Time in Mombasa will send you in search of the Big Five. With every call ashore, fabulous beaches ebb by, washing sands of time that echo Blighty in unusual ways. In Mahé, the main town has a clock modelled on Little Ben outside Victoria Station. In Aden, the Hogg Clock Tower is a miniature of Big Ben. Arabian dunes ripple towards Zabid, a heritage site that once invented algebra, while Safaga invites you to cross the desert to the Nile and Luxor.