At times it seems as if Egypt sleeps by day and wakes up at night. In any town, from around sunset until the small hours of the morning, people start spilling onto the streets, congregating in coffee shops and restaurants or just strolling in the company of their fellow citizens. Go to any water front - along the Nile in Cairo and Luxor, or the seafronts in Alexandria and Sharm el Sheikh - and you'll find the corniche humming with the chatter of friends cruising arm in arm to catch the breeze. Street vendors selling kebabs, chi-sellers shouldering giant urns and trinket merchants with the latest colourful imports vie for the attentions of passers-by. For the visitor, this is the place to meet the locals, gauge the national mood and share in the jubilations of a local football success.
The chief night-time attractions are undoubtedly the sound and light shows that are held in spectacular fashion in many of the country's archaeological sites. There is nothing quite like coming face to face with the spot-lit Sphinx at Giza or watching the entire Temple of Karnak unfold to music at Luxor. The best of these shows is held at the Temple of Ramses II in Abu Simbel where the history of this once-buried treasure is brought to life in a pageant of images projected onto the temple walls.
For those with temple fatigue, there are plenty more contemporary entertainments. Sophisticated nightclubs, discos, casinos and restaurants can be found in Cairo, Alexandria and most large towns. The nightlife in Luxor and Aswan often includes barbecues along the Nile or dinner cruises. In fact, the cruise boats are often the best place to see the whirling dervishes or that quintessential nightlife of Egypt - the belly dance. Refined into a gymnastic display of muscle-rippling beauty, belly dancing is usually accompanied by Egypt's famous Arab pop musicians who universally seem to sing about unrequited love.
To find out what's on where, buy the Egyptian Gazette (Egyptian Mail on Saturdays), the English-language edition of Al-Ahram Weeklywww.ahram.org.eg/weekly (), or the monthly magazine Egypt Todaywww.egypttoday.com ().
