During winter, several also lay on a programme of music and belly dancing , with a buffet meal included in the price (drinks cost extra). The most elaborate shows - including stick-fights and other folkloric routines - are in Fellah's Tent in the MA?venpick Jolie Ville (A?E110 per person), and the Luxor Sheraton 's "Nubian Night" (Sat; A?E100). There are less extravagant bashes in the Nile Hilton (Fri & Sat; A?E85), the El-Darweesh in the New Winter Palace (Tues; A?E76), the Dawar el-Omda in the Mercure Inn (Thurs; free with dinner), and on board the Tiba Star docked by the Winter Palace. Sanitized and tweely "ethnic", they are hardly a wild night out. Karaoke nights , usually in English, are held in the bar of the Gaddis Hotel.

The alternative is to visit a real Egyptian nightclub , where the decor is seedy and the clientele raucous (women are best off going with male companions); the music is brilliant and the dancers get sexier as the night wears on. You have to stay through till dawn to savour the build-up, as they tease gold-bedecked businessmen into throwing A?E100 notes around, to shimmy alongside or toast themselves over the echo machine. The cash is collected in a box, which is dragged off at the end of each act and split equally among the dancer, the bandleader and the club. If the woman fails to arouse enthusiasm, the manager shoos her off and orders another on. Rich clients may demand a "White" (pale-skinnned, blond) dancer, or come to blows over a woman, while poorer spectators sit in the shadows, quaffing booze and smoking bango. The only drinks sold are Johnny Walker (A?E80-100 a bottle) and Stella beer (A?E7); forget about food. Luxor now has only one such club, the Manderea, up a side street beside the passport office on Sharia Ibn Khalid Walid, which is open from 11pm to 5am, depending on how many patrons are still spending. They'll try to add an entry charge to your bill, but there isn't one.

For locals who can't afford such pleasures, the main diversions are playing backgammon ( thowla) or dominoes in cafA©s like the one bearing a huge portrait of the singer Oum Kalsoum, near the Abu el-Haggag Mosque. Though cafA© life is exclusively masculine, foreign women can usually feel comfortable there, even alone. Most places stay open as long as there are customers; Sharia Ramses has several all-nighters. Trashy movies are regularly screened at the cinema on Sharia al-Mahatta.