The Travel Bug (25 Oct 2008)

So my first full day in Egypt I woke up, ate breakfast with a couple from Austria (actually, she was originally from Zimbabwe, and he now works in Libya, but Austria's the best I can do), while Belinda was still sleeping, and had to leave abruptly because I felt that my posterior might suddenly explode. I tried to go on with my day's business of walking on the beach, but was repeatedly called back to the room by nature's call. I finally gave up and just laid down to rest. I guess I should consider myself to be lucky, because I haven't been sick at all since I came here, but I still wish I were a little more myself.

I've had a problem with mosquitos lately. In Korea, they never bit me. Here they're all over me. I brought Bronte's mosquito lotion with me, and put it on my face, hands, and feet, but I seem to miss spots...noticeably, last night, my eyelid. And lately, my mosquito bites have been swelling a LOT, so when they bit my eyelid last night I declared war. At three in the morning, I woke up and started swatting...I got about two dozen of the little bastards, and there were still a few more, but I finally went back to bed, considering I'd done my best, and slept the rest of the night in peace.

Later I went to the center of town to write my blog. I literally paid, walked out of the internet cafe, and threw up in the street. All I had in my stomach was 7-Up and water, so it didn't make too much of a mess, but it was embarassing, and I grabbed a cab back to Habiba Camp and spent the rest of the night in bed.

Today we took a bus from Nuweiba to Cairo. 7 1/2 long hours. The sun was setting as we got into town. Belinda crashed at the hotel, but I was starving, since I had only eaten a Snickers bar all day, and words can't describe how happy I was to drive past the Golden Arches on the way to the Luna Hotel, where we've got a pretty nice room. So that's where I went. There's really something wonderful about walking into McDonald's and ordering food, and having it taste JUST like it does back home. I probably ate too much, my stomach feels a little woozy again, but I didn't care. Now I'm back at the hotel - any more adventures can wait for tomorrow and daylight.

Round about Cairo (27 Oct 2008)

It's my first full day in Cairo. Let me start by saying that my friend Alane, who once told me that Athens was a "dirty city," has obviously never been to Cairo. Cairo doesn't have the profusion of graffiti that Athens did, and both have, I think, an equal share of crumbling buildings, but the accumulated grime that coats everything is amazing to me. The balcony of our room looks out toward a building that seems brown at first glance, but upon closer inspection, is actually red. And there's enough garbage on the street to put other middle eastern countries that I may have inhabited to shame (no offense to the continuing inhabitants of that country, but they know as well as I do that when instructions on how to get to the cold store involve, "turn right at the garbage pile," and movies previews stress not littering rather than not pirating, you know you've got a problem...just apparently not as much of a problem as Cairo). We thought that the logical place to start was in Khan Al Khalili (the souq or bazaar here), but I have to say, I was a little disappointed. I've visited a number of souqs now, and maybe I was just too early to get the full effect, but actually, the persistence of the shopkeepers at that hour (10-12-ish) was already enough to make me grind my teeth a little.

I figured we were so close to Islamic...oops, apparently Islamic is supposed to be off-putting to foreign tourists so they call it Fatimid now...so close to Fatimid Cairo that we ought to just cross the street and explore. Belinda has misgivings about my ability to navigate, but I feel I acquitted myself pretty well today. Over the footbridge and past several mosques, we came to Bab Al Zuweila, a kind of a gate with two minarets looming upwards, that we were able to climb to get a partial panoramic view of Cairo (turns out it's a pretty fricking big city).

Right after that we came to the tentmaker's market. The kinds of colorful, silkscreened fabrics that Belinda's studio are hung with are on sale there, as well as incredibly beautiful, intricate quilted wall hangings and other goods that have the same kind of arabesque design. This was probably my favorite part of today's wanderings. Then onwards toward the Citadel (which we didn't actually enter), past Cairo's Blue Mosque, which is currently kind of in ruins but UNESCO has it in on it's "To Do" list. And finally back to the hotel.

I wanted for us to go to a belly dance show at Haroun Ar-Rashid tonight, but when I phoned for a reservation, it turns out nobody's performing tonight. However, tomorrow night DINA is there, so we made the reservation, and I am seriously excited about it!!! Dina is one of the best known Egyptian dancers at the moment, and there is just something super cute and sexy about her style. Okay, I'm going to stop gushing like a giddy schoolgirl, but be ready for possibly more gush on Wednesday (eeeeeeeeee!)

A Night at Haroun Ar-Rashid (29 Oct 2008)

I couldn't help myself. I love music as much as most people, more than some, and Arabic music more than your average whitey. The opening singers (all five of them, working together) weren't bad...in fact, they coulda been contenders on 'Arabian Idol,' if in fact they weren't already professionals (I don't really think they were, I recognized quite a few of their songs and knew they were covers...but then, I know that it's not uncommon for Arabic pop stars to do each other's songs over and over). Still, I couldn't help wondering if they were done yet. They'd been singing for almost two hours, which put it just before 1:30 a.m., and I had not LEFT my hotel at 11:30 - a time when, in Korea, if I weren't already in Seoul, you can bet your bippy I was not leaving Bundang, not even leaving the 'Dong, if you got right down to it - and shelled out to hear these guys. Mustafa, the waiter came and asked if I wanted my dessert, and I did - at least it would keep me awake til Dina took the stage. Just when I thought I couldn't take any more, they took their bows and left the stage. Humd'Allah! About 20 gut-wrenching minutes later (gut-wrenching because, apparently, Arabic food and I are not friends right now, something I've given a lot of thought to in the bathroom this morning), the curtains reopened to show the full musical contingent (22 pieces, in this case) that traditionally accompanies a dancer in Egypt. They played a song, and then Dina took the stage.

Dina is kind of a controversial dancer. The bras of her costumes are cut really low, some of her hemlines on her skirts are cut really high (the red costume she wore last night, my favorite, was one of those - she had to repeatedly pull it down to keep the pre-pubescent boys in the front from getting a peek of anything that might prematurely spin them into adolescence), and her dancing is not exactly the refined, complex artistry that some dancers pull off. Actually, sometimes it looks a little like she's stumbling around drunk.

However, I've never seen anyone else dance who looks like they're having quite so much fun! She gets on the stage, and it just seems like she's having a good time - an extremely athletic good time - and when someone projects that, you can't help but get caught up in it. Dina has such amazing facial expressions, and she uses her hands and arms really naturally and playfully to expand what the music is communicating. I just had to sit and watch her with twinges of envy, hoping that maybe I could dance with that much joie de vivre someday (and in that sort of wardrobe - man, her cossies made mine look like cheap trash...which by belly dancing standards, I guess it sort of is) and be able to show it that wholeheartedly.

Another Day in Phormer Pharaoh's Land (31 Oct 2008)

I'm using Belinda's piccolo computer and it's annoying, so this will be a short one. After dragging myself out of bed yesterday, we hit Old Cairo. The best part of the day was stumbling across Saad Cafe...outside they had a sign that said, "Welcome to the house of cats. Come and enjoy your drink with the sweet cats." Sure enough, the proprietor had about 2 dozen cats calling his establishment home. I wanted to talk to him about the fact that the ancient Egyptians worshipped cats (the center of worship for Bastet was Bubastis, near modern Zagazig), but I didn't know if my pagan knowlege would conflict with his Muslim ideals, so I stayed silent.

The worst part of the day was feeling like I was stalked by the paparazzi in the Greek orthodox church. Some Arabic dude aimed his camera at me the minute I walked in, so I turned away. He kept following me around, poised to click, and finally I turned to him angrily and said he was making me uncomfortable. He protested that he was taking pictures of the church, but it was pretty obvious what he was doing. Now, don't get me wrong, plenty of Korean teenagers have tried to snap pictures of me without seeming too obvious about it, but the feeling was just different.

Other memorable experiences - going into a shop, looking at the drums, admitting that I play zills (sagat around here) and giving an impromptu concert with one of the girls in the shop that played tabla. That was pretty cool.

A Vomitous Mess of Artifacts (2 Nov 2008)

I was on the midnight train to Georgia. Except it was only 9:10. And it was going to Luxor. But otherwise, it was totally the same.

We spent the morning at the Egyptian Museum. Wow. What a place, and I don’t necessarily mean that in a great way. I may offend some people here, but that is a museum badly In need of a good curator. Or a visit from the Cleansweep tv show team…I’m not sure which. Here’s something Americans, and I would say much of Europe, can’t really understand, and that is, how much detritus builds up over more than a couple thousand years of civilization. Once you’ve been to the Egyptian museum, you’ll get a much better idea. There’s just SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much stuff there. Now I’m not in favor of chucking any of it, this is the dawn of civilization we’re talking about here, and after 5000 years, even the most trivial leavings have acquired some status. But it was so hard to wrap your head around it all, it seems like it would have been better to do some editing in what they displayed (and how they displayed it…there weren’t as many labels as you could hope for, and they were old and fading…and would it kill them to install a few more benches? I mean, between the museum ticket and the mummy room ticket they’re pulling in $30 a head, it’s not like they’re operating in the red, right?)

That said, what an incredible experience. The mummies were unbelievable! They’ve still got their hair, even good old (very old) Ramses II, who seemed to have treated his white hair with a yellowing agent, reminding me of the time Diana’s daddy, our branch president’s hair inexplicably turned lemony… I found myself wondering a lot, both yesterday and today, if the ancient Egyptians, in their goals of immortality, could have conceived of their bodies and creations still being here, mostly intact after, in some cases, 5000 years. They could reckon a day, a year, a dynasty, but lacking (as far as we know) a written history prior to roughly their invention of it, could they imagine an “eternity” as long as 5000 years?

Another thing that boggled my mind – perusing the Ptolemaic and late period sarcophagi and mummies, which were decorated in the Roman style, a phrase I’d read in Lonely Planet leapt to mind, about Hathor being identified with the Greek goddess Aphrodite. How cool that ancient peoples could be introduced to each other’s deities and say, “Oh yeah, we know her, we just call her a different name.” Of course, conquerors in more recent times have done the same with holidays and such, but it seems like we’ve lost the art. When was the last time you heard a Christian say to a Muslim, “Oh, yeah, I know all about Allah, but we don’t have a name for Him. We just call Him God. Did you know He had a son? His name is Jesus. Oh, you’ve heard of Jesus? That’s pretty cool.”

After the museum we hit the souq, and I watched Belinda buy two gorgeous new costumes, which she’s working on “tuning up” while I’m typing this on the piccolo computer. I just watched – yes, Mom, I was a good girl, I realize we’ve got a recession on back home. We got KFC and went back to Luna Hotel to wait to catch the train that brought us down here to Luxor. I’ll let you in on a little secret…Belinda gets a little…shall we say, crabby?...when she gets stressed, and apparently trying to get from Cairo to Luxor is stressful. But once we got settled in our compartment…which was no Oriental Express, but it wasn’t too bad, either…things calmed down, and we made it down here to the Oasis Hotel, in spite of the fact that I almost gave the owner, Hassan (who came to pick us up at the train station) the blow off, because he was in the group of hopeful cab drivers pressing us to choose them to take us to the hotel. We talked about tourism options in Luxor, and signed up for a balloon ride for tomorrow morning, and headed out to Luxor temple, which is just up the street (Luxor is not such a big town). Again I was struck with wondering if the ancient Egyptians could have conceived of us, in a time so far removed from their own, and what would have happened to their monuments if Europe hadn’t gotten interested in antiquity (would it still be under sand?) We found our new home, a fast food joint named Snack Time that has some pretty incredible food and wireless internet access, and a rooftop terrace that has live music tomorrow night (guess where we’ll be eating?) Cruised the souq a bit and we’re back at the Oasis (bit of trivia for y’all, but that was the name of the apartments my parents managed when I was born) for the night.

Up, Up, and Away (In My Beautiful Balloon) (2 Nov 2008)

As I've mentioned before, I'm not afraid of heights. Belinda is. It was my idea to go for a hot air balloon ride first, but by the time we got to Egypt, I'd kind of relinquished the idea, because I thought it was going to be hellaexpensive, and really, you can't see that much from the air, right? However, Belinda read about it online and decided she really wanted to do it, and it turned out to be much cheaper than we thought, so we signed up for it yesterday. It meant getting up at 5 to be out of the hotel at 6...across the river, into another van that took us across the floodplain of the Nile, past banana fields and sugar cane.

Balloons were coming down from their sunrise flights to pick us up for the second shift - I had my eye on a really beautiful green balloon that looked like a mosaic of malachite, but we ended up in a plain red one with Magic Horizons printed on the front (which was just as well, I like red, and it made for some pretty spectacular pictures).

As we approached the balloon through a cornfield, there was a loud rush of flame, and I joked that the dragon was angry...I thought about adding something about sacrificing a virgin, but in the group I was in, it was quite possible that I would have ended up the sacrifice. I never realized before how big the baskets of hot air balloons can be, but they fit 22 of us in that thing, comfortably.

Captain Bob, who was a hoot - he took flying lessons in England from the same man as one of our fellow travelers, and so he had the guy come over into the center part of the basket and had him help fly the balloon, and he made a lot of funny comments - hopped in and we were soon on our way, seeing the West Bank (and the rooftop livestock of the inhabitants thereof) from the air.

We took a "little walk" that we didn't really need to take (I guess it's probably my fault that Belinda can't read my mind) to find something for breakfast, then went to the Luxor Museum. Now THAT is a MUSEUM! The interior was painted a very dark grey and lights dramatically highlighted the sculptures. The weapons were displayed in such a way as to demonstrate their use (rather than as sticks lying in boxes...ahem, Egyptian Museum...), and everything was labeled. SO much of the collection was complete, or mostly so, but even the pieces that were more fragmentary were displayed in such a way that you saw their beauty...and some of the pieces were restorations that the SCA (Supreme Council of Antiquities) selected from the Egyptian Museum for special treatment. There was still a shortage of seating, but because it was a smaller museum, and each piece was displayed in such a way that you actually got to see it (instead of just being part of the blur), you didn't need to sit a while the way you do at the Egyptian Museum. If THOSE guys were smart, they would break the Egyptian Museum into - let's say five - five different museums, Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, Late Period, and, let's face it, King Tut deserves his own museum. Then they could charge admission for each museum, they'd make a ton of money, and you wouldn't feel like you had to do the whole thing in one go (did I mention their "cafeteria" is only accessible by exiting the museum?). They could give things more space, they could rotate the collection so that you had to go back again and again to see more. And they could hire the curator from the Luxor Museum to sort it for them.

The Marvels of Karnak (4 Nov 2008)

Sorry, guys, my mind is not completely with me right now, and this may not be the most entertaining or informational blog I've ever written. That said, we went to Karnak today. What a huge fricking place. We got there at about 6:30 this morning, and it took us four hours to see the whole thing. Like Aya Sofya, there's not much I can say that will do it any more justice than far more skilled writers have done, but I will say this...again, for something as old as it is...and I realize that some assembly has been required...but as old as it is, it's held up pretty well. Look at ourselves, people - we can't even build highways that don't need replaced every year or so!

Last night we were on our way to a (cancelled, as we would learn) music night at Snack Time's "The Roof," and we fumbled upon a musical performance, and there was even a whirling dervish! I was excited because I hadn't gotten to see one yet. Today we took a caleche (carriage ride) back to Luxor from the temple, and this evening rode a felucca on the Nile. A very small part of the Nile, because there wasn't any wind to speak of, but it was a felucca, on the Nile, nonetheless.

One thing that has puzzled me is the lack of Americans in this country - I haven't met any since parting ways with Phee and Carol. Has our media really prejudiced us that badly? Although I haven't always been entirely comfortable here, I haven't actually had any incidents, and, insh'Allah it'll stay that way. I kinda knew what I was getting into from my year in Bahrain, and although the constant hassling from shopkeepers gets really old, really fast, that's nothing I'm willing to let stand in the way of my seeing the wonders of the ancient world.

We're asked a lot about our nationalities, and Belinda's pretty open about being Aussie. When we started in Istanbul, at first I was telling everyone I was from Korea. Half of them kinda looked at me funny, only to decide it wasn't worth it, the other half said, "Yeah, but where are you really from?" or "Yes, but from America originally, yes?" Lately I've been ignoring them because I think my nationality makes Belinda nervous, so they've been guessing. I've gotten Dutch at least once, German several times, but mostly they think I'm British, even after hearing my voice. I'm okay with that, since my adopted mum from Bahrain was British, but I kind of want to say proudly, "No, I'm American." Maybe the people need to see that Americans aren't all the bad guys just as much as we need to see that the middle east is not the dangerous nest of terrorists that our media paints them. Maybe, but it will have to wait for someone braver than me.

Good Idea (???) (4 Nov 2008)

Last night when we were discussing how to get around the sites on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor, Belinda suggested renting a bike, and I thought, "Brilliant!" (Since I'm apparently British, I get to say fun things like that, you wanker.) When we set off down the road on our bikes (hers just happened to be pink, mine was red) after crossing on the ferry, the sun was low, the air was cool, and life was pretty fricking sweet. It was around 8 a.m. then. We decided to bike to Hatshepsut's temple via the Ramesseum, about, I don't know, seven kilometers maybe? Less than the distance from my parents' house to the Glenwood tennis courts, paved the whole way, and with no real hills to speak of. So what if we were riding one-speeds (and the name of that speed is very, very slow)?

Four hours later, and after close to two hours at Hatshepsut's temple, we set back out. The last forty minutes we'd spent turned around, looking for one another because she thought I must have left the temple and I thought she was still there, because I couldn't imagine that she'd left without telling me. So we weren't in the best of moods when we started down the road. It took forty minutes to ride back to the bike shop...forty hot minutes under the scorching, watchful eye of Amun-Re, and we found ourselves asking what on earth possessed us to think this was a good idea. It apparently hasn't been that long since I rode a bike, because I still feel pretty good, for all the riding we did, but Belinda's another story (her bike's tires were also a little low). I managed to not get too sunburnt, but I have acquired a pretty strong tanline from my "wedding" ring, that probably won't be too helpful with the Mormon boys back home (but hey, you never know).

The paintings on Hatshepsut's temple were smashing! Absolutely brilliant!

In the Valley of the Kings (7 Nov 2008)

As much as my imagination is tickled by the idea of the curse of a mummy, I don't really hold any belief in the power of that kind of supernatural mumbo jumbo over me (if things like mummy's curses indeed exist, I believe they are trumped by a protective Heavenly Father who I know is watching over me). But I did watch a tv special one time that investigated the science behind the mummy's curse, and it found that Howard Carter may have been killed by bacteria in Tutankhamun's tomb. So I was not totally without trepidation when entering the Valley of the Kings to see some of these tombs for myself...almost, because how many tourists enter these tombs each year and nothing ever happens to them? (following photo courtesy of Belynda Azhaar)

So anyways, yesterday we visited the Valley of the Kings (admission was 50 Egyptian pounds each), seeing Ramses I, Tuthmosis III, and the tomb of Tawosret, from which she was later evicted by her successor Sethnakht. I wanted to see Seti I, but it's closed the public, and Ramses III, which was being restored, and Ramses VI, but that was an extra charge. I had no interest in Tutankhamun's tomb. The book said it was mostly unfinished, and besides which, I'd seen just about everything but Tut himself in the Egyptian museum, so I could skip it, in light of the extra admission.

Anyways, the tombs were pretty fricking incredible...stiflingly hot from so many tourists coming down and breathing in them, but then, what was I but another tourist? If none of them were able to come, neither would I have been admitted. And it was worth it to see the beauty of the paintings, which had been sheltered from the elements and shone with much of the beauty that they had when first completed. The large stone sarcophagus was still in the tomb, and you could shine your flashlight in to see that they'd even carved the inside. How funny, in our modern thinking, to make things of such exquisite beauty, just to shut them away (hopefully) forever? It also makes you realize how incredibly colorful the temples - such as the funerary temple of Seti I, which we visited afterwards, both by a taxi we hired for the half day - once were.

We did some shopping later, a little more patient with the obnoxious shopkeepers today - and I bought a galabeya that I'd seen in another shop, for $20 less than they had asked. It was a good day. Today I read and Belinda prepared herself for the lesson she's taking when we get back to Cairo, and tomorrow is more tombs and temples, this time again on a bike, before heading back to Cairo.

The Last Remaining Wonder (10 Nov 2008)

How much did it kill me to wait, and wait, and wait to go to Giza? So much, but the timing wasn't right before Luxor, so we waited it out. I was afraid that it was going to be a let down, like meeting a celebrity and finding out they're just a normal person.

They snuck up on me. Belinda wanted to take the bus, rather than the subway or a cab, and although I was not exactly thrilled at the prospect, she's gone along with some of my ideas when she didn't really want to, so I didn't put up a fight. I don't have the highest opinion of public transportation here - it gets the job done, but it doesn't radiate safety and efficiency the way the Seoul buses and subways do. Anways, we rode the bus to its last stop, outside the Oberoi Mena House, and I was still looking around when Belinda said, "Yo, they're over there." (Okay, no, she probably didn't say, "Yo.")

And there, off to the left up a hill, they were. Or, rather, there two of them were (Menkaure's monolith is a little less mono, and it hide behind Khefren's). The closer you got (after dutifully paying your 60 Egyptian pound), the bigger they were, and the more jagged they looked, having stood on the plateau for untold eras losing some of their smooth exteriors (Khefren's still has some of its casing at the top, and has many of the missing pieces lying around the bottom...I may have picked up a small chunk of it to take home, Babysis' hubby suggested it would make a cool souvenir, but after I put it in my pocket I got a feeling like a small bug was biting the inside of my leg, and decided to discard it in case the pharoah's curse was working on me. True story.)

But I couldn't figure out where the Sphinx was. I was actually more excited to see him than the pyramids, and from what I could tell on Lonely Planet's map, he ought to be right there. Well, the LP map doesn't show topography, we had to walk down the hill to him, and I know everyone says this, but he's SO much smaller than you expect him to be (tricky photographers!). Nonetheless, he was SO COOL! Lack of nose and beard notwithstanding, you can still see the pride of the pharaoh written on his face - you might even recognize him in a crowd.

This may be my last entry for a (long) while - the next five days will be in Greece and Korea, ending my extended vacation and launching me in the direction of home, the United States, where the fast food is both fast and food, where clothes and shoes come in more than three sizes (ie, not XS, S, and M), where gas is only like $4/gallon (I think that was the last I heard), where I will no longer get comments like, "Oh my God. Wow. You are like the moon come down to earth. I love you," and yet, somehow, I will be more than happy with it, where both my cat and my sister live, where I can call almost all of my nearest and dearest for free (provided I'm on my cell phone and it's after 9 p.m.), where the bookstores ENCOURAGE you to make yourself comfortable and read (they probably didn't bank on reading speeds like mine)...yes, home!