Top 10 things to do in Cairo

Had some friends visiting us from Singapore. While they've done the Nile Cruise and Abu Simbal, and of course, the Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum, they asked me a very pertinent question? Other than the antiquities, what are the top 10 things to do in Cairo? Not Egypt but in and around Cairo?

For a moment I was fazed! First thing that comes to your mind when someone mentions Cairo is the pyramids and the museum...that set me thinking....I am writing down what I would def like to do in and around Cairo, in random order...and these are things that I would like to do...

1/ Coffee and Sheesha at El Fishawy
2/ Tannoura at Al Ghouri
3/ Felucca ride
4/ Dinner at the revolving restaurant
5/ A day trip to Fayoum
6/ A trip into the White Dessert
7/ A night out at Darts (Heliopolis) After Eight or Budha Bar
8/ The 11 pm to 4 am show with Dina at Semiramis
9/
10/

Cannot think of the balance two which does not include the antiquities... needs some thought!

Anybody who is reading this and has suggestions, would love to hear your top 10 things to do...I have this nagging feeling that there is something very obvious that I am missing out!

Evans - Maadi City Centre

While I continue to fight a loosing battle of the bulge, my state of depression is enhanced by the lack of availability of clothes in this city.

Nah, let me rephrase it, lack of availability of clothes that I would want to wear, and, more importantly could wear! Brands like Rojada, Dalydress and sometimes Bella Donna do have some wearable stuff but by and large I don't seem to find anything that I like, though they do have my size..

Happened to be in Maadi City Centre when I chanced upon the store Evans. Evans is a high street UK retailer that specialises in 14 plus sizes...walked in quite excited cos in London at least, they have some very smart outfits.

However, my reaction was rather mixed. They have a couple of decent outfits but most others tend to be sequined, slightly shiny, more lycra and synthetic, though the jeans and troussers and a couple of skirts were not bad. But the prics are quite astonishing. Something that I had picked up in London for 25 british pounds was around 480 le here. I guess with the duty etc, the prices would be higher but here Evans was being positioned as a luxury brand.

But I think that's true for almost all foreign brands. I suspect if even Wal-mart was to open an outlet in Cairo, it would position itself at the high end of the market, lol!

So I shall continue to haunt Bella Donna, Rojada or Dalydress to find something I like, but for women looking for really large plus size outfits, at least there is a retailer in town.

You've been had!

Mom-in-law came back from the CSA library a tad stressed out. She mentioned how everyone was talking about an expat lady who was stopped by a couple of men posing as cops and demanding her passport!


Technically, as per law, you are supposed to carry your passport showing your visa/ resident permit, and, the police can haul you up / fine you for not carrying the passport. The poor lady was not carrying her passport, and the so called cops threatened her with imprisionment unless she paid up cash.


I am not very sure, but I believe she had the presence of mind to tell them that she needed to call her husband, and, they would talk to the cops. On hearing this, the scamsters vamoosed.


Since I roam around quite a bit on my own, ma-in-law was very worried that I should be careful and not get caught by some scamsters trying to act funny. While its never happened to me, I guess its never harmful to be a little wary and be careful. In any case, replicating a Cairo cop's uniform is of no difficulty at all!

Piped Gas

My endless wait for the bohab to rouse himself to replace my empty gas cylinder is finally going to be over! We are going to get piped gas!

After weeks of promising to turn up to install the gas pipes, the workers finally land up on the one day that my maid takes off. Out of fear of further procastination, I allow them to work in the kitchen, and, now, it looks like the khamaseen had visited!

I look around the kitchen to take account of the damages - a hole in the wall which he will patch up tomorrow (inshaallah), cement dust all over the floor, broken legs of the cooking range (now I wonder how he managed that?) and, a grining worker who nods towards the pipe and grins and asks me "kwayyis (good)?" I cant help but grin back. There is something so irrepressible about the Egyptians that you can't help but grin back even in resignation!

"bukra mumkin (possible tomorrow)? " I ask in my faltering Arabic, hoping that this will end tomorrow. If it was not bad enough to have the contruction work outside the house, it seemed like I had carried it right into my home. "Hadr, mumkin bukra (Yes, possible tomorrow)" and some other stuff which I am afraid I did not quite understand!

"Feyn (when)?" I ask hesitantly, hoping that this would not be another day long vigil. The man, very engaging smiled and shrugged his shoulders. So great, there go my plans for tomorrow in smoke, but hey I think its worth the sacrifice, if I can get piped gas from tomorrow!

Of "laid back" drivers!

I had to take a cab back home from school this morning cos hubby has the exclusive use of the car today courtesy the driver being on leave! I could, of course, have walked, but my feet have been killing me after all the walking, dancing and standing that I have subjected them to the last one week.

I am very intrigued with the way Egyptian drivers drive their cars. They recline back, halfway house to lying down. The rare occassions that I do take a cab, I can never sit behind the driver's seat cos its like having the cab driver in my lap, lol!

Now I am reasonably tall and probably the same height as the average Egyptian. Plus I definitely do not qualify for size 0, in fact far from it! I drive with the seat's back rest pretty much straight, so that I can see the road bumps clearly, and, I feel in control of the car.

Even with my driver, I have to tell him to pull his seat to the front and raise the backrest before we can get in behind him. And this is not specific to my driver. All cab drivers or even hired limo drivers, drive with their seats pushed back, and, the back rest almost at a 45 degree angle. I don't know but I find it really difficult and uncomfortable to drive, not to mention that reclining back, I am tempted to doze off!

Am trying to figure out how they manage to drive, but for now it remains an unsolved mystery!

Cairo

There is a saying that if you get your feet wet in the Nile, you always come back. Before I leave,and whenever that may be, am planning to get completely wet, if this really helps!

There is something about the city, its way of life, its people that endears itself to you, and, you dont want to let go.

A friend of mine, who had lived here for over 10 years, came back for a short holiday, and she kept reiterating how much she misses Cairo. I can completely appreciate it!

Of sleepless nights that never seem to end...

Last night my mother-in-law finally lost it. The incessant loud noise from the contruction site next door, I think, finally broke all barriers of her patience. Not that I blame her! We are all suffering from lack of sleep courtesy the drill that seems to drone on and on the whole night, till our eyes shut with sheer exhaustion!


And it would appear that there is no rule about not working through the night, or at least no rule that appears to apply to the Wadi Degla guys who are promoting the property next door!


We have complained to the police before, but all they seem to be interested in is our passport, the report be dammed! An Egyptian neighbour explained that it was not enough to report, you need to know the right senior policemen to get this stopped, and even then, the respite will be temporary!

You can imagine her sense of frustration cos she even called on the number advertised for the Flying Squad, but I suspect that they were lucky enough not to have a contruction site next to their office, and were blissfully asleep at night, cos no one answered!

I understand that Maadi has a rule about no trucks entering the area before 8 pm and after 8 am, so I can understand trucks coming in after 8 loading and leaving but continuing to drop / load stuff that makes a racket till 2.30 a.m. is a bit unfair.

So last night ma-in-law freaked out , and, I think, took them by sheer surprise, cos we slept in blissful silence thereafter.

Egyptians have a huge amount of respect for "mother". Everywhere, we go ma gets preferential treatment cos she's "mother"! It would appear that the respect extends to construction as well!

So willy nilly, mom-in-law has been nominated to yell every night in the hope that they shall discontinue work, and, we shall, sleep in peace, lol!

Saudi medical standards?

I have pulled a muscle in my lower back and its quite painful. So bought a muscle relaxant "Radian Massage Cream" at the local pharmacy, which the pharmacist assured me was the best.

While applying the cream, noticed that its made by a Ransom Consumer Healthcare in the UK, but what was interesting is the legend on the face of the tube "New pack to comply with Saudi MOH standards".

I am very intrigued. Is this because Saudi has the most stringent Ministry of Health (MOH) standards in the Arab world or because they are the largest medicine market in the Arab world? Still trying to figure out why Saudi MOH standards?

Traffic blues

Went to Dokki yesterday for some work, left at around 1.30 p.m. from Maadi and reached at 3.20 pm.! The traffic en route was unbelievable! My driver told me that we had set out at the wrong time and caught the school traffic, and when we went back the traffic would be easy and we should be home in 25-30 mins.

Finished my work and set out around 4.30 p.m., banking on the 30 min drive home to get to school to pick my son up after his activities were over. To my horror, we finally reached Maadi at around 6 p.m.! Where did this traffic come from?

In my 2 years in Cairo, I haven't seen traffic move at such a slow pace (except around 3 o'clock during Ramadan), and, everything was jammed in all directions! Wonder if this is the norm (since I normally do not travel to Dokki) or I just got caught on a bad day!

Of endless construction

I have been in Cairo now for two years, and, do the stretch to the airport very often on account of our travels or on account of visitors. My driver always takes the autostrad route past Mirage City, cos according to him this is much faster than going through Heliopolis.

I am not sure whether that's true, but that trip is always interesting to me me because it intrigues me. Over the last two years, I have seen rapid contruction taking place along that road, be it between Maadi and Carrefour along the autostrad or the myriad complexes that seem to be springing up along both sides of the autostrad.

Rapid construction is a measure of economic growth and development of a city, but I wonder if that is really the case here? What intrigues me is how is the city going to provide electricity and more importantly water to these outposts? Main Cairo, with its proximity to the Nile is well taken care of, but this unbridled expansion of the city into the dessert, doesn't it pose problems?

According to the Land Center for Human Rights, an independent research and advocacy group based in Cairo, 30 percent of Egyptians are not supplied with potable water and must retrieve it themselves from wells, neighbors or directly from the river.

I remember reading last month that 500 residents of Suez blocked the main highway to Cairo due to lack of municipal water supplies for a 2 month long period. Through the summer, demonstrators blocked roads radiating from Burullus, a Mediterranean coastal town, complaining of chronic water shortages.

Given this background, wonder how construction continues unabated or are they so well organised that all this is taken care of? And is the basic infrastructure, needed to support this, in place?

The weather has turned!

Just last thursday, we decided to go for a felucca ride that was an absolute disaster! There was no breeze at all, and, it was WARM. Some of us were tempted to take off our clamy shirts except that I suspect the felucca boatman would have probably jumped into the Nile leaving us pretty much stranded in the middle of the river, considering there was no breeze to take us anywhere, let alone to the shore..

But stepped out last night around 9 o'clock to buy some books and go out for dinner and the weather was fantastic! There was a strong breeze and a slight nip in the air, heralding the onset of winter! That is the wonderful thing about Cairo's weather, its turns completeley unexpectedly!

Expect the weather to be delightful over the next month, at least in the mornings and evenings...methinks, shall do that felucca ride again!

Of crowded streets & skillful driving

I suspect that once I leave Cairo, and, am driving elsewhere, I shall suffer from agoraphobia! Not that roads in Maadi are very narrow, its just that they are really crowded.


Try driving around on a Friday or Saturday morning! Cars parked on both sides of the road, and two vehicles trying to cross each other in between these two lanes of parked cars - you need immense skill and concentration to pass through without scratching each other! And I must, unhesitatingly, admire the driving skills of the average Egyptian driver - they pass through this with consummate ease while I stress and worry about damaging my car!


Went to the Arab souk on Road 7 early morning yesterday. As is par for the course, cars were on both sides of the road, and, an enterprising lady had parked her vehicle right in the middle of the road, deigning it too tiresome to park elsewhere and walk back to buy her meat and chicken for the day! Tried my level best to squeeze through, but even my Peugeut would just not scrape past.


Honked and honked to no avail! The lady was not to be disturbed...and then when she did finally appear with boy & meat in tow, I got a rather disdainful look and what sounded like an earful in rather agitated Arabic! A rather helpful shopkeeper explained in broken English that she was appalled at my pathetic driving skills! Typical expat woman, scared of a few scratches? Huh?


I must admit that really fazed me! Here I was, awaiting a hint of an apology, an acknowldgement of my inconvinience, and all I got was complete and utter disdain for my driving skills! So have firmly resolved to "practice" and improve my driving skills! lol!

Of sleepless nights...

The construction work next to my house, continues at a frenzied pace, Ramadan notwithstanding! If anything, they seemed to have become completeley nocturnal with Ramadan.

My son's lullaby has drastically undergone a change from hush-a-baby to the cling-clang-bang of the drilling machines. I occasionaly wake up, startled, hunting like a possesed woman, for a electrical socket that has short circuited, till my sleep daze passes over and I realise its yet another piece of equipment that they've dropped, yet again!

I know Ramadan turns the Egyptians into a party happy, noctural lot, but isn't there a rule against working at night? lol!

Oh for my patch of green!

One of pleasures of living in Maadi has been the greenery all around me. And I love my apartment cos on one side I look out on a vast plot of land, populated by trees.

Mornings were spent on my balcony, sipping a cup of tea, watching the trees gently sway in the wind - who would believe that I was in dessert land?

Unfortunately, my tryst with greenery has ciome to a rather tragic end! The trees have been felled, and a monstrous four building complex is going to take its place...Time to move on?

The mystery of the missing Bohab!

Life in Cairo apartment block is pretty much dependent on the ubiquitous bowab.

He's the one to get you your morning newspaper without which the morning abulations are a herculean task.

He will, if he feels kindly towards you, also run errands for you like fetching some urgent grocery that you just must have to complete the dish that's on the gas.

He will hopefully pay your telephone bills, saving you the frustration of trying to explain to the telecom department , after your phone has been disconnected, that back home, telephone bills get delivered home enabling you to pay them on time.

He will replenish the gas cylinder when your gas runs out in the middle of that fancy thing that you were frying for a big dinner.

He will change the bulbs in your house which seem to go kaput every other week. I suspect Philips / GE have this unspoken agrement with the cable companies. Nothing else will explain the regularity with which your bulbs go on a blink.

The bowab is essentially the doorman who stays in the lobby floor. He is your best friend in the apartment building! He can do, get, or arrange anything for you if you need.

And he is the ultimate ESCAPE ARTIST!! The amazing thing about him is that he is never to be found when you need him!

Pottery Classes

Very very excited! Just started on pottery classes today...a friend of mine conducts these classes in Maadi. Have been plaguing her to start so that I could join, and, finally I did!!

The class is fun cos she takes in only 4-5 students at a time, and, very reasonable.

The feeling of maleable clay in your hands is just awesome!!

It's so liberating to just be able to knead and shape it any which way that you want - no rules, no bounderies, no constraints, let your imagination run wild within the limitations of the piece of earth that you hold in your hands...

Giving shape to the clay is akin to making a baby.. its creation of sorts, albiet a lot less cumbersome and a lot, lot less painful!!

An Egyptain wedding

One of boys who works for my husband was getting married and invited us to the wedding reception. I was quite excited. I would get to see an Egyptian wedding!

An Egyptian wedding held great attraction for me, not just from a curiosity perspective but also from a desire to see how similar it was to Indian weddings. I keep saying that Egyptians are emotionally very similar to Indians, so wanted to see whether the similarility extended to wedding as well cos weddings, after all, are very emotional affairs!

In India, weddings are a gala affair with festivities stretching many days. There is a lot of singing and dancing and its also an occassion for families to come together and re-aquaint themselves with hitherto forgetten realtives.

The wedding reception was in the posh neighbourhood of Heliopolis at a place which my driver assured me was very "exespensive" . We stepped into the wedding hall and were hit in the solar plexus by some really really loud music.

There was a big stage on one side of a huge hall, a better part of which was occupied by heavy duty sound systems and musicians playing all sorts of music instruments. There was a professional singer who was belting out what appeared to be traditional wedding songs as there was a lot of laughther and clapping accompanying his words. The bride and bridegroom were in the centre of the crowd, dancing and clearly enjoying themselves.

On enquiring, I was told that the actual wedding consists of signing of a contract between the bride and the bridegroom which spells out the terms of their mariage and their responsibilities. This is signed in the presence of a cleric and is called a " ". Subsequent to that, the wedding is celebrated by a reception (dependent on the economic situation of the wedding couple)

Certain aspects of Egyptian weddings in urban cities are like weddings anywhere else in the the world. The influence of Christiany of the nature of the celebrations is very obvious.

The bride wears a bridal dress and the groom wears a black suit or a tuxedo. The ceremony starts with a car parade. The wedding car (as prestigious as possible) is decorated with flowers and ribbons. Cars of both families move together in a noisy parade of continuous sounding of car horns to a wedding hall, most often in a hotel. The honking is to announce that there is a wedding taking place.

When the bride and groom reach the hotel they are received by a “Zaffa”. The Zaffa is another human parade of belly dancers and drummers surrounding the bride and groom, singing happy songs. The bride and groom will occasionally join in the dancing but the main aim is to walk as slowly as possible to the wedding hall. Some Zaffa’s will last an hour!

When the bride and groom finally reach the their destination in the hall they sit in the “Kosha”. The Kosha usually consists of two comfortable seats in front of the guests where the bride and groom reign as though king and queen. As soon as the bride and groom are seated in the Kosha a rose sherbet drink is passed to the guests and all drink to their health.

Then the bride and groom will switch rings from right index fingers to left index finger. This is probably an old Christian tradition but it is done whether the couple is Moslem or Christian.

With this ritual, the festivities begin. The bride and groom have the first dance after which the other wedding guests join in.

Unfortunately, we missed all of this, cos we were at an reception, celebrating an Indian festival. We caught the festivities, a little after they had begun.

I was amazed at the variety of entertainment. There were belly dancers, some African dancers, stilt walkers dancing and jumping around, tanoura dancers etc. The singer handed the mike to the bride who sang a wedding song where she expresses her love for her new bridegroom. I thought that was really cute! This was followed by the groom doing a tribal dance with one of the African dancers, spear in hand. Everyone sang a song with the groom playing the tambourine and the girl dancing to his tune..

Then the African dancers created two human trains - one male, led by the groom, and another female, led by the bride. They circled all around the reception hall, inviting everyone to join the train and the wedding couple's happiness.

The one thing that struck me that everyone around was having great fun. The women were dressed to kill with fabulous head scarves in myriad colours, shapes and styles. Clearly, a lot of time and effort was spent in deciding what to wear at the reception (sound familiar eh?)

The bride and bridegroom then went and sat at the Kosha and people queued up to wish them and get their photographs taken. After this, the buffet was opened.

Before I knew, it was close to 2 o'clock at night and it was time to go home. Well, it was time for us to go home, the Egyptians were going to be partying till 4 or 5 in the morning. The one thing that struk me was that everyone, including the bride and the bridegroom were having great fun, it would be a day that the wedding couple would really remember for the rest of their lives!

I was so glad that I came and was a part of these festivities. One of the advantages of being a mobile expat is that you get to witness so may different cultures, and experinences and have the privelege of imbibing some of them. So we have decided that while our son will have a traditional Indian wedding, we must make sure that the wedding reception is Egyptian style!!

Visitors from Home

With the onset of winter, I am going to have a steady stream of visitors till the end of the year. Actually, quite looking forward to it.. Cairo is such a delughtful place, romantic and mysterious, exotic and maddening...

Now have to sit down and draw up an itenerary for all of them...

Suspect I shall be able to moonlight as a tourist guide at the end of it! Just kidding. Have yet to visit some museums etc which I have kept for just this time...

Its good to be back home

Flew in early this morning, completely sleep deprived and hungry. I hate travelling flights that leave in the middle of the night - while they get you to your destination early, they mess with your body clock.

Having said that, its good to be back home! Now for a hearty breakfast and a long, satisfying snooze and then I am ready to handle the world!

We'll barely get time to unpack and then its off to Alex for a long weekend just before the school re-opens...

Weather's improved

Thank goodness, the heat wave is over!

The sun's still hot but not as killing as before.. Now I can troup to the Khan to buy stuff to take back home!