Smoking the Sheesha

It was clear from the outset that we'd make few friends on our cruise. (Actually, the word cruise seems a misnomer - I think our boat may have actually sailed 4 hours a day. The rest of the time we were moored in the midst of about a million other stationary boats obscuring our view of anything but the cabin on the ship next door.)

On the plane ride to Abu Simbel, our starting point on the Sunboat IV, I could identify only one couple - Mike and Loretta - with whom we might possibly relate. It would become painfully apparent later (as Sanjay, I admit, predicted from the beginning) that these two freaks would only serve to make our cruise more entertaining, perhaps, but certainly not more enjoyable. (Near the end of the cruise, Loretta lost her camera and blamed everyone on board except herself. She cried and skipped our tour of THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS!!!! while she pouted, bitched and, in all likelihood, drove her poor husband Mike and the entire crew to the brink of insanity. Loretta and Mike work as contractors in Iraq, so Mike has enough stress without having his own personal drama queen demand to file a police report in Egypt due to what was most likely her own misplacing of an utterly replacable Casio digital camera.)

Anywho . . . . On the day of our departure, we caught a flight from Cairo to Abu Simbel at 2:30am - yes, you read that right. We hadn't slept, but managed to catch about an hour on the plane. Upon our arrival, we were immediately rushed to visit the Abu Simbel temples of Ramses II and his queen, Nefertari. They were enormous and sat on the banks of the Nile (they were actually moved back a little bit from their former position by a team of engineers to avoid damage - I'm not certain, given their magnitude, how that's even physically possible). While they were incredibly beautiful, the crowds made the experience somewhat painful, especially in our sleep-deprived state. Actually, at every monument we visited, we experienced insane hoards of people which seems right, I suppose, now that our guide has informed us that 65% of Egypt's economy is based on tourism.

That afternoon, after we were swept to our boat for a quick white-girl-boring-ass-catered-food lunch (rich old white people seem to demand only plain fare that doesn't challenge their taste buds or their digestive systems), we (still with zero rest) boarded a traditional Egyptian sailboat called a felucca and took a brief sail on the Nile with about 10 of our co-tourists from the boat. It was actually quite beautiful but sleep deprivation, by this time, was really taking its toll. Our sailor was really a pro and, as he gracefully guided us narrowly through the passage between our own Scylla and Charybdis on the Nile, my brain randomly shuffled through and found the most appropriate song to be stuck in my head for the next several days - today's:
Song of the Day: Wrapped around your Finger by The Police

For those of you whose brains do not store such useless trivia as all of the lyrics to every Police song, this song includes both the Scylla and Charybdis reference, as well as a reference to alabaster, which was appropriate given the fact that Luxor, Egypt produces some of the finest alabaster in the world. Sanjay actually ended up purchasing the most gorgeous green alabaster vase as a souvenir and birthday gift to himself on Friday.

Of course, with cheesy simplicity, the other song stuck in my head all week was our other

Song of the Day: Walk Like an Egyptian by the Bangles

On the felucca ride, we met the three freak-o-teers with whom we'd be spending all of our meals after Loretta and Mike opted out of eating at our shared table to wallow in their own self-pity and misery at a two-top. We had the pleasure of sharing three meals a day - and every excursion - with Karen, a pastor with her Masters in Divinity from Princeton, John, who's retired from automobile manufacturing and their daughter Kristen, who Sanjay originally predicted was afflicted with Down's syndrome. We later tamed our diagnosis to some simple, severe form of social dysfunction. Actually, the trio was nice enough, just not quite who we might normally choose to have over for supper, let alone spend 12 hours a day with.

We also had the pleasure of meeting Hassan, our Egyptologist and guide for the duration of the cruise. Thank Allah for him. (Actually, one of the most endearing attributes of Hassan and every Egyptian was their constant use of the phrase enshallah, which means "God willing". We'll meet at 8:00, enshallah. We'll go out for sheesha, enshallah. We'll eat at Felfella, enshallah. Someday I'll visit America, enshallah. And it's not really just a throwaway phrase - they mean it. In their faith, everything is dependent on destiny or God's will. It's really interesting.) Anyway, Hassan is a chubby little man who says he has knees like a goat and therefore never shows his legs - even though it gets up to 130F! Hassan single-handedly saved the cruise for us by taking us to see the most incredible sites and monuments ever and, more importantly, aiding our nightly escape from the ship and its inhabitants to take us out to local coffee shops each night where we drank hibiscus tea, smoked the sheesha (hooka), and had fascinating conversations about local politics. More about those later.

Admittedly, that first night, we were too tired for sheesha or intelligent conversation, although we did manage to stay up for the performances of a whirling dervish and the worst man-girl belly-dancer ever. Actually, Sanjay and I, and all of the passengers who managed to keep their weary eyes open, actually did more belly dancing than she did, as she kept inviting each of us up to make complete asses of ourselves. That said, the dervish was fantastic and Sanjay's eyes throughout his entire performance were the size of saucers.

The next day was Valentine's Day - and today we visited Aswan. First, we stopped at a quarry to visit the unfinished obelisk. While it was enormous, it was laying on the ground, uncarved, so given all of the other sites we visited, this one was fairly unimpressive. I suppose the most fun thing about this site was the fact that Loretta and Mike spent 400 Egyptian pounds (the equivalent of about $70 USD) for 4 t-shirts that they should have probably gotten for about 80-100 pounds. I thought our guide was going to have a stroke. Negotiation is a critical art when purchasing anything as a tourist in Egypt. Generally, the initial asking price is at least double the normal purchase price and, if you look especially rich or infuriating, they'll charge you ten times the going rate. (I'll let you decide which category Ms. Loretta fell into.)

After we finished at the pile of rocks, we boarded a notably unseaworthy motorboat-like vessel and headed to the Temple of Philae. This site was an incredibly beautiful island with and Egyptian temple as well as a Roman one built by Trajan. On our boat ride over, I bought two bracelets made from sandalwood which smell so good. With our trusty guide Hassan as our lead negotiator, they each cost less than $1. He rocks.

After visiting these incredibly beautiful temples, we took a quick bus ride to the Aswan High Dam. While it's definitely impressive that this contraption has harnessed the energy of the mighty Nile (likely, though I've not researched it, much to the degradation of the local environment and wildlife), it's a dam. Not quite as cool as the Hoover Dam - and not nearly as cool as all of the temples and monuments we'd see on the Nile, so thankfully, it was time to move on. After our morning tour, we ate lunch and sailed to the location we'd vist that afternoon - Kom Ombo, the site of a unique Greco-Roman temple dedicated to two gods: Sobek, the crocodile god, and Haroeris, the sun god. The two are like yin and yang - sobek is evil and Haroeris is good. The temple was immense and beautiful. That evening after dinner, Sanjay did the sweetest thing ever. Knowing that every girl has a love-hate relationship with Valentine's Day, he sought to make mine special (especially since the divorce and all) and placed a small red velvet pouch on my dessert plate innocuously. In it was a necklace with a small, white gold and diamond ankh pendant with a silver necklace. I'd seen it in the window of a store in Cairo, and somehow it mysteriously appeared on our cruise. I'm not positive - maybe he's really just the nicest, most charming man in the world but, I think he likes me ;)

That night would unfold to be the best of our cruise, as we begged Hassan for some way to escape our boat and he escorted us to a local coffeeshop (where neither a single tourist, nor woman could be found) where we smoked sheesha & had an incredibly interesting conversation about Egyptian politics.

In particular, we learned that Hassan and many Egyptians in the last election had voted for a candidate from the Future party - I believe he was a professor who actually campaigned village to village and talked directly to the people. He was a normal guy who earned alot of respect during the election, and likely a number of votes. He's now in prison, along with Mubarak's other leading competitor. While I don't fully recall the charges, it was clear that they were trumped up. It seems that the Future party candidate is now ill and is likely to die in prison. Hassan said that with all of America's election problems, we had nothing on Egypt where no one is certain that Mubarak was actually elected by the people. I asked about protests by the people - explaining that these are how America has undergone its most significant transformations in the past - and he explained that Egyptians do have the right of free speech - for instance, a group called Kifaya or "Enough!", protests the government consistently - the voices of such organizations are loud but rarely inspire the government to make any change. Hassan predicted that Mubarak's death would lead to dramatic civil unrest in Egypt, as his son is being groomed to lead, the people don't want that, and it's not clear that any election would be run fairly.

He also mentioned that because the government is so little respected and does so little for the people, that religion and religious leaders hold the real power with the people of Egypt. Even though the laws in Egypt prohibit a religious party from forming, many people would prefer that.

Obviously we also talked about the war - who'd pass up that opportunity? He mentioned that the Islamic world watches a channel broadcast from the perspective of the Iraqi people, that shows the damage being done there and interviews the locals to find out how many have been killed. He says it's actually incredibly sad - and that he and his friends watch CNN, the BBC, Al-Jazeera and this channel - apparently a subnetwork of Al-Jazeera - to form the real truth of the matter for themselves. (As an aside, we actually watched Al-Jazeera and the coverage was definitely interesting, erudite and not any more one-sided than CNN or, certainly, Fox.) Hassan also mentioned that the Islamic world is furious about the fact that Saddam was executed on a religious feast day, and believes that America did this purposefully to "rub it in". (I know, I know, we thought the Iraqi government was in charge of this, but Hassan was firm that no Islamic government would execute anyone, certainly not by hanging - he believes it should have been a firing squad, on a religious holy day.)

Our final topic for the evening was Egypt's lack of involvement in resolving conflict or giving aid to Sudan. Comparatively, I'd bet that Egypt is one of the two richest countries in Africa (again, I don't have the stats, but suffice it to say that, compared to Sudan, their bajillionaires). He said he doesn't understand why Egypt is not intervening diplomatically or militarily because they're neighbors and brothers and have the resources, nor to assist refugees and the people affected by the conflict.I know, I know, too much detail - but it's so interesting. Anyway, I'm now writing hurriedly from the Maldives, so the rest of this post will be detail-free.

On Thursday, we visited temples at Edfu (The Temple of Horus) and Esna, both huge and beautiful although I think it was Esna that had the most aggressive salesmen ever at the local shops. The temple there is actually just sitting in the middle of a little village, where the locals hope no other discoveries are made for fear of losing their homes. Apparently, the Egyptian government seizes property all the time for such things, without appropriately compensating those affected.

We had lunch with one of the most arrogant, aggravating couples of all time - Robbie, a former Hollywood entertainment CEO turned sacred essence portrait artist (whatever that means), her husband what's-his-face, a paper baron, and their daughter, Allie, a nice girl whom they sent off to boarding school in England, likely so they could make googly eyes at one another and make out all the time, which they did at the lunch table. Mmm . . . . delicious.

That night, we ate Egyptian food and dressed in traditional Egyptian galabeyyas - Sanjay said mine was the prettiest of all. I think he was right.

Later, we again shared sheesha and hibiscus tea with Hassan at a locals-only coffeehouse, where we watched women pull bread in baskets from the deliveryboy by pulley to their second-floor apartments and listened to Hassan explain his love and respect for all of the various cultures with whom he interacts on the cruise. He is emphatic that politicians and the media breed fear and hate for power and ratings - and that once he actually meets and talks with people from anywhere - that there is understanding and mutual respect. He mentioned that one of his clients had shared with him a book The History of the World that apparently describes people from many cultures objectively - literature which is apparently not taught quite so fairly in local schools. You could tell he was incredibly grateful and he's passed the book to his son - whom he wants to teach to love and respect all the different people of the world - as all of us are creatures of Allah, God, the One - whatever the language, it's all the same.

Friday, for Sanjay's birthday, we visited the finest sites we've seen in all of Egypt at Luxor. While Sanjay was disappointed to not be staying with his friends in the Luxor at Las Vegas, I think he got over it as we visited:

• The Valley of the Kings - where we entered three tombs, including Ramses IV, which had the most incredibly beautifully preserved hieroglyphics and artwork (Of course, Loretta was throwing a fit and missed it!)
  
• The Valley of the Queens - where we entered the tomb of a prince
• Temple of Hatshepsut - the temple of Egypt's only female pharaoh, who is dressed as a man in all her artwork and usurped power from her own son ( I think his name was Tutmosis III), who would later destroy most everything that bore her name and likeness. Luckily, he didn't destroy her temple, because it is carved into the side of a cliff and is architecturally the most beautiful site we saw in Egypt.


• Temple of Luxor - This was interesting for its avenue of what seemed like hundreds of sphinxes and the Christian artwork that appears in the temple since it was later used for Christian worship by the Romans.


• Temple of Karnak - my favorite site in Egypt, because of it's sheer size. It's incredible - there's a hypostyle hall there that has 134 columns that were each probably at least 10 feet in diameter), as well as a sacred pool where worshippers used to bathe before religious ceremonies. There's also a lucky scarab (beetle) that's said to bring you good luck if you walk around it three times. We did.


• Luxor Museum - This museum held the most beautiful and well preserved sculpture we saw in all of Egypt - a statue of Tutmosis III made in a gray stone. The man was beautiful with soft eyes and incredible muscles. He really seemed to smile at you. Of course, none of the pieces in Egypt were ever signed, so who know who this incredible artist was. The museum also held the Luxor cachet - a group of statues that were buried under the temple to save the idols from destruction by the Christians. At least, I think that's what they said.

We also stopped to smoke sheesha (which Hassan called ahead to arrange, given our love of the sheesha) and buy Sanjay's birthday gift, a very rare green alabaster vase that is carved out of a single stone. That night after dinner, Sanjay discovered that the crew had baked him a birthday cake and hidden it in our room.

The next day, we arrived back in Cairo and toured both Coptic and Islamic temples in Cairo, as well as one synagogue (there are only about 40 Jews left in Cairo, so no services are held at any of the 8 remaining temples, which are now only tourist sites). My favorite the Hanging Church, which dates to the seventh century, which is Coptic - an orthodox Christian religion that most Egyptians were before Islam. Even the word Egypt (gypt is like copt) is derived from their formerly Coptic faith. While I was there, I left a donation and lit a candle for my family - and Sanjay, like any good Hindu, lit one for his as well. (Check out the photo - it was cold in Egypt!)

We also visited two fabulous mosques. The one in this photo is the alabaster mosque of Mohammed Ali at the Citadel in Cairo. While we were there, in my ignorance, I asked the meaning of the feast of Ramadan. I learned that it's a month meant to remind people of where they came from, to teach them humility and remind them of their poverty. That's why they eat so little (i.e., fast until sundown) during this time. (Actually, because everyone's so hungry from fasting all day, Egyptians actually consume 4 times more during the month of Ramadan than in any other month of the year - a lesson to all you dieters out there!) Additionally, if one can't fast for health or work reasons, the alternative is to prepare a meal just like the one you'll be eating (i.e., of very good quality) and serve it to a poor person at a charity table set up on the street. During Ramadan, you'll apparently find many people eating at these tables.

On our drive away from the mosque, our guide Abeer talked to us a little about how fundamentalism is really beginning to be on the rise in Egypt, and how Islamic fundamentalists are luring teenagers and college-age students away from their parents who have become more liberal and, in her words, modern (Abeer, for example, doesn't wear a scarf on her head) - they seem to recruit the young like a cult, and many are taken away to training centers and militant schools in other parts of the Arab world like Afghanistan and Iran. She said that she, like many modern Egyptians, fears the rise in the population and influence of these groups among the youth as they seem to be turning Egypt backward, and are turning the young against their parents, whose modernism they consider to be sinful and against God.

What struck me most about all of the churches we visited was how similar all of the symbolism, artwork and architecture was at all of them - and even at the ancient Egyptian temples. Halos on Christian saints were formerly suns above the head of the ancient Egyptian god Ra. The virgin mother holding the baby Jesus looks just like the ancient goddess Isis suckling her baby (Horus?). Many pictures of Jesus show him holding a scroll - just like every statue we saw of the pharoahs, and like the Torah scrolls in the holy of holies at the synagogue. No icons were visible in either the synagogue nor the mosques, but the symbol of the star was everywhere in Christian, Islamic and Jewish churches.

That afternoon, we shopped at my favorite place in all of Cairo - the Khan el-Kalili bazaar, and ate takeout tameyya and smoked sheesha at El Fashawi coffeehouse there. That night, we ate at a yummy Egyptian restaurant - though not as good as Felfella in terms of food and service - where the atmosphere was divine. Since we woke up at 4am to catch our flight, and didn't even stop at our hotel before our day-long tour of the churches, we went to bed directly afterward and missed the belly-dancing show we'd reserved.

The next day, we slept in, ate an amazing breakfast of honeycomb and fruit at the Four Seasons, and spent the day again at the bazaar eating local food and buying souvenirs. It was my favorite spot in Cairo - so incredibly full of life - no streets are that vibrant in the States. On our way to catch our car to the airport, we made our cab driver stop once more at Felfella to get one last taste of Egypt - we devoured 5 takeout taameya (Egyptian falafel) sandwiches in the taxi at a cost of 6.25 pounds (or about $1.25) for all of them.

Then our guide Ahmed and driver - whose Egyptian name literally means Mr. Satisfaction - drove us to the airport. It was sad to say goodbye, because they took such good care of us, but we knew we were on to even better things . .