Week Seventy-Three

We're up at 07.45, pack and leave our rucksacks at Reception (in the hope that one of their front rooms will become free today - worryingly, the morning receptionist knows nothing about our arrangement and tries to fob us off with a side-room for 30EP), and we're out just after 09.00. We stop at a couple of shops looking for biscuits (unsuccessfully), and reach the Museum at 09.15.
Security guards X-ray our bags and magic-door us at the gate, and then we get student price tickets (there are no questions over our new, tacky and clearly fake cards): the tickets are little bar-code jobs, but the automatic gates seem to be broken and a second line of guards inspect and rip our tickets instead (so much for modern technology). Just inside the main door is a third layer of security - another X-ray machine and magic door. And then we're in. The Museum is a large high-ceilinged Victorian affair (much like the old British Museum, or the old Chambers Street Museum in Edinburgh) which lends itself to cramming lots of stuff into large rooms (over a hundred). Our original plan was to see the ground floor today and save the first floor (half of which is the Tutankhamun stuff) for another day - a number of tour groups have just arrived, though, and they seem to be starting around the front door, so we head upstairs to the back (the museum is T-shaped, the entrance is at the crossbar) to beat the rush. As we observed yesterday, the Egyptian Museum is easily the busiest museum either of us has ever seen.
The observation is often made that Tutankhamun was just a minor pharaoh, who died young, so his tomb probably wasn't comparatively that splendid: this is misleading, though, since it was Tutankhamun who rejected his (possible) father's whacko new Aten-based religion and returned to the old faith (he was originally Tutankhaten) - the grateful priesthood, in return, done him proud when he died. pride of place in the main room from his tomb is the famous funerary mask, all shiny and gold like you see in the photos. The traditional burial style was in nested coffins, kinda like a Russian doll, and the inner coffins are also here (the mummy itself is back in Karnak) - they're equally shiny and, like everything else in this room, are totally covered in decoration and hieroglyphs in tiny but perfect detail. There's a lot of his jewellery here - heavy ear-rings, and big heavy necklaces (worn in layers) which required a counterweight to hang down his back to stop him toppling forward: it's enough to make you feel sorry for him.
Common decorative symbolism here includes the Cobra/Vulture of Upper/Lower Egypt, as well as scarabs, ankhs, eyes of Horus and the usual Egyptian magical stuff. Particularly striking pieces are a dagger with an iron (!) blade and a strange golden cobra with wings and a human head. The adjacent rooms contain larger pieces from the same tomb - the huge, wooden outer coffins; four beds (I don't know why he needed four beds in the afterlife, and a folding travel bed); half a dozen chariots; a couple of thrones; and so on. Next door there's a room of other jewellery and gold pieces from different finds, though a number of the best seem to be currently out on loan.
We take a break (we can re-enter with the same tickets) from 11.00 to 11.40 and gasp at the Museum Cafeteria - 6EP for a coffee, 8EP for a small burger (both 1.50EP to 2EP outside). We've managed to see seven rooms in 105 minutes, which doesn't bode well.
Back inside (I have to leave my little tripod behind this time - there's still a fee for them), we hit the opposite side of the first floor: all up the west side is roughly chronological, pretty much all finds from tombs. There's some paleolithic stuff (700,000 to 7,000BC) and neolithic (which they call "pre-Dynastic" here) bits and pieces - the latter includes early, less regular and cruder hieroglyphs and proto-forms of the Egyptian gods as well as the usual chips of flint and pottery bowls. "Archaic" is the term used to describe both the period immediately prior to the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt (c. 3,100BC) and the first few Dynasties. By the Fourth Dynasty, almost all the stylised forms were pretty much perfected; faces, poses for statues, gods, animals, writing and so on. And that's the nub of the whole Egyptian thing - for 3,000 years they had a society, an art and a religion which remained virtually unchanged. Their energy, as a culture, went into not change or "progress" (as in the more modern and more short-lived cultures) but into maintaining where they already were - from the massive pyramids, through the mummification and sealed burials to the giant statues of Ramses II (all erosion-resistant lines), trying to stare down eternity with a kind of resolute determination: they're all part of a culture at war with entropy. The priesthood for example (and this was a state often virtually run by the priesthood) renovated and repaired old tombs from generations well before their own. One of the most common statue forms - a sitting man with his knees pulled up - is basically just a block with a head on top: that's not representational, or artistic, or glorifying, or any of the other normal reasons people build statues - it is very entropy-resistant, though. Stasis seems to have been a state they aimed for and fought to preserve, rather than one they slipped into en route to dissolution, collapse and barbarism. And nowhere else, including the long-standing static empires of China, has come remotely close to achieving it as well as they did. These block-statues, incidentally, are called "en paquet" in French should possibly be "la pachet" in Romanian - which is funny: trust me.
Enough rambling, but seriously - have a look at pharaonic statues: they do all look as if they're trying to hold back entropy, or to out-stare time.
Being remnants from tombs, a lot of the stuff on the first floor turns out to be mostly lots of examples of the same things - specifically sarcophagi and canopic jars. The sarcophagi are richly decorated, but after the first few become rather dull - in the Greco-Roman period, as it became fashionable, rather than purpose-made anthropoid sarcophagi (carved with the face/head of the occupant) they switched to mass-produced models with a wooden plaque over the face, on which a portrait was later painted. An odd feature were some sarcophagi with excessively large feet - we figured these were for Diver-Pharaohs, buried with their fins on. The other significant recurring theme are the "canopic jars" - each mummy was entombed with a little chest containing four of these jars containing the various vital organs (except the brain, which was liquefied prior to removal by draining - yeuch). Each jar was the province of one of Horus' four sons: over time they ranged from simple stoppered vases, with inscriptions of the gods' names, to having stoppers shaped as the gods' heads (eagle, human, dog and baboon-headed). With some royal canopic jars, we saw each of the stoppers as a likeness of the buried.
Essentially, most of the stuff from the tombs is very samey, and the best examples tend to be those from the Tutankhamun hoard.
Interesting items on display include a collection from the tombs of Yuya and his wife (the maternal grandparents of mad Akhenaten) - there's apparently a theory that he might have been Biblical Joseph (son of Jacob), and might therefore have influenced Akhenaten's monotheism through his mother Tye. Apart from the historical aspect, it's a nice little tomb collection for a sweet old couple. Some mummified animals, including a giant and vicious-looking fish, are on display nearby, as are a large number of model boats with crew (all executed in a pretty crappy, Blue Peter, unconvincing style). Equally unconvincing are little model dioramas of bakeries and granaries and other scenes of normal life, with badly crafted figurines - they're only interesting because of their astounding age. Slightly more impressive are two cases with model regiments inside: once case has black Nubians armed with bows; the other has brown Upper Egyptians armed with spears.
Miscellaneous other items on the first floor included a copy of the Book of the Dead, pretty much covering the walls of one room and taken from two new Kingdom tombs (one 18th and one 20th Dynasty); and a whole bunch of large afro-style wigs which look bloody silly but (if you look at the statues) which the ancient Egyptians seem to have spent a lot of time wearing - very Seventies. There are quite a number of gaming pieces and boards on display as well - the games, like everything else in Pharaonic times, seem to have developed a religious significance over time. And that's about it, except for one item I can't not mention: a statue of Pepi II (seriously) with his legs spread and his genitals thrust forward - the little notice comments "The attitude is very unusual for a King.".
After another two breaks for cigarettes in the afternoon and one for food (crappy local shwarma and McDonalds' caramel sundaes), we eventually split from the museum at about 18.20, just before it starts closing. We opted not to visit the "Mummy Room", also on the first floor but with a separate entry fee, on the basis that we saw a few mummies on the way round and they're basically really boring. We've done less than one floor, which leaves us the entire ground floor and one row of less-interesting rooms on the first floor (I had a quick look) for some subsequent visit.
We try to collect my film, but it's not ready (it was supposed to be ready for 17.00): they suggest we try again in two hours. Instead we head up to the hotel to find out what situation developed about the room, and find yet another guy manning reception - he knows nothing about any arrangement we had, and not only are the front rooms still occupied, but the room we had last night is gone now too. He offers us some crappy alternatives for 30EP. Despairing of Pension Suisse, and pretty tired after a day trudging round the Egyptian Museum, we set off with our rucksacks to find somewhere to stay in Cairo - again. Our first thought is to spend another dreadful night back above the fruit market, so we march up to the top of Talaat Harb and find they have no rooms - actually, that's not strictly true: one of the hotels in the block does have a double, but it's across an outside balcony from the showers/toilet (!) and the window doesn't have any glass in it (!!). It seems that all the budget accommodation in Cairo has suddenly filled up since yesterday, possibly because it's Monday now - still, at least we have the advantage that we've already looked at most of the places: we just have to choose one. We consider the nice and newly-opened Sara Inn, but at 50EP for a room (£5.60) it's a little expensive, and it was mostly full of Japanese, and it's miles from where we currently are (and we're tired). Instead we opt for the Richmond Hotel: a pretty clean place, close to where we're standing, and it has an elevator. The main downside is that the door handle keeps sticking, and requires some energetic shaking to open - hopefully we won't get locked in.
To cheer ourselves up, we go to collect my film - after all, after freshening up in the hotel, two hours have now passed. Needless to say, it's not ready: they suggest trying again in an hour, but we decide to go back tomorrow sometime instead. Bloody Egyptians.
One final note, after our various tours of various hotels - in common with Jordan, Egypt doesn't seem to have figured out why some taps are blue and others are red: they just seems to fit whatever comes to hand first. This is just amusing on a line of flushable urinals, but more irritating when trying to have a shower.

After all our walking and exercise of yesterday, and the evening surprise of not having somewhere to live, we don't get up until 11.15: breakfast (included in the price, whether you take it or not) officially stops at 11.00, but this seems flexible and a small tray turns up on request. It's ust a couple of rolls with cheese/jam and a mug of weak coffee - we (Milla) will doubtless take charge of making it in future. We lost the morning through sleep, and the afternoon evaporates with collecting and looking through my film and then dropping other films off to be developed, together with a list of prints. There's also quite a bit of sitting around not really doing anything.
We have a whole list of things to buy, from replacement notebooks for me through a small kettle (still) to deodorant for Milla, so in the early evening we set out on a shopping trip. The best, as in cheapest, shopping is supposed to be in Islamic Cairo around the famous Khan el Khalili (Cairo's equivalent for Istanbul's Grand Bazaar), so we head vaguely eastwards on the assumption that we'll be able to find it. Once we pass Midan Ataba, the border between Downtown and Islamic Cairo, we rapidly become totally lost (not totally - we suspect we're still in Cairo). Mostly what we find are dirty, smelly lanes (much of Cairo has a smell of filth, excrement and decay which can be quite a challenge to Western nostrils), filled with kids playing ("Hello, what's your name?") and men-only coffee shops ("Welcome to Egypt") to cheap fruit 'n' veg stalls (pretty manky produce at low prices). We do find an interesting couple of streets filled with second-hand sewing machines and repair workshops, which is something you don't see every day, and a pretty large district of shops selling huge quantities of fabric and material. Oh - and there are a lot of animals in the streets: mostly sheep, and the occasional donkey.
Milla's mostly pissed off, but we suddenly and unexpectedly emerge on Sharia Ramses, just south of the station and pretty much where the Suez bus dropped us originally. This area turns out to be something of a stationery ghetto, packed with little lanes, packed with little stalls, barrows and shops packed with pens, envelopes, diaries, school exercise books and office supplies. We spend most of an hour there and totally fail to find small hardback notebooks: they have small hardback diaries, large hardback notebooks and small softcover notebooks - goddam (I should have bought them when I saw them in Turkey, except of course that I still had a supply then). Half our time, as usual, is spent following fruitless suggestions. Milla does successfully buy a couple of little bags for her toiletries, and we eventually split at 21.30 and head back to the hotel for a couple of beers, backgammon and baklava (our man who sells it cheap by the kilo is still there).

WE're up at 10.15, which is still fairly pathetic: after a day of museum and a day of fruitless shopping, I'm depressed and unenthusiastic, and Milla's actually up first! Despite my ennui and feeling of tedium with anything a.) historic in general, or b.) Egyptian in particular, we head out at 12.00 (picking up new film en route) for Giza and the Pyramids - that should be a good half-dayer. We believe there's a bus, No. 355, which goes past the concrete Ramses Hilton and will take us all the way for 20p each: sounds good, but we don't know exactly where it leaves from. There's a little bus station under the overpass opposite the hotel, but we can't see any candidate buses: in fact, a random local we meet there tells us that the bus doesn't exist and offers to show us the local bus he's about to take instead. We decline (local Arabs/Egyptians are usually the most uninformed people we meet) and opt to ask at the Hilton instead. They know exactly what we're talking about, and the doorman (we don't have a doorman at the Richmond, just a strange old man who hangs around the lift all day and sleeps on a shelf in the lobby) directs us to were to catch it from.
One comes along a few minutes later (355 - thank God we can read Arabic numerals: proper Arabic numerals, as opposed to what we call "Arabic numerals", which the Arabs don't use) and we wave it down in local fashion and hop in. It's a big air-conditioned coach with darkened windows, costs about 22p/$0.37 and takes a little over half an hour to do the journey (actually it seems longer, but only because we're having an argument by the time we board). The route is out the centre, over the Nile, past the zoo and the university and then mostly through residential areas - Cairo has a huge bulge out to the Pyramids, which is the suburb of Giza. I know they have plans to extend the metro out this way, but don't know if it'll go on as far as the Pyramids themselves - damned handy if it does. For now, the bus drops us (we're two of the last three aboard) opposite what looks like a golf course and just down the road from the entrance - the service back apparently starts from just over the road. For the last couple of minutes of the journey, the pyramids (at least, two of them) have been visible from the bus - exactly as they appear on TV, postcards, etc., looming up over the residential blocks of Giza.
First stop is Tourist Information, which turns out not to have a map of the extensive site, but does provide us with a general leaflet on Cairo, in Italian. Super. From there we walk uphill towards the site entrance, with the Great Pyramid of Cheops coming gradually into view. On the way we pass the "stables" of camels and horses, and are of course intercepted by their touts. The deal, they assure us, works like this: firstly, the board of "official" rates is negotiable (we'd assumed that) and secondly, entering the site by horse or camel means we don't have to pay the site entrance fee since they bypass the gate. So, in theory, it can be cheaper doing the Pyramids with them than on foot. We decide that this particular sales line sounds too good to be true and decide not to, on this occasion.
A little up the hill, below the nearest (Great/Cheops/Khufu) Pyramid, is the ticket office ($4; $2 for students - our cheap-looking student cards do the business); then the security gate; and then we're in. We're not the only ones: there seem to be several car/coach parks around the site, and each of them has a whole line of brightly-coloured tour buses. It's 13.35, and the site apparently closes at 17.00. From the gate, it's not much of a climb up to the bottom of the Great Pyramid - at least, we assume it's the Great Pyramid: frankly, it's smaller than we were expecting. Not, in fact, terribly impressive. We set off around it, in case the real Pyramids - the big Pyramids - are hidden round the other side.
On our walk, we're interrupted and accompanied by various camels and their riders, who have difficulty taking "No" or even "Later" as an answer. Their standard offering, now that we've paid and are inside the site, is a ride out to some distant ridge from which there's a good view of all nine (three big and six small, for hangers on) Pyramids: the fact that we haven't really seen one Pyramid yet, and in fact are missing a good look at the nearest due to being pestered by them, is an irony that they're immune to - probably because there's no money in it for them. We get round the other side, without having got on a camel, and confirm that what we just walked around was the Great Pyramid: Chephren's, with its still intact limestone hat, is just in front of us and (between the two) there's a car-park full of tour buses. Well, that's a turn-up for the books: the Pyramids are a lot smaller than we thought. I guess they're still pretty huge for Stone Age monuments, but from all the photos and footage you see, I guess we were expecting them to be huge in a modern sense.
We pass the tour buses and clamber over the remains of Chephren's Mortuary Temple - it's only a few low walls and the rock foundations, now, but it must have been a pretty decent size when it was complete. It's mostly populated by Egyptian visitors, lounging around - they seem to come here to sit still rather than move about. Other inhabitants include soft drinks vendors (they have bottles in buckets of water, which may have been ice this morning, and charge ludicrous prices), a few armed tourist police (some on camels) and more of the over-eager camel riders. Another one accosts us as we clear the corner of Chephren's Pyramid. First we get the nine-Pyramids spiel, then he wants us to take a dramatic photo of him in front of the Pyramid, then he suggests he takes a photo of us with the camel, then he asks for a cigarette, then he gets the camel to kneel down and suggests that Milla try sitting on it.
Me? I'm walking away, on the basis that if he won't leave us then we'll leave him. Milla? Before I know it she's up in the air on top of a camel - before she knows it, I suspect. She's very unhappy - it's very shaky on the way up, and very high, and the guy now has an excuse to ask for money - and she's shouting to get off, and calling for help. She's on the ground again a few seconds later, but neither of us is at all happy - immune, the guy still asks us for baksheesh and then rides away, pissed off. Now, finally, at least 500m from the site entrance, we're on our own and can get a moment to have a good look at the Pyramids.
One thing which surprises me is the construction - I was expecting, considering the supposed perfection of the design and execution, that the building blocks would be pretty regular: but they're not. They're all sorts of shapes, just jumbled together; I guess they figured the whole thing would be covered in limestone facing so no-one would see. They're also too steep, to the point of gravity-defying (at least from certain angles): you keep thinking that bits should be sliding off, and the whole thing should come tumbling down. Other than that, they're kinda pyramidal - not much else to say. We press on, down a slight slope to the Pyramid of Mycerinus that's the smallest of the three, by far, and furthest from the entrance. Not only is it the smallest, but it has the silliest name: Mycerinus (compared with Cheops and Chephren) just doesn't sound like one of the Great Pyramids - more like a South American football player, or a minor Roman provincial governor.
We go up to the entrance (yes, all the Pyramids have entrances, on the north sides) where a tour group is filing inside (yes, apparently you can go inside the Pyramids!). Enquiries reveal that two Pyramids are currently open - Cheops and Mycerinus (one is usually closed for renovation) at the price of 40EP per person per Pyramid - ouch. Even with a 50% student discount, that's pretty steep. We have cutaway diagrams of the insides, which tell us that Mycerinus and Chephren are basically just tunnels: Cheops, on the other hand, has several passages inside. If we're going to go inside one, then it's gotta be Cheops.
Mycerinus, like Cheops, has three little Pyramids along one side for royal relatives. Early theories about the Pyramids being built by masses of slaves seem to have been disproved by text discovered recording payment of hundreds of tons of grain, livestock, beer and so on to vast teams of skilled stonemasons. If that's the case, then by extension the "Queens' Pyramids" were knocked together by an Ancient Egyptian schoolgroup in exchange for 47 cheese sandwiches. They're small, unimpressive and mostly ruined - we walk around them for a while before deciding that since we've reached the edge of the main plateau then we'll carry on into the desert for a bit. The famous Giza Plateau, by the way, is pretty low (for a plateau), though clearly elevated: from it, you can make out the next cluster of pyramids at Abu Sir on the horizon. The plateau does seem to have been enlarged and emphasised by the quarries which provided the stone for the Great Pyramids.
It seems that there used to be a walled enclosure around Mycerinus' Pyramid (possibly around all three), since after descending the slope from the plateau, we pass an intermittently visible wall (only a foot or so high now) which forms a square around the western edge. After that it's just sand - mostly sand full of foot- and hoof-prints: there are 40-50 people, mostly on horse- or camel-back, which is hardly any - it's easy to find a little solitary square in the sands for a cigarette and a gaze back at the Pyramids. Next up, we reckon, we should go and have a look at the Sphinx. Considering that everyone said two hours was enough to see Giza, we've already spent two hours here . . .
We return to Mycerinus' Pyramid, where a guy offers to guide us up to the top (there are signs all over, forbidding you to climb the Pyramids - once you've started, though, I don't see what the tourist police can do . . . except shoot you). Other guys offer to show us "special" tombs, or statues, all for a little baksheesh (even when we say no thanks, they still press for baksheesh or cigarettes). We wander about a few tomb-remnants on our own, cut into the rockface below the Pyramids, and then explore what's left of Mycerinus' Mortuary Temple. Like Chephren, Mycerinus had a "Mortuary Temple" on the eastern side of his Pyramid, then a causeway running down from the plateau/escarpment to a "Valley Temple" below. His Mortuary Temple still has a few chambers and walls, though nothing of discernible purpose: and there's a donkey tethered there.
After that, we descend the ridge which used to be his causeway for a while and then cut across to Chephren's more-intact causeway: the space between them is also littered with tombs, mostly behind locked metal gates. You can often look down into the ones that were more built than rock-cut, where the ceilings have along collapsed. And then it's a straight walk down to the Sphinx, which we didn't spot until we were quite close, since it's much smaller and less obvious than we expected. Approached from the back, it has to be said that the Sphinx's head is definitely phallic - for any younger readers, that means it looks like a sort of mushroom.
Access to the Sphinx is limited, unfortunately, to entrance via Chephren's Valley Temple (lockable) - the other sides, including the back, are fenced off. We have to wander round past a congregation of camels and horses: this seems to be where they come when they're off-duty, since there are no tourists around this part of the site. We reach the front just as it's being locked up - even though the site doesn't close until 17.00, they seem to lock up the Sphinx at 16.15 or so. We're back in tourist-land here, suddenly, and there are dozens of hawkers flogging souvenirs (postcards, papyrus bookmarks, guidebooks, alabaster sphinxes and so on): most of these hawkers are 5-10 year old kids.
There are rows of seats (perhaps 1,500) facing the Sphinx/Temple from just up the slope: and behind the seats are a couple of restaurants/cafés: these will presumably be the vantage points for the famous Sound and Light show. Just behind these restaurants is the start of civilisation: yep, the Sphinx is almost suburban. From the Sphinx to the car/coach park is about 100m, and on the other side of the carpark is a little square with KFC/Pizza Hut, a Kodak Express shop and a bunch of souvenir places. It kinda kills the atmosphere a little - Giza would be much more dramatic if it was in the middle of the desert.
We muse that we'll have to come back to Giza to see the inside of at least one of the Pyramids and the Sphinx up close: evidently we should have come earlier and allowed a whole day - it's after 16.30 by now and police, both uniformed and plain-clothes, are shooing people out of the site by blowing shrill whistles at them. Enquiries reveal that the first Sound and Light performance this evening is in English (they do half a dozen languages, and about three performances each day), but it's pretty expensive. We install ourselves in the restaurant for a coffee and to watch sunset (and a couple of donkeys frolicking with a dog on the far side of the car park), but also in the vague hope that we can just hunker down here and see the show for free. The waiters inform us that we can't - they'll be checking tickets later - damn: we figure we'll pay, reluctantly, having come all this way. After our coffee and sunset over the Pyramids (a voice booms out dramatically from loudspeakers around the site as the sun goes down, in English, French and German - we and an English couple sitting nearby have a good chortle), it starts to get pretty cold. The four of us head for KFC to wait there instead. They turn out to be package tourists who got bored with Sharm el-Sheikh and just struck out on their own - excellent! They unfortunately arrived too late at Giza to see anything but the Sphinx.
The hour of the Sound and Light show approaches, and we buy tickets (there is a student discount, though everyone told us there wasn't) and take a table in the restaurant. And then off it goes - supposedly narrated by the Sphinx, in a booming and melodramatic style (all about the endless sands, and the shadow of time and stuff like that), it gives a bit of history and relates a number of episodes and myths connected with the site and Egyptian history in general. The narration is accompanied by narrow beams which draw explanatory diagrams on the Great Pyramid and the front of Chephren's Valley Temple, and the various Pyramids are lit up in various colours at various times throughout. The volume of the narration is such that I wouldn't like to live within a mile of the place. Overall, we agree that it's really cheesy - like Disney Does Giza, in the worst way possible. Of interest is the pronunciation "Geezay" (on the bus it was "Geezeh"), and the supposed Arab saying "All men fear Time, but Time fears the Sphinx", which is kinda stylish because the Sphinx has proved amazingly entropy-resistant.
We stayed for the start of the French version (all the waiters switched from English to French as well), which sounded much more romantic, and then split. Liam and Stephanie had arranged a taxi back, though it seemed to have got someone else and left: instead we found a tiny little Fiat taxi, who's driver claimed to be standing in for his friend (a line which presumably often works). We think the agreed rate is too steep, but they're paying, so we hop in. It turned out to be an interesting ride, along the canal and then on the fast multi-lane ringroad and finally cutting back into Downtown. All of this was accomplished in a vehicle with apparently no suspension, no headlights and a top speed of about 5mph (slower uphill). To add excitement, as we crawl round the ringroad flanked by fast-moving vehicles sounding their horns at us, our driver casually weaves across all the lanes as he tries to communicate with us in broken English.
Eventually, and miraculously, we reach their hotel on Talaat Harb and we wait there (checking prices) while they change - then we set out to find a bar (the one in their hotel was a bit of a rip-off). Looking for a place with beer and nargile ("sheesha" in Egypt) gets us misdirected a couple of times, but eventually we end up in a little bar off one of the pedestrianised lanes that fill the area around Talaat Harb. It's a small, smoky place (they only have tobacco nargile, so we pass) with a closed door and only five or so small tables - it feels a bit shady, half-illegal and badly-lit. Still, we get free salty beans with our beers (it's all a bit too "real" for Stephanie) and chat until 01.00 or so before splitting. As a final gesture, we point them down the wrong street back to their hotel (all the streets off Midan Talaat Harb roundabout look confusingly the same).
Back in the hotel we argue for a bit - amongst other things, I'm beginning to lose interest in seeing all the Egypt stuff that we've come to see (this seems to be happening to me whenever we hit a large city, except Istanbul), especially since it now seems that we're pretty definitely not going to the Sudan. So, Egypt's become a bit of a dead end. And our visit to the Pyramids (no rating yet, if we're gonna go back) was pretty disappointing - all it did was turn my trainers white with the fine, fine sand.

We're not exactly up early, but we're early enough for the hotel's breakfast - a large mug of coffee and a couple of rolls each with cheese or jam: Milla's already started a bag in which to accumulate unused supplies for when times are harder. We eventually set out with the intention of doing a little shopping and perhaps visiting the large Gezira Island in the middle of the Nile - it's supposed to have a couple of tourist-type-attractions on the southern half, and the more upmarket Zamalek district (and, according to Lonely Planet, central Cairo's only real supermarket) at the northern end.
Wandering around Talaat Harb and environs turns up a host of shops which we haven't seen before, but we don't have much success - there are no hardback notebooks to be had anywhere (though we do find a whole street selling nothing but men's trousers). Getting a battery for my watch (the cheap Turkish one lasted less than four months) proves to be easy and cheap; we also pick up a bunch of newly-developed films (Jordan and Dahab) and some prints off the first film - the prints are on nice paper, but covered in little hairs and spots. For the next batch, we'll find another photo shop which'll take a bit more care.
Most photo shops we see in Cairo seem to be primarily concerned with digitally-"enhanced" wedding photograph rather than good old-fashioned developing and printing. In Jordan, the big thing was tarting you up, taking a number of really artificial '50s poses and then creating some kind of montage with, say, one determined look, one dreamy romantic look and one intellectual look. These were presumably for your grandmother or girlfriend to frame and put beside their bed - or maybe to satisfy narcissistic whims. Here, the idea seems to be to take the standard suit/white dress full-length poses and then cut out the happy couple and superimpose them on some romantic backdrop. Favourites seem to be in large palatial houses, or on luxury cruise-liners, or in extensive parks/gardens, or in front of expensive, flash cars. Often subsidiary images of the couple (together or separate) are splashed around the finished picture - eg. in framed pictures along the wall, or just hazily hanging in space. The results are never convincing (the lighting's always wrong) and have that fuzzy digitally-edited look - the whole thing just looks really tacky (as well is being incomprehensibly pointless). On our various trips, though, we saw several Egyptians taking delivery of such prints - I guess the artificial is highly-valued here.
On a similar theme, there's a shop below the hotel which almost exclusively sells fake-label perfumes, and it's always packed. Locals clearly have their favourite fakes, even though the quality of the product is pretty rubbish and they'd be better buying genuine-label cheap stuff. It's an endless source of amusement to me - as well as Danhell, Benhill and Dublin versions of Dunhill, another great victim is Davidoff's Cool Water, which comes out as Col Water, Cool Winter, Cool Weather and my personal favourite Cool Walter. Other typical examples are Ja'door, Hoop!, Hego Boos, Old Space and that classic from tummy - "tummy girl".
As far as actually buying anything, our trip isn't that successful, so we press on over the bridge by the Ramses Hilton to Gezira Island. Most of the southern half is given over to vegetation and even though most of it's privately owned, it makes a pleasant change to just walk around. We visit the Opera House, a modern replacement for the one that used to stand in Midan Opera - they've got quite a busy programme lined up. It's an okay white Islamic-esque building, set in nice grounds and with related buildings grouped around it (a music college, the music library, and so on). We press north, past an indoors swimming pool (interesting concept, since most of the Arabs we've seen so far swim fully-clothed), up to the 185m/600ft(!) Cairo Tower, a.k.a. Gezira Tower, a.k.a. (rather worryingly) El Borg. We figure that since you can see it from most of Cairo, then you should get great views of most of Cairo from the top. Unfortunately the fairly ugly early-70s-styled Soviet-Egyptian creation is hugely expensive to get into (like $15), even if you only want to buy a coffee at the top.
In shock (the Egyptian Museum is $4, full price), we wander north towards the little Gabalaya Park with built-in aquarium - it turns out to be just closing at 16.00 when we get there (parks in Egypt are infrequently open). Ah well - time to find that supermarket: we wander through the Embassy district. What can you say about Embassies? Well, they're mostly in big old houses, like Embassies everywhere, except the Romanian Embassy which is a large tower-block (they must have looked specially for it): some of the Embassies of little countries, like Ecuador, seem to occupy just one flat - they have their flag hanging from the balcony. Most of the Embassies have armed guards outside, in little huts painted with the country's flag, and all have signage in English as well as Arabic - except the Saudi Embassy, which presumably feels it doesn't need to bother.
We emerge at the site of the supermarket, apparently something of an institution among ex-pats, and find it closed (closed in a very permanent-looking way): there's another supermarket-looking building over the road, but it also seems closed (though at least seems to still be in business). On the basis that evening is approaching, and that we're having a bit of an unsuccessful day all round, we head back east to the hotel. Just before leaving Gezira Island, we spot a large church down a sidestreet: All Saints, it seems to be, and Episcopalian (I think) - the posted list of services covers a bizarre range of languages, including Ethiopian. Inside is spacious and modern with almost-Cubist pictures on the wall, depicting various Biblical scenes in bold primary colours. There's a service going on with black Africans, singing and shouting and being very Pentecostal: we sit and watch for a bit, and then are approached by a strange little Russian Orthodox priest who mistook me for an Orthodox monk (it's the beard and the ponytail that do it). He turns out to have a loathing for Greek Orthodox (they fell out, somehow), and as he chats with Milla he reveals his distress at how small his congregation here is. Ah well - we're just passing through, so we can't help. He also warns of a demonstration in Islamic Cairo, anti-war and anti-Bush/Blair: he comments that their demonstration is pointless, since Bush is so far away. A true man of conscience, then.
We successfully navigate our way back to the hotel and round off the day with another KFC - they're particularly good value in Egypt, though today's wasn't nearly as good as the one at the Pyramids yesterday. And to help compensate for a largely unsuccessful day, we pick up another kilo of baklava from our pastry man.

I'm not feeling at all well this morning, so not a lot happens to start with.
Come the afternoon, we set out to find Khan el-Khalili and this time we take a map with us - we retrace Tuesday's route to Midan Opera and adjacent Midan Ataba, and this time strike further east in a slightly different direction. As on Tuesday, this new route is lined with hundreds of little shops: upholsterers, mini-markets, stationers, electronics goods and so on - all promisingly local goods, rather than tourist souvenir stuff. At the first major junction we come to the Museum of Islamic Art, in a big old building which is currently undergoing restoration (like half of Cairo, it seems) and realise we've taken another wrong road. We zig north a bit, and get ourselves sorted out.
The approach road from Downtown to the Khan is called al-Muski: long and straight, it's mobbed with hundreds of temporary stalls selling socks, plastic goods, souvenir T-shirts, lighters and similar knick-knacks. It's also mobbed with thousands of people, and moving along it at any normal speed is impossible. In most Arabic market areas, the "shop" is usually there primarily to store stuff overnight: when they open, the entire contents are arranged on tables out into the street, so the streets become impossibly narrow. Here, this is probably the worst we've seen - much more than Aleppo or Damascus. At length, having actually been successful inasmuch as we picked up cheap hairbands for me, we reach the junction with Sharia al Muizz al din Allah - according to our map, this marks the south-western corner of the Khan proper, so we strike north onto what should be the main street of gold merchants.
Despite the press of people and the noise level, this is Friday (which we figured would quiet) and a number of the gold/silver shops are closed. Even so, there must be at least forty which are open and offering a wide array of products: it's mostly pretty uninspired stuff with an awful lot of large chunky pieces which are presumably mainly for locals buying their contractual volume of premarital gold. Much of the rest is little trinkets without much craftsmanship involved - hey-ho. Milla has a couple of arguments with vendors over the price of the gold at carious carats, but they seem fairly uniform as far as pricing goes - we resolve to check both the US Dollar gold price and the prices in Romania before venturing this way again.
We have the option of striking north now, towards a dozen tempting mosques and the northern gates of Islamic Cairo, but instead we turn further east into Khan el Khalili proper. It may once have been a regular khan/caravanserai, but now it's a sprawling maze of narrow twisting streets with embedded shops. It's pretty packed here, too, though mostly with tourists. There are a few fringe gold shops, but in the others ethnic tourist stuff starts to predominate - imitation sarcophagi, sphinxes, lots of the inlaid woodwork we saw in Turkey and Syria (it was better there), papyrus, sheesha, and a wide selection of soapstone/alabaster/onyx statuettes, canopic jars, busts, etc.
Getting tired and pissed off, with harassing vendors and shops and shops of basically rubbish, we suddenly emerge at the other side, in a large square bounded by the very holy al-Hussein Mosque (they don't let foreigners in). There are a couple of tour buses here, which helps explain where all the tourists came from, and crowds of locals (it is a mosque, and it is Friday after all). There are a bunch of coffee terrace-cafés facing the square from the Khan side, with waiters leaping out at passers-by and trying to force them into a seat, but they're all charging double the normal going rate in a regular coffee house. We double-back into the Khan, since we spotted a couple of more ancient and venerable coffee houses there, but their pricing is much the same.
At about this point, I snap - it's hot, crowded, filthy (I haven't mentioned the layers of decaying litter in the streets, or the consequent smell), harassment and I don't feel well. I march back out of the Khan (with Milla in my wake), muttering about how the best thing for Cairo would be if they killed all the Egyptians, get back to the hotel and quickly fall asleep.
I resurface enough in the evening for us to nip out for something to eat (a local pita sandwich place) and do a dash of internet time (emails only), before retiring again for a proper night-time sleep.

We're up bright and early for breakfast, and then out: today's target is Old Cairo (also known as Coptic Cairo) - it's on the site of the Roman settlement here, and was long ago incorporated into the modern city established to the north. Apparently it's mostly churches, but since it's neither Friday nor Sunday we reckon today's a good time to visit. There's an easy way to get there, by Metro, but in the spirit of adventure we elect to take the river-bus instead. Its terminus is apparently nearby, on the shore opposite the Television Building which, in turn, is easy to spot because it's about the only building on this shore with a rounded aspect. Sure enough, by simply striking west from the hotel, we soon find ourselves boarding a ludicrously cheap (50 piastres = $0.08 each) little launch.
It's pretty dirty and pretty deserted, this boat - possibly the service is on the point of collapse. We wait for about twenty minutes before it finally decides to leave: they thankfully open the little uncovered back portion before leaving and we move out there. We naturally become the focus of attention for kids who follow us out and then sit and stare at us, occasionally asking where we're from: one brave soul attempts the supposedly-friendly cigarette swap, whereby he offers us his local (revolting Cleopatra) cigarettes in exchange for our decent ones. We decline. That notwithstanding, it's an interesting trip with good views of the Cairo Tower and the various tower-block hotels along the Nile. It's also a good chance to see how filthy the river really is, up close: bags full of garbage float past, clearly just tossed into the river by Cairenes who couldn't be bothered waiting until whatever day the rubbish is collected (assuming it is).
There are a number of stops (on both shores) before we get out just after passing the southern tip of Roda Island, with its Nilometer. Pretty recent to start with (800s), the device/building seems to be mostly an even more modern restoration. We clamber ashore at the indicated stop and head inland: the metro line (above ground at this point) and a major road force us further south before we find a place to cross them - the sites of Old Cairo are apparently close to the metro station, but from the footbridge over the tracks, we can't see any sign of a station.
Ah well.
We weave through some winding streets and quickly come to a more major road which curves uphill away from the Nile. Optimistically following this takes us into a recently-constructed/still-under-construction suburb: it's all low Arab houses, mostly of two stories. There's water and electricity but, as is normal in newly built areas, the roads are unpaved. It's all pretty poor and run-down and we reckon we've come to the wrong place: frankly it all looks too new, if shabby, to be "Old Cairo". Despite this, enquiries for "kaneesa" (church) lead us strangely further into this concrete-and-dirt warren.
After a while, we indeed spot a large church ahead: it's pretty impressive, but new and shiny (and unfinished). It has a high wall all around (for defence?), but we find our way inside into a fairly busy and suddenly clean courtyard: as well as the large church, there's a multi-story complex (which looks like a school) under construction and an old stone watchtower (there seem to be a line of them in this area). After a very civilised toilet stop, we investigate. It turns out that the last Coptic Patriarch was a bit of a hermit who lived in the old tower: we can't figure out if that was after, before or during his Patriarchship (or indeed why people voted for him, if he lived on his own in a tower . . . if, in fact, the Patriarch is voted for). This Kerulo seems to be a saint now, and the church/complex (school? Monastery?) are presumably being built in his honour. We have a quick look in the tower (it seems the thing to do), inspect some of the wide range of memorabilia, and ask for directions to Coptic Cairo. It seems we've gone quite fare wrong, since they direct us back down the hill and further south to the nearest metro station, from which we have to take a train back north for one stop. We leave - Milla picks up a little photo of the ex-Patriarch with a sachet of pot pourri sellotaped to the back.
The metro is clean, quick and easy - all of which is a surprise in Cairo - and the station where we get off is right opposite the sights, though we fail to find a footbridge within the station itself, and end up zig-zagging a bit. We have no idea where we are in relation to the river-bus stop, but figure it's probably embarrassingly close.

The complex of churches and associated buildings is behind a high wall (like the modern church complex we just saw - it's obviously pretty tough being Christian here) and entry from the street is down a flight of steps and under the wall. This is the oldest part of Cairo, developed from the Roman settlement of Babylon-in-Egypt, so its ground level is well below the modern ground level. I was expecting a sort of large courtyard inside with lots of churches in it, but what we actually find is a narrow lane with walled churches off to the sides. We follow the lane to the end and discover that our first church in Coptic Cairo is, in fact, a beautifully-restored synagogue. I'm no expert on synagogues but, much as the one in Sardis was kinda like a proto-church, this one seems very much in the same style as a late Roman/early Byzantine church (it's about 1,000 years old). It's a long basilica hall, with two lengthways rows of columns (topped with Romanesque arches, in banded bi-colour patterns), there's a kind of narthex and, although the altar is hidden behind a screen, I'll bet there's an apse there with stepped seating. The whole interior is covered in inlaid wood, in geometric designs.
Next up is the church of Saints Barbara and Catherine, which has a similar design to the synagogue but is taller: the roof, in fact, is wooden and has birds twittering among the rafters. The apse, lined with shallow shelves, has a short flight of steps up the centre of it. Also of note, in a side-chapel where they like you to remove your shoes to enter, are shrines to saints Barbara, Damiana and Juliana - it's not clear where St. Catherine is worshipped here, though her remains are also supposed to be here somewhere (as well as in Sinai, presumably).
Back towards the entrance is a church to our old friends Sergius ("Abu Serga", apparently) and Bacchus, featuring a nice set of 800-year old icons of the apostles. It seems, so they claim, that Mary, Joseph and Baby Jee stopped here - their whole flight from Herod through Egypt is a big thing here, with numerous stopovers on the Coptic Tourist Trail. The church also has a very high roof and, like the previous church, has a central pulpit in front of the iconostasis. Below the church, and presumably the actual resting place of the holy family, is a little cave with columns (either original or to help support the weight of the church above). Other unusual features here include a four-pillared dome above the altar.
Just along from the church of Sergius and Bacchus we strike north along another lane and apparently off the tourist rail: little houses line the cobbled street, which ends at a little passage opening into a courtyard. There's another old church here which they're doing some work on, and a big, new hall-like church to St. Mary (more like a 1970s public shed, filled with rows of chairs). We double back by a semi-derelict church of St. George - it's old, but is mostly gutted: they're doing some rebuilding/restoration here as well (there's an old tomb next door). Somehow the big old empty shell, wit a wooden frame instead of an iconostasis and a couple of crude images/posters temporarily serving as icons (presumably for those believers dedicated to specifically worshipping here) has more spiritual power than the fancier and more complete ones we've seen so far.
There's one more church to see inside, pretty much opposite the souvenir shop: the Convent of St. George, which has a little garden before the big dull hall that's the main part of the church. At one end of the hall-church is a little two-room chapel with nuns and worshippers sitting around - maybe half a dozen (it's not very large). This chapel contains three items of interest apart from the mostly antique women. Firstly is a 1,000 year old icon which is . . . well, it's an old icon. Secondly are some manacles and chains attached to one wall - apparently these were used to bind St. George, and are also really old: there are a couple of young kids playing with them. Thirdly and most bizarrely is a modern electric icon (seriously) of St. George in traditional pose: when plugged in (Milla shows me), St. George moves his spear-arm back and forward and the dragon jerks a bit, while a line of Christmas lights ripples around the border and the icon plays a tinny monophonic rendition of "Jingle Bells". Since the picture seems to be a copy of one they have elsewhere, and neither of us has ever seen anything like it, is seems horribly likely that they had it made specially.
After seeing that, there's nothing left here except to explore the gift shop, which is mainly expensive upmarket craft-type-stuff, and is more general-Egyptian than specifically Coptic. They have some bizarre larger items like replica Pharaonic statues, thrones and some coffins and sarcophagi (!), which begs the question how people ship such stuff home (and, of course, why).

Back out and up to street level, we press a little south and come to the Monastery (modern, closed buildings with nice gardens) and Church of St. George (who is obviously really big here). The church, up a flight of stairs, is large and circular and strangely baroque-feeling: it's dark, a little worn, in rich colours and becomes Milla's favourite instantly, even though only a small corner is open to the public. Back outside, a little further south and symmetrical to the Church of St. George is the similarly-proportioned Augustus-era tower: it's just foundations now, but once formed part of the Roman fortress at the waterfront (which, clearly, has since moved). Between the church and the tower is the entrance to the Coptic Museum, currently in the middle of extensive re-landscaping.
It's an odd sort of museum - an essentially dull building has been constructed to incorporate ceilings, mosaics, mashrabiyya screens, windows and so on from old Coptic buildings (presumably since demolished). The building has then been filled with all sorts of Coptic exhibits, and much of the text and displays seem almost designed to denigrate Coptic culture and religion. Much attention is given to the development of the Coptic cross from the Ankh (they have several early examples of stone crosses decorated with ankhs, snakes and other hybrid symbolism). Equally, the slide from Isis/Horus to Mary/Jesus is shown (they were often identified as aspects of the same in the early Egyptian church): where else can you see Mary actually suckling Christ, bare-breasted? Also, examples of religious extracts written in Coptic (6th-8th century) are labelled as "Magic Texts".
Conversely, there are more subtle implications at work here as well: the intricate work for which the Mamlukes are known seems to be derived from near-identical Coptic styles. Equally, the intricately inlaid wood (boxes, chairs and so on) for which the whole Middle East is famous also seems to have been a Coptic thing. And the Copts, by the 6th century, were incorporating directional niches in their churches to show people which way to pray (to Jerusalem, we assume) . . .
Throughout, the ceilings (mostly wood and glass) and the window frames (mostly tracery) are excellent. Highlights include a fantastic 5th century wooden lintel from the Hanging Church next door (our next target), various 4th-8th century psalters, long sections of a 3rd or 4th century Gospel according to St. Thomas, and two amazing sets of 10th century miniature icon sets. These, like many of the older icons on display, are much more realistic/less stylised than modern orthodox ones.
Just south of the Coptic Museum is the Hanging Church (an appropriate name for a church in old Babylon, but actually a Church of St. Mary), about the oldest church in Egypt: it was built above one of the Roman city gates (the double nave "hangs" between the two towers) and the church is still above modern street level. The entrance is through a narrow courtyard and then a little corridor with memorabilia and Coptic information on sale - we pick up confirmation that St. Mark was the first Patriarch and that the last Patriarch spent many years as a hermit. After that is a courtyard-come-narthex (possibly the church dates from the transitional phase), and finally the nave - or naves. Apart from some really old icons and a number of relics displayed on red cushions, the principal curiosity here is their (central) pulpit - it stands on thirteen narrow pillars, apparently representing Christ and his apostles. In all, it's not that impressive a church, but it probably gives the best idea of what a good church looked like over 1,500 years ago.
Just around the corner from the church you can see the old Roman gate and section of wall upon which the Hanging Church is built: it's remarkably well-preserved, presumably on account of having had a church built on top of it. The path past the gate leads to the extensive cemetery which, judging from both the impressive tombs and the mix of Egyptian and French surnames, must have been primarily for the wealthiest eighteenth-century Copts. And after that, in the fading light, we simply return to the station and hop on the first passing (cheap) metro train. Actually, just "hopping on" came with problems: we ended up in the first carriage and, about half-way to the next stop, realised that it was for women only! Assisting this realisation were the mix of giggling, stares and hostile looks which we were getting from the other passengers. Milla goes so far as to tell one group of girls to "stop behaving like dogs in heat". One of the other women tells us that we have to move, which we do at the next station - bizarrely it seems that on this train the first two carriages are for women only. The third carriage seems to be for men only (it seems that couples must split up whenever they travel by metro, and reunite at their destination!), but there's an older woman here as well: the main reaction from our fellow travellers is disinterest.

We'd toyed with the idea of seeing St. Mark's remains, apparently in a huge new cathedral in the north of the city, but it's pretty late. Instead, we wrap up the day with a KFC - maybe we'll visit St. Mark later.

Milla started today as if it was going to be one of her Great Sleep days, but in fact forces herself up and then spends the entire day washing clothes. Actually, first she spends a long time playing patience while waiting for the hotel basins (it's one of their washdays as well and one of the staff, whom Milla already dislikes, keeps trying to get the basins back all through the day). Me? I mostly write and shop. I'm getting increasingly pissed off with the way shopkeepers/stallholders insist on talking you through their wares, item by item: it implies that you're actually really stupid and incapable of shopping. It's particularly ridiculous in the case of postcards.
We wrap up the day with KFC (again), which I deliver to the workforce.