YAY, Our first tour day.
There are about 80 people on the tour. All American apart from ourselves (THE Australians) and an English couple. This morning was a welcome briefing about the tour then we piled onto buses for our first tours.
Muhammad Ali Mosque aka The Alabaster Mosque (مسجد محمد علي)
--------------------------
I'm sorry Cairo, but I think the Mosques in Istanbul are so much better.
Interestingly, no taking your shoes off any more, they gave out disposable bootees to cover your shoes.
The tomb of Muhammad Ali is also in this Mosque, and I'm talking about the governor of Egypt in the 19th century, not the boxer. (although I think there might be an Islamic link).
And now some thoughts from my jottings about Cairo.
There are more than 22 million people living in this city (and growing every hour).
In Australia there are 28 million in total. (I just googled that).
The place is falling apart.
Everyone lives in a flat, no houses. They are dirty and crumbling. The desert dust being so close doesn't help. If there was an earthquake the whole city would collapse.
No big skyscrapers with shiny windows, because the windows would need to be washed every day.
I'd like to look inside one of the flats, because even though they look like a tip on the outside it wouldn't surprise me if some of them are really luxurious and modern on the inside.
This made me laugh.
They disguise the mobile telephone towers as palm trees in case they are a blot on the landscape....
From the motorways you can see the roofs and they are the place to dump the broken furniture and other rubbish. Don't start me on the satellite dishes on the roofs, there must be 22 million of them.
They say, they are building a new capital city, which doesn't have a name yet. They hope to move people out of Cairo. Now, dear grand kids, let me know by telekinesis if this new city materialised...
The Egyptian Museum
--------------------
Now for our first Egyptian exposure to the gods, goddesses and Pharaohs.
Now I just have to remember who is who.
And not to forget the great female Pharaoh, (below) who had to wear a false beard.
Queen Hatshepsut. (We will learn a lot about her later).
And the young Pharaoh, although I couldn't take photos.
(we will meet him in person in a few days time.).
Khan el-Khalili Marketخان الخليلي
----------------
We then took an optional tour to the night markets and a traditional meal.
The first thing I want to tell you about is our police guard.
Every tour had a tourist police person on the coach. They had guns. Machine guns apparently.
They police guys where really nice and were a handy pair of extra hands for the egyptologist (tour guide).
I bring this up here as on this trip we had two two police who had us herded like sheep.
Mister Mustachio!
That is what the vendors called Graham.
Lady you have beautiful blue eyes. (me).
ONE DOLLA, ONE DOLLA.
LADY, Look at this T-shirt, bracelet, book, whatever..
ONE DOLLA.
And this was just the beginning of our experience of Egyptian sellers.
one dolla - they want American dollars, sorry we are not American.
This is where I am going to talk about the traffic.
Our coach driver deserves every cent he earns, plus tips.
It is bedlam.
We had folks on our coach who have been to India and China and they said it was craziest traffic too.
Its Thursday night, which is like Friday night for us, but it is chaos.
The road rules are just a suggestion.
I have never seen so much mayhem.
No one has car insurance because they can't afford it.
Some of they things we saw, overloaded trucks, overloaded motorcycles, kids on bikes, mobile usage. Arrgh. Jolly mind blowing.
Cairo traffic = Bedlam/Crazy/Chaos/Mayham.
+019.jpg)
