Egypt: A Retrospective

In my first post in Cairo, I made the statement that Cairo was Calcutta minus the Indians and Hindi, plus Arabs and Arabic. This is an observation that I still support today, with a couple of qualifiers. Cairo, the ‘Mother of all Cities’ as some know it, I guess is like the capital cities of developing countries everywhere. Hectic, crowded, a bit smelly and polluted. But at the same time, it offers a whole lot of fun if you know where to look and what to do. I don’t think I had quite sunk into Egypt enough until I returned from Alexandria to look at Cairo with any objectivity. Afterwards, I grew to like it even more.

Alexandria was a pleasant way to spend a few days. There are a couple of sights, but it is most renown for being the beat of a few notable writers and poets, such as Cafavy. There is definitely something about Alexandria that’s different from the rest of Egypt. Somehow the fact that they are still living out of buildings built under the British pre-World Wars doesn’t seem to matter so much here. It fits a bit better than in Cairo, where you just wonder whether there has been a building strike for a few decades. Or a demolition strike, more pertinently.

The Nile Valley south to Aswan was both fantastic and painful. Upper Egypt (Luxor and south) was jam packed with history; tombs, temples, you name it were everywhere. As were markets and street merchants. While Upper Egypt was quite magnificent (and damn hot), the experience was diminished somewhat by the constant, constant stream of touts and invitations into peoples shops. People physically holding your arm while smiling and directing you to their wares was not uncommon, nor was the greeting ‘my friend, my friend’. After a day of this, I worked out how to say ‘Sahibi? Sahibi? Anta laysa sahibaka’ (My friend? My friend? I am not your friend). It seems quite rude, but if people are going to be grabbing my arm and trying to rip me off at every bent, I really don’t care all that much.

Middle Egypt was so different from Upper Egypt: a completely different vibe. As the centre of the violent actions of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1990s, there is a strict security regime. In exchange for a better travel advisory from Western governments, the Egyptian government instituted a policy under which whenever you’re not in your hotel, you are accompanied by a police officer. They rarely spoke English, which was both a blessing and a curse. From the minute you step off the train, you are followed. I managed to escape a couple of times without their knowing, and had a great time around two of the monasteries with two locals I met in Sohaj, but other than this, Nick’s travel guide rates Middle Egypt as a ‘don’t bother’ destination. The hassles far outweigh the benefits. Upper Egypt = good, Middle Egypt = painful.

The Suez Canal region was chilled, and is OK for a couple of day, especially if you like duty free shopping. There is not much of note there however, except a big bit of water that ships float through. It’s not awe inspiring until you sit in front of it and think about it for a bit.

Dahab. It is not Egypt. It is Goa transplanted in Egypt. It’s Hawaii with better diving. Diving, expensive food and wares, and a Western atmosphere, just to save you from mixing with the local culture. The best part is the excursions on offer to Mt. Sinai (which I’d definitely recommend climbing) and the St. Catherine Monastery. Unless you love diving (which I definitely do after my intro dive), Dahab’s appeal is limited to it being the best place I have yet found if you are getting into the down phase of culture shock. You can forget you’re in the Middle East, and enjoy the world’s second best diving site at the same time.

I feel I should also mention a few points of note about Egypt overall, for the general interest of listeners at home.

The traffic. Exactly the same as India. The next time people complain about Middle Eastern taxi drivers being crazy, I’ll really have to censor them. The ones in Australia drive like they’re in a road safety video. I cannot ascertain whether road rules exist in Egypt, or whether they are limited to ‘blow you horn every few seconds so I know where you are’. Also, pedestrians rule. The way to cross a road is to step out at a convenient time, and walk (not run. Running people are unpredictable). They will go around you or stop. But it takes some practice.
There are no bins in Egypt. Rubbish is thrown on the ground, and collected by an army of street cleaners. You will feel bad about throwing things on the ground for a while. I’m still not used to it. But there aren’t any bins, so you have to.
There are superfluous police everywhere. I have wondered whether it is a hangover of Nasser’s socialist policy that everyone with a university degree was guaranteed a job in the public service. Either way, they are about every 75 metres on every street in Cairo, and only slightly scarcer elsewhere.
It’s obvious that Egypt is trying to Westernise like crazy. Conspicuous consumption rules the day. However it seems to be being done in the wrong order. I have not yet met a man (and few women) without a mobile phone, including the people begging for change on the street. Most people have nice clothes and jewellery, but terribly dirty homes and old, old cars. It seems the rich can isolate themselves in a bubble of affluence, popping from one air conditioned spot to the next, but the less well off are trying to flaunt wealth they don’t have. There are satellite dishes on the roof of every house. People put phones before food.
The final point of note is either really fun, or really annoying, depending on your mood. In Egypt (and I think in most of the Middle East) there is a game called ‘who can horde the most small change’. There are very few coins, so everything is exchanged in notes. ATMs only give out 50 and 100 pound notes, which pose a problem when things are rarely that expensive. I have come to be quite accomplished at the small change game, and it adds an extra dimension to haggling. Yet it seems that once you have amasses a small fortune in 1 pound notes, they will all disappear in a day due to a bad stream of people who don’t actually have any change, or through having a bad day in the game.

I have exhausted my mind for the moment now, but I think this post has covered the major points of interest about Egypt. No doubt I’ll look through my photos and remember other stories, but these can wait for another time.

Ma-Salamah Egypt.