so much history, so little space
i love museums, and had really been looking forward to the egyptian antiquities museum in cairo. sadly whilst the artefacts were amazing, the lay out was shockingly poor. the museum has become a bit of a historical warehouse in which any new discoveries are unceremoniously dumped, with no real quality control or labelling. as such, wandering around it is confusing at best, and disappointing at worst.
the tutankahmun exhibit is amazing, as is the mummification room. the rest of it only justifies a token glance. it really makes you think that more of the relics should be transferred back out to where they were originally found, to make a few genuine working tombs and temples: the pharaohs left behind so much stuff that much of it is not as priceless or unique as it's age would suggest. such relocation would improve not only the original sites, but also the museum itself.
after a chance meeting and coffee with the rather wonderful professor sharif, curator of animal mummies at the museum, we headed off to another of the bazaars before leaving its sweaty, sleazy environs for tea at the windsor. at ten pm we got on the train back to luxor.
so that was cairo: great history, shocking present. let's not pussyfoot around the islamic question any more, it is utilised as a mean, backwards, misogynistic religion in the majority of the parts of the world which it dominates. the sooner people stop being ashamed to realise that, for fear of it conflicting with their liberal consciousnesses, the sooner we can do something about it.
sphinxes and sleazebags
the pyramids: awesome. the sphinx: awesome.
i just thought i'd get that out of the way before i started this post: whilst it ostensibly covers our time at giza, i'm not going to spend too longing drooling over the above monuments because they are totally, unequivocally fantastic, the kind of things that countless postcards, tv programmes, and asterix books can simply not prepare you for. looking over the dusty giza plain to the three great pyramids is a sight that ranks with any that i have ever seen: what is bizarre however is how cairo, this teeming city desperately grasping for space, has encroached on the site. you never see this on the postcards, but the layout of the area literally goes bustling giza, gate, the pyramids... there's no run off area, an acre or so to allow you to traverse centuries. the roads and buildings have gone as far as possible, before giving up the desert to these spectacular monuments.
the overnight journey from luxor was fine, although due to an administrative mix up we were in the wrong seats for the majority of the journey. still, we arrived refreshed enough and headed straight out with our guide mohammed. in comparison to khaled at karnak, mohammed was much more of a professional, pragmatic guide. his spiel was memorised, he knew where to take all the best snaps, down to all the stupid kissing the sphinx/ holding the pyramids poses. all in all a touch annoying, and bossy, but frankly his prattling was left in the background by the sites on display. check out the photos, but it is so close to england, you really have to get out to giza yourself at least once in your life.
if egypt's history was magnificent, it's present raises some objections. we checked into the windsor hotel after our tour, before heading out for a wander. a quick word about the windsor: it's where the brit colonials stayed when in cairo, and has managed to maintain that colonial charm. each room is quirkily different, the lift seems to predate victoria, and the dining room and bar take you back to the turn of the last century. great stuff, the babus certainly knew how to live.
i love to wander around a city, to walk through the spaces in between the tourist spots to try and get a feel for the real, breathing place. having watched england scrape past trinidad, in a coffee shop full of arabs supporting the trinidadians (ha!), vicki and i set out into cairo.
i don't want to turn this into a rant so i'll try and keep this as short as possible: people, not just men, in cairo have no respect for women at all, and this has to be in no small part down to islam. egypt is the land of the great queens, hatsheput, nefertiti et al: despite being dressed in a long, loose, skirt that scraped the floor, a tshirt, and a cardigan that covered her arms, vicks soon found her ass to be public property, as well as the sneaky scrapes and touches. we even had some enthusiastic arab bawling encouragement through a loudspeaker, and a freaky wide eyed kid who literally followed us for fifteen minutes until i threatened to slap him.
i had no idea what was going on until vicks told me: she took it in her stride, or at least as much as can be expected, but it could not have pissed me off more. the third world is full of repressed, horny, adolescents, and staring at white girls is de rigeur. it is only in arab, islamic, countries however that the gawping is allowed to turn into physical abuse in such a socially acceptable way. it may only be brushes and the occasional attempted pinch, but it is indicative of the social positioning of women in arab society, as objects with no right to object. if vicki had have turned round and kicked up a fuss she would have received no support from any of the hundred of natives: arab men like the position they occupy and arab women don't speak. if this had been a crowded street in india, the gropers would have attracted unimpressed looks from the matriacrhs in the crowd, and slunk away: here the men would have laughed and any women out would have kept their eyes to the ground. the arab matriarch only rules in her own home, and even then the rule only lasts until the men come home.
the other thing the whole bitter experience clarified was how right france was to ban the burkha: it doesn't matter how covered up you are, if you're not festooned in the billowing garment of islamic misogyny you're fair game.
cairo has got a reputation as the worst city in the world to be a female traveller, and i am amazed at just how justified it is. after half an hour shuffling round directly behind vicki to protect her bum, we gave up and called it a day. a city of sleazy arabs doesn't really need to be experienced, just condemned. it doesn't matter how many hyundais and ipods arrive, this place will always be backwards until the interpretation of islam is radically changed, more culturally primitive then it was bc.
karnaktastic
whatever there is wrong with modern egypt, be it greedy cabbies, budget food, or sleazy arab chaps, you simply cannot argue with the wonders of their pre islamic heritage. the pharaohs of the ancient dynasties really knew how to ensure their legacies, in vast, self aggrandising monuments of stone: modern dictators, with their emphasis solely on oil money and casual genocide, seem positively unimaginative by comparison.
karnak temple, a few kms out of luxor, is simply huge, a complex of monuments stretching over acres of dusty land. as you look through the opening aperture, flanked on either side by a line of ram headed sphinxes, all you can see are statues, obelisks,and more giant, intricately carved walls receding into the distance. once again, it is the sheer magnitude of the undertakings which i find so stunning: who, in this time before christ and bulldozers, could actually imagine that such colossal projects were achievable? and yet ramses and the gang not only had the ambition to envision such structures, but the ability to bring them into glorious, intemporal existence.
i'm not normally one to go for guides but, with my arm twisted by vicki, we picked up khaled at the temple gates. this was undoubtedly one of the best $5 investments i have made in my travelling time: guides can be a bit hit and miss, but our man was definitely the former and then some. as well as knowledge, he had boundless enthusiasm for the topic of egyptology, and this shone through in his instruction.
it is of course much easier to be enthusiastic about things as wondrous as those contained in karnak. of particular interest to me was one particular sanctuary at the back of the complex. small, dark, and unassuming from the outside, and certainly something which i would have ambled straight past if unguided, this apparently insignificant room was in fact constructed by alexander the great, complete with inscriptions of the greek king dressed as a pharaoh making offerings to the ancient egyptian gods, and carvings of his very own cartouche, the hieroglyphic marker of a god king.i had no idea that the greeks had taken egyptian culture to heart so much, but on reflection, the position of a semi divine entity would be understandably appealing to any man, regardless of their own cultural heritage.
khaled left us at 8am, to start his real job: he is part of the archaeological team excavating one of the sites at the back of the complex. he may have grabbed an opportunistic hour's work, but the benefit definitely fell on vicki and i.
off to the pyramids tomorrow morning, and after karnak am getting more than a touch overexcited. time for a shisha to calm me down...
chicken mcarabia
not bad: not bad at all.
baksheesh or not to baksheesh
i've yet to get my head round baksheesh in egypt. in india it's something you only dole out when you need something tricky done, but here it is expected for everything. and i mean everything, from getting directions from a stranger, to opening a door, to showing someone a hotel room, even if it's a grotty hole that you would never stay in. and it doesn't even appear to be a tourist trap, but rather something that is naturally expected, and cheekily demanded, from everyone.
needless to say such demands really get my hackles up, and i am losing all patience with caleche drivers, cabbies and touts in egypt, who are in general a much more objectionable and greedy bunch then in the rest of the world, even india. after a few attempts to guilt trip me out of more cash by pointing out how quiet the tourist trade is, i got to thinking and realised this: times being quiet would only entitle them to a greater baksheesh if they diminished their prices for tourists when luxor was packed. as there is a rat's chance in hell of this being the case, i will happily keep antagonising them as much as i can. bastards.
hey big spender
i'm finding it hard to reconcile my time in egypt with my usual voraciously miserly backpacker existence, a fact that i have to admit i'm finding more curious then disquieting. part of it is the nature of our accommodation; it's very hard to walk out of, or ask to be taken to, a plush hotel whilst still arguing 'no money, no money', regardless of how scruffy you (well vicki, i am of course immaculate as always) look. the fact that we aren't in a traveller's ghetto also means that general things that i used to take for granted, such as lunch for $1 or under, are simply not close at hand. the food issue however transcends our choice of accommodation: if you want to avoid eating kebabs, and beef, you simply have to spend a bit more, wherever you are. i love middle eastern food, but tagines or any other slightly more interesting dishes are remarkably thin on the ground. the thing which becomes painfully evident fairly rapidly is that budget places only serve kebabs or falafels. in india or south east asia you can find curry, stir fries, or burgers by the roadside; sadly it's only really proper restaurants who offer any culinary variety here. i am excited by my forthcoming trip to mcdonalds though... mcarabia koftas, chicken big macs, one trip may not be enough.
all this is offset by the bargain we got to get here, a deal which is in no small part attributable to islamic terrorists and their penchant for blowing people up, those funsters. unfortunately i've not bought my 'bomb the maldives please osama' tshirt yet because, as with everything, when one hand gives the other takes away. as a consequence of these incendiary zealots, it's now impossible to travel down the nile valley unless you are in a convoy of foreigner packed buses and vans: the sun addled, but gun toting, soldiers look like they couldn't shoot their way out of pitta bread but you still have to have them around, winking for baksheesh, smoking cigarettes in your face and generally providing little reassurance at all. the upshot of this is that jumping on pick ups or service taxis for pennies is impossible, as you'll just get turfed out at the first checkpoint and bundled onto a tourist bus that will then trundle along in the next convoy. i could probably blag it, but it wouldn't really be fair on a driver if he got caught with me in the back. it's also harder to pass as a local with a (loud) white girl in tow.
it was therefore in such a convoy that we made our way to aswan, and another such diesel belching procession in which we set off for abu simbel at 4am the following morning. as anyone knows, i am happy to get up ridiculous o'clock to catch a secluded sunrise: to do so and then arrive with a horde of other tourists running around, taking photoes, and generally making me want to punch them, is incredibly frustrating however, particularly after a three hour churn through the desert in a hot, dusty, minivan. abu simbel itself was spectacular enough: the statues of ramses are huge, so well done there. the whole experience however felt a little empty, more a box to be ticked than a genuine spectacle. the fact that the temple had been moved following the construction of the aswan dam, and built 200m from its original site, complete with fake facades and souvenir stands, accentuated this feeling further.
that therefore was abu simbel: worth doing, but only just. safely back in luxor now and planning to take it easy before karnak and cairo later in the week.
