Travel | GlobalSalsa: travel writer Belinda Jackson

Jan

The art of Egyptian bus travel

I was stuck on a bus travelling from the Mediterranean town of Marsa Matrouh back to Cairo, watching the nerdy, diminuitive, slapstick actor, Mohamed Henedy, who despite (or perhaps because of) appearing no more than five feet tall with a baby face, feels the need to shout his way through every movie. Napoleonic complex, if ever I saw one. Having said that, he’s a prolific little bugger, his new movie, Prince of the Sea, is out now, and he has 12,600 fans on Facebook.

In the bus movie, he’s got thick glasses and a comb-over, and is teaching a few young boys a lesson for staring at his girl (who is inevitably tall and beautiful) and whips off his slippers to give them a good hiding.

He’s also making them slap their faces, which women do when they’re screaming with angst at, say, the death of a loved one; amply demonstrated in the following movie where the naughty Lebanese actress Haifa flashes her knickers and gets slapped around a lot: if you were looking for women’s rights in Egyptian cinema, you’d have to be looking hard.

Bus travel in Egypt is cheap – US$10 will get you across half the vast country, but it’s not necessarily fast, thanks to the revered tea stop. It’s a test of patience, however, I’m becoming Egyptian in at one aspect: stuffing my face with sugar at hourly intervals while on the road.

The chemically-enhanced taste of Twinkies sponge and fake cream (do you remember the ads for them in Archie magazines???) have worn out their welcome with me, and I never got into the hard stuff, the solid sugar hit of basbousa, but Egypt is a biscuit culture and I’m a culture vulture. When in Rome. Or Egypt, in this case.

Of course, there must be tea at every break, even in the middle of the night in grim roadside cafes full of hard-faced microbus drivers, their vans piled twice their height with everything from sofas to antique wheelchairs and, in this one’s case, a wheelbarrow hanging off the front.

Who knows how they manage to achieve such death-defying speeds: I heard that one hit a camel that was sleeping on the warm road on the stretch out to Siwa last week.

Jan

Reasons why not to drink in Egypt

Surely this pic is enough?

Snapped in a shopfront in Downtown Cairo, Fenilad Fodka and imitation Johnny Walker whisky, though my favourite is still the ‘Johnny Walking’ brand.

They’re marked at 40% alcohol, but there’s some watering going on here.

Makes abstinence in Egypt that much easier, don’t you think?

Jan

A budget tip for the Giza Pyramids

We were prancing around the Pyramids the other day (as you do) and went inside for a look: it’s been a year since I went inside the tombs, preferring to observe from a distance on horseback.

The entrance fee for foriegners is currently sitting at LE60 (about A$12) with a further LE120 (A$23.50) if you want to climb down into the burial chambers of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, which winds 30 meters deep into the Giza plateau.

Otherwise, the slightly smaller Pyramid of Khafre is an option, in summer a claustrophobic sauna as you climb down wooden rungs on the sloping ground into the bowels of the earth.

So here’s my Egypt budget tip for the day (apart from masquerading as an Egyptian, with tickets for locals sitting at LE3): we visited the smaller pyramids behind Khufu, that of Queen Hetepheres (2551 – 2528BC) and, interestingly, that of her engineer.

The engineer knew what he was doing: while all the others are stripped of any sustained decoration, his works are a riot of carvings and colours not seen in the others I’ve visited. And it’s free, apart from the usual couple of pounds’ baksheesh to the guys out the front. Don’t worry, they’ll make sure they’re around when you come back out.

It’s a great way to get a quick Pharonic hit if you’re not going down to Luxor or Aswan, and you dozed off in the Egyptian Museum.

I’m on the road and have left my camera cable at home, but I’ll pop up a few pix when I’m back in a couple of days. Cheerio!

Jan

Honesty and Egypt Air

A note I read recently in Egypt Air’s inflight magazine, Horus, about air travel:

“Wear comfortable/casual pants/shoes – sometimes it gets cold and there may not be extra blankets. Plus, they are usually too small to keep you warm…”

Well, at least they’re honest, and the tickets usually cheap.

Jan

Happy New Year.

Enough said…

Dec

Sultans of Bling

Most people visit Cairo for the Pyramids at Giza, Sakkara and Dashur. Many do it also for the medieval mosques in Islamic Cairo. But Cairo as a shopper’s paradise like Hong Kong or Bangkok? Not quite.

However, we’ve spent the past couple of days exploring the underbelly of Cairo’s gold traders, in search of a wedding ring (no, not mine!) Jewellery is dictated by fashion, make no mistake. And the fashion at the moment in Egypt is for Seriously Big Bling.

So when Fee turned up in town with her little, white hands and a taste for the understated, it became immediately obvious we were in for a rough time. We visited the gold strip in Misr el Gedida (Heliopolis) near Midan Salah El Din, and also the gold traders of Khan al-Khalili and Sharia El Muizz.

The shops ranged from luxe emporiums to tatty offices where dealers pulled trays of diamonds out of secret compartments behind their knees and talked about the colour H and vvsi grades of clarity, princess cuts and claw settings. It was a learning curve for both of us.

We weren’t the only shoppers. While a few Christmas tourists poked their noses into the shops, Egyptian buyers were busy poring over the trays of gold, lured by enormous diamonds and rich yellow, 18-carat extravaganzas. None of Australia’s pale, limp 9-carat wanna-be gold.

Interestingly, it’s the ladies who wear the most gold in these parts. The precious metal is considered to be detrimental to men’s health, so most men wear a silver wedding ring. I’m ok with that. With gold prices at an all-time high as investors seek safe investments, grooms get off pretty cheaply. Not like the brides.

Rings ranged from pretty little trinkets from young men to their intended bride to no-holds-barred golden knuckle dusters that have you dragging your hands on the ground under their weight.

The main thoroughfare of El Muizz is lined with gold and silver shops (not to mention other businesses selling lanterns, plaster busts of Nefertari, pyramid fridge magnets, inlaid chess boards, chandeliers, tatty jewellery and a never-ending stream of tassle-laden shisha pipes). All through the night the cobbled street rang with the sounds of the zaghroota, the elated wail that Arabic women do when they’re celebrating. Weddings especially.

“It can make a man’s blood rise,” an old man confided to me once.

“What’s that woman screaming for?” asked a concerned Fee. Different ears, different interpretations.

Fifteen shops and three shopping sessions later, we have found the ring (a sweeping solitaire), negotiated the price (of course, more than the original budget) and organised for the resizing. The bling, my friends, is in the bag.

PS: If you’re jewellery shopping in Cairo and want some contacts, we had success finding the ring at the dusty, seemingly empty Ahmed Hosny & Sons at 99 Sharia El Muizz and are getting work and diamond done at the lovely Gouzlan, beside Naguib Mafouz restaurant in the heart of Khan al-Khalili.

Dec

Christmas in Cairo

It just doesn’t feel like Christmas here in Cairo.

No matter how many plump plaster-cast reindeers and glitzy gold Christmas trees in the mall.

No matter how many boys selling Santa hats (including a frightening,’Silence-of-the-Lambs’-style with an eyeless, flayed rubber Santa face hanging below the fringe.

No matter how many times Nile FM can play Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’.

It’s not surprising considering Egypt’s Coptic Christians celebrate Christmas on 7 January.

My one and only work Christmas party was put off till 15 January, however, we made a good fist of it, helped by the fact Christmas Eve is on a Thursday, the Arabic equivalent of a Friday night. So we crashed the Christmas party at the pumping bar, After Eight (reached by walking off the street, through a kiosk selling chocolates and chips then down an alleyway that has actually been cleaned up).

The entertainment was a band, two DJs and they also threw in a beautiful belly dancer who had a gorgeous smile but was lacking in the whole hip movement area. The first DJ belted out a fistful of fun Arabic pop, but the second went into deep, heavy dance that lost the holiday bonhomie as well as the dance crowds.

There was no fowl on the Christmas table (Fee objects) and no pork either (Egypt objects, and has killed all its pigs in a frenzy over swine flu). Thank god, there is always smoked salmon…

Dec

Dead in the Water (or, How I Caught a Cold in the Name of Work)

I had to do it, even though it is the middle of winter. I had to swim in the Dead Sea, then cover myself in a thick black mud and then sit on one of Jordan’s cold, unsunny, stony beach to wait for the mud to dry till it cracked on my skin and fell off like eczema flakes. In all, not a pretty sight. I did it for you…

Dead Sea mud is supposed to be the oldest elixir of youth. Certainly the water in it is as old as time. The creation story goes that once there was a large ocean covering this part of the Middle East and as the land changed, it split into the Mediterranean Ocean, the Black, Red and Dead Seas and a series of lakes and rivers linking the ancient waterway.

The Dead Sea is fed by a stream from the River Jordan, mixing new water with the ancient brine that is so salty that you do indeed bob like a cork. Logic has it that the Dead Sea would taste disgusting. So why do we insist on tasting it? I tasted it. Absolutely gut-wrenchingly gross, a weird mix of sea salt and a deep, medicinal taste of stale water.

I walked into the water fearing for the old paper cuts running across four fingers, but they must have closed over because they didn’t sting like I expected they would. Then, while musing this unexpected wonder, I tripped on a stone and grazed my toes. People, I can report that yes it hurts like buggery when the salt gets in.

But it’s weird: you know when you swim in a really salty sea, you can see the salt crystals clinging to your skin while you dry? When you waddle out of the Dead Sea, the water clings like an oily film to your skin, which is not unpleasant.

I slathered on the black mud, kept company only by the lifeguard – smart tourists were staying off the chilly beach this morning, and that was fine with me. Until, to my mortification, a super-conservative Indian/US Muslim family came down to the water’s edge. It is a mark to the wife’s gregarious nature that we struck up a lovely conversation: she in her 18th-century bonnet and long skirts, me in nothing but a grubby bikini and slick of black mud.

I am still bewildered as to where the mud actually comes from. I didn’t see any pits but the local boys bring it up each morning to the public beaches and a few dollars will see you smearing yourself with thick, black primordial ooze. Yes, ok. I paid for it. And then I cruised the gift shops so I could pay for it again, but in nicer packaging than a large dirty bucket.

The most fashionable lable for Dead Sea cosmetics (face moisturisers, hair masks, eye gel, foot scrubs and yes, just straight bags of mud) is Rivage, a Jordanian-French enterprise with chic packaging and good marketing. There are plenty of B-grade labels, but really, how will packaging make me look 14 again, I ask?

Dec

What you didn’t know about Jordan..

The Dead Sea is 400 meters below sea level, the lowest point on earth.

Jordanian wine is actually very palatable.

Cheap labour comes from Egyptians.

In winter, racing camels are rugged up with a poncho with a hole cut out for the hump to slip through.

Jordan is actually the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, ruled by King Abdullah.

King Abdullah II’s father looked like Sean Connery and his son like Harry Potter. The king’s mother is Scottish.

Lawrence of Arabia lived in Wadi Rum, in southern Jordan..

A donkey can set you back US$500.

The Dead Sea is oily.

Quick biblical facts on events in Jordan:

Jesus was baptised.

John the Baptist was decapitated.

Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt, and still stands.

Moses died.

Salome danced the dance of the Seven Veils in front of King Herod.

And finallly, if you were looking for it, Jordan is the site of the original Sin City, Sodom & Gomorrah.

Dec

Temple fatigue

I admit it: I have been avoiding Jordan. After a solid effort schlepping around Egypt’s antiquities, not to mention those of Morocco and Iran, I thought the ancient city of Petra, built around the first century BC, would be just wasted on me.

I was suffering a serious case of temple burn-out. Show me another Roman ruin, hear me scream.

Last night, I finally faced my fears and visited the jewel of Jordan, Petra, by night. The ruins are fabulously intact, and lit by hundreds of candles, an international group gathered at 8.30pm to walk down to the most amazing building, the Treasury.

The rules were clear: no mobile phones, no photos and, incredibly, no talking.

Silence is the key, as you walk through the Siq, the crack in the canyon that leads into this secretive building.

“Please walk in single file, but couples can walk hand-in-hand, and we wish our singles the best of luck,” said the organisers in their opening spiel.

Unfortunately, none of the Spaniards in the group (and there were many) heard the instructions because…well, they were all talking. I realised early on in the piece that I’d have to isolate myself from the Continental types and hitch up with the law-abiding northern Europeans and Anglos. Worked like a charm.

The canyon’s walls rise up to 80 meters high, dwarfing us in darkness as we followed the trail of candles. When we reached the 2000-year old Treasury building, performers played traditional instruments, eerie in the night air.

I spent the whole day today in Petra by daylight, and after walking about 20km, with help from a few trotting horses and plenty of sugar-fuelled sage-infused tea from charming Bedouin women, I’m suffering temple fatigue, again.

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