Taking a cruise down the Nile means absolutely everyone you speak to will make a joke about murder. You will inevitably join in with gusto. As a result, Poirot will form as much of a backdrop to the trip as the scarlet-sailed feluccas and mind-boggling hieroglyphics.
Unless you are a character from an Agatha Christie book, there is rarely a bad time to chug down Africa’s most storied river. Sipping a gin and tonic as you pass wonky palm trees, ancient tombs and stretches of buttermilk coloured sand – the occasional call to prayer drifting in through the hot air – is as wonderful now as it was a century ago.
