Ma'salama Cairo – On the road to Durban

On my way to the airport, I knew that I had short changed Cairo. The four nights I had spent in this congested metropolis were woefully inadequate. As soon as I got my bearings in Cairo, I had to get up and leave. The city is teeming with history, of which I only scratched the surface.

If you only visit the tourist sites in Egypt, you will get a distorted sense of the country. The touts, the scams, the haggling are mainly just part of the tourist experience. What you won't realize is that in Egypt there exists a vibrant intellectual community that spearheads the robust opposition to the regime. In the many bookstores you will find texts dealing with sociology, history, and politics of Egypt. Though Cairo and Karachi look very similar visually, the intellectual curiosity of many middle class Egyptian Arabs is a fundamental difference that sets the two cities apart. I would love to come back to Cairo one day to learn more about the lives of everyday Egyptians. (It goes without saying that without Betsy's help, I would have experienced Cairo only through tourists sites.)

A Broken Watch - SSH Airport

I am glad that I waited until my time in Dahab was over before writing this blog post. My first impressions of Dahab were not very good. The town seemed cheesy, geared towards beach bums and overrun with Bedouin kitsch. I was terrified of being bored to death. I quickly signed up for scuba lessons to occupy my mornings and began planning treks into the desert during the evenings. However, It did not take long for the town's magic to start working. By the second night I decided to cancel all my trips into the desert except the one that was already paid for.

I would highly recommend staying at The Penguin Hotel if you are ever in Dahab. The wonderful staff at the Penguin Hotel made me feel like I was family. They were extremely patient when I asked them to teach me a few phrases in Arabic. They would also pull me aside to show me You Tube videos of famous Egyptian singers and soccer players. Many of them are now my friends on Facebook.

I also met many wonderful people hotel restaurant. There was Joe and Louisa, who had been traveling from England over land for the last four months and were planning to get to New Zealand after another year of traveling. There was Paul and Peter, my breakfast mates. We all had dives planned in the morning and we were usually the only people up at 8am for breakfast. Paul is a chef from York and Peter is a nurse from Southern France who is currently working in the West Bank. There were the girls who had been studying in France; Kristy, Kelsy and Sherry. There was Rob from Holland, who had planned to come for four nights and ended up staying for ten. And many others with whom I struck up conversations just because we happened to be sitting next to each other, going on the same camel ride, or just watching the match at a bar.

On my last night in Dahab I was sitting in the hotel restaurant when I noticed the cheap watch I had purchased at Hudson News in Terminal 4 had stopped working. The time on the dial read 7:51pm. It was an apt metaphor for my time in Dahab. Time had slowed down to a grinding halt during my six nights in the lazy beach town. In the mornings I would go diving at 8am and return to the Penguin Hotel around 4pm. For the rest of the afternoon I would laze around the hotel restaurant, drink instant coffee (the cheapest drink on the menu), chat with whoever was sitting next to me, and try to follow the football match between lulls in the conversation. Some nights I was able to muster the energy to go into town for dinner.

Sitting at the hotel restaurant the days blurred into each other. When asked about how many nights I had been in Dahab, I struggled to answer. I like to think that maybe my watch realized the futility of its existence and simply decided to call it a day. Or maybe the watch knew that I desperately wanted to stop time so I could spend a few more hours in Dahab. And if I was to ever to write a novel it would start with a broken watch that stopped the flow of time.

Cairo: First Impressions

I finally have some down time to write a blog post. Egypt has so far been a little overwhelming. Arabic is a tough language to try to pick up using a Lonely Planet guide. But I have managed somehow with a lot of help from Betsy.

As I drove down to Zamalek from the airport my first impressions of Cairo was that it felt a lot like Karachi. Not only was the landscape similar but the buildings , store signs, and people would fit in perfectly in Karachi. The only difference is that Cairo's traffic is crazier. Red light, green light – it does not matter, cars and pedestrians do not stop moving. Crossing the streets felt like playing frogger.

Betsy, my brother's friend from UVA, was a tremendous asset during my first two nights in Cairo. She showed me around downtown as we walked to The Citidal, while passing 700 and 800 years old mosques (pictures coming). She even braved Khan al Khalil. Finally, she took me to meet one of her friends at a posh eatery over looking the Nile Without her help and Arabic, I would have been completely lost.

One of the coolest things I did in Cairo by myself was visit the Egyptian Museum. The museum is literally overflowing with antiquities from ancient Egypt. The first floor has the feel of a cluttered basement, with statues and stone tombs pilled up next to each other. About 75% of the pieces have no description. The museum has two floors. The first floor is arranged chronologically if you walk clockwise but little else in terms of guidance. The second floor is better curated and is the home of the treasures excavated from King Tut's tomb, which I learned was surprisingly messy. But what can you do with teenagers, right? Walking around the museum I was struck with how successful the rulers of ancient Egypt had been in achieving the immortality they sought for themselves. The significance of the Egyptian Museum's collection cannot be overstated. Visiting the museum has gotten me excited about visiting Giza and Luxor after I leave Dahab.

I have to go to bed now because I start my scuba lessons tomorrow. I will write about Dahab in the next few days.

PS A note on editing. I decided I am going to minimal editing because re-writing is very time consuming. If you see a big error please point it out. Thanks!