The Best of Egypt Trip

In Arabic, the phrase “samak, laban, tamr hindi”, translates into 'fish, milk, tamarind' or a chaotic mix-up informally. This is the perfect analogy to describe the melting pot that is Egypt.

When you land into the country, the first thing that you notice are the buildings that are dull, dreary, and unfinished. Unless you're in the Nubian areas of Aswan or looking at the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, the buildings look like they're under perpetual construction. The Egyptians enjoy colour like everyone else, so they've spruced up the city with decorated vehicles (motor and horse) full of flashy LEDs and custom lights. It's a hodgepodge of vibrant identities represented through their personal transport.

At night time, the streets are lit up by bright fairy lights while notable constructions like the new Egyptian Train Station or Philae Temple are illuminated by dramatic lighting shining upwards, preferably.

While out and about, you quickly realize honking is a part of every day life in Egypt. It's a form of social interaction and tazmīr (honking) helps them to prevent accidents on the road by communicating with other drivers. The lack of enforced rules of the road expected in Europe are an intense experience, all the more so for the traffic-abiding German traveller.

I found it hilarious seeing the following on the lawless roads as a foreigner:

1. Separate mini vans having a chat on the motorway at a snail's pace.
2. Two guys on separate motorbikes sharing a cigarette.
3. A family of five on a motorbike. It wasn't uncommon to see three men on one bike.
4. Not one motorcyclist wearing a helmet.
5. Modified truck headlights with many flashy luminous lights and melody sounding horns.
6. The drivers beeping in sync like a musical game.
7. The red lights and one way traffic merely being suggestions. More beeping seemed to be the solution to that. Like in a hot kitchen, they're warning each other: On your right! On your left! Beeeeep!
8. Non-existent walkways to cross roads. You need to have some gall in getting across.

I still completely completely completely hated the beeping.

I kept noticing marks on the foreheads of men in their thirties and upwards. It looked like fire soot from a distance. The mark is actually a zebiba, a prayer callus that develops from the men pressing their head onto the prayer mat multiple times a day. It shows their religious dedication over their years of prayer and is more common in older men. But this article raises the question whether younger men are intentionally disfiguring their forehead to come across as more pious.

I noticed a lot of shop fronts with lingerie and flirtatious clothing. I couldn't understand why these were front and center as it clashed with my understanding of the women's conservative dress code. Were the sexual norms not repressed in this culture I thought? I went into Google mode and I learned that it's part of what's called gihāz (marriage expenses), a pre-wedding ritual dating back to the 10th Century of buying goods for the new home. This is a lavish expense of clothes, home items, and even wedding night gowns that express intimacy for the new husband. Poor and working-class women begin saving and working from a young age to purchase these items for their new home. The major costs related to marriage remain the responsibility of the groom and his family, although they are increasingly split between the two families.

Going back to the lingerie, the exotic public displays in the cities are strictly for the indoor life of the newly married woman and it does imply an expressive private life. It's an interesting social contrast that sits in plain sight.

Corruption

Unnecessary bureaucracy can be seen throughout Egypt. The visa on entry system is $25 cash, OR if there's a very large line, some passport control operators may take a cash incentive to fast travel through the red tape. Apparently. Don't take my word though.

Some officials at tourist locations took advantage of their positions too, giving mini tours and offering to take photos for a fee. Every trick in the book was used to get your attention, to try to entice a tip out of you.

Heading towards Luxor from Aswan, the guide told us about a checkpoint before reaching the city. You could tell he was aggravated by this highway checkpoint, seemingly created for safety reasons but just acted as security theater. If you arrived later than 5pm you couldn't enter the city. The new rule could be used by the guards to discriminate against certain groups and generate more cash. It can be described as kama'in ("ambushes"), where some workers operate with unlimited arbitrary power , fostering ambiguity and fear that reinforces public docility. This unpredictability is intentionally "manufactured" to internalize state power.

I critize this corruption, yet I took part in it. When I had completed my three included tomb visits in the Valley of Kings, I bribed my way into an additional tomb which was easier than I had thought. I mention more about this later on.

DAY TO DAY

I visited Egypt for a week with an international group ranging in ages from 26 to 82. I booked the trip with G Adventures knowing they had a solid reputation and that they did thanks to our tour guide, Mohammed Bayoumey, who is an Egyptologist and has twenty years of tour guide experience. He had a vast wealth of knowledge and patience. He took a lot of effort to help his fellow people out in any way he could, he was passionate about Egypt and seemed like a well respected figure in every city we visited. The scheduling of the whole trip was phenomenal and I felt the presence of the tourist swarms only a handful of times. Every location was ours to enjoy before the hordes arrived with selfie sticks, GoPros, and bad manners, which was particularly intense at the Great Sphinx of Giza.

Friday 13th

I started my trip solo in Cairo visiting two grand mosques, the Al-Rifa'i Mosque and Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hassan, as well as the Saladin Citadel. I followed up by going to the Coptic Area for a walk where I came across St. George's Shrine. His patronage is celebrated around the world in places like England and Catalonia for the legendary tale that he bested a dragon.

Afterwards, I went to a roadside cafe across from the Amr ibn al-As Mosque and had my first Turkish coffee of the trip from a basic dusty table and plastic chair. There was rubbish everywhere on the streets and the honking was constant, but I managed to block it out.

I happened to time the finish of my coffee with the start of the Friday prayer. I asked the guard for permission to enter the Mosque, which he did with a nod and welcoming handshake. I snuck in and stayed in the back, where no one noticed me but a few bemused kids. What I saw paralleled the Catholic congressions I had growing up; Inquisitive but mannered kids copying their fathers, pre-teens bored out of their minds, teens with skulls on their hoodies and ripped jeans taking things quite seriously, and the elderly seemingly nodding off.

It was a privilege attending this ceremony at the start of my trip, and to see a group meditation with hypnotizing chants and devout attendees. One powerful image that I will remember is the men standing up shoulder to shoulder forming a line, with their feet touching their neighbours feet. The ritual discipline, “straighten your rows” reflects how closing gaps bonds the men and wards off bad spirits through unity.

Saturday 14th

Saturday morning was the official start of my Best Of Egypt tour with the G Adventures group. On the way to the Great Pyramids, our tour guide taught us about the discovery of a worker's diary at Wadi al-Jarf harbour which helped us discover how pyramids were built. He told us how they transported more than two million blocks from Aswan in boats down the Nile to Cairo. No alien involvement!

As I mentioned already, corruption is an obstacle in Egypt everyone has to navigate. It's generally not invasive to tourists, but on this tour, there were small examples. After the pyramids we were brought to a papyrus shop. On the show room floor, we were given a demo and told a small story about how paper used to be made, and then given free reign to buy the papyrus. The problem was that the papyrus had cheap AI generated prints on them. I imagine it was an incredibly lucrative business, with the amount of staff involved, so it was difficult to answer why this shop was on the approved list of shops we attended.

Over the course of the week we visited three shops. To see demos of papyrus, spices, and alabaster in tacky tourist shops. The tour guide wins by getting some commission, the shop wins, and the tourist is content with some colourful crap if they decide to buy something. I wasn't content as you can tell.

Sunday 15th

We woke in Aswan after taking the overnight train, before jumping on a boat headed to the Philae temple. An interesting island of temples adorned with inscriptions, graffiti, and French bullets. This island wasn't always the home for the temples, as they were moved after a complicated past due to the construction of the two dams. After the High Dam was constructed, the temples and surrounding Nubian villages were drowned in the rising water, eliminating a lot of the culture. The guide was skimpy on details, so I was curious about what happened. Read about how Egypt's Aswan Dam Washed Away Nubian Heritage.

Monday 16th

After deciding not to head south from Aswan to Abu Simbel on an optional tour, I took the lead on organizing a small outing to Kitchener Island. This was the first negotiation I handled on the trip and after whittling down the return cost to 600 Egyptian pounds for the whole group, I quickly realized I'm not a slick hustler.

After this, I decided to go through the markets and sit at a cafe where two local twin men were sitting with matching pristine black beards and hair. I wish I took a photo with them... I watched each tourist go by, beckoned to come into a vendor's shop, with their heads down, eyebrows squinted, and their posture rigid. How unfriendly we must seem and this started to shift my perspective. I assumed that they were told that Egypt would be full of the worst touts in the whole world and they had to be careful not to look them in the eye for fear of an ancient Egyptian curse being put on them. This was the moment I remembered a section in Rutger Bremman's book 'Humankind' about how, if we think people are bad and expect people to be bad, then they will be. They're trying to do their job, make a living, and have some fun while doing it so I needed to remember to appreciate the hustle and fire some jokes back at them.

Later on, we enjoyed roaming the Aswan market, taking in as much as our senses could handle. I settled into a filling set-meal and enjoyed my first, and most likely last, cooked pigeon.

Tuesday 17th

We got up early to ride a well-cushioned felucca down the Nile towards Kom Ombo. After an hour, we docked to eat and we were encouraged to swim in this area, so I eagerly back flipped off the felucca into the Nile. What a thrill! We ventured on to Kom Ombo Temple for a short visit before reaching Luxor.

In Luxor, we were met with more of the same beeping, wicked smells, pulsing lights, and low-quality imported merchandise. The vendors in each city all sold the same goods because they bought from large importers who distirbuted the same stock. We were told this city had an extreme dependence on tourism and you could feel it. It's a shame to know that the once powerful ancient Thebes (Luxor) that ruled a lot of Egypt, now arranges itself around the tourist industry.

Wednesday 18th

Rise and shine for the group at 5.30am. We went to the Valley of the Kings to beat the crowds, where we could visit three out of ten tombs with our entry ticket and three additional tombs for a price. The physical tickets got punched on each included entry, so in the end I visited:

• KV 2 - Ramesses IV
• KV 8 - Merenptah
• KV 11 - Ramesses III
• KV 9 - Ramesses V and VI
• KV 62 - Tutankhamen
• KV 43 - Thutmose IV

The KV 9 and KV 62 tombs were the additional tickets I bought and I skipped paying for KV 17 (Sety I). I tried and failed to bribe my way into KV 17 but may have managed to get into KV 43 for a small fee.

In each tomb, there are workers making sure tourists don't overstep boundaries but some workers also take advantage of their position to take photos for tourists or help people into restricted areas for a handsome tip. There was a funny moment when one worker asked if I wanted a photo taken by him, but I flipped the question back to him and surprisingly he gave me his phone to take pictures. So there is an Egyptian who now has a selfie of me and him on his phone.

The tombs were stunning. I just couldn't believe that these tombs were hand drawn and I learned with a quick search that the ancient workers actually used stencils using perforated papyrus to recreate images in rapid succession. That explanation helped me visualize how the tombs could be created so quickly.

The tombs were filled with incredible sketches of serpents, birds, devilish looking figures, and most surprisingly to me, baboons in Tutankhamen's tomb. I learned that the ancient Egyptians traded in the south in Sudan, and brought animals and other luxury goods back. In nature, baboons sit upright and greet the rising sun, so this helped build the myth around the God Thoth, who was depicted as a baboon.

The evening finished up in a hookah bar trying more sweet Turkish coffee and mint-flavoured Shisha.

Thursday 19th

This morning we walked through the Karnak Temples. One of the most rich and stunning locations on the tour. One hundred and thirty four columns reaching 21m in height.

Again, we beat the crowds and only on the way out did we see the influx of tourists. Once outside, we crossed the Nile towards Funtasia on a motorboat, becoming nauseated from the exhaust fumes. The Funtasia Project is a local NGO that teaches kids life skills in Luxor and other cities and is run by Planeterra, the nonprofit partner of G Adventures.

Three kids led our group around the village for a cycle, showcasing their leadership skills. One of the kids was asked what they'd like to be when they grow up and they said they wanted to be a tour guide.

The rest of the evening was ours. I took my time strolling around Luxor, diving into another cafe to have another Turkish coffee when I got the chance. The group had our last farewell dinner in the evening time, where we shared our highlights of the trip while eating Camel burgers. What a wholesome shared experience for everyone.

Finishing Up

Aswan was busy, Cairo was crazy, and Luxor was chaos. In mid-February the weather hit 30°C every day but the lack of humidity made it quite manageable. The portions of food were huge and rich with lots of rice, aubergine, chicken, and Eish baladi (Egyptian flatbread) to keep you full. I read that 39.9% of Egyptians are obese, and it isn't surprising since income is tight for the locals and the calorie-dense foods are cheap. Projects like Funtasia actually aim to help the locals improve their knowledge on balanced diets and healthier food choices, by providing education and resources.

Each day raised new questions. I became overwhelmed on a few occasions due to the sheer amount of noises and bad smells enveloping my space. Horse poo, motorboat fumes, cars beeping, huge amounts of rubbish in the streets and rivers, and on and on and on. These things just kept wearing me downbut I felt so grateful to G Adventures and our tour guide, Mohammed, for keeping things so orderly and bearable.

In Egypt, my level of contentment wasn't regulated. Intense highs and lows, and there was very little room for down time and chilling out. After the trip, I spent a lethargic day in Athens which really put the whole week in a new context. I have to admit how relieved I felt visiting somewhere in a steady state of relaxation. That Saturday felt calmer and definitely lowered my cortisol levels. Walking around the city, I weighed up the ultimate question in my head: would I go back to Egypt?

No, probably not. I'm so glad I went. I'll remember it forever and I'll definitely recommend everyone to go to Egypt at least once. But I realised in Athens that I prefer places where I can move at my own pace.