If you are in Luxor at the End of Ramadam (end of September) then try and get down to the street behind Luxor Temple (nr. to McDonalds) and you can watch the celebrations and take plenty of photographs to take back home with you.

Qurna on the West Bank is also another interesting place to be at the end of Ramadam, and you should find plenty of opportunities to take pictures of horses being ridden about. These horses at festival times are often highly decorated. They often have red paint put on all around the mouth. This gives the impression of bleeding and one or two tourists sometimes get upset because they think the horses are bleeding from the mouth. However, this is purely decoration, and no need for alarm.

Also whips are 'cracked' and tourists again get alarmed as they think the horses are being beaten, but this is not usually so. If you do actually see anyone seriously beating a horse, (which is fairly uncommon) then of course, the best thing is to make your feelings known - in a polite way - to the rider of the horse. Do remember, however, that jockeys in the UK and elsewhere around the world use their crops and furiously beat their horses whilst racing! One or two Egyptians are inclined to do the same when they want to move the horse. If you go for a ride on a caleish do try and not overload the carriage, two large passengers plus a driver is quite enough for any horse to pull.

Ramadan ends on the 30th September and the celebrations go on until the 2nd October. It is a time when everyone wishes everyone else "Kol seena wa inta tayeb". It is something like "All year you are well" or "Happy New year".

When I was a small child in the north of England people used to visit each others houses on New Year's Day. The first person over the threshold brought bread and coal so that the house would not be without food and warmth. My mother would panic if anyone she did not like knocked on the door soon after midnight and if anyone with ginger hair came near she would lock the door and refuse to let them in. I never learned what the connection was between ginger hair and bad luck in her eyes.

In Luxor people go from house to house during this festival wishing teach other health and prosperity and sharing tea and cakes which they have had to forego throughout daylight hours for the previous month. It is a lovely time.