TRAVEL MEMOIR
Encounter With a Stranger in Luxor, Egypt
It was a different world, a different time, and a different me
It was almost ten in the evening in Luxor, Egypt. This was the last night of my three-day Nile cruise.
On the boat, a costume party was in full swing. Most of my fellow passengers had wrangled djellabas and dishdashas from the onboard store that seemed to exist solely for this last hurrah. There was a lot of raucous dancing. This was more joy than I could handle, so I went ashore to settle accounts and bid goodbye to my tour guide.
This done, I was standing at the curb with nothing particular to do. I didn’t want to return to the boat and risk getting swept up in the madness. I especially did not want to dance.
The two-lane Kornish El Nil (Nile Corniche road) was empty. The shopping center across the road was still all lit up. Faint sounds of Arabic pop music made it across the street but didn’t stand a chance against the pulsating beat from the boat behind me. I stood there, alone, just breathing in the crisp air.
“Hello sir.”
It turned out I wasn’t quite alone. A man walked up to me. He must have been sitting on the bench a few feet away, but I hadn’t noticed him. He seemed to be in his…
