Salam...Baksheesh??

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Arriving dead tired into any new city isn’t exactly the ideal situation…arriving dead tired in Cairo is simply a bad idea. After a long night in the airport in Mumbai, a 3.5 hour flight to Bahrain, a 2.5 hour layover in Bahrain and finally a 3 hour flight from Bahrain to Cairo, we arrived zombified and ready to find the nearest bed. Instead, we played the immigration game and got our first introduction to the Egyptian way of life…tacit knowledge reins supreme. In this instance, I queued for immigration checking as everyone else, however, when I reached the immigration officer in the hopes of entering the country, I was denied and told to go back to one of the many money exchangers before immigration and purchase a visa from one of them. Realizing how stupid I was for not automatically assuming that I was supposed to purchase my Egyptian visa from a money exchanger, I headed back to the money changers, purchased my visa and queued for immigration again. Entry granted, welcome to Egypt.

We met Cairo (and greater Egypt) with a significant amount of apprehension as we both read a fair amount of blogs, journals, and guidebook pages chock full of descriptions regarding scams, irritants, touts, and other undesirables. Needless to say, we were mentally prepared for a multi-faceted attack on our wallets and emotional state and came prepared with our guard up. Unfortunately for us, the irritants that we encountered on a day-to-day basis were considerably worse than we were expecting, and, to be quite frank, made it difficult to relax and have a good time. I decided to write the blog entries for all of Egypt at the end of our time there in order to reflect thoughtfully on our experiences rather than just rant about the negative, so, hopefully this comes off as reasonably well-rounded and not just a vile spew of negativity. Disclaimer complete, here we go!

Our first glance at Cairo was great…French architecture in various states of decline, ancient backstreets lined with crooked stone buildings, thousand-year-old mosques everywhere with equally-as-old churches sprinkled in, and vast markets amalgamated into a patchwork of ancient and modern history. Every glance around revealed what appeared to be a new treasure and wandering the streets (especially in Islamic Cairo) was an eye-popping experience. This being our first stop after India, it was strange not to see cows roaming around the streets everywhere, however, a fair number of donkeys pulled carts full of vegetables, hardware and other assorted goods through the streets in older parts of the city. The first hostel we stayed in was an enormous 100-year-old French building; our room had 15 foot ceilings, massive windows covered with ridiculously heavy full-length blinder-doors and a wrought iron balcony overlooking the street below…very nice! This would have been a top notch place to sleep if not for the bed bugs that chewed Rozy’s skin to bits, and, being told about the free breakfast on our last day there…argh!

Early on we visited Al Azhar mosque, Egypt’s oldest mosque dating back to just a couple hundred years after Islam was established, in conjunction with a visit to the madness that is Khan al Khalili. Azhar was peaceful and serene and a great place to sit around and just stare at the ancient walls, pondering all they have seen throughout the years. Much the opposite, “The Khan”, as it is affectionately referred to, feels like an attempt to recreate hell-on-earth through a kitsch shopping experience with Gremlins playing the role of sleezy sales guys and throngs of sweaty, bag-clenching tourists from all over the world playing, well, themselves. The absurdity of watching Egyptian men hassle and hustle congo lines of nervous packaged tourists filing in off massive buses is as exhausting as it is entertaining. The environment is ferocious…vendors spewing one-liners while grabbing at the arms of passersby, Egyptian men bark angrily at one another like caged dogs, women receiving way too much unwanted attention, and tourists being scorned for not making a purchase, etc…It is utter madness and will likely be the most macabre shopping experience of a lifetime for that little old couple gingerly stepping amongst the cobblestones. The Khan featured mostly useless crap on the fringes, however, as you work your way into its gooey middle, you are likely to find items that actually have some identifiable value.

Dining in Cairo was a bit of a change from the India fare we became very accustom to eating, although, I can honestly say I personally wasn’t tired of eating Indian food (and, after 43 days straight of nothing but Indian food, I’m staring to think that it isn’t possible to grow tired of Indian food). We regularily gorged on combos of fuul, taaimia, and sharwerma washing it all down with a nice apple Schweppes. Ordering can be a bit tricky at times as there are many folks in Egypt who don’t speak English (quite unlike India where everyone knows at least a bit), so, ordering the basics (fuul, taaimia, etc) and showing the number of fingers to represent quantity is oftentimes necessary. Sitting in restaurants was something we rarely did as dealing with the cheats became too much…it was easier to order quick food on the run rather than receive a bloated bill after a relaxing lunch.

Any trip to Egypt wouldn’t be complete without a stop at the overstuffed Egyptian Museum. After dodging several touts attempting to lure us into their “shops-full-o-crap” and playing several streets worth of “Dodge Car or Die” (a very popular Cairenese game with high stakes and little payoff) we arrived at the tourist hub that is the Egyptian Museum. Armies of tourists flow from big white busses led by shouting tour guides barking random facts in their second language to half-listening hordes, effectively dissolving any sort of peaceful enjoyment of the artifacts. Rozy and I were pinned in by groups a couple of times, but, for the most part, managed to stay relatively alert and deftly maneuvered out of the way of the herds. Several-thousand-year-old artifacts were haphazardly placed all over the museum, collecting dust, unlabelled and oftentimes displayed in a manner unbefitting of their incredible importance. Some artifacts were even stacked in side halls on wheelie carts and cherry pickers as if there simply was no room left to display them. The sheer number of statutes, sarcophaguses, bas reliefs, hieroglyphics, etc strewn about the place was dizzying, and, after a full day of exploration, you become rather numb to the fact that you are looking at a 4000 year old chunk of gold weighing 50 lbs and hand sculpted into a deathmask crafted to be worn by a mummified pharaoh. The Louvrishness of the Egyptian Museum certainly merits a second day of exploration for those particularly keen on ancient Egypt, however, Rozy and I were relatively content with our one exhausting day.

With our history lesson covered at the Egyptian Museum, Rozy and I set out to see the icon of icons…the pyramids of Giza, situated just south of Cairo on the desert edge and bordering the suburb of Giza. We made our way to Giza Suburb by metro, then hailed a taxi to take us to the foot of the pyramid complex. The taxi ride was great until we entered the last 2 miles leading up to the base of the pyramids, at which time, things went dreadfully sour. Every couple hundred meters, a gentleman would step in front of our taxi (right there on the road) and flag him to pull over to the side. At this point, the main would launch into some sort of story about which ride would be best for us to approach the pyramids on (camel, horse, donkey, his back, dog sled, and God-knows what else). We had to yell at both our driver and the jerk blocking our path in order to resume our taxi ride to the pyramids. This continued to happen and we would begin freaking out everytime our driver would begin pulling to the side of the road at the beckoning of some vendor.

Eventually, after enough yelling at our cab driver, he would ignore the touts yelling at him to pull over in which case the touts would start banging on his car and yelling profusely. After 10 minutes of this non-sense we arrived at the ticket office to see a tourist police officer beating back several touts with a cane. As we stepped out of our taxi, we were engulfed in a cloud of touts selling rides, souvenir-crap, and other junk blocking our way to the ticket box (which, considering this is probably one of the most visited sites in the world, was merely a small wooden hut with a little plastic window manned by two people). The touts didn’t end outside the gate for the pyramids, rather, they continued in force all throughout the complex harassing us for camel and horse rides the entire time.

We strolled the pyramid complex for a while, exploring random tombs that had been robbed in antiquity, admiring the enormity of the structures, and playing in the sand. The atmosphere became increasingly more relaxed the further off the beaten path we wandered, and, eventually we were all alone snapping pictures and marveling at all that stood around us. We decide to swing by the Sphinx for a quick snapshot then head out further west in the desert beyond the pyramids for better, more isolated shots, however, once we arrived at the Sphinx, tourist police started yelling at us (and everyone else) and ushered us out of the pyramid complex…the complex was closed for the day at 4pm. Lonely Planet said the complex closed at 7pm, Let’s Go said 5pm, but the tourist police shut it all down at 4pm (by the way, no hours were posted anywhere at the complex or on the ticket). The biggest tourist attraction in Egypt and we were booted out before having an opportunity to take it in…a major disappointment. We walked out of the gate only to be harassed by more touts and taxi drivers on our way back to the city.

The next day, feeling a touch morbid, Rozy and I fancied a stroll around the Cities of the Dead to get an eyeful of some opulent tombs (and some not-so-opulent ones as well) and the low income folks the Cairenese government has decided to locate within these burial grounds to handle the population overflow. It was a fascinating walk, exploring the decaying tombs while simultaneously happening upon a family gathering for lunch or a couple of old ladies lying in the shade. Everything was happy and carefree until a band of little punks strolled up, kissed at us, assumedly said some nasty things to us in Arabic, then slapped Rozita on the butt and ran away before I could grab them…yet another joy of roaming around Cairo…all the severely unwanted attention! The kids continued to follow us around at a distance of about 50 feet and would quickly scatter if I began moving in their direction…I never did get my chance to smack them, pity.

So, why the disclaimer at the outset of this blog? What could be soooo bad about Cairo (and greater Egypt) that it makes enjoying the amazing wealth of history incredibly difficult? Well, the simple answer is MANY things. The worst aspect of traveling in Cairo was the people that we came in contact with being tourists…by far the worst touts in any country that I have visited (over 2 dozen) so far. They are cunning, persistent, entirely without scruples and omnipresent. These characters can be found selling tours, selling kitsch, selling hotel rooms, driving cabs, selling snacks/drinks, hanging out at sites, inside sites, in markets, almost anywhere. A tourist’s ability to relax in Cairo is virtually impossible as you must always be on your toes because people are constantly aiming to rip you off…extra charges inserted discretely into the bill, wrong change given back, a different rate charged than what is clearly stated on the sign in Arabic (as if you are too stupid to be able to read a couple of numbers in Arabic), metro/bus/train tickets not being charged correctly, cab drivers yelling at you for not giving them the correct fare even though you just asked a local what the correct fare should be, and on and on.

Prices are rarely printed, and, about 80% of the time, the vendor will ask for a ridiculous amount (example: 6 pounds for a soda when it should be 2) just because you are not Egyptian and he thinks you are stupid. Taxis are the worst as there are no working meters, and, fares are assumed to be known by the passenger and handed to the driver at the end of the ride (the epitome of tacit knowledge!). We struggled with taxi drivers everywhere and were yelled at by nearly all of them even after checking with the hostel manager on a reasonable fare before hailing the cab. In between all the rip offs and scams, Egyptian men were constantly kissing at both Rozy and I, shouting out sinister “hellos”, and following us attempting to sell whatever even after we say “no” multiple times. The list of annoyances goes on forever and could fill the pages of a book. It is all very exhausting, irritating and completely detracts from the enjoyment of the sites around you.

Other non-people irritants also arise in a number of flavors….information desks at the airport that don’t actually dispense any information, metro stop names that change (we had two different guide books that both had different metro names than what actually existed), buses without discernable routes or pickup points, business hours that don’t exist, and bus stations that seemingly nobody knows how to get to or that they even exist. All of these annoyances are relatively minor, however, when combined together, it becomes very frustrating and adds another layer of complexity and irritation for anyone traveling Egypt without joining one of the obnoxious tour packages.

Well, Cairo has been mostly covered…we will fill in the gaps as we head back thru en route to other locations (ground transport is rather fragmented in Egypt requiring folks to pass through Cairo in order to get to many places) throughout Egypt.


STATISTICS

• Flights taken = 12
  
• Intercity trains rides taken = 17
  
• Intercity bus rides taken = 40
  
• Times lost = 29
  
• Total instances of diarrhea = 8
  
• Total number of requests for pictures with Daniel = 36
  
• Total megabytes of pictures taken = 36,790
  

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Photos

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