Bordering On The Paranoid

"Good morning. Could I see your passport please, sir," said the guard at the entrance to the Israeli border post. I handed it over and she started flicking through it. "I see you've been to Iran," flick, flick, flick, "...and Pakistan," flick, flick, "...and Syria," flick, flick, "...and Lebanon," flick, "...and Yemen?” She lifted her eyes from the passport and looked at me as if I was slightly demented. “And what were you doing in Iran?"
"Tourism."
"OK Mr. Erik, if you could step this way please..."

And so started my longest border crossing to date. A team of six security guards went through my belongings with a fine tooth comb, entirely emptying out my bags and passing each item through the X-ray machine – twice – and everything was meticulously swabbed for explosives residues. (Although one benefit to come of this was that I re-discovered my camping cutlery set which thought I had lost somewhere en route.) I myself was given a thorough manual inspection (though luckily not that thorough). Another security officer, who never took off her shades, asked me to give a detailed account of the places I had visited along the way during the course of my trip, although by the time I had reached India (working backwards) the lady interviewing me decided I didn’t need to be so detailed any more.

But the whole process, at just under three hours, was surprisingly shorter than I had expected, especially the interrogation (which I was secretly looking forward to), probably because they realized that no potential terrorist would be as stupid as to visit these hostile countries and not change their passport. And I must say that during the whole process, although the guards weren't joking around with me or anything, they were always perfectly courteous and polite, which is far from being the norm and is something I appreciated greatly.

When I was finally clearing the last hurdle and getting my passport stamped I asked the inspector to stamp an already-used page so as not to use up my last, precious remaining blank pages. So I picked out a spot for her. Upon seeing it she raised her eyebrows. "You mean here?" pointing, "next to the Lebanese stamp?"
"Yes please," I replied.
"OK," she said, "but it'll sure look strange."

Anti Semitic?

I am have now reached Nuweiba, a dusty little Red Sea resort in Sinai, just across from Aqaba where I was almost 4 months ago (I seem to keep doing loops in my travels). The main thing to do here is to go diving or snorkelling amongst the corals. The variety of fish is impressive but the corals have been sadly affected by mass tourism and there is considerable bleaching. Plus, due to the considerable depth of the sea, the water is really quite cold and without a wetsuit I can't last in the water for much more than 30 minutes at a time. So after my little beach holiday I will be moving on.

When I was planning the Middle Eastern leg of my trip almost a year ago there was one country that remained firmly out of the picture: Israel. There were several reasons for this - financial, practical and political. From a purely pecuniary point of view Israel is far more expensive than any other country in the region. The country also isn't very good at making friends with its neighbours and the much-dreaded Israeli entry stamp in your passport reduces your travel options considerably (there are about half a dozen countries that refuse entry to people with Israeli visas or entry stamps and even more that refuse entry to Israeli nationals, and it seems that I've been to most of them). And finally I make no secret of the fact that I found, and still do find, Israel's policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians and the region in general reprehensible, criminal and arrogant. At home I would make a conscious effort not to buy Israeli products, although I didn't go as far as some travellers I have met who refer to it as The-Country-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named. But here I am, preparing to cross the border tomorrow. So what has happened to make me change my mind? Well, when I was in Georgia I met a couple of Israeli girls who were friendly, fun and open-minded who helped break the image of the Israeli traveller as being cliquish, miserly, bigoted and insensitive to local mores (a familiar stereotype amongst backpackers and one that I, sadly, found to be true on quite a few occasions*). I have kept in touch with one of them (Leali) who has taken the bold (possibly foolish) step of allowing me to crash on her floor in her home close to Jerusalem. As for the passport I only have three blank pages left in mine and so will be needing to get a new one sooner rather than later. My political views, however, have not changed, but I would have truly learnt nothing on this trip, where more often than not the reality on the ground has proved to be far removed from the stories I had been fed by the media. So I have decided I must go and visit the place so that I can see for myself what the situation is really like before passing judgement and I will try and approach the country and its people with an objective mindset, ready to have my opinions proved wrong. God knows I've been to enough countries with dodgy, autocratic regimes on my trip so boycotting Israel would be hypocritical on my part. Now I just need the notoriously paranoid Israeli border guards to let me into the country, something that may not be so straightforward considering the countries I've recently been to.

But enough of that, seeing as my time in Arab countries is coming to a close this is a good time to give a round up of my experiences here. The Arabs are quite a diverse lot, from the urbane, cosmopolitan Syrians and Lebanese to the tribal Yemenis. Generally though they are a hospitable bunch, always ready to ply you with tea and biccies and have a little chat (and qat, if you happen to be in Yemen). But stick to talking about the weather because they can get rather touchy about religion and politics which are often inextricably intertwined for them. Sometimes it can't be helped when they bring up the subject (which they often do, as "what's your religion?" tends to be the third question everyone seems to ask you) but it's handy to have a few exit lines handy as people often don't understand that there's an option other than Islam or Christianity; and proselytism is rife - in Yemen I even got Islamic literature with my breakfast ful. So I've had enough of Islam for the moment, though mainly because of the calls to prayer that start at 4 o'clock in the morning. When the wailing is blaring from the mosque next door somehow that doesn't make conversion an attractive option. But that aside I've had a good time in Arab countries and feel they get an undeservedly rough time in the media. The one exception has been Egypt where I haven't felt as welcome as I have in most countries I've visited. I've gone over most of the aspects in earlier posts but I'll just say that I've been scammed or blatantly overcharged here more times than on all the rest of my trip (except India) combined and I've gotten the overall impression that Egyptians in general see taking advantage of tourists as being perfectly OK and that my sole purpose here is for them to be able to make a quick buck. (Of course there are exceptions and there are many kind and helpful Egyptians, it's just that they make up a small minority of the people I've met here.)


*I suppose that comment might earn me the epithet of being an anti-Semite, though it's a term I truly detest. Not because I like insulting Jews, but because I'm a pedant and the term, in the way that it is most commonly employed, is so inaccurate. Semitic refers to an ethnic group that comprises the Arabs, Syrians and Amhara (Ethiopians) as well as the Hebrews. Jews on the other hand are people who believe in a particular religion and can be of any ethnic background. So I find it ironic that Arabs are sometimes branded anti-Semitic when in fact they themselves are Semitic.

Talking To God

Dad has finally returned home because home improvements wait for no man. This has allowed me to revert to my harsher ways of travelling. The past few days have been spent taking in some of Egypt's Christian heritage. Although no longer a majority, at 7 million individuals the Copts form the largest and most influential minority. The Coptic church was amongst the foremost in antiquity and some of its traditions spread far beyond its boundaries, most notably the practice of monasticism.

In the third century there lived in Egypt a Christian man called Paul was having a hard time under the Roman regime and decided to retire to the desert close to the Red Sea to live the life of a hermit. Legend has it that he survived only on dates and half a loaf of bread brought to him every morning by a raven, and clothed himself only in palm leaves. Saint Paul is considered to be the first Christian hermit and monk. A few years later another man, called Anthony, who was dissatisfied with the materialism of modern life, decided to try hermitting himself. Initially he didn't stray too far from civilisation but soon he became somewhat of a celebrity and people came to seek him out for advice and blessings. Anthony began tiring of the adulation and decamped to a cave some 40km distant from Paul thinking that he would finally have some peace there. Unfortunately (at least for Anthony), like so many blind followers of fashion, Anthony's fans thought this was a fantastic idea and followed him out there, thereby failing to grasp the central tenet of hermitting - being alone (much like these hermits). Instead they congregated around Anthony's cave and monasticism was born, with Anthony, unwittingly, becoming the first abbot. Soon the monkish craze spread through the Graeco-Roman empire and then throughout all of Christendom.

The two monasteries that sprouted around the saintly caves are still functioning, each with a sizable community of monks, and local Copts regularly visit on the weekends for family outings and morning mass. Foreign visitors are also welcome and are shown around the ancient church buildings by friendly, bearded monks in their black cassocks and comical caps. Food and board are provided and one can even attend mass - an interesting experience with copious amounts of incense and chanting, but at 3 hours in length not something that needs repeating. I was rather unlucky when visiting St Anthony's monastery because they were beginning their Palm Sunday preparations and so I couldn't stay the night. Instead I had to hike the 15km back to the main road that evening. It ended up being a tad too far and I decided to camp out in the desert instead, but was unfortunate because at that moment my tent decided to die on me and so I was forced to just cocoon myself in my sleeping bag until the morning. At least it ended up being a cheap night.

There are many other venerable monasteries in Egypt, but perhaps the most important, and certainly the most famous, is the Greek Orthodox monastery of Saint Katherine in Sinai. It was founded by order of the emperor Justinian I in 527 next to the Burning Bush through which God is supposed to have talked to Moses. There is still a bush there to this day but it is a cutting of the original (much like the Bodhi tree) and Orthodox Christians come from all over the world (especially Russia it seems) to leave small prayers written on scraps of paper wedged into the cracks of the wall surrounding the holy herb. There isn't particularly much to see in the monastery as most of it is closed off and some of it is being restored, but there is a small museum of icons and manuscripts that contains a copy of possibly the most important text on inter-faith relations and was written by Muhammad himself and that seems to have been forgotten by many radical Muslims today (I thought it was such an important piece of writing that I have added an English translation of it below):

"This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them.

No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries.No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate.

No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray.

Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation [Muslims] is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day [end of the world]."

Above the monastery sits Mount Sinai where God gave his commandments to Moses. Hundreds of people hike up there during the night to see the sunrise from the summit. That wasn't for me, however, because despite being in Egypt, at 2285m it can still get mighty cold at the top at night, and I like to get my beauty sleep (and boy, do I need it with my ugly mug!), and I don't like being surrounded by huge throngs of tourists. Instead I went up during the day so that I could see some wildlife (I was lucky enough to see a mountain goat only 50m away which really made my day) and not be bothered by other people. I stayed until sunset (I prefer sunsets to sunrises anyway) with only a couple of other people up there before stumbling back to town. Old Mo must have been feeling a bit lazy that day though, because just across the valley you can see the significantly taller Mount Katherine (which also happens to be the tallest mountain in Egypt). I suppose I'll let him off seeing as he was 80 years old at the time.

Snow In The Desert

The New Valley. That is the name given to a string of oases that stretch westwards in a loop from Cairo south to Luxor. I think the idea behind the name is to imply that this is an area that will be like the Nile to entice people to move there. And enticement they need because apart from sand and date palms there's not much out there. But that's exactly what I was looking for in the form of the White Desert.

At some point a long time ago there must have been a shallow sea covering at least what is today's northern Egypt. Over the millennia the sediments produced by the small organisms built up and formed a layer of chalk. Over time the sea dried up and the land became covered by the sands of the desert, but in places the chalk has resurfaced and, not being a particularly hard substance, has been eroded by the wind. One such place is some 500km west of Cairo close to the Farafra Oasis and has been dubbed the White Desert for obvious reasons. Here the wind has worked like a master sculptor shaping the chalk into many weird and improbable shapes - there are many top-heavy mushroom formations as well as sphinxes, owls, chickens and pretty much anything else your imagination can conjure up. As far as the eye can see the entire landscape is an unending series of surreal shapes and snowscapes (the closest most Egyptians are going to get to snow anyway). Spending the night under the stars in such as place is truly magical. OK, the magic is slightly diminished by knowing that there are some 200 other people dotted around the desert at the same time, but that couldn't be helped, and anyway, in the middle of the night it was easy to imagine being the only person there as there wasn't a single artificial light to be seen.

Our guide/driver was a rather unhelpful sod. I suppose that's what happens when you go for the cheapest option, although I still think it's the best strategy because if your expectations are already low and everything goes pear-shaped then it's not such a big deal. Wahid, which was this guy's name, didn't talk much about what we were seeing, the whys and wherefore's, the geological processes or the history. Instead he would talk about money and his numerous foreign girlfriends. The latter subject is rather common amongst young Egyptian men who work with tourists and many have stories of long-term girlfriends abroad and a good number have even been married to foreign women. More often than not these unions do not last, the most common reason cited being "Western women are too free", and in a nutshell that sums up the attitude of Egyptian men in general and (this time) Wahid in particular. He would boast that he would soon be off to Paris to visit one of his girlfriends, and from there it would be on to Switzerland, Italy and then Japan (I think he was getting carried away by this point) and that the tab would be picked up by his many swooning conquests. Now, that in itself didn't bother me as I'm sure many people like a bit of holiday romance and all that, but just out of curiosity I asked him whether his sisters also go out with tourists like he does. "Of course not!" was the reply, "because Egyptian girls like to only do it one or two times a week, whereas Egyptian men three or four times a day." I didn't bother trying to ask him where he got his statistics from but went on to ask him how Egyptian men manage with their wives if there is such a discrepancy between the needs of one party and another. "Easy," he said, "you just hit them until they agree." It's good to see that he's managed to retain his traditional customs despite the exposure to Western decadence.

Dad Discovers The Dangers Of A Dodgy Diet

I've had my fair share of Delhi Belly on this trip but have had no real problems since leaving India (almost a whole year!) despite eating anything and everything I can find from the cheapest street vendors. Dad has kept up with my frugal tastes and managed to get by on my ful and koshary diet no problem. (Now would be an opportune moment for a brief aside about Egyptian cuisine. By and large it is identical to Levantine Arab food i.e. felafel, ful and flat bread, however they do have one unique speciality and that is koshary. It is the poor man's food par excellence. It's a mixture of pasta, rice, lentils and chick peas with a tomato sauce and is served lukewarm and a big bowl costs less than half a dollar. Koshary joints are easily recognisable by their large silver tureens of pasta sitting in the window. Cordon bleu it may not be, but it's certainly what the doctor ordered.) But it seems that what they say about acclimatising to food is indeed true because, despite eating exactly the same foods, my bowel movements have been impeccable whereas Dad has spent the last couple of days chained to the toilet. It has particularly flummoxed my father because he can't even remember the last time he had diarrhoea. He's OK now so we can continue after our slight delay. At least he's getting the full-on budget travelling experience!

Police Protection In The Land Of The Pharaohs

The pyramids may be the iconic image of ancient Egypt, but the real pharaonic heart lies in the town of Luxor, situated on the site of ancient Thebes. Although the temporal capital may have migrated to Memphis and then Alexandria (amongst others) the spiritual centre of the country was always Thebes. It was here that the greatest temples to the ancient gods were erected, each pharaoh trying to outdo his predecessors with ever more grandiose constructions. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the temple complex of Karnak where successive rulers added halls, altars, obelisks and statues until the whole ensemble grew to over 100 acres (it's the largest ancient religious site in the world). The scale, the still-visible colours and the craftsmanship are all an immortal declaration of power designed to impress, and impress they do.

The city of Thebes restricted itself to the eastern bank of the Nile whereas the west bank - the direction of the setting sun dropping into the underworld - was reserved for the dead. It is here, in a dry, barren wadi surrounded by cliffs that one finds the famous Valley of the Kings, the final resting place (at least until their mummies were moved to the museum in Cairo) of some 65 New Kingdom (roughly 1500 B.C. to 1000 B.C.) pharaohs, including Tutankhamun. Despite their best efforts at concealment most of these tombs were pillaged in ancient times (hence the reason why Tut, despite being a relatively insignificant monarch with no lasting achievements to his name, has become so famous) and so all that is left are the wall-paintings and perhaps a sarcophagus as well. But it wasn't just kings that were buried with pomp in the old days, there are over 400 tombs of queens, nobles and high-ranking officials dotted around. In fact it is the tombs of these officials and nobles that are perhaps the most interesting as they had fewer valuables but more vividly colourful decorations. Although the pharaohs made sure to hide their graves they made up for it by building ostentatious funerary temples to themselves though they don't seem to have withstood the test of time as well as their counterparts on the opposite bank.


It was at one of these west bank temples (the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Deir al Bahri) 10 years ago that a group of 62 tourists were massacred by Islamist militants. The attack caused the number of visitors to Egypt to plummet and so the government quickly stepped in (because without its income from the tourist industry Egypt would be a complete basket case).There was a crackdown on domestic Muslim groups, security was tightened around tourist sites and visitors were severely restricted in their transport options and a good deal of places were off limits altogether. The tactic worked and in the ensuing years there have only been a few minor incidents and so the tourists have come flooding back. And although there has been calm for some time now the police presence has remained. Ordinary package tourists may not notice it but south of Cairo there is a tangible security buffer between them and the locals. Just as there are walls and fences around historical monuments, to keep vandals out and to ensure people pay the entry fee, there are further walls and barriers around these to restrict access for locals to the roads around these very sites. On top of that there are sentry posts, where police officers armed with machine guns lurk behind bullet-proof protectors, all around these sites as well. And if a tourist should somehow manage to make it through these cordons (designed not only to keep locals out but also foreigners in) and turn up alone and unannounced in a provincial town they will immediately be given a police escort to wherever they are planning to visit, and then quickly bundled onto the next available train the nearest "safe" town. It means that there is even less contact between foreigners and ordinary locals. All this seems paradoxical to me from a safety point of view because if there was to be a terrorist attack then it would be far more likely to be against a train full of foreign tourists than a local service with a couple of ajnabis aboard.

Finally I ought to make a quick comment about the touts. For quite some time now I've been warned by other travellers about the Luxor touts and how merciless they can be and so I was preparing myself mentally for the onslaught. However they were not as fierce as I had feared. For anyone who has braved Agra on foot or gotten off the Siem Reap bus at Phnom Penh and survived they do not pose an insurmountable obstacle.

Gently Down The Stream

Apart from the dam and Abu Simbel there are other things to see and do in Aswan such as taking a stroll through the trafficless peace of Elephantine island in the middle of the Nile, cross over to the other bank completely for desert exploration or check out some of the old temples. Of the latter, the temple of Isis at Philae is another structure that was rescued from the rising waters of lake Nasser, although the glue-job wasn't as artfully done as at Abu Simbel. It certainly merits a visit due to the fascinating reliefs and their graffiti. Now in general I'm against graffiti, it's neither clever nor funny, but this particular graffiti dates from the 6th century AD and documents the final death throes of paganism in Egypt. Although much of Egypt had become Christian in the 4th century the ancient gods were still revered in Philae for another300 years until the Greek emperors finally pulled the plug on religious tolerance. So the peaceable Christians went down to Philae and ransacked the temple, scratching out images of pagan gods (especially the faces), gouging crosses over hieroglyphs and leaving Greek and Coptic slogans on the shrines saying "Osiris is a big sissy!" and "Ra sucks big time!" (OK, so I made that up, but I'd really love to know what is actually written there)

Seeing as the Nile is the longest river in the world and that, to all intents and purposes, is Egypt, no visit would be complete without a cruise down the majestic artery. And Aswan is the perfect place to organise such a trip - innumerable cruise ships are moored on the bank along the Corniche, with on board lounges, cabins, restaurants and every conceivable amenity. But you know me, no way am I going to let comfort get in the way of saving money, and so we opted for a felucca instead. Feluccas are traditional, single-sailed lateen boats that can easily be seen plying the waters up and down the length of the Nile. It may be a particularly touristy thing to do, but then again in Egypt there is very little to do that isn't, and so we found a boat to take us down to KomOmbo (what a great name) for two days (to get an idea of how slow a means of transport the felucca is, Kom Ombo is only 45km downstream of Aswan). As with all situations where one is in a confined space for a length of time the enjoyment to be had often depends on the company, and we were lucky to to share our boat with five funny and friendly people (a quick cheer for Faye, Tom, Adam, Fred and Joanne) that made the time pass very quickly and enjoyably with conversations about travel, films, food and politics. Part of the reason the trip takes so long is because the prevailing wind along the river is always from the north and so we had to constantly tack (all the time watching out for the hulking cruise ships that would bulldoze past) to make any progress. Not that we did any of the sailing, we just sat back, chatted, dozed and watched the river bank slip past. But I believe the brief spell of R&R was merited and necessary as we steel ourselves for the uber-toutfest that is Luxor.

Like A Good Toupee

From Cairo we took the overnight train south along the Nile to Aswan. Aswan is Egypt's most southerly own of any note despite being some 300km from the border and is where customs and immigration formalities are conducted if you want to push on into Sudan. I'm not planning on going that far, but there are reasons for visiting nevertheless. A few kilometres downstream is the Aswan High Dam, a monster of a dam built between 1960 and 1970. The dam produces a whopping percentage of the country's electricity and has allowed a huge surge in agriculture by taming the annual floods and increasing irrigation. All good then? Well, perhaps not for the Nubians who used to live upstream of Aswan and whose land has now become lake Nasser. Forced from their ancestral homes and with little support for their language and traditions the Nubians have generally not had a great time in Egypt, although things are slowly improving as the government tries desperately to spread its ballooning population a bit more evenly away from the heavily crowded Cairo-delta area.

Other victims of the rising waters of the Nile lacked the mobility of the Nubians and had to be helped to survive drowning. Altogether about a dozen temples spanning the entire ancient Egyptian civilisation were cut into manageable blocks, transported to above the new water level, and faithfully reassembled in an archaeological and engineering race against time. The most famous of these is undoubtedly the temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel. The colossal rock-cut temple was shifted 55m uphill along with its own personal cliff. As equally impressive as the four imposing statues of Ramses at the entrance (each 20m tall), and the undeniable technical feat of the temple teleportation is the fact that it's almost impossible to see the joins between the pieces, even up close, like a particularly good, made-to-measure toupee. Visiting Abu Simbel is a whole day affair, mainly because it's 4 hours by bus from Aswan one way. Most people visit on organised tours that leave in the wee hours of the morning in a large convoy, but that wasn't for me. Not only is 4am far too early for me (I need my beauty sleep), but I'm stubborn and will insist on doing things independently even if they end up costing more, taking longer and causing serious aggravation. This time everything went OK and we arrived at the temple at noon and had the whole place to ourselves (which allowed me to take a few surreptitious photos inside). Getting back proved simple enough too as we managed to find a microbus going our way relatively quickly. When it came for us to pay we managed to seriously annoy the driver by insisting on paying the standard fare and not the inflated foreigner one. Luckily we were already in Aswan and had exact change so there was little he could do. And this leads me nicely to today's rant (it's been a while since my last rant and I thought you deserved another one).

I have become used to paying an order of magnitude more than locals to visit tourist sites. I still don't like it but I've made my peace and come to grudgingly accept it (as there's not much else I can do). Here in Egypt, however, this concept has been taken to a whole new level and in places that are frequented by tourists (most notably here in Aswan and from what I hear also in Luxor) even the most basic services and provisions are often charged at several times the going rate. It's particularly galling when the correct price is displayed in Arabic and yet you're still quoted a ridiculous even after pointing out to them that you can read Arabic. On several occasions I've been treated with outright hostility for wanting to pay the same as a local would for a cup of tea or some dates. On one occasion Dad and I bought a couple of ice-creams where the displayed price was £1.75. I handed over £10 and the server had the nerve to ask me for the rest of the money. After a good deal of arguing and me almost losing my cool I finally managed to get another £4 off of him (he acted as if it was him doing me the favour). What possibly angered me more was the fact that when a group of Egyptians came to buy ice-creams from the same shop not only did they pay the correct price, but they seemed to think it normal that I was being charged three times as much as them and that I was somehow brutish to be getting upset about it.

And so, travelling on a budget the way I do, I've had to become a person I don't particularly like: I'm automatically mistrustful of everyone I meet, I always have to ask the price of even the most trivial thing in advance, and my first, automatic answer if anyone approaches me on the street is always no. It's a real shame as there are certainly many honest and interesting people that I would love to talk to (the most fascinating aspect of travelling is never the temples but the local people), but how does one distinguish them from the hordes of others pestering you and tugging at your sleeve to sell you a plastic pyramid, scarab paperweight made in China, or ugly papyrus scroll that you neither want nor need. Who is to blame for this state of affairs? Is it the tourists who come in their droves on pre-paid, organised tours, stay in resorts owned by large companies, don't have any contact with the locals and contribute little to the local economy? Or is it the locals who see foreigners not as people, but money on legs, to be relentlessly hounded and exploited at every possible opportunity? The reality probably lies somewhere in the middle, but it is a truly sad state of affairs when travelling, instead of bringing people of different cultures together, only causes them to view each other as less than human.

Have Camcorder, Will Travel

All credit to my father who has taken to budget conditions with aplomb. He seems to be reliving the halcyon days of his youth when he hitched round eastern Europe. Although in those days he didn't have a camcorder, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten very far as he is continually stopping to film local street scenes of hawkers, shoppers and people going about their daily business. Although the constant stopping and starting can be rather vexing it is also interesting to see the aspects of life in developing countries that I have become accustomed to and now regard as normal but are a different world for newcomers, such as the packed, chaotic markets a copious piles of rubbish on the streets. It's always good to get a different point of view so that you can reassess your own ideas.

I had left a couple of things in Cairo to see with my father, the most notable of which was the Egyptian museum. Its enormous collection contains the jewels of ancient Egyptian art, culture and technology with, as its centrepiece, the incredible funerary relics of Tutankhamun. The giant building was purpose-built 100 years ago to house the country's growing collection of antiquities, but the numerous archaeological finds since then (that continue to this day) have caused it to start bursting at the seams. In fact the place is more reminiscent of a neglected and musty old bric-a-brac store with poor lighting, creaking wooden cases and faded yellowing labels. But none of that can detract from the staggering age and superb artefacts - jewels of intricate craftsmanship and paintings as vivid as the day they were drawn. There is just so much to see that visiting the museum is a whole-day operation that needs to be carried out with military precision otherwise you'll only be halfway round gazing at a 4000 year-old coloured bas-relief when the dour guards will already be shooing you out. Though I was a little gutted that photography was not permitted inside, even without a flash. I would like to think this is a measure that has been taken to preserve the objects, but the cynic in me says that it's more likely to be a policy so that the museum can sell more books and postcards at grossly inflated prices in its souvenir shops (for example a postcard bought at the museum costs $1, whereas you can buy one in a shop just across the road for a twentieth of the price).

Also, as a little break from things pharaonic, we headed out to Egypt's main camel market about an hour's drive out of Cairo. The drive out there proved to be a bit of an eye-opener, passing some of the poorer slums of Cairo on the way, and then intensively cultivated farmland packed full of cereals and vegetables. I did slightly fluff the timing and we went out on a rather calm day when there wasn't much trading going on, but it was still cool to see camels from as far afield as Somali and Sudan. We were shown around a bit by a local guy whose sole mastery of English stretched to the mantra of "sit down", which, depending on the circumstances, meant "come here", "look at this", "thank you", "watch out, that camel bites" and, on one occasion, "sit down". Oddities at the market included a rabid camel (or at least one that had gone nuts) with a bizarrely inflated tongue and a bit of a temper, and a strange, yet incredibly effective, way of hobbling camels making them look like quadruped flamingos (see picture below). But what perhaps surprised me the most was that even a cheap, bottom-of-the-range, no frills camel retails for almost $1000 whereas luxury models sell for twice that. Pretty pricey for an animal that won't be winning many beauty contests and whose meat is rather chewy.

P.S. By the way, I have finally gotten round to putting some more pictures up on my album, this time mostly from my time in Yemen. They're at the usual place, so just follow the links on the left-hand side of my blog (New Photo Album).

Route Canal

Ismailia is a town not particularly frequented by tourists. Not surprising really given that the town is only 150 years old and that, as far as historical monuments go, nothing of interest has been constructed in the country since 1500. Except for one thing that is, which is the reason for Ismailia's very existence, the Suez canal. Undoubtedly the greatest feat of engineering of the 19th century, and possibly even the entire Industrial Age. 160km long, 11 years in the making and costing the lives of tens of thousands of people, welcome to the largest ditch in the world, dug mainly by hand and without the aid of modern machinery. The costs might have been very high in both human lives and financial terms (the debts incurred by the Egyptian state were used as an excuse by the British to effectively take control of the country for some 80 years until they were finally kicked out) but it changed world trade dramatically cutting the sea passage time from Europe to India by more than half and thereby boosting world trade. To this day some 7.5% of world sea cargo passes through it (at a rate of 50 ships a day) and it contributes a significantly to the country's coffers, bringing in almost $3.5 billion last year.

As I approached the canal I would catch glimpses of ships' bridges gliding along behind some buildings, looking eerily out of place and sending shivers down my spine. As I crossed a small rise there it was in front of me, and right on cue a gigantic container ship (I calculated that it carried over 1000 containers) eased in front of my eyes acting all nonchalant and yet looking as out of place as an elephant in a tutu. I was mesmerised and spent about an hour watching the different types of ship drift silently by whilst two little ferries chugged back and forth playing chicken with their bigger cousins. But then it got chilly and I walked back to town with a spring in my step.

And now I'm back in Cairo hanging out at my hotel. Actually the building has three separate hotels and is almost the sole preserve of Japanese backpackers, which is a good sign as the Japanese (and Koreans as well) are fantastically efficient at winkling out the cheapest places to stay (though they then get shafted by touts who overcharge them even more than white tourists). Anyway, why am I back in Cairo? Well it seems like I have become my family's mobile holiday destination and this time it is my father who is coming out to brave the backpacker life to spend some time with his son (personally I would have preferred it if he joined me in a more expensive country to lessen my financial burden rather than Egypt where $10 is enough to see you through the day). But no, I am glad he is coming as I haven't seen him since last Summer and there would be something wrong with me if I didn't want to see him. Let's see how long we will last.