Day Eight, Cairo: Things to avoid at the Pyramids

Before planning my trip I had decided that it would be very regrettable if I had visited Egypt and not visited the pyramids, though it wasn't the main reason I had decided to go there. I did contemplate, for a short while, not bothering with the pyramids, but then realized I had time in my travel schedule. Plus I knew I would regret it (that and I didn't want to explain to others why I skipped them), so I made plans with Jim and Kim to spend the morning there on our last day in Cairo.


Both Jim and Kim had been a few days before, but missed seeing the Solar Boat, and wanted to visit again. It turned out to be quite fortunate that they came along, as I learned from them what not to do at the pyramids, or better, what to avoid:


One; at the ticket kiosk, you should have exact change or they may not let you in (as the tourist behind me found out.) It doesn't matter whether they have the change or not to give you, but more importantly whether they are willing to part with it (apparently getting change back in Egypt can be very difficult. For a comment about this and a great short study on the beauties of travel in Egypt, read: http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/beyond/luxor.htm)


Two; Once inside the gate, do not give your ticket to anyone asking for them. Jim had to track a young boy down whom I had dutifully handed my ticket over to simply because he was calling out for them. I didn't realise the scheme, but they ask for your ticket and then lead you to their camel, which suddenly becomes part of the tour for an extra price.


Three; Camels and their riders. Unless you really want to experience riding a camel and are shrewd in bargaining for a price or don't mind how much they charge. You will pay for the ride, plus maybe for a photo or two, and possibly for dismounting.


Four; People putting headwear on you. If you do allow them to, you will be able to pose for a picture with your new headscarf you just bought, along with one or two of the locals in traditional garments. All at a price that you will need to try and bargain for. Jim had warned us about this in particular, and I literally ducked when someone tried to put one on me. Kim was more sentimental and ended up posing in one for a few pictures. Jim had to bargain for a good while in order to get us away without completely upsetting the sellers while not giving into the high prices.


Five; Police trying to show you a good spot to take a picture. This one seems normal enough and even friendly, until they ask you for money. Jim had warned us about this one too, but I noticed that he didn't mind paying a few pounds to a policeman who was showing us where to stand for shots of the pyramids and of distant Cairo. The police don't ask for money right out in the open, but take you slightly out of view from others, around the side of the ruins for example. It is done quietly and politely and is likely necessary to augment their wage. The average daily wage in Cairo is about $8-$10 a day, and it's possible that the police make around that amount or even less than that. (1)


After taking some pictures outside the main pyramid, Jim and I paid 25 Egyptian Pounds to enter the smaller pyramid, which was "tomb number two." There was only one way in and out, and you had to wait for a break in tourists exiting the small entrance before you could make your way in. Once inside you descended steeply on a narrow plank through a low ceilinged tunnel. You often had to squeeze past others who were climbing their way out, most who were stooped over, sweating a rather lot, and breathing deeply. The heat was excessive the lower you went, not unlike a sauna. There is one burial chamber to see. An attendant points out and explains a couple things in broken English, and then asks for payment for his service (which was probably deserved, being in that heat all day.)


We decided to tour the Solar Boat next, as that was the main attraction Jim came to see. The boat was discovered in 1954 in a burial pit next to the Great Pyramid of Khufu. It was likely used in the funeral procession of the Pharaoh, carrying his body across the Nile to the tomb. It was then carefully disassembled and buried next to the Great Pyramid. In Egyptian mythology, the boat serves as transportation for the Pharaoh into the afterlife. (2)


The boat is now housed in an air conditioned building. Before entering, visitors had to put on canvas coverings over their feet to reduce the amount of dust and sand entering the site. The shoe coverings were all size extra large I think, and mine kept wanting to slip off, so that I needed to sort of shuffle or drag my feet in order to keep them in place.


Visitors can view the boat from the walkways that surround it. The boat is constructed from cedar and was reassembled over a period of 14 years. Over 1200 pieces were carefully pieced together using only wooden pegs and rope, in keeping with its original construction materials. (2) The boat is quite beautiful and appears suspended in air, as it rests over the original pit that it was excavated from.


After a few more pictures of the pyramids, we headed back to the our hotel, which by the way was aptly named the "Pharaoh Hotel." I said my goodbyes to Jim and Kim, tried to pay our driver and leave a tip and was promptly given all my money back by Jim who would not hear of me paying for much of anything (God bless them.)


At the hotel I met Kahled, who was going to be one of the travel guides with a group of us for the next several days, along with several other members from various tour groups. Actually it was a bit disorienting as the very quiet lobby was suddenly overrun by a large group of very talkative and excited Australians who all seemed to know each other quite well. Or at least they all seemed to be Australians, the majority of them, or at least the talkative ones. In the small group that I would be joining, I met a mother and daughter traveling together from Calgary, plus more Australians and three British. They had all been traveling together down from Aswan or Luxor (can't remember) and I was just joining them for the last eight days of the tour.


Our group was joining several other groups from the same tour company for dinner, so I decided to go along. We piled onto a small minibus and headed through Cairo, along the river. We gradually left the dry and dusty centre of town and emerged into luscious, green and tree-lined avenues. One of the younger Egyptian tour guides discussed the political situation in Egypt, the immense gap between rich and poor, and the general unrest among the population. He answered our questions and was very candid with us, though respectful and calm while sharing his views. The local unrest comes on the heels of the rising cost of food world wide, inflation, government corruption, and a severe shortage of subsidized bread. (3)


The bus led us to the outskirts, winding its way through more expensive neighbourhoods as we slowly climbed above the city. The restaurant was in a residential area and was a sprawling low-level building. Near the entrance an older lady was busy at an outdoor brick oven making fresh flat bread that would be served with our meal. Our young tour guide knew her quite well and gave her a hug and introduced her to us.


There were very few other guests, and many empty tables, but the few families eating with us were obviously of high-middle or upper class. The meal was several courses and was excellent. We were served tomato soup, eggplant, beetroot, dips with fresh bread, rice in vine leaves, tomatoes with barbequed chicken, and for dessert, bananas. It was well worth the amount they charged us as a group, which covered the bus, dinner, and tip. After our meal we drove further up the road until we came out on an open cliff top that overlooked the city. Before we could exit the bus however, two of our tour guides had to discuss with some young locals whether we should pay for the opportunity to be up there. After some lengthy discussion and a couple shared cigarettes they allowed us to offload from the bus and walk to the edge of the cliff for a view. It was at sunset and the sky was mauve and violet. A layer of smog set over the city, which appeared as round particles through the camera lens. It was beautiful though. And Cairo really is a huge city.


"Thou hast made him a little less
than the angels, thou hast crowned him
with glory and honour:"


Psalm 8:6

Pyramids at Giza, outside Cairo

Solar Boat

View from Pharaoh Hotel

Reasonable request and sound advice

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Egypt
(2) http://www.exhibitfiles.org/solar_boat_museum_at_giza
(3) http://www.ww.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17566

Day Seven: Chlorine Tablets & El Alamein

Today was my first test using chlorine tablets. I was more than a bit apprehensive taking my first drink, after dissolving them in a litre of tap water. I had read enough in advance to know that under no circumstances is it advisable to drink the local water in most of the Middle East. A website from the BBC puts it this way:

The number one rule for travel in Egypt is: don't drink the tap water. Don't take ice cubes in your drink, because they may have been made with tap water. Don't rinse your mouth out with tap water when you scrub your teeth - use bottled water. Don't accept a bottle of water in a restaurant unless you've seen it being opened. It may have been an empty bottle which they have filled with tap water. Don't eat salads that have been washed in tap water. Stick to vegetables that have been cooked...(1)

Unless you didn't mind taking your chances with the results of course. So I had thoroughly scared myself, but in the end I decided that I couldn't just keep buying bottled water and took a drink from the mixture I had made and then used it to brush my teeth. Actually as it turns out I could have stuck to bottled water, as it was really inexpensive pretty much everywhere I went. But I didn't know that at the time.

Breakfast was in the hotel, which consisted of sticky buns, boiled eggs, croissant, cucumber, tomatoes, and cheese. This ended up looking like most of the hotel breakfasts I would be having throughout Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey.

Jim and Kim had planned a day trip to El Alamein, which was somewhere between 96 and 130 km from Alexandria (depending on what website you look up.) I didn't have anything planned myself, so I agreed to join them. It is sometimes a nice change have someone arrange the travel plans for you.

Our transportation to El Alamein was in a newer limo type vehicle with tinted windows and a private driver who was extremely polite and very well dressed. I felt a bit awkward with such service, but it was what our tour company arranged for us. I don't recall too much of the drive, probably because I slept for most of it, but I do remember one point when the driver politely offered us a tissue, then threw the empty packaging out the window. This caught me a bit off guard, but seemed appropriate to him. Egypt is a beautiful country but has a good deal of garbage and debris tangled in the vegetation on the sides of highways and streets. It gets blown around until finally snagging on a bush. Most of it seems to be plastic bags.

El Alamein, which in Arabic means "two flags," (2) was the site of two decisive battles in World War Two, as the Axis and Allies fought over control of the Suez Canal and access to oil in the Middle East. (3) The Allied forces contained a number of troops from commonwealth nations, and as Jim and Kim were Australian citizens, they had a personal interest in the significant role Australian troops played in the turn of the battle.

Our first stop was the El Alamein Museum. When we arrived, a group of young soldiers were slowly chipping away the stonework in the front of the building. The museum was small but filled with many artifacts and large dioramas of the battlefields. I found the historical documentation of the clothing to be the most interesting, though many of the manikins were odd, with some that looked a bit scary, with fun-house type features. At one point an attendant asked me kindly but bluntly "where I was going" when I apparently went against the normal flow of traffic to re-enter a room I had already been in. I didn't realize I was doing anything out of the ordinary but then wondered if visitors were only suppose to walk through the museum in a set direction, or if there were off limit areas. The attendants were polite but were soon ushering us out of the building as they seemed to be in a hurry to close, though it was still early morning.

Outside the museum was a small collection of planes, vehicles, and artillery from the War. We walked among them for a brief period before heading over to a lonely looking grocery store across the road. We each bought a small snack and rested there a while, along with an older, very poor gentleman who was trying to communicate with us while our driver was simultaneously trying to shoo him away. Most of the tour guides I was with in Egypt and Jordan asked us not to give money to locals who were begging, though this is very difficult not to do. Jim gave the gentleman some money before we left.

The main reason for the trip to El Alamein for Jim and Kim was to visit the Commonwealth war cemetery and see the monument to fallen Australian soldiers. The cemetery was a short drive away, located at a distance from the main part of the town. The cemetery is well maintained, with gardeners watering the well spaced plants and shrubs in an otherwise desolate landscape (some of the flowering plants were quite unusual and intricate.) We had a quiet and peaceful visit before starting our long drive back to Alexandria.

On the way back I noticed miles of new seaside townhouses on the left side of the highway. Most of these were attached units, of similar style and plain concrete finish. They literally did stretch for miles along the coast, to the point where I couldn't believe there were more on the horizon. There seemed to be no one living in them, and no one around, and I wondered if perhaps it was out of season, though this still seemed odd. There was one small strip mall to support what looked like 100,000+ town homes in the desert, miles from the closest city.

Once back in Alexandria, the next destination was an Egyptian, Greek, and Roman catacomb. We were not allowed to take cameras, so we left them in the car and checked our bags through the metal detector. The catacomb was discovered by an unfortunate donkey, who discovered it by falling down one of its shafts. Enclosed in a plexiglass vitrine were the actual bones of the donkey, along with some human bones excavated from the catacomb. Some of the rooms had tall ceilings and were decorated with wall carvings. Others were modest or quite small in size. In all there were approximately 300 chambers. The current water level only allowed access to the first three levels, and buried the remaining levels below.

After visiting the catacombs, our driver decided to take us through one of the busy markets in Alexandria. We inched through tiny alleys and through traffic mayhem to emerge on a small road that ran through a very busy market. We were moving at a crawling pace past merchants and shoppers, literally almost scraping tables that were stacked with clothing for sale. Most of the people seemed used to this as they pressed themselves close to the tables so as not to be hit by the traffic slowly moving through. The pictures I have don't adequately document just how congested it was.

Before heading back to our hotel, the three of us wanted to visit the site of the famous Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was now a Muslim fort. Of course none of us spoke Egyptian Arabic, though Jim knew a very little. I attempted to draw a picture of the ancient lighthouse for our driver while Jim tried his best at a few words. My drawing was poor and simplistic (involving the lighthouse, water, and a boat) and of course did not convey our message at all. Finally Jim managed some Arabic script which after a while our driver was able to understand.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria, also known as Pharos of Alexandria, was constructed in the 3rd century BC. It was originally built on an island just off the coast, and connected to the mainland by a walkway. The lighthouse survived into the early 14th century until it deteriorated after two earthquakes. By the 15th century, the remaining stones were used to construct the Muslim Citadel of Qaitbay over its location, which stands there today. Remains of the lighthouse were later discovered on the seafloor of the harbor in 1994. (4)

We decided not to tour the inside of the fort but spent some time wandering the boardwalk that surrounds it, examining all the tourist merchandise on display at the many tables. I tried to casually look at the items, without getting too close to the tables or display signs of interest. If you do show interest in anything, you should be prepared to buy something, as the vendors are a bit relentless in their sales pitches; having you pick things up, initiating conversation, or by offering deals. Jim and Kim bought some souvenirs while I watched fisherman casting into the bay.

For lunch we found a large cafe on the main street that had quite an extensive menu to choose from. Oddly though, there were not many others in the restaurant, except a small group of teenagers drinking cokes. After ordering our meals, I realized that there was no sound of kitchen noise, and that the lights in the back where the kitchen would be were not turned on. This led me to being very skeptical and wary when they brought my food out first, which was lukewarm but after a careful taste was excellent. I decided that even if I did get food poisoning, it would be worth it. Jim and Kim's meals came several minutes later, actually after I had finished eating I think. Theirs were piping hot and obviously freshly made. I think their meals also came in packaging which indicated that the staff ran down the street to a another restaurant to order it. I began to wonder if many of the cafes and food establishments do this, or have arrangements that allow for this sort of creative cooperation.

At dinner I decided to wander on my own to find a street vendor, or something similar that would serve local and modest food. Partly I wanted to spend some time on my own - also to give Jim and Kim a break from including myself in all their plans - and partly because they kept paying for everything, including my meals, which was very kind but I was starting to feel a bit guilty about it.

A very short walk down one of the narrow dirt alleys near the hotel I found a bustling kitchen that was literally a hole in the wall of a building, big enough to house a small counter, brick oven, a food prep area, and a cash register. I stopped to watch, and was coaxed urgently in to place my order. Most of the young and friendly staff preparing the food spoke broken english. I had no idea how I managed to order, but I think I let them decide for me. Plus they seemed to be making pretty much one item, which looked like a wrap of some sort which could be stuffed with the fillings of your choice. I ordered ground beef with everything on it. When I went to pay I noticed a menu on their wall that was the same as the one at the restaurant we ate at for lunch. I guess I had discovered where the restaurant ordered their food.

I took my dinner over to the walkway that ran along the water and sat down on the large concrete blocks that served as a barrier against the waves. The sun had set though it was still quite warm, and salt water was spraying on the blocks just below me. There were also many ferule cats climbing in and around the large slabs of concrete, and I ended up feeding one of them who was patiently waiting for me to finish my meal.

The boardwalk, or more properly know as the cornesh, just above me was filled with people out walking. Most were in pairs; young couples obviously courting or married couples, though a few people were out by themselves. The men all seemed to be showing a good deal of public affection to the women with them. Most of the young men would walk with one arm around their partner, often leaning in very closely and speaking quietly. I joined the throng of people strolling up and down the cornesh, and stopped for a while to play soccer with some teens, who were friendly but then in an entrepreneurial manner asked me for a dollar as a charge for the use of their soccer ball.

The evening call to prayer sounded around 7:30 pm, and it was a long time after this that I had decided to walk back to my hotel, crossing the busy road through a pedestrian underpass. I had noticed throughout the day that there were frequent calls to prayer, but did not see many people interrupt what they were doing to pray, or see many people heading for the mosques at those times. It would be later in Jerusalem that I began to note which hours of prayer seemed to attract the most significant crowds to the mosques.

El Alamein Museum

Commonwealth war cemetery

Plants, Commonwealth war cemetery

Market, Alexandria

Lighthouse description

Citadel of Qaitbay (site of Lighthouse of Alexandria)

Dinner, Alexandria

(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2082818
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Alamein
(3) http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_of_el_alamein.htm
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_of_Alexandria