sip Turkish coffee, and absorb this awhile. It’s the pulse of Egypt, old and new, strikingly Arab — a vibrant present we missed among the pharaohs and hieroglyphics.
Everyone we know knew someone who’s done a cruise on the Nile. The idea was buoyed somewhat by the faraway look that people got when they talked about luxury Nile cruisers. Still, nothing quite readied us for the Zahra, the Oberoi’s latest offering on these waters. More surprisingly, a few days on the boat and we were shockingly well-adjusted to the highest of high lives: the special service, a sun deck that made us feel like we owned the Nile, the seven-course meals, the bathroom looking on to the Nile, and the history of ancient Egypt presented to us in the most unique way possible.
In my list of 100 Fantastic Ways to Spend a Week, the Zahra features pretty high up. This is a revelation I had repeatedly. It first happened in my luxury cabin, when I fell into a chair by the window, and was mesmerised by this river, and the life around it, as millions have been over the ages. The exclusivity of the Zahra (there are only 25 luxury cabins and two suites) means an intimate holiday, yet on a scale that’s quite spectacular.
We were struck by the way in which this trip down the Nile allows you to experience the history of ancient Egypt. You know the story, but you need to know our story, said Adel, our Egyptologist and guide to all things off the boat. That’s why you travel. So we walked, and sometimes sat, for hours in Philae, Kom Ombo, Edfu, a few of which have been salvaged from the Nile, when the new Aswan Dam forced its waters to rise. We experienced the omnipresence of Isis, the stories of Horus, the falcon-headed god, the energy of his wife Hathor, goddess of music and joy, the hieroglyphics etched in the sandstone pylons and walls taking the form of a musical composition that you can hear as you walk through. But the temples of ancient Egypt couldn’t freeze religion in their walls and stunning architecture: if you listen hard enough, you can conjure up a picture of the temple as it was meant to be — a busy meeting point between the angels of god and men, lorded over by the priest-king; a space for feasts and dancing, for reading the laws and rituals by which Egyptian life functioned, inscribed on the walls. Adel infused these pictures with a narrative of the continuity of history, of the politics that criss-cross this, of ancient Egypt passing on (through its thousands of years of foreign rule) to the Greeks and Romans, and informing, deeply, contemporary religion, art and theology. Walking through the Edfu temple at sunset, with hardly a soul in sight, the papyrus and lotus stems along the bottom of the temple walls, symbolising everyday life by the Nile, are almost real. You look up, and you can see the blue sky covered with countless golden stars, as it was before Christian vandalism took the colour from Egypt’s temples. History, as Adel said, adds a memory to your memory, and we left those temples changed.
Returning to the Zahra, there are ways and ways to let that history permeate into your skin. The spa is highly recommended. It’s the only one on the Nile, and among the best experiences of the cruise. Perhaps, the hardest thinking you have to do in eight days is choosing from the spa menu. I chose the Arabian coffee scrub and followed that up with a Balinese massage. It’s a state of bodily Zen that is surely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Eating yourself inside out is another strenuous yet completely fulfilling way of luxuriating on this cruise. Buffets are frowned upon on the Zahra, where there is an à la carte menu for every day. Lunch, on the sundeck, is definitely the meal of the day; interrupted occasionally with a dip in the gorgeous, perfectly warmed pool, or by the changes in landscape along the Nile. Fertile strips along the bank are covered with mango groves, and paddy and sugarcane, but the background to this deepest of greens is the desert brown of the Sahara, fine sand and rocky relief. The landscape is sometimes broken by white-sailed feluccas, or small villages, stacks of yellow-and-blue houses scattered with stunning minarets and domes.
Between this views to feast on, a tenderloin burger with melting Emmental that makes it almost impossible to sample the gazpachos or range of exotic salads, or anything else on offer — lunch is a special part of the Zahra experience. What it lacks in view, dinner compensates in the length and breadth of its gourmet menus, prepared with a thoughtfulness and precision that you can taste. There are Indian and Oriental (Lebanese and Egyptian) special menus which showcase the best of these cuisines, but other days you’re paralysed at the choice of sumptuous dishes in each course, and will need advice from the genius executive chef, Siddhartha.
Be warned: leaving the Zahra is hard, and it considerably raises the bar — in terms of food, staff and landscape — for any holiday you’ll ever take. But you shouldn’t leave Egypt before you’ve visited the Red Sea, and if there’s any image that can equal the one of Edfu by sunset for me, it’s of the sea from the Royal Suite at the Oberoi Sahl Hasheesh on the Red Sea. Palms, white sand and a score of blues that I couldn’t peel my eyes away from. Views aside, the suite is unforgettable — a sprawling bathroom, an inviting bed and a private pool.
Snorkelling off the pier is an irresistible temptation, but walking into one of the four coral reefs along the hotel’s beach is an experience in itself. One unbelievable blue gives way to another, and before I knew it, I had lionfish skimming my nose, and purple jellyfish (they aren’t the vicious kind) billowing by. It was stunning.
It’s virtually impossible to tear yourself away from your private pool at dinner, but a drink by the pool, with its breathtaking view of the hotel, illumined in a dull gold glow, and the pier, is definitely rewarding. The reef below the pier is lit after sunset, and so, wandering onto the marina, we saw frenetic underwater activity without the bother of a snorkel and flippers — we stood and were hypnotised for hours.
After a week in Egypt, waking to the Pyramids, being transfixed by the feluccas on the Nile, taking in life on the banks at Aswan through a cloud of sheesha smoke, watching the sunset redden the reefs along the Red Sea, it’s difficult to think of a country, and experience, that’s harder to leave behind.