Have you ever tried to buy ORDINARY note paper in Luxor? I hate kowtowing to the tourist industry and must assuage my conscience with the idea that papyrus is more environmentally sound than paper. I wonder if that is true--don't disillusion me, please. I really need a felt pen to write on this--try buying one of those here.

However, after my raid on the Boston bookshops I eventually arrived home at 3 AM. Getting up late on Monday there were only a couple of panic messages waiting for me; I sneaked into work on Monday evening and fixed them.

On Tuesday having caught up on the newspapers and discovered that, as usual, nothing had happened. I had 2 weeks to fill before my next hospital appointments. So I walked to the travel agent and said, "What have you got, CHEAP, for the next two weeks?" I could fly to LUXOR for £95 return they said, so I did.

They claimed that all accommodation was full but I didn't believe that, it's just that the travel companies have very low quotas booked because of the tourist recession in Egypt.

As the flight did not arrive until late and I needed time to find a good place to stay I managed to book the first two nights from England. Unfortunately I could only arrange a 5 star hotel--too expensive really and I don't like them.

On arrival the hotel lived up to expectations. New, western, posh, clean with all mod. cons. which actually worked--in other words totally devoid of Egyptian character. I thought this would be boring but events proved me wrong.

The next day I found a room in the Luxor Hotel--an old Victorian hotel in which all the early archaeologists stayed. It's my favorite type of hotel--solid old colonial which they have attempted to update but failed due to ordinary Egyptianness. Most things usually work in some way if only you can figure it out. It has air conditioning with two settings--off and freezing, which is wired into the bathroom extractor fan so, you eventually discover, you can have one on but not both.

My second night in the 5 star hotel yet remaining I returned to spend the afternoon sitting in the shade, adjusting to the heat and catching up on my reading on Egypt. I was also thinking over our conversation on writing travel stories and trying to calculate whether there is really enough material for a book. I may have a lot of stories but I've been travelling a long time and these things don't happen every day, I thought.

Shaded under the pergola, which ran from the back door of the hotel to the swimming pool, were the stands of three traditionally dressed Egyptians, one selling all the many colored spices of the Orient, one a snake charmer squatting crossed legged behind his basket and the third selling that whole range of wooden artifacts specially manufactured for tourists to carry home without really knowing why. I never actually saw them sell anything but they didn't seem to mind. Their occupation was to maintain a continuous stream of mocking banter which the appearance of every passer by occasioned. From their, to me unintelligible, dialect I gathered that all three were called Mohammed, not unusual in Egypt.

Presently a cleaner, neatly trousered in a gaudy hotel uniform suit emerged and began to sweep the cobwebs from the under side of the pergola with a long handled brush. From the raillery that greeted him it appeared that he, too, owed his name to the prophet.

Conflict soon began as Mohammed, the spice seller, objected to debris from the pergola being swept over his spices. Gesticulating with one hand as he wielded his 8 foot brush with the other, Mohammed, the duster, maneuvered around the spice stand, still sweeping as he retorted and, determined to face up to Mohammed, the spice seller, failed to look where he was putting his feet and stepped into Mohammed, the snake charmer's basket.

The snake, whose name I did not ascertain, woken from its slumber, wrapped itself around Mohammed, the duster's, leg and reared up its head. Looking down Mohammed, the duster, found himself face to face with a 6 foot cobra. Jumping backwards to escape he crashed through Mohammed, the artifact seller's stand and, stepping on a fallen candlestick, skated, the snake still around his leg, elegantly towards the swimming pool, struck the edging and fell in, his leg jerking upwards hurling the snake into the air. As Mohammed splashed the snake curved through the air, an elegant, writhing terror into the centre of the pool.

I don't know if you've ever witnessed the introduction of a live 6 foot cobra into a tourist filled swimming pool but, on consideration, I think that the mot juste is 'spectacular'.

With screams of "SNAKE, SCHLANGE, SERPENT" [it was a very cosmopolitan hotel] the water boiled as thrashing limbs drove the swimmers upwards and out. So rapid was their exit you could see the hole in the water, rather as if some better class prophet had parted the waves. The bewildered snake, unable to grip the smooth tiles from the water kept throwing its head onto the rim fueling the poolside panic. Sunbathers who had been trying to get a full tan on the back, jumped up screaming, a fine display of naked, running breasts poured into the hotel past the three [dry] Mohammeds who were dancing with glee, slapping their hands, shouting "Wa-- Mohammed. Wa."

Mohammed, the duster [now the sole, human occupant of the pool] tried to restore his pride by pursuing the snake. Catching a 6 foot snake in a large swimming pool whilst dressed in a suit is not, yet, an Olympic sport but for the amount of athleticism and hopeless futility expressed I have seldom seem its equal.

Eventually, however, sounder tactics prevailed and one end of a sun bed was lowered to the pool enabling the cobra to emerge and seek sanctuary in its basket.

Mohammed, the duster, was rescued and dripped his way inside to the cheers of his three namesakes who settled down to discuss the finer points and  wait to see what would happen next.

I went back the next day to see how the cobra was, but Mohammed, the snake charmer, wasn't there. Mohammed, the artifact seller, told me that the snake was refusing to come out of its basket and was having a holiday away from all these tourists.

Had Mohammed, the duster, recovered, I enquired? Mohammed, the spice seller, grinned. The fancy hotel uniform had shrunk so much that Mohammed, the duster, had to be cut out of it.

"Western clothes" he said with a solemn shake of his head, "not good for catching snakes in swimpools."

If this keeps up I think there'll be enough material.

John                                                             EXIT