Napoleon Bonapart once famously described the English as "a nation of shopkeepers".
After spending a fortnight in Egypt recently, I can describe that country as a nation of salesmen. The most famous Egyptian salesman of them all must surely be the owner of Harrods department store in London, Mohamed Al-Fayed.
While few Egyptians reach the dizzying heights of wealth Mr Al-Fayed has achieved, that hasn't stopped them being prepared to make a deal on ordinary items such as bottled water, scarves or even postcards. They seem to thrive on it.
They will offer you postcards while you're riding on a transporter to the entrance to the Valley of the Kings, or they will come up to you and offer spices while you are riding in an open carriage through the market in Luxor.
You are sailing on a felucca on the Nile in Aswan, and the skipper whips off a cover on a table that you haven't previously noticed and starts offering you trinkets and handmade wooden crocodiles and camel-bone letter openers.
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