I don't understand how Arab women can stand being so hot in those burqas. It was about 95° & I couldn't bear wearing much more than a bikini! (Although I did, of course, I'm not stupid.) I find it odd that a religion mandating so much black clothing popped up in the desert of all places, instead of Scandinavia or something. I guess it's because people wanted to wear so little that men had to be "protected" from temptation. Learn some self-control, boys, jeez. According to the Lonely Planet guide (LP), it is wise for a woman traveler to just say her male companion is her husband, because they respect married women much more. Since a good Muslim girl has to be a virgin for her wedding night, foreign women are their chance for easy pussy. LP also said to keep as much of myself covered as possible. SE wasn't quite ready for a Mrs. SE but my safety won out. He'd made fun of me all through South Africa for packing so many long-sleeved shirts & pants & I was finally vindicated when man after man stopped & turned to stare at me regardless. One guy even tripped in the street while walking backwards, staring. To be fair, I think part of it may have been that they never see any young attractive Asian women, only old Japanese & Chinese tourists, but it was still disconcerting & made me nervous. It was much funnier when hawkers jokingly tried to buy me from SE for outrageous numbers of camels - the highest offer he got was 100 million. Each one is worth ~$1000 so it's lucky the 7-year-old kid didn't seem to actually have any camels or I'd be trapped in some harem right now.
That first night we went to the Sound & Light Show "narrated" by the Sphinx. It's super cheesy & pompous, although it's cool to see the Pyramids & Sphinx lit up at night. We had dinner at the Mughal Room in the hotel which was probably the best Indian food I've ever had. We did the tasting course & each one was more scrumptious than the last. The mains, especially, were so good we wanted to keep eating even though we were totally full. Partly as a result of that plus all the sunshine earlier, we decided to take a disco nap before the belly dancing show at the hotel's nightclub later. LP said Cairo was the birthplace of belly dancing & had the best dancers in the world so I was extremely excited. I was so sleepy though, when SE woke me up at 2am I couldn't be bothered. The next morning we had a tour bright & early with Sharif of Abercrombie & Kent Tours. We grabbed some delicious (& amazingly cheap at E£3 = $0.55 for 4 sandwiches) falafel from Felfela & visited the Pyramids. We went to the 3 big ones by us, Khufu, Khafre & Menkaure.
They look a bit like step pyramids now because their limestone coverings & some of the inner limestone was taken to build other things, but they're still massive. Each block is about 1 meter x 3m & although Sharif explained how they were put together, it's mind-boggling. The current consensus is internal & external ramps winding around & around the pyramid & then disassembled. Contrary to what I'd read as a child, the workers weren't slaves, they were farmers keeping busy during the fallow season, given the very high honor of building Pharaoh's tomb. I guess if you want to call it that. We climbed inside the Great Pyramid & the most amazing thing was how smooth the walls were. I can't even get my head around the amount of labor it must have taken. When we'd had our fill of giant rock monuments, Sharif took us to a Papyrus store which was quite interesting & its curio shop which was not. Stuff in Egypt can look so tacky.We stopped for lunch at Abou Tarek, which specialized in kushari, a noodle-type dish with spices which is pretty good. Then it was time for the Egyptian Museum. Sharif was in his element - he was a fount of information on the highlights of the Museum, as we obviously couldn't see every single thing in 2 hours. A bit overwhelming, actually - 2 hours of relentless lectures & not much walking around makes my eyes droop. My favorite exhibit was the diorite statue. Sharif said diorite is the second hardest material in the world, behind only diamond. & yet the ancient Egyptians carved 23 statues out of it. The weird thing is, we can't figure out how they did it. Apparently the only way they've been able to make a dent in diorite nowadays is with lasers, & they can't manage that level of detail either (nostrils, eyelids, etc.). Very mysterious. (A quick Google search revealed that Sharif was perhaps more patriotic than knowledgeable, as diorite is only a 6/10 on the Moh hardness scale & it is certainly not only lasers that can carve it.) It was also interesting to learn that silver was actually much more valuable in ancient Egypt because it had to be imported, whereas gold was so plentiful they buried their pharaohs with tons of it. Even a weak, short-lived king like Tutankhamen had a several gilded sarcophagi & a treasury's worth of gold. Maybe that's why their jewelry now is surprisingly expensive - they locked most of it away with dead people. My favorite part was the small pond outside the building with reeds & lilies which represented the papyrus & lotus of the kingdoms of Upper & Lower Egypt.
For dinner we went to Bird Cage at the Semiramis InterContinental, touted as the best Thai in Cairo. I don't know if that's true but it was certainly the best Thai I've ever had. We tried the chicken satay, crab & corn soup & crispy shrimp appetizers - then chicken cashew & spicy beef something after that, which were all fantastic. I could eat there every night. There was a belly dancer coming on later that night in the same hotel so we went across the street to El Mojito at the Nile Hilton to wait for her. However, we'd eaten too early - 8pm - & after 2 hours we were too bored to wait until 1 am for the show. We went home & I think we just played Scrabble.
On Friday we were really lazy, got up late & ended up sitting by the pool again. We tried Abu Sid, highly recommended by LP, & were extremely disappointed. It is not sumptuous or fit for a pasha & the food was ok but certainly nothing special, while the service was glacial & mixed up. I've had better meals at Le Souk in NYC. As it was our last night in Cairo, I was absolutely hell-bent on seeing a dancer before we left. SE was tired & tried to beg off but I convinced him by arguing that we'd probably never come back to Cairo & thus would miss out forever, & also I needed protection from the men. Fortunately for us lazy bums, the hotel night club was having a performance so all we had to to do was stay awake. When we got down there the audience totaled 12 people - including us. The singer soon finished & musicians began pouring out. it was like the circus act with the clowns popping out of a VW. We counted 19 people on stage! At long last the dancer herself came out. She was terrible. She had some basic moves, the requisite smile & was even pretty cute, but there was no rhythm or passion. Maybe she was a novice, I don't know. I was so disappointed I cried a little on our way back to the room. To his credit, SE comforted me instead of saying told you so.
Saturday we realized that we had forgotten to go shopping. We decided on the Khan Al Khalili bazaar as suggested by LP but when we told the cabbie where we wanted to go, he told us it was at least an hour there, plus Cairo traffic is horrible so probably it would be longer. We only had 2.5 hours total before we had to be at the airport so we were happy to take his suggestion of shopping near the hotel. I got some sheets, since people are always talking about Egyptian cotton, & we bought some cute clothes & jewelry. We managed to cross the street without getting run over - you think jaywalking is bad in NYC, you'd be horrified at Cairo. People basically walk whenever & wherever they feel like it, & there are hardly any stoplights. In any case we got what we wanted, although we didn't have time to get proper shawarma before our flight as I'd hoped. Our cabbie took it upon himself to stop & get us some, & wouldn't let us give him money. SE only had E£100 ($18.18) bills & said so when the driver stopped to get us drinks, but again he insisted it was his hospitality & that he had change for the fare of E£50, no worries. When we arrived SE gave him the E£100 & the guy just said thanks & started walking away. SE was like, No, I need change, you said you had it. It turned out he only had E£12 so we had to take that. This was one of the more egregious examples of how annoying baksheesh (tipping) is in Egypt. He clearly wanted us to tip him a lot, which is reasonable, but it sucks when people try to manipulate you into it. We might have just given him the extra 50 if it weren't for the fake "hospitality" & the bullshit about change. Don't call it hospitality when you have an agenda. We were also frustrated by how hard it was to get change. Whenever we wanted to break a bill they always asked if we had smaller, & on the frequent occasions when we didn't they were quite happy to pocket the excess unless SE got annoyed & walked away. LP said baksheesh is the custom for any kind of service but we got really tired of feeling fleeced all the time. In any case, we made it through both security gates (I suppose just in case we'd created a weapon in the 100 feet between the 1st X-ray/metal detector & the 2nd) & onto our flight to Sharm safely.
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