That Stinking Jacuzzi

When a bus load of trust fund tourists turn up in a place, the streets come alive with a congregation of pilgrimage proportion once the touts have elbowed their way amidst angry shouts from the horse carriages and passing traffic. Everyone wants to sell you that piece of Papyrus scroll, help you to get some pyramid fridge magnets, convince you that you do really need someone "local" to guide you through the confusing maze of the city streets.

Fact is that you don't. Unless you have an Aunt Magda who insists on collecting fridge magnets, nobody is obligated to spend, least of all, to contribute to the vicious cycle of baksheesh.

So why does this menace persist?

Once you get beyond the irritation and the shame / guilt from staring back at the reflection in your mirror when you have calmed down from spitting like a roast coated with goose fat on a fire, you may perhaps develop just an inkling of compassion for the mess that you are most likely to forget once your plane homebound hits a safe distance of 35,000 feet above sea level, and the unscrewed mini bottle of Scotch has wound its way down your tract.

Not a good time to be a normal citizen of Egypt huh? 

It's hard to fathom that a country this rich has to settle for its people something less charmed than a hot tub of bubbling enjoyment. Instead of a relaxed period of contentment and equal income distribution, the rich keeps getting filthily corrupted and the poor, well, they just keep getting more damned by the day. In short, it's like waking up with a really bad hangover and realising that you had witnessed a party gone all wrong where the music sucked, the DJ was an asshole, the party host had ran off with all the gifts and you're puking into that warm stinky water inside the jacuzzi, now messed up with the expulsion of bad beer and expired chips, all chomped down by everyone else not in the know or just didn't care, but completely too passed out - leaving you, the sober one, to either leave or to clean up.

Hubby and I had our fair share of observation throughout the week-long stay within the walls of the East Bank. This morning, I got news that the town council will be demolishing the church that laid along some sites marked for "touristic development". My mind ran frantically to the mosque that leaned casually on the wall of the Temple of Luxor. I knew it's local election time for the Congress but to go this far for a cheap vote?

We trespassed mountains of cat urine mixed potently with their more solid excretion. The dogs? These emaciated beings look on in a sorry glance at the uncaring passer-bys. Who could blame them? The latter barely had enough to feed themselves but surely sufficient (at least for the working males) to drown their sorrows and angst in rolls of hashish.

The buildings looked adorned only because of the political party posters. The streets were just teetering on the border of a cowboy town. Police force was recognised as an official measure of extortion. The locals refused to speak up freely, looking bewildered and haunted with the look of a believer that the walls indeed have ears. You can't even head out to the glitzy diving haven of Sharm El-Sheikh without documenting a legitimate reason because your President doesn't want to see "poorer" locals spoiling the projected lifestyle of the "rich and famous" so enthusiastically marketed by his cronies for his cronies.

The look of many men squatting outside on the streets at night - waiting like an addict for the pain to subside

What's the whole point when you just see no way of escaping this tunnel? The pyramids, tombs and temples bankrolled free money that nobody really care because they are too focused on the big boys' moolah coming in from the Suez Canal. What is theirs to care about? We hardly see them. Now the Canal? Yeah, maybe that can change, right?

Oh yes, the government needs the tourist money to build roads and schools. Egypt is a growing population. A child is born every 20 seconds, so they claimed. So yes, that is the reason that they have closed off the Nefertari's Tomb unless you can fork out 4,000 LE to spend 10 minutes looking at one of the greatest treasures of Egypt that should have belonged to the people. Oh trust the antiquities expert, they know.

The diggers? They get paid U$6 per day to work in the hot sun excavating loose burning stones with their hands and wicker basket. Who paid? Oh, the visiting American Universities and their archaeological departments' funding. Our government really kept mum about the whole thing. The guards there? It's really to run after you to fan you for a bit of baksheesh. The semi-automatic gun? Don't worry, just in case some terrorist attack is revived, perhaps he's in a position to switch off his mobile phone, and if you are lucky, runs off to the nearest reporting booth to call for help. But that's if the terrorists haven't bribed him off yet. So no promises.


Why the houses don't have completed roofs? Because we'll be levied a 40% tax upon completion. Yes, you read me right. Let me put down my tea. That's why you see all these satellites jutting out of the roofs. We hardly get any rain anyway. Will I pay capital gains tax when I sell? I really don't know because I don't think I can sell it anyway...

How much does a roll cost? A normal one is about 150 LE. We, the five of us, split our costs for the better tasting 500 LE. Everyone smokes it every night. It keeps the thinking away from the pain. The women? Maybe sometimes they help out to spike the teas because well, don't tell anyone, but the sons make a profit luring unsuspecting visitors to their places to get to know the Egyptian culture a tad better. We aren't assholes, we are just desperate.

What's the whole point? I see pain and distress everywhere. I don't see the treasures and all the glossy brochures promise me in an unforgettable trip of a lifetime. I don't regret stretching my stay here but part of me, the weaker human part - can't wait to get on that train tomorrow night and head off to Cairo to catch my flight back home.

Anywhere but here.

Luxor

The ultimate stretch of the West Bank of the Nile would have to be the domain of the ancient valleys. From the looming presence of the colossi of Memnon, the Valley of the Kings and Queens and the great Hapshetsut's mummification temple stood for thousands of years, helpless against the ravage of time and plunders.

I crossed the Nile back to the East Bank, where the temples of Luxor and Karnak laid ahead with the broken remains of what could had been great worship places the Egyptians observed in sight of the last bastion to eternity - the dark journey ahead of the twelve gates where amulets, hymns from the Book of the Dead, Book of the Night and the likes, frankincense and myrrh, prayers and for those pockets that could afford the pharaonic investment of a team of hieroglyphics expert carvers - modern day Luxor bore a complex example akin to a thriving Petri dish that formed an echelon of society crawlers that rose from the putrid brew of corruption and fake usurpers. No different from the pretenders and queen schemers claiming thrones and burial sites unsuited for the limitations of gender yet blind to the temptations of a colossal amassing of treasures and power. Even the priests of the olden days weren't any closer to sainthood.

Luxor was just a representation of what the bigger malaise spreading throughout Egypt like a bad viral infection borne along the flowing waters of life.

The Test Of Endurance

In the course of our 18-month stint, books are one of the things that kept us at the borderline of sanity and outright madness. Getting from one point to another sometimes takes more than climbing out of the rear-window of a bus and certainly includes many long hours sitting / jostling / swatting along platforms, stations, deserted highways and treacherous cliffs. One certainly can think of better ways to put those hours to use such as soaking in a bath?

But then again, that would mean I would not be writing this in Luxor, would I?

I like to believe that books choose you with the resultant feeling like the rush you get going into a candy store should you be so sugar inclined. The surprise and colourful exorbitant mix of delight dilutes the convoluted python of intake that can overwhelm even the strongest constitution of senses. Books allow you to getaway, to chill and look cool hiding in the corner when you need to stay away from "just another 5,000-year old pyramid" and not fall into the jaded group of travellers.

Hence, I look dutifully into the latest book that found me - FM 21-76 US ARMY SURVIVAL MANUAL.

No, it's not a typo error. Reprint of the Department of the Army Field Manual, Headquarters. Someone had obviously left it in the hostel's collection of books and it was amusing reading the parts that he / she had scoured through with a lemon-yellow highlighter. It felt like I was being introduced to a person that I've never met yet I could catch a glimpse of his / her obsessions and neurosis. Thumbing through it, I thought I might as well entertain myself with what the day has in store for me...

Chapter 1: Preparing for survival

(a) Learn how to find and get food and water, how to use natural environmental features for shelter, how to determine direction, and how and when to travel through different types of terrain

Imagine author scurrying around along the shadows of the buildings under the scorching sun and past the 100th shish shop, hopelessly hoping that she may be in luck bumping into an Izakaya that serves fresh miso shiru? 

(b) You should learn how to maintain your health, how to avoid environmental hazards, and how to doctor yourself.

Imagine author locating mentally the closest pharmacy to the hostel (that's pretty much it) and gulping down an unidentified herbal concoction (and fearing later that she may had swallowed mercury laced hibiscus drink... and it tasted like shit) resulting in her smelling lots of Tiger Balm to calm down the desire to violently vomit!

(c) You should learn about the natives in the area(s) where you expect to go. This knowledge and common sense will enable you to make contact with them.

Imagine author dodging tout brigade that bordered on rude harassment. Using the famous line in "The Saint" movie, she stood her ground, backpack and sweaty hat in place, demanding the 79th goon that insisted to show you the hostel that he can't even pronounce least know of its whereabouts to BACK OFF (I had always wanted to say that line one day and now I can tick it off my ultimate list of to-do's)

Welcome to Egypt!

From dodging drivers that will put NYC cabbies to shame and incessant droning of honks and beeps, you dive deep into the hardcore downtown joints of the freshest meat grills, pasta (can you believe it?! Pormodoro does it really well since we decided to give it a go when we got lost in the local hub and confirmed what my nose led me to through the other diners that gave a thumbs-up - only one thing - it's not known to the locals by its Italian name, it's Hassan's!) and Egyptian whiskey a.k.a. pungent tea, we crossed the Nile to venture into the usual suspects of Giza, Saqqara, Dashuor, Coptic Cairo, Khan el-Khalili (fantastic Egyptian and Indian cuisine ahead!), Citadel and the Cairo Museum. You know the drift - packed, utter disorganisation of massive amount of people and transport, old colonial inspired buildings that stood to sneeze off years of dust and pollution, dodgy camel guides, plenty of hot sand, ancient synagogues and Coptic mass, Roman pillars, all the orthodox churches in a mish mash between the Ottoman mosques and smatterings of greyish white uniformed "police" of antiquities & tourism demanding baksheesh from our guides that seemed to pass on the vicious cycle to us.

You've googled the photographs, you got the postcards, you've walked under the Sphinx's shadow yourself. We've looked forward so much to this country and truth be known, the ancient sites threw us completely off our axis. The Egyptians are a marvelous lot minus for one thing. For us, it was the final test of this leg: The Galactic Battle of baksheesh dodging has been launched! 

Heck, even the boatman hinted that we were supposed to leave an "envelope" for him and his staff when we finished our two-day sail down the Nile. We tipped where it was deserving - like the creative Muhammad who folded a crocodile once, an elephant next with the towels in our room, and the other chap who took both our backpacks in one go without prompt. As for those who sat on their asses telling us the wrong time to get our breakfast (resulting in our gobble fest under 30 minutes while being scolded by the waiter for "being late) and the one who sat at the door opening his hand for money because we asked him how to get off the boat? No cigar, you get only a 5-fingered pounding from my palm if you so insist.

But there are other beautiful moments like when unprompted invitations to a Nubian wedding in Aswan, tea outside chocolate boxes of local homes that had little goats spurting out once in a while, an unplanned stumble into a soiree celebrating the circumcision of a 2-month old, midnight traditional music parties, cooling fresh aloe green sugarcane juices and felucca-spotted sunsets by the shimmering flow of the longest and one of the oldest rivers in mankind.

And then there's the constant mistaking of hubby being a local Egyptian boy who's got a Chinese girl with him. Plenty of Arabic questions like "how did you do it man?!" to a tirade of scolding because he was expected to pay the 2 Egyptian Pound temple entry fee when foreigners were asked to pay thirty times that on top of the other slew of tickets that we had no idea for what purpose. One printed for the invisible guide that was supposed to meet us at Abu Simbel and the Nefertari / Hathor temple.

We're at the apex of our trip here and before I smother you with more - I'll spare the usual anecdotes as you can search for the staples online - here's all my love until more adventures with my little stint of survival in the wild desert oasis of Egypt. It's a unique place to tickle the senses...

ps: latest tip was to dodge cabbies and ride the cheap horse cart. Will let you know later :)

Bungkus Syria

You know what they say about acting and getting photographed next to kids and baby animals?

Add in negotiating retail price on that too... 

Classics, found every corner in the old city 

Misty day up at the Crusaders' fortified garrison - very impressive 

Now I'll spare you all the historical details

(my dear readers, I know you are super resourceful and can't think of boring you with details that I know you know!)

but at this rate, yours truly was quite zonked out in her travels and senility was probably setting in...

See how I was ignoring the grandeur of things surrounding me and thought posing

with a cookie was far more thoughtful and stimulating?

Yep, pretty much gone case by now... trying to re-enact what an invading Ottoman

would see should he made it through the shower of arrows and scaled up the wall...

In case you wonder, that was a torchlight in my hand 

Couldn't give a hoot what the trust fund tourists were talking behind my back

and my Italian and German weren't that up to scratch to care anyhow! 

In the end, it was just all too much!

Damascus

Although the old city bore the touches of Romans that had walked past the very cobbled streets we stood on today, only to have their horse carts replaced by boom-boxed cars and modern day soldiers dressed in the Versace, slicked hair dripping excessively to oil any rusty hinge of the many old bab, reminisce some old traditions of the storyteller selling his daily dose of addiction of a tale from the thousand and one splendid nights as you sip another potent tea served from the standing "walking tea stall". Stand in awe of sprawling mosques that attracted the Sunni and Shiite alike in revering not only the names of the Prophet and Hussein, but Christian saints alike as with St John The Baptist (with the number of claims of where his resting albeit severed head laid, he would have been iconised as a Gorgon now) and the female Shia saints.

Churches and synagogues rang out their soulful bells as little kids ran amok in a mayhem to the daily schools wedged between the charming lanes of the old houses, shared amongst with passing peddlers bellowing their wares in creative rhymes while lazy feline stalkers walked about the vegetable markets that seemed to spring up miraculously every morning, only to disappear by the heat of noon.

Old courtyards, aged khan and the Souq, you are never far from history in the old city. Yet venturing out was as rewarding as walking amongst the arches that framed a city built upon the merging cultures of empires that had rose and fell so many centuries ago. The famous Mar Musa for a knee-weakening climb up to the monastic getaway should silence be what you seek, a charming thriving Aramaic village revered for her saint and some of the oldest convents in the world, and the grand Crac de Chevalier for a taste of the Crusade, all brewed a heady mix of history, religious and socio-political periods that seemed to tease Fate for its presiding survival until today. You are talking about witnessing active practices and village life going on as if it had been most naturally done since the dawn of the great epics that shaped the books of Syria. The great Sala'ahdin, the slaves, the code of honour, the families laying the line grids from their buffaloes-drawn carts on fertile lands bursting with crops of golden maize and wheat.

Modern day Syria knows that amalgamating cultural diversity and embracing its past role as a crucial player in the region's religious power matches are the trump cards that it can throw on the bargaining tables, and on that Syria plays it well. Flirting tenaciously with the Hezbollah as well as courting Western powers while appeasing its more conservative and sensitive Islamic brother nations, you know this is one place where the word Allah and the Arabic language span beyond the domain of just one people.

Come here to open your minds. Even if you think you know it all.

Note: Following scenes are taken with permission from

Shiite pilgrims in the Ummayad Mosque commemorating the memory of Hussein