I FIND it hard to imagine anyone visiting Egypt for the first time, no matter how well read on the subject, and not being impressed. It is amazing so many people spent decades building pyramids or digging, carving and painting elaborate underground vaults, long before some civilisations had cottoned on as to the potential of the wheel.

The legacy of buildings they have left is remarkable and we stare and wonder at it all. Yet the republican pulse still beats deep inside and I just feel all that ability, knowledge of higher mathematics, craftsmanship, energy and grotesque amounts of labour could have been used for the general good.

Instead thousands of workers were directed at the behest of a succession of deluded leaders who actually believed they were to become one of the gods, and despite this ethereal elevation, needed their worldly goods in the hereafter.

Not everyone swallowed this, however, for it is believed the tombs were cleaned out by robbers within 70 years of them being sealed: almost certainly an inside job.

I could understand the temples to sundry gods but many of the Egyptian antiquities were built because a long line of kings, not content with ruling a lifetime, wished to assume special power in the after-life.

Don't get me wrong. You cannot see the remnants of that civilisation and not be impressed and I am glad I have seen them; and for my wife, seeing ancient history first hand was a fulfilment. Yet my kaleidoscope of images from our trip includes a number of more earthly visions.

I suppose I am a bit of a philistine for when I settled down to sleep after visiting the pyramids and Cairo museum, the last vision remaining paramount from the day was the horizon and the sight of a man in Arab dress, keeping watch, sitting high on a distant dune on a camel.

And later, when travelling down the Nile on our floating hotel, seeing the sun set and rise through vistas straight off your average packet of dates. I remember a camel train making progress over the desert, near the river and, as we chugged past one evening, close to twilight, a small boy of perhaps seven or eight, ran down to the water's edge and rounded up the family's three cows or bullocks. He herded them up the bank and through a chicane of buildings, driving them to a walled outhouse, which had dried bulrushes for a roof.

In a sense, those visions have not changed for thousands of years.

Another memory was standing on the platform at Giza station seeing a dilapidated early-morning commuter train arriving - the beaming driver triumphantly waving to all and sundry as it pulled in, as if heroically heading a column of tanks relieving a siege.

Then there were the incongruous sights, such as passing the most primitive dwellings and seeing a satellite dish on the roof; or the thousands of people riding donkeys, many barefoot and all in Arab dress as they carted meagre produce or provisions. And some of them did so, while talking on their mobile phones.

Despite the fact nearly all have water and electricity supplies, old habits die hard and some women still sit on the water's edge, washing their eating utensils or clothes in the river, while talking to their neighbours.

Then, at Aswan, I passed a river-taxi and watched open-mouthed as an Egyptian in a suit and tie, scooped up a glassful of the Nile and drank it. The local boatmen informed us they did likewise and were immune to the multitude of bacteria.

Of course the river featured strongly in our visit for 80 per cent of the population live in the valley - a 20-mile wide stretch of fertile land between the arid sandstone mountains on one side and the Sahara on the other.

The crisp definition of fertile and arid was remarkable. We travelled comfortably by train from Cairo to Luxor. It took nine hours, which might seem like hell, but it was fascinating. To our right was a wide irrigation channel, slightly wider than the Grand Union Canal. The excavation for that enabled them to elevate the railway tracks. To our left was a similar channel, which also provided the foundations for the roadway which ran alongside.

The Nile tended to hog a course closer to the mountains in the east, while the valley stretched to the west, green and rich, every square metre devoted to housing or agriculture and, on the horizon, the yellow cut-off that is the Sahara.

It was an insightful trip through the heart of Egyptian life and culture, travelling past subsistence and existence and even fleetingly entertaining a soupçon of envy for those herding water buffalo or riding serenely on their donkeys, enjoying the simple life.

l Oliver Phillips is a former assistant editor of the Watford Observer who has retired to rural France.