Taken from the Great Lakes Coffee patio, my car in front of, fittingly, a midtown Detroit power station on a rainy day. Testing out my iPad mini instead of imagining Vietnam. My imagination is asleep. But my next Larwander post will be from Hanoi.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Friday, March 25, 2011
Cairo Hurts
13-17 March
All over Egypt I hear that tourists usually spend only a day or two in Cairo. I'm there for five days, but the city discourages me, even in spite of the revolution, and I get unsatisfactory pictures as a result. My bus from Sinai reaches Cairo at 8pm, and immediately I'm in a cab for fifteen minutes of gridlock and then for a fifteen minute hellish ride. Drivers straddle lanes and honk to warn off other cars, headlights at night are optional, very few traffic lights, pedestrians (I would soon be among them, absent another choice) dash across three and four lane roads against traffic going 40 mpg. Cabs honk and dart at curbs continually trolling for fares. There is very little public park space and almost no greenery in general.
All these elements apply across the core city, where those who get by, maybe 5 million of 24 million residents, live. Eighteen million live worse; I had only glimpses of this. At most a million (probably less) live in areas that wouldn't demoralize me.
In a basically corrupt, cynical society you usually get to live with your children in a decent neighborhood by playing along, in business or as a part of the state, by somehow making life worse for people around you.
My hotel had been full during the revolution and after with tourists but more so journalists; the day I come six are evacuated from Libya; the day I leave the UN resolution passes and five of them return despite fatigue.
I find my way to Tahir Square, a 30 minute walk (an hour the first time, as there are few English signs). But it is quiet, with the Egyptian Museum, in need of a makeover and with wall-to-wall touts, occupying a corner:
I learn from the journalists that in fact Cairo and all of Egypt is abuzz with political talk. A referendum, the first free one in most people's lives, is scheduled for next week. A day later I go wandering south from Tahir, into one of the nicer neighborhoods. I wonder if this, which I see in there, is part of the political conversation:
A bit later I come upon a demonstration which, I learn, had just begun. Poor people are in the street in front of a company demanding lower cooking oil prices:
The army allows a ten minute demonstration, as a line of blocked cars grows. I watch them let the protesters know that the demo has to move to the side street. The protesters resist and the army joins ranks and pushes them back forcefully, at times firing into the air. Once the demo is on the side street the army lets it go on.
I continue into the Garden District and come upon a university demo. Note the English protest sign:
I reach the heart of this nice neighborhood, home to university faculty, government officials, some embassies:
Looking through my pictures, it is clear that I photographed what made me feel better when in fact the city oppressed me a lot. I took a mile walk through a poor area, very crowded, dirty, women and kids begging, but took no pictures. Where it ended at the Nile I along with everyone else had to walk across five lanes of moving traffic to progress. Millions of people migrate to the city because there is nothing in their desert or mountain or Nile-side village, and then they find that there is nothing really for them in Cairo.
Without a true revolution and economic opportunity, nothing, that is, besides religious affiliation and the self respect it offers. Just before I got to Cairo the Coptic Christian neighborhood where the city's garbage men live and manage their salvage work was attacked by equally-poor Muslims. I visit a church near here and a mosque in the old Islamic part of the city. Here you find ritual order as well as some basic peace and quiet:
I'm just a tourist, without the knowledge or distance of a journalist. My impressions may be wrong. I'll note that every Egyptian I interact with is courteous at a minimum and often friendly. I'll also note that in the souk (outdoor market) near my hotel people in huge numbers (if mostly men) sit for hours every evening drinking tea or smoking in fifty cafes as, with a lot of friends, they shoot the breeze.
All over Egypt I hear that tourists usually spend only a day or two in Cairo. I'm there for five days, but the city discourages me, even in spite of the revolution, and I get unsatisfactory pictures as a result. My bus from Sinai reaches Cairo at 8pm, and immediately I'm in a cab for fifteen minutes of gridlock and then for a fifteen minute hellish ride. Drivers straddle lanes and honk to warn off other cars, headlights at night are optional, very few traffic lights, pedestrians (I would soon be among them, absent another choice) dash across three and four lane roads against traffic going 40 mpg. Cabs honk and dart at curbs continually trolling for fares. There is very little public park space and almost no greenery in general.
All these elements apply across the core city, where those who get by, maybe 5 million of 24 million residents, live. Eighteen million live worse; I had only glimpses of this. At most a million (probably less) live in areas that wouldn't demoralize me.
In a basically corrupt, cynical society you usually get to live with your children in a decent neighborhood by playing along, in business or as a part of the state, by somehow making life worse for people around you.
My hotel had been full during the revolution and after with tourists but more so journalists; the day I come six are evacuated from Libya; the day I leave the UN resolution passes and five of them return despite fatigue.
I find my way to Tahir Square, a 30 minute walk (an hour the first time, as there are few English signs). But it is quiet, with the Egyptian Museum, in need of a makeover and with wall-to-wall touts, occupying a corner:
I learn from the journalists that in fact Cairo and all of Egypt is abuzz with political talk. A referendum, the first free one in most people's lives, is scheduled for next week. A day later I go wandering south from Tahir, into one of the nicer neighborhoods. I wonder if this, which I see in there, is part of the political conversation:
A bit later I come upon a demonstration which, I learn, had just begun. Poor people are in the street in front of a company demanding lower cooking oil prices:
The army allows a ten minute demonstration, as a line of blocked cars grows. I watch them let the protesters know that the demo has to move to the side street. The protesters resist and the army joins ranks and pushes them back forcefully, at times firing into the air. Once the demo is on the side street the army lets it go on.
I continue into the Garden District and come upon a university demo. Note the English protest sign:
I reach the heart of this nice neighborhood, home to university faculty, government officials, some embassies:
Looking through my pictures, it is clear that I photographed what made me feel better when in fact the city oppressed me a lot. I took a mile walk through a poor area, very crowded, dirty, women and kids begging, but took no pictures. Where it ended at the Nile I along with everyone else had to walk across five lanes of moving traffic to progress. Millions of people migrate to the city because there is nothing in their desert or mountain or Nile-side village, and then they find that there is nothing really for them in Cairo.
Without a true revolution and economic opportunity, nothing, that is, besides religious affiliation and the self respect it offers. Just before I got to Cairo the Coptic Christian neighborhood where the city's garbage men live and manage their salvage work was attacked by equally-poor Muslims. I visit a church near here and a mosque in the old Islamic part of the city. Here you find ritual order as well as some basic peace and quiet:
I'm just a tourist, without the knowledge or distance of a journalist. My impressions may be wrong. I'll note that every Egyptian I interact with is courteous at a minimum and often friendly. I'll also note that in the souk (outdoor market) near my hotel people in huge numbers (if mostly men) sit for hours every evening drinking tea or smoking in fifty cafes as, with a lot of friends, they shoot the breeze.
The Hebrew Garrison on Elephantine Island
March 21
A five minute ferry ride from Aswan reaches Elephantine Island, an important trading post since antiquity with black Africa. Elephants and slaves among other goods were purchased here by Egyptians. On the boat over I meet a Polish archaeologist who sadly speaks little English.
The picture with the woman in it shows the ruins of an ancient garrison. In the 5th century B.C. the Assyrians (Syria, Iraq) ruled Israel and Egypt, having defeated the Babylonians (Iran), who in 586 BC (6th century) had destroyed the Hebrew Temple in Jerusalem. The Elephantine garrison, which protected the southern flank of Assyria from the Nubians (ancient Meroe), was staffed for most of the 5th century BC by Hebrew soldiers.
I don't know if the Hebrews were slaves, mercenaries or common soldiers. Perhaps Citizen Citarel would look it up and add a comment to this post. A source: http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/elephantine
A small museum has one of the Nilometers, used by the pharaohs to measure and then prophesy (thus a royal scam) the height of the Nile and so the crops each spring. In the picture it is down a set of stairs from what is seen, and unfortunately closed to tourists:
Bordering the ruin is a quiet Nubian village, which I walk through. A street:
The village is dry and dusty, but via a succession of close streets I stumble on a date palm forest:
Donkey bum:
I hang with a few sheep for a bit:
At the other side of the island I find the second Nile channel, with an old mosque atop the desert hill:
A five minute ferry ride from Aswan reaches Elephantine Island, an important trading post since antiquity with black Africa. Elephants and slaves among other goods were purchased here by Egyptians. On the boat over I meet a Polish archaeologist who sadly speaks little English.
The picture with the woman in it shows the ruins of an ancient garrison. In the 5th century B.C. the Assyrians (Syria, Iraq) ruled Israel and Egypt, having defeated the Babylonians (Iran), who in 586 BC (6th century) had destroyed the Hebrew Temple in Jerusalem. The Elephantine garrison, which protected the southern flank of Assyria from the Nubians (ancient Meroe), was staffed for most of the 5th century BC by Hebrew soldiers.
I don't know if the Hebrews were slaves, mercenaries or common soldiers. Perhaps Citizen Citarel would look it up and add a comment to this post. A source: http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/elephantine
A small museum has one of the Nilometers, used by the pharaohs to measure and then prophesy (thus a royal scam) the height of the Nile and so the crops each spring. In the picture it is down a set of stairs from what is seen, and unfortunately closed to tourists:
Bordering the ruin is a quiet Nubian village, which I walk through. A street:
The village is dry and dusty, but via a succession of close streets I stumble on a date palm forest:
Donkey bum:
I hang with a few sheep for a bit:
At the other side of the island I find the second Nile channel, with an old mosque atop the desert hill:
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Pretty, Dignified Aswan
Mar 20-22
As I want a larger sense of the Nile, and as I don't want to spend four days in Luxor before my flight, I decide to take a train, which follows the river, three hours south to Aswan, and come back two days later. I expect it will be similar to Luxor. Other than it being even warmer (over 100 degrees) I am, fortunately, very wrong!
In Luxor the Nile fertilizes at most two miles on either side, by the time I get to Aswan that distance is halved. I see a lot looking out from the train:
As I've tried to not plan or think ahead this entire trip, I leave the train without expectations. I know I am to walk 1/4 mile to the Corniche (riverfront walk) and go left for half a mile to reach my hotel. I'm shocked as I leave the train station:
and then reach the Corniche:
Aswan, a city of 250,000 at the First Cataract (rapids) of the Nile (the last of eight cataracts beginning up river), is far more than a tourist town and has a long history of multiculturalism. Most residents have both Egyptian and Nubian (black African) blood. The river here is startling. Looking north from a park:
Looking south from the park toward the First Cataract (beyond which, in fifty miles, lies Sudan):
Unlike Luxor, which has no public space (hotels and tour boat docks span the waterfront), Aswan has two free, public parks along the river, giving its citizens dignity and some sense ownership. What is more, another park, built by royalty on a cliff but now open to the public (Egyptians pay fifteen cents to enter, tourists ninety cents), is very beautiful. I meet and talk for two hours, about Egypt and the revolution, with two high school biology teachers, best friends, in their forties. (Students in Egypt may quit school at 15, these teachers get the ones who remain, to prepare for university, and to then become the country's educated class. It is this class from all over the country that, without any opportunity, made the revolution, at least its transfer of power.)
The two teachers come most days to this park to let their eyes rest as they shoot the breeze and daydream. I saw very few places in central Cairo and none in Luxor that allowed common people this bit of private space.
This park is also filled with young people, and show off the fact that this Nubian-influenced part of Egypt dresses with a lot of color:
Upstream from Aswan, the Nubian homeland was destroyed by the building of the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser in the 1950s. Several Nubians told me they were resettled, in Aswan and villages just north, and treated well by Egypt. The UN funded a fine Nubian museum. The first carving is 8,000 years old.
While most of the food in Egypt hasn't been very good, in the Nile-side restaurant (as elsewhere, there are hardly any tourists): I have a spicy fish stew with broad beens in tomato sauce with grainy Bedouin bread:
(Today, writing this post from Istanbul, I show my novel to the owner of an elite carpet store, who it turns out is no fan of Nobel-winning Pamuk. "Pamuk writes his fantasies, not what our lives are like, as he pretends.")
As I want a larger sense of the Nile, and as I don't want to spend four days in Luxor before my flight, I decide to take a train, which follows the river, three hours south to Aswan, and come back two days later. I expect it will be similar to Luxor. Other than it being even warmer (over 100 degrees) I am, fortunately, very wrong!
In Luxor the Nile fertilizes at most two miles on either side, by the time I get to Aswan that distance is halved. I see a lot looking out from the train:
As I've tried to not plan or think ahead this entire trip, I leave the train without expectations. I know I am to walk 1/4 mile to the Corniche (riverfront walk) and go left for half a mile to reach my hotel. I'm shocked as I leave the train station:
and then reach the Corniche:
Aswan, a city of 250,000 at the First Cataract (rapids) of the Nile (the last of eight cataracts beginning up river), is far more than a tourist town and has a long history of multiculturalism. Most residents have both Egyptian and Nubian (black African) blood. The river here is startling. Looking north from a park:
Looking south from the park toward the First Cataract (beyond which, in fifty miles, lies Sudan):
Unlike Luxor, which has no public space (hotels and tour boat docks span the waterfront), Aswan has two free, public parks along the river, giving its citizens dignity and some sense ownership. What is more, another park, built by royalty on a cliff but now open to the public (Egyptians pay fifteen cents to enter, tourists ninety cents), is very beautiful. I meet and talk for two hours, about Egypt and the revolution, with two high school biology teachers, best friends, in their forties. (Students in Egypt may quit school at 15, these teachers get the ones who remain, to prepare for university, and to then become the country's educated class. It is this class from all over the country that, without any opportunity, made the revolution, at least its transfer of power.)
The two teachers come most days to this park to let their eyes rest as they shoot the breeze and daydream. I saw very few places in central Cairo and none in Luxor that allowed common people this bit of private space.
This park is also filled with young people, and show off the fact that this Nubian-influenced part of Egypt dresses with a lot of color:
Upstream from Aswan, the Nubian homeland was destroyed by the building of the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser in the 1950s. Several Nubians told me they were resettled, in Aswan and villages just north, and treated well by Egypt. The UN funded a fine Nubian museum. The first carving is 8,000 years old.
While most of the food in Egypt hasn't been very good, in the Nile-side restaurant (as elsewhere, there are hardly any tourists): I have a spicy fish stew with broad beens in tomato sauce with grainy Bedouin bread:
(Today, writing this post from Istanbul, I show my novel to the owner of an elite carpet store, who it turns out is no fan of Nobel-winning Pamuk. "Pamuk writes his fantasies, not what our lives are like, as he pretends.")
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Where Moses Was Coming From
Luxor, March 18-19
I fly from Cairo 400 miles south to Luxor, the "hassle-capital" of Egypt and 100 degrees. The place quickly lives up to its reputation. It has an infrastructure built to move 20,000 tourists a day in season and now there are less that 1000. Every taxi- and motor-boat driver and restaurant owner and vendor is living at the edge and a tourist will be accosted at least once a minute. My hotel manager tries hard to up-sell me on tours. I decide to at least eat in the hotel rooftop restaurant every evening, as she is a nice person, just pressured.
My experience has been that every Egyptian I've interacted with in a non-commercial way is very friendly and helpful; every interaction that could result in money passing is a hustle, and almost always the price is jacked up 30% minimally and usually to whatever the seller thinks is achievable. A liter of water costs an Egyptian 16-32 cents; I'm regularly asked 80 cents but if I walk away the price starts to fall. Tiring in 100 degrees.
I must add that the people I interact with on the street, asking directions or simply saying hello to, are in the most part middle-class. Those trying to con me are usually poor, and simply can't afford to exhibit dignity. One I speak with explains that he has no opportunities and that his options are to spend his days trying for tourist business or to sit home depressed and essentially starving. It is that bad and you see it in their eyes.
Luxor city is dusty, noisy, with no public riverfront. Its souk is irritating, its street food tasteless, its hundreds of tourist boats with bad diesel engines pollute the Nile. All around are the ruins of dynastic Egypt, which I expect to dislike. I meet no English-speaking tourists in my hotel. So, no city pictures. I have four days to spend before flying to Istanbul.
My first morning I walk 3 kilometers to Karnak, following in part a line of sphinxes that once ran from Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple, and was used once in year in a ceremonial procession. I forget to get a picture of them but then see this after paying to enter Karnak:
and this:
Karnak itself was the cult center of Egypt for 1500 years. Many pharaohs added to the temple infrastructure but the greatest builders were the line of Ramses that included the one played by Yul Brenner in the movie. Here in a nutshell is what the place was about:
The temple and everything in it are gigantic, which I read as signaling the power of the imperial religion:
Almost everything is barren of color, but originally all of the illustrations were painted and colorful:
Two god figures:
I'm put off by Karnak, just as I am by Aztec and Mayan ruins. Imperial religion, where the ruler is god or the priesthood is the only entity with god's ear, must have always been a con to at least some of its perpetrators. Upstream, in Aswan, I hope to see a Nilometer, which measured the Nile's level as it entered Egypt. Each spring the pharaoh used the Nilometer reading to announce a revelation forecasting the year's coming crop.
A woman I speak with at the ruins tells me, though , that a common icon in Egypt was a scale that weighed the pharaoh's heart, symbolizing his just treatment of his people, against a feather. She says this idea of just rule anticipates the Hebrews and Christians. But as far as I understand Pharonic culture the individual had neither identity or individual dignity. One more image of the power of the gods:
Monday, March 14, 2011
Dahab, Egypt, Paradise
10,11,12 March
I recommend Dahab for anyone with a cold and fever to get over. About fifty hotels along a mile beach walk, a hundred cheap restaurants, few buildings taller than two stories, full of European divers and hikers. I was in Eilat, Israel, but it is now a mini-Cancun and a room to be sick in was going to cost $125/night. A little risky with a fever, I crossed the border and found a $10 ride the 90 minutes to Dahab, which was 70 degrees. I stayed three nights, though I was too sick to hike.
En route, I spot my niece and nephew in the back of a truck:
Two consecutive sunrises looking out over the Saudi Arabian mountains:
Most of the Bedouin-owned restaurants look like this:
This outfit's ultimate Sinai tour (cheap for what you get) takes 40 years:
Half Jewish, half Irish from New Jersey, a physics BA from Rutgers, just finished eight months at an orthodox Yeshiva in Israel, is traveling Egypt with bible, Koran and tent, dresses as John the Baptist, likes smoking and clubbing, is big into Facebook:
I recommend Dahab for anyone with a cold and fever to get over. About fifty hotels along a mile beach walk, a hundred cheap restaurants, few buildings taller than two stories, full of European divers and hikers. I was in Eilat, Israel, but it is now a mini-Cancun and a room to be sick in was going to cost $125/night. A little risky with a fever, I crossed the border and found a $10 ride the 90 minutes to Dahab, which was 70 degrees. I stayed three nights, though I was too sick to hike.
En route, I spot my niece and nephew in the back of a truck:
Two consecutive sunrises looking out over the Saudi Arabian mountains:
Most of the Bedouin-owned restaurants look like this:
This outfit's ultimate Sinai tour (cheap for what you get) takes 40 years:
Half Jewish, half Irish from New Jersey, a physics BA from Rutgers, just finished eight months at an orthodox Yeshiva in Israel, is traveling Egypt with bible, Koran and tent, dresses as John the Baptist, likes smoking and clubbing, is big into Facebook:
Cairo Fuuls
13-18 March
Cairo chaos: hungry, I see a bunch of people at a lunch place. I order from and pay the cashier 50 cents for two small pita sandwiches filled with fried egg and spicy fuul; it will taste like a bean and egg burrito. I then join about seventy people, mostly men, who are waving cashier tickets in front of two guys taking orders. Everyone is shouting, there are heated arguments about position in line, and one person in four is smirking. After five minutes my green New Orleans straw hat catches the eye of a server. Sandwiches are tasty.
The gal in black is about to be delivered sausage sandwiches on French bread that look like two chili dogs with everything. She throws back her veil and chows down.
May be where this hottie shops:
At the Nile, teens on boats dance to a sound 90% pop rap and 10% belly dancing:
Eternal theme of guys hanging out: What do you want to do? Don't know, what do you want to do?
Cairo chaos: hungry, I see a bunch of people at a lunch place. I order from and pay the cashier 50 cents for two small pita sandwiches filled with fried egg and spicy fuul; it will taste like a bean and egg burrito. I then join about seventy people, mostly men, who are waving cashier tickets in front of two guys taking orders. Everyone is shouting, there are heated arguments about position in line, and one person in four is smirking. After five minutes my green New Orleans straw hat catches the eye of a server. Sandwiches are tasty.
The gal in black is about to be delivered sausage sandwiches on French bread that look like two chili dogs with everything. She throws back her veil and chows down.
May be where this hottie shops:
At the Nile, teens on boats dance to a sound 90% pop rap and 10% belly dancing:
Eternal theme of guys hanging out: What do you want to do? Don't know, what do you want to do?
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