Oasis life: Siwa
What is it that makes people fall in love with Siwa? Is it the isolation? With an 11-hour bus journey, or eight hours by car, Siwa’s not exactly on the […]
NOTEBOOK
Canter past Patagonian icefields. Sail the tranquil waters of Lake Como in Italy. Sip coffee in a Palestinian village. Listen to the ancient voices of Australia’s Arnhem Land. Climb the mountain paths of northern Albania. Let’s go!
Match making
The locals say that Egypt lost the 2010 World Cup (that’s football/soccer, to the unawares) largely because its taxi system was so bad (the meter is but a decorative concept, […]
Getting hitched, Part II
For those of you who can’t get enough of weddings, the latest wedding I attended was that of Mokhtar and Samira. This time, I actually knew the couple getting married, […]
Forgiveness, pleasure and grace: a lesson in Arabic
“The Arabic language is very rich,” said didactic Nael, one of my first friends in Egypt, and himself a French teacher. The more I learn about Arabic, the more I […]
The Sun City
I realise I haven’t written much – if anything – about my new place, and the point of this blog was to get a bit up close and personal, unlike […]
Getting hitched…
Last night was the fourth wedding or engagement I have attended (or inadvertently gate crashed) in the past fortnight. The first was while I popped into a hotel to pick […]
Getting tongue around shisha, TB and mishmish
I was in a shisha café the other night up the back of Sheraton Helipolis, in the north of the city. It was very chic and urbane, serving espresso and […]
Wild-eyed in the Cairo night
So it’s the weekend, you’ve been out, had dinner, a maybe few drinks and then… not in the mood for a club? Why not ride a camel around the back […]
Windswept and interesting
Everyone loves a good windswept look – think Kate Winslet in Titanic. But on Saturday, it all got a bit ridiculous, with a fierce wind, the khamaseen, whipping across the […]
Giving Cairo the horn
God love the Bangles for giving lazy journalists the phrase ‘walk like an Egyptian’. I’ve written about Cairo traffic before (http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/africa/curse-of-toot–and-karma/2008/09/04/1220121408026.html) and I thought that while I am now quite […]