November 26 – Muscat

Muscat has got to be one of the cleanest and tidiest cities in the world – an impact that was even greater having come from rubbish infested Egypt, which is full of discarded plastic bottles and bags, blowing about the dusty streets. Here in Muscat, armies of Indian workers are constantly busy brushing the pristine streets, watering the lush lawns, and tending to the colourful flower beds. Things were possibly even cleaner than normal because the Queen was due to visit in a couple of days time – it was nice to see Union Jacks flying everywhere next to the Omani Flag.

We visited the enormous Grand Mosque, the 4th biggest mosque in the world, with the second largest carpet in the world and the most expensive chandelier in the world (containing over 600,000 Swarowski crystals. It was an impressively opulent and cavernous building that must be quite a sight when full of worshippers (apparently it can accommodate over 20,000). The mosque was bumped down to Number 4 in the world by the Grand-er Mosque in Abu Dhabi which we'll be seeing in a couple of days – it will be interesting to compare and contrast.

We then went to Mutrah Souk, which was full of the usual Arab fare – gold, silver, pashminas, spices and daggers – plus Oman's most famous historical export, frankincense. After this, we went into Muscat's spotless and ordered old town, to view the sumptuous Royal Palace, where Sultan Qaboos will be receiving the Queen.

Pretty much all the guests agreed that this was their favourite Arab city – none of the chaos or mess of places like Egypt, but none of the artificiality of places like Dubai.

November 18 – 25 – Pirate Dodging Round Arabia

So, we had five days sailing from the Red Sea to Muscat, which meant that for at least two of those days, we were sailing in the most dangerous waters in the world – past the pirates of Somalia.

The Captain gave us a briefing that explained that the ship was taking every precaution to avoid the pirates, by sailing through a protected corridor patrolled by the navies of the coalition, and we had our two hard as nails ex-SAS mercenaries/security consultants onboard (the passenger rumour mill had them painted as a couple of British Stephen Segals).

While in the danger zone, all the open decks were out-of-bounds, while at night, we weren't allowed to have our curtains drawn, to make us less of a target – however, the fact that it was virtually a full moon and clear skies meant we weren't exactly inconspicuous. The one comforting thought was that we are a lot faster than most of the cargo ships crossing with us; and we were a lot more difficult to board (being higher in the water); plus the prospect of trying to control a boat full of headstrong Silversea Passengers would scare most self-respecting pirates.

As it turned out, we didn't see any evidence of pirates – we saw plenty of flying fish and dolphins, we were approached by helicopters from the British and German navies (which was reassuring); plus a few fishing boats; but no pirates, thank God.

November 17 – Safaga

It would be fairly safe to say that Safaga is a one horse (or one camel), town. Other than giving us access to Luxor, it's trying to turn itself into a resort town for Europeans who want somewhere cheap to roast themselves in the burning sun. It does have some nice beaches, warm seas and decent windsurfing, but it's got a while to go before it can rival the many cultural delights of somewhere like Sharm el Sheikh.

The shuttle bus dropped us off at the Holiday Inn to the North of town – a fairly nice, but half-empty resort that unless you're a sun worshipper (and we're most definitely not these days), doesn't have much to it.

So, back to the ship for lunch, where the most interesting thing was seeing the burly "security consultants" who'd come on board to see us through our journey past the pirates of Somalia. Tracy is desperate to talk to these hired guns to get their back story – we'll keep you informed on what we learn.

November 16 – Luxor and The Valley of The Kings

I'm pleased to report that there's been no ill-effects so far to yesterday's rogue pill – I haven't yet turned into a woman, and all other bodily functions appear to be working as normal (or as normal as they've ever been). Which is just as well, because today, we have to get up at the crack of dawn for an exhausting 13 hour trip to visit Luxor and The Valley of The Kings.

So, from the less-than-inspirational Red Sea port of Safaga, we travelled for 3 and a half hours across the wilderness of the Eastern Desert, to reach the thin strip of green fertile land alongside the River Nile. As soon as we got to "civilisation", we could see that Egypt has slipped a long way back from the height of civilisation that it experienced under the Pharaohs. Rubbish was strewn all along the irrigation canals, and the bloated bodies of a dead donkey and a dead cow were seen floating along the source of water for thousands of people – a more modern version of "Death on the Nile".

But, our introduction to Luxor was a strong hint at the magnificence of Ancient Egypt. We arrived at the impressive Temple of Luxor, with its huge pylons, lines of ram-headed sphinxes, rows of towering columns and one lone obelisk (the partner to this obelisk now stands in the Place de Concorde in Paris – the wily French swapped it for a clock which never worked).

After lunch we moved onto the Valley of the Kings to visit three of the tombs of the Pharaohs. You're not allowed to take cameras into the Valley, so you'll have to take my word for it that the vivid colours and quality of the wall paintings inside these atmospheric tombs were breathtaking. It didn't take much for them to be literally breathtaking though, because as you descend inside these long and mysterious chambers, it gets steadily hotter and more airless, as you're being followed around by a "helpful" attendant pointing at a picture of a crocodile and saying "crocodile", or pointing out that what looks fairly obviously like a monkey is indeed a "monkey". They then give you a bit of a torn up piece of cardboard, wave it in your face saying "air conditioning", followed with an outstretched hand and a request for "baksheesh". Needless to say, there wasn't much baksheesh forthcoming from me.

Before our lightning raid on Luxor finished, we had time for a quick photostop at the amazing Temple of Hatshepsut, looking so perfect in the distance that it was like a film set; and then at the weather beaten Colossi of Memnon.

A day of fantastic sights that only makes you want to come back for much, much longer.

November 16 – Luxor and The Valley of The Kings

I'm pleased to report that there's been no ill-effects so far to yesterday's rogue pill – I haven't yet turned into a woman, and all other bodily functions appear to be working as normal (or as normal as they've ever been). Which is just as well, because today, we have to get up at the crack of dawn for an exhausting 13 hour trip to visit Luxor and The Valley of The Kings.

So, from the less-than-inspirational Red Sea port of Safaga, we travelled for 3 and a half hours across the wilderness of the Eastern Desert, to reach the thin strip of green fertile land alongside the River Nile. As soon as we got to "civilisation", we could see that Egypt has slipped a long way back from the height of civilisation that it experienced under the Pharaohs. Rubbish was strewn all along the irrigation canals, and the bloated bodies of a dead donkey and a dead cow were seen floating along the source of water for thousands of people – a more modern version of "Death on the Nile".

But, our introduction to Luxor was a strong hint at the magnificence of Ancient Egypt. We arrived at the impressive Temple of Luxor, with its huge pylons, lines of ram-headed sphinxes, rows of towering columns and one lone obelisk (the partner to this obelisk now stands in the Place de Concorde in Paris – the wily French swapped it for a clock which never worked).

After lunch we moved onto the Valley of the Kings to visit three of the tombs of the Pharaohs. You're not allowed to take cameras into the Valley, so you'll have to take my word for it that the vivid colours and quality of the wall paintings inside these atmospheric tombs were breathtaking. It didn't take much for them to be literally breathtaking though, because as you descend inside these long and mysterious chambers, it gets steadily hotter and more airless, as you're being followed around by a "helpful" attendant pointing at a picture of a crocodile and saying "crocodile", or pointing out that what looks fairly obviously like a monkey is indeed a "monkey". They then give you a bit of a torn up piece of cardboard, wave it in your face saying "air conditioning", followed with an outstretched hand and a request for "baksheesh". Needless to say, there wasn't much baksheesh forthcoming from me.

Before our lightning raid on Luxor finished, we had time for a quick photostop at the amazing Temple of Hatshepsut, looking so perfect in the distance that it was like a film set; and then at the weather beaten Colossi of Memnon.

A day of fantastic sights that only makes you want to come back for much, much longer.

November 15 - Aqaba pill popping

Not much to report today other than an incident of inadvertent doping.

At breakfast, Tracy brought along the vitamin pills for us and put them down on the table for us to have with our breakfasts. When I came back with my food, I saw the pill and gulped it down.

When Tracy returned she asked me if I wanted my pill, to which I replied, I've already had it.
"No you haven't, it's here."
"Well what have I eaten then?" Uh, oh!

It appears that the previous person sitting there before me had left their pill on the mat. Tracy's non-alarmist solution to this potential poisoning was to stick my fingers down my throat, which I tried but to no avail.

What the pill was for I don't know, but so far I have ruled out Viagra, constipation and laxatives. We will see how I progress……

November 14 - Aqaba

Aqaba is chiefly famous for 3 things:
1. It's Jordan's only port.
2. It was stormed by Lawrence of Arabia in World War One (inspiring that scene of Lawrence and the Arabian horsemen attacking it from the desert).
3. It provides access to the amazing lost city of Petra.

For our visit this time, we decided to explore Aqaba itself. Compared to the chaos and slightly uneasy air of being a Westerner in Alexandria, Aqaba was organised, clean and very welcoming. We wandered around the (much smaller) market, untroubled by having to worry about what you were treading in, and we'd have been much less concerned about the healthiness of the produce either if we had had to eat it. We went to a large bakery which was constantly churning out shedloads of flatbreads off an enormous conveyor belt – they were being snapped up as quickly as they could be produced, at a bargain price of about 20 flatbreads for a dollar.
Seeing all this lovely food made us feel hungry, so we decided to visit a busy outdoor restaurant for some hummus and falafels. There were four of us, so we asked the waiter to bring out enough for us – either he thought we hadn't eaten for a week or were going to be joined by another four people, but he brought out an enormous amount of food. It made you wonder if he'd deliberately over ordered so that he could over charge us, but on looking round, everyone had similar super-size portions. Of course, it was delicious and very filling and we must have left about half of it, but the best bit of the lot was that it cost less than $10 for the four of us, including drinks. Tracy almost said that she wanted to move here, on the back of this bargain alone.

We then went to Aqaba's main historic sight, Aqaba Castle. A castle had originally been built by the Crusaders, and then it was rebuilt by the Mamluks in the 15th century. Before Lawrence of Arabia and his Arab army took it from the Ottomans, it had been badly damaged by British bombardments, so it was fairly ruined; but nevertheless it was interesting to have a poke around.

Finally, we walked along the beach watching all the local boys playing in the sea, while all the women sat fully covered up on the shore, and we passed what purports to be the largest unsupported flagpole in the world (this is now the third flagpole we've encountered that's laid claim on this glamorous title).

November 13 – Sharm El Sheikh Snorkelling

Today we visited the very Westernised Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh – a kind of Costa del Sol plonked on the edge of the Sinai desert in Egypt, with an array of western bars, discos and restaurants that couldn't really be any further from traditional Egyptian life. Of course, we weren't here for the "culture" - the reason that the resort was built here, is that it's perfectly located to discover the best coral reefs and underwater sea life North of the Equator.

We took a boat from Na'ama Bay out to a couple of the reefs off the coast, and as soon as you put your face mask under the water, you were confronted with an unbelievably colourful underwater world, full of vividly decorated fish of all shapes and sizes, nibbling away at the reef. Tracy was fairly convinced that there would be man-eating sharks out there, but the biggest thing we saw was an unthreatening parrotfish, lurking below us.

The second reef we went to was closer to the coast, so was a lot busier; but even though I saw one man walking around stepping on the coral, the reef was actually in pretty good shape – it looked healthier than some bits of the Great Barrier Reef that I've snorkelled on.

It's funny to have a similar feeling of being in an alien environment as we experienced in Alexandria, but in such a different way. Again, there was a sense of being on the outside looking in, of being somewhere we weren't quite meant to be – some of the quizzical looks I got from the fish who popped up in front of me, looking me straight in the face, were unforgettable.

November 12 – Suez Crisis

This was to turn out to be the strangest transit of the Suez Canal.

We were meant to be entering the Canal at 7am, which would have given everyone a day of enjoying the views through the most important and busiest waterway in the world. Instead, for some reason, the Canal authorities got us to enter at around 3am, which meant that we'd already done half the transit before people had woken up. But, when we did wake up, it was hard to tell that we were in the canal at all – thick fog meant that you could hardly see the edges of the canal, never mind the desert, towns and monuments that line the canal.

Then, just as the fog was lifting, they made us anchor up in the Great Bitter Lake (one of the natural stretches of water that the canal links through) for around 6 hours, while the convoy that we were originally meant to have been in, finally caught up with us. This meant that it was getting dark by the time that we eventually started moving again – so really, there wasn't much to see.

Instead, people had to put up with two scintillating Destination Lectures on our upcoming ports, and also a cooking demonstration by the chefs, cooking up a storm with the ingredients that we'd bought in Alexandria the day before.

November 11 – Market Day in Alexandria

Today we joined a market tour led by the ship's Executive Chef and Silversea's Executive Chef in charge of training and education. Our mission was to pick up some supplies for the ship, and to learn a bit more about the local produce on offer here in Egypt.

When exploring a town, we normally head for the market to get a bit of local colour, but what made this trip so rewarding was that this time we weren't just passive voyeurs, but we were actually going to be interacting and buying things.

As expected, Alexandria's market was as typically chaotic and noisy as the rest of the city – a mass of people shouting and jostling, sound systems blaring out tinny music, livestock on the street, puddles and mud everywhere, and a remarkable range of meat, fish and vegetables. If you were easily put off, you'd probably turn straight around after walking about 100 meters – some of the sights, sounds and smells were not what we're used to in the West.

If you looked up at the depressingly crumbling buildings, you could easily think that this would be an incredibly poor and downbeat place. But, in contrast, the market was stuffed full of delicious looking produce and its people were exuberantly welcoming towards us – even if a group of 16 wide-eyed westerners stumbling around their market, buying up eels, odd-looking vegetables they'd never seen before, and fragrant spices, must have been a rare sight for them.

We passed fly-covered stalls proudly displaying decapitated sheep heads, disembodied goats feet and disembowelled cows, while their live brethren lurked about unawares in the side alleys, waiting to join them after their appointment at the butchers block – it took you aback a little at the start of the trip, but it's amazing how quickly you take it in your stride. This was a day not to be too precious about sanitisation or cleanliness, so we tried delicious freshly fried falafels and sampled freshly picked dates.

Even if one local came up to one of our group and told her that he'd "like to fxxx her" ("her best offer in years" she proudly told us), pretty much everyone else was full of smiles and hellos – an excellent day to break down some of our preconceptions about Egypt.

November 10 - Mosque Hunting in Rhodes

We only had a short stay in Rhodes, so we decided to get off the beaten track and get into the backstreets of the old town, away from the touristy areas. Admittedly, it's definitely off-season here, but once you get into the old medieval backstreets, it's a world away from the tourist stalls and restaurants, and you scarcely see a soul. As we wandered down the ramshackle alleys, we passed a number of dilapidated mosques left over from the Ottoman period, almost four hundred years of Turkish rule from Istanbul. In that period, Islam was the official religion of this now, most Christian of islands, and it's interesting to look from the ship to see the minarets competing with the church towers in the skyline.

Now that Rhodes is Greek again, the Muslim population here has shrunk to virtually nothing, and the old mosques are an unwanted reminder of years of religious repression. The main mosque in the centre of town is still functioning, but the others are closed and slowly falling apart. These crumbling mosques act as a continuing reminder that the tension between Islam and Christianity is a centuries old one, which can be pushed to one side on this idyllic holiday island, but never be totally forgotten about.

November 9 – Here We Go Again – Piraeus

Today we start another cruise, and so for the next 6 weeks, we will call the luxurious Silver Wind our home, as we navigate our way around the Middle East and India. We got up at the crack of dawn to fly from Heathrow to Athens, where our taxi met us for a scarily high speed journey weaving through the heavy Athenian traffic to Piraeus to meet our ship.

As we flew over the Athens coastline, we'd noticed that the sea looked pretty rough, and sure enough, when we got to Piraeus, it was ominously windy. It normally takes me a couple of days to get my sea legs, so giving my first lecture at 7pm as the ship was lurching all over the place was not a good start. However, I survived, and the fuggy head slowly lifted over the course of the evening as; either a) I got used to the movement; or b) the seas calmed down; or c) the wine kicked in.