Left to right, or right to left?

Mrs T and I are happily taking egyptian arabic lessons and enjoying them a lot. Mind you after a hard stressful day at work and a quick dinner trying to say "The blue car is at the front of the house and the garden is at the back"and then trying to read a shopping list can frazzle your brain somewhat. Still we are enjoying it and occasionally making some headway in communicating with the locals.

You get used to reading from right to left, however numbers are still left to right. On my recent trip this week back from Damascus I decided to pass the time translating the letters in the Egyptair magazine and see if i could make out any meaning from the ads. This lead to an interesting question - is the "before and after" read left to right or right to left.

I suggested to my female egyptian team mate that this is a marriage advert, starting from the left before marriage and to the right after marriage (of course only joking as Mrs T is a slim as when we got married!). She was shocked, and assure me it should be read right to left and is an ad for weight loss clinics!!!!