Egypt: Cairo to Aswan

Dear All


I don't want to hate Egypt. I really don't want to hate Egypt. This is country of magnificent human achievement, ancient educators to the Middle East and wondrous array of tastes, smells and colours. Egypt has a world to offer but there come a time when your patience is abandoned like the ruins of old. SE Asia seems like a swimming pool compared to the dryness of the Egyptian air. The sun burns at offensive temperatures while the fresh juices and cheap raw vegetables satisfy the thirst of all those who have come to this Arab Nation. The first blip in this part of the adventure came at bangkok International.


Having a flight ticket to Egypt then to Lebanon put many questions into the check in counter girls heads. Entering Lebanon with no evidence of leaving it may prove to be difficult and they asked me to sign an indemnity form to ensure that any incident involved with me in Lebanon and the airport-border of Egypt goes without their liability. They asked me my current financial status and I created a sufficiently big number (English pound number included), flashed a series of expired credit cards and they processed me. On the plane, with my Arabic phrasebook and 8 hours of flying between me and the next adventure.


I managed to sleep for the duration of the flight leaving me jetlagless. The Arabs and Black Africans pushed and shoved their way out of the airplane with the discretion of a stampeding herd of elephants while the green faced, zombie like stewardesses whose big puffy haircuts and quadruple layers of makeup left little to be desired to women ahead. I quickly made friends with some locals at the airport in Cairo who waited for me to get my visa stamp - which is just like a postal stamp, lick-able and all - and they showed me the way to the bus to the city centre. The visa cost me USD15 but all I had was a 20. This was the first example of how tourist get screwed is Egypt. The remaining five was converted into Egyptian pounds but at a ridiculously low rate. Here, at least in the beginning of the trip, I learned that the locals will try to scam you only for a little but more not double or triple the value of whatever it is you buy or need. The small increase was somewhat refreshing after being in SE Asia and being doubled over constantly. The ride through to the centre was a blend of bad to good.


The entire city, and the country from what I can see from here, is painted a dusty white colour sometimes with shades of pink and light shades of grey. I suspect that the Egyptians are waiting for their current infrastructure to become a ruin and figure this architecture and design will match the present lost civilization. The bus drives across highways past unfinished slums with open brick sides, open topped roofs and the occasional laundry left out for some colour. As the centre approaches, six story building, Arabic lettering and regular flow of traffic put me in a small shock. This is nothing as I expected the chaotic Egypt to be. It is supposed to loud, obnoxious and polluted but in fact the cars flow steadily on their side of the road, the air is crisp and the sidewalk opens up to the road, free of any street food or hawkers. I suspect that they are isolated at markets and small street alleys but for main street Cairo, the streets are clean, the stores, which only open at 10am but close at 10pm, sell bizarre new products like shisha pipes. My first pleasant scam was getting to my hotel.


Two accountants helped me to find my street but then a tout at the front door of the hotel walked me up. I bargained the price down from 20 to 15 EP (Egyptian pounds) thinking that I had got a bargain. In fact, I was in the wrong place. The tout lead me to a floor that was a different hotel. This complex contained several hotels, the one I wanted was on the roof, and I actually stayed on the third floor. I didn't realize this until I returned from eating falafel for lunch (the cheap eats of the Middle East) to the elevator man bringing me to the wrong floor. When I discovered I was scammed I just had to laugh. I was paying for a dorm but had the room to myself as the place I wanted was an LP place and the place I stayed at wasn't. I stayed the extra day in that place because I could appreciate the subtly of it all.


Walking the streets of Cairo, it is impossible not to meet the locals. Here, since most are not connected to the tourist trade, they are simply interested to talk to foreigner and hand out addresses and e-mails. My diary is full of Arabic script and phone numbers of people whom I will never call and some whom I had inly met briefly in passing. I flash back to a time when the Indian used to approach me and ask me to have them photographed with them even though I never talked to them before. The celebritism of the subcontinent has returned along with many more features. I didn't do much in Cairo this time as I know I need to return to fly out to Beirut so this time I have been on the administration trail - securing a visa to Syria.


The streets Cairo waft sweet shisha smoke where men drink dark milkless sweet tea and puff away at Hubble bubble while they gossip relentlessly about the weather and how it affects everything. Bags of mangoes hang from juice shops that sell wide varieties of cheap and healthy liquids. Egypt is the first place I have been where the cola is more expensive than pure fruit juice. Mango, my personal favourite, comes thick with tiny chunks of sweet soft fruit flesh in it. As I stood on the side, practising my Arabic and feeling the best I have felt in a long time, a man comes up to you and starts his conversation with the usual "your country?" line. English here is at a far better level than in Asia and I find I have stopped talking in baby talk leaving out essential elements in my sentences like the article a, an and the. I have learned that he Egyptians love the sound of their own voice. I asked one man who had been living in New York for 10 years how he handled the NY winters. He replied "I can survive winter. I can survive summer, I can survive spring and I can survive autumn!" Why couldn't he just say "I like all the seasons."? It's their voice they love and often conversations over tea would leave me silent for hours. Listening here is your best tool as you can't get into trouble if there is no reason to.


The Syrian Embassy, basically a desk in a small room with a fat, well spoken but sweating profusely Egyptian, told me that I needed a letter of recommendation from my embassy to go. One taxi ride, I'm off to the Canadian Embassy. 15 minutes inside the main reception, 225 EP (40USD) and two passport photos later I'm back on the street until tomorrow when the letter comes through. With a break in my admin, I decide to be a tourist and see the Egyptian Museum.


The Egyptian Museum taught me one very important thing. I hate Egyptology. This ancient civilization has no reflection on the current culture as they were not Arabs and therefore, unlike most places, they way they were does not affect the way they are now. Now is what I am most interested in. The Museum, a red pimple in the middle of a fair faced city, is well laid out and documented. I couldn't understand how people could spend hours staring at rooms of pottery and necklaces but to each their own. I wandered the museum doing my best to scam the tidbits of french the resonated off the museum walls from tour guides that competed with other multi-lingual Egyptian guides from several European countries mostly from Spain and Italy. In fact, the place was just chockers with them and I managed to meet up with Sylvia, ,a funny Spanish tourist (surprise surprise) who shared my time laughing at how ridiculous it was for us to be in a place we know nothing about just to stare at history like it is art. She invited me back to dinner at her 4 star hotel with the rest of her tour group. Past the pyramids and little out of the way, using the clean timely metro to pick up a taxi at the Cairo University and see how the other side lives.


The fake ISIC (student card which give you discounts on all the transport and the ruins) I made for 4 dollars on KhaoSan Road trembled in fear as I walked into the doors of the 4 star hotel. This was my first taste of how the Europeans travel in Egypt. They book at home, get sheeped around and get pampered all along the way. Maybe this is the best way to see Egypt. The hotel was glorious and the staff supportive, honest and helpful without condition. My hotel owners seem to want to screw me over any chance they get. Here I was told a story by Sylvia that I Call Bizarre Muslim Behaviour #1.


A Muslim tour guide, fluently Spanish spoken, and married attracts one of his tourees and they become intimate. First, it is just lip to lip but the invitation to the room means more and so the Muslim guide, waling into the hotel some time after her so as not to be seen together, enters her room and play begins. She asks him to put on a condom and he refuses. The fighting breaks out and he justifies his actions by claiming that if she gets pregnant, he will support her and not dismissing the responsibility. She, in a furious anger that on the fire that that burns inside the Spanish can ignite, ejects him from the room, screams obscenities about getting diseases and he leave with his frustrations. Why would he just put on the rubber? Is is a culture thing, a manhood thing or just a this-guy thing? Either way, he didn't get any. I don't get it.


I returned the next day to the Canadian Embassy to pick up the letter and then to Syrian Embassy to hand over the 375 EP (60USD) and the proper paperwork. I bought my ticket to Aswan using my ISIC card again to get a 1/3 discount fair. The night before with the Spanish was a late one so getting little sleep, I returned home and slept from 6pm to 6am. Maybe I was more jet lagged than I thought.


Morning, one day lost and check out. My train leaves at 10pm so I packed, picked up my passport at the Syrian Embassy (visa included and all) and did my last bit of sightseeing before the overnight train to the southern most town of Aswan - I went to the Pyramids.


I won't go into great detail about the Pyramids. We've all seen pictures of them, the mighty power and the beauty that we all know was made by aliens from outer space. Again, the Italians, French and Spanish, in their air con buses, tour packages and Egyptian guides occupied most of the ground space. The Pyramids are remarkably close to the city and give a fantastic view. The touts, as expected, were everywhere offering cola or rides from horses named Michael Jackson. The Sphinx is much smaller than I thought.


The first class ride, a 57 EP trip after ISIC card discount, was in an isolated booth for a family of 6. Most of the foreigners got to go in the first class bulk seating but they couldn't turn off the lights. The cabins got to shut off the lights and I slept soundly for most of the ride. The only discomfort was the fact that these booths are actually sleeper class rooms with the beds removed and chairs put in that can't recline. I felt like I was sleeping like the Elephant Man. The morning heat and the yelling Nubian family next door kept me awake and I walked into the empty vastness of Aswan.


Aswan is known for many things: The proximity to the temples of Abu Simbel, Phillae, the High Dam, ,the Unfinished Obelisk and the fellucia rides. All the sites must be seen using a package tour and the fellucia (a type of sailboat) can be organized by the boatman themselves.


Aswan is a ghost town of sorts. The dusty streets, three in total, burns at 50 degrees during the day leaving it empty and haunting. There are no signs for travel agencies or tour services for the Abu Simbel thing so I eventually just took the tour from my hotel. For a country that has dealt with tourism for so long, it is amazing that there is little evidence that tourist pass through the city. In fact, there were almost no foreigners wandering the streets at all. Word of mouth is usually my best advice about anything but without this I took the only option I could find for the tour which cost 50 EP


The tour starts at 3:30am. The drive to Abu Simbel takes you deep into the desert, past sand dunes and police checkpoints, and to the edge of the Nasser lake. By 7:30am, well after you've eaten the breakfast of Egyptian bread, egg, triangle cheese and jam they have given you, you are set free to roam two separate monuments. The first is the entrance to a heavily hieroglyphic-ed room whose doors are guarded by 20 meter high sitting statues. The second is a similar room but the door is guarded by four standing statues - both a dusty light red. The place is jam packed with more of the Italian, French, Spanish super army coming off their air con buses. At this point, I couldn't figure out where they had come from. No one was in town so where did they come from?


The High Dam is a, well, a dam and not worth the 5 EP I paid to see it and not photograph it. This dam flooded the area and forced Egypt to move the monuments of Abu Simbel to higher ground costing UNESCO 40 million USD. Way to go, guys!


The Temple of Phillae is a beautiful serene, well preserved ruin (is that an oxymoron?) set on an island away from the sounds of tour buses and travel groups. Even this unappreciative bastard could see the beauty and majesty here and it was my favourite spot. We made it before the Europeans did so it was pleasant and beautiful but by then, around 2pm, we were starving and food was in order but not yet. One more place.


The unfinished obelisk was exactly that - unfinished. It showed the early makings of the statues but a fault in the stone stopped the excavation. It was somewhat amazing to see how people with some very primitive tools could have made a fantastic effort.


Home at last, again, after a big meal of Koshery (noodles, rice in a tomato sauce), I slept again from 6pm to 6am. That day was long and hot and my disgruntled minibus driver didn't help the day. Solace in sleep.


I paid for my Fellucia trip through the hotel and I am still on fire because of it. I am so angry at how it turned out that I can't stop shaking and writing about it will only make me angrier. I will take a break for now and write more about it later. Up to this point, I did my best not to let the Egyptians get to me. I didn't want to get angry like I did in India but it seems like these things find you. Up to the fallucia ride, 4 days into my trip and I thought I had managed this place but SE Asia has made me soft. It is these things that toughen you up again.

I am currently in Luxor and doing my best not to see all the temples and tombs. Next I head to Dahab and then back to Cairo.

Be well






Oren Jalon

World Traveller


This message is brought to you by the Black and White cabs in Cairo who don't harass you for a ride - ever! Unlike the tuk tuks of thailand and rickshaws of India, this peace makes a city one million times better.