Middle East Odyssey - Part 4 (September, 2005)

September 7, 2005 / It's all over.

It's very, very weird to be home. First of all, it's too quiet. I can't sleep at night because I hear nothing but the wind. And it's cold, when you've been in +40C for the last 3 months, +19C feels freezing. I'm already missing everything about my trip, which is kind of ironic considering how much I've complaint even here :) If given the chance, I'd move to Cairo or Beirut this second, hell I'd even move to Tripoli!

It's just so weird being back.

September 3, 2005 / After 90+ nights it's time to come home

I am writing this in my hotel room, hopefully the last one for a little while. I have the balcony door open to listen to Ayman Nour's election rally outside the parliament. The crowds are surrounded by all means of crowd control apparel one can imagine. Young men in their white and black police and military uniforms have been gathering all day long to make sure nothing out of the ordinary happens. I don't know what Mr Nour is promising the crowds, but I am fairly certain he will not win the election even if he promised the people the moon. The incumbent president Hosni Mubarak will most likely emerge as the winner of this mock-democratic election. The receptionist at my hotel reckons that Mubarak will stay in power for another 3 years or so and then step down for the benefit of his son that the parliament will "vote" to replace him.
Yesterday Mina, our tour guide, asked me which Arab government I thought was the best. My answer was somewhere along the lines of 'well, they all have their problems' and the quickly steering away from the conversation. I don't know how many times during this trip I've been asked which I think is the best country, city, government, monument and so on. In Lebanon I was asked if I liked Beirut better than Damascus, in Petra I was asked if I liked Jordan better than Syria. And in Cairo I was asked which government is the best. How do you compare these things?? In truth I, of course, have favourites in cities and countries, but Arabs are a proud people and I have enjoyed all of the places I've been to, so I try answer with vague remarks about the differences of cities and things. Now that I am in Cairo I remember why I have liked the city from the first moment I landed at the airport more than two years ago. Yes it's dirty and smelly and incredibly crowded, but it's also full of so many things you can't even begin to count them. The amount of history in this one city spans thousands of years and I keep being amazed by it all. I can go to the pyramids over and over again and still feel like I'm looking at them for the first time, I can wonder through Khan al-Khalili bazaar for the zillionth time and still be amazed by the sheer magnitude of everything. I don't think a person can be bored in Cairo.

Last night I was playing drinking games at Nile Hilton's jazzbar with the weirdest Egyptologist, an historian with an Orlando Bloom Kingdom-of-Heaven beard/hair style, a half English-half Egyptian mediastudent and his 16-year old brother. Later on we were joined by two Aussies, but we lost them in a bar. It was truly a bizarre night that ended with going to the Sheraton Hotel to smoke shiisha around 5am. I have no idea what time I staggered back to my hotel.

September 1, 2005 / Oh how I love Cairo

Egyptian men really do have the cheesiest pick up lines ever. I ventured to Khan al-Khalili bazaar today and most of the time I was smiling like a nutcase because of all the weird things I was shouted at. Mostly it was along the line of "where can I find someone like you?" "I would make you happy forever" and so on. And man you can buy anything in there! I've done some serious shopping, got everything I was planning on getting from Cairo and now I'm trying to figure out how to export it all home without pissing off Austrian Airlines too badly :) Mostly it's glass stuff, too, so I can't put it in my backpack :)

Only 3 nights to go. Tomorrow I'm going to the pyramids, Memphis and Saqqara and on Saturday I think I'll just go to one of the fancy hotels pools.

I bought a book called The Act of God in Luxor (all the books they had had something to do with Egyptian history) and it's turning out to be quite outrageous. This guy is making a connection between an Egyptian pharaoh, the exodus of the Israelis from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea and Atlantis. I haven't quite figured out the whole point of the argument yet, but I am liking the explanation for the parting of the Red Sea (basically a tsunami) but I'm not blind enough to buy everything this guy is writing. Especially since he seems to be coming up with outrageous theories for everything..

Well, time to head back to the hotel, my toe is signalling with pain..