11/29/15,
“The Return Journey”
Cairo International Airport, Egypt
After far
too short of a time in Egypt, it is time to go home, and I have to say that I
am relieved. I would have enjoyed some
time in Cairo, but it will be good to get back home. I did what I set out to do. I saw the site of the great Lighthouse of
Alexandria, and I saw the Pyramids of Giza.
There is only one verifiable Wonder of the Ancient World left: the
Colossus of Rhodes. I will go to Rhodes
in 6 months. The Hanging Gardens, if they ever even existed, are now
theorized to have been in what is now Kurdish Iraq, outside of Mosul, not Ancient
Babylon. Herodotus didn’t even mention
them, I don’t think. I will not be going
to Mosul anytime soon, so I assume I will complete my mission in Rhodes.
I will have to be brief, focusing on the
triumphant airport entry, and it has been my tradition to treat the return
journey in its entirety, so I will focus instead on some reflections, saving
the rest for en route. Egypt is a
wondrous place to visit. Take away the
Pyramids and the site of the Lighthouse, and it is not much different from the
rest of the Arab World or even the entire broader region of the Middle East and
the Mediterranean. Each country in the
region has its own flair, and I’d be hard pressed to describe specifically what
makes Egypt unique.
I’d go with the
color scheme, perhaps. White is
missing. Almost everything is shades of
tan and brown, no blue or red, either.
Perhaps this is a legacy of the dessert and the sandstone that was used
to build the Pyramids. Egypt forms an
important part of my cultural identity.
In fact, every spring, we sing songs about our escape from Egypt, and we
drink wine to celebrate how we escaped.
Our ancestors built the Pyramids, allegedly, but we escaped. I wasn’t even thinking about this until last
night and again now, so caught up the grandeur of the construction. It is no wonder that it is a Wonder.
I really want to go to Damascus, and I get
the sense that I would see things there even more wonderful than anything I saw
here outside of the Pyramids, but, unfortunately, that is not an option
now. Maybe in 5 or 10 years, but not
now. I want to go to Baghdad when it is
safe and live out Aladdin: The Experience.
That is not safe, either. Egypt
is safe, for now. I am glad to have
gone, and I would like to return to see the remaining WHS once I can be sure
those parts of the country are safe.
They are not now. The regions by
the borders with Sudan and Libya are not safe.
Sinai is not even close to safe.
It will be day one day. Every
place that is now dangerous will be safe at some point in my lifetime, and some
of the safest places in the world will be dangerous. That’s the way the world works. Baghdad was a very safe place when my father
was my age, but Vietnam was not (if I’m getting my timeline right). Now, it’s the opposite.
I need to board soon, and I’m starving, so I
will briefly wrap up by saying that sometimes the places you think are most
safe, such as Paris, can be just as dangerous as the places you think are
dangerous, such as Egypt. Paris is
familiar, but Egypt is unknown. People
fear the unknown. Reader, never let the
fear of the unknown stop you from doing something you want to do. Ever.
Aboard MS
985, En route CAI-JFK
What is left
to say? I suppose I could consider this
my first true, unguided experience into the Arab world. I have spent enough time in the Arab world
and the rest of the Muslim world to get a sense of the culture, but this is the
first time I have been fully immersed.
When I went to Jordan, I had a taxi pick me up at the border, and I was
guided straight from there to the camp, and I was picked up in the morning by
another guide, who stayed with me the whole day. I just went to three WHS and stopped for
lunch. There was no experience of the
culture.
Later that year I went to
Dubai. I flew into Dubai, and a taxi
took me to Abu Dhabi. The next morning a
driver, not a guide, took me to a few WHS and other sites I wanted to see. I ended up at my hotel in Muscat, the capital
of Oman. The next morning, I flew from
Muscat to Dubai, but I was driven around for most of the day, other than the
time I spent in the mall and at the top of Burj Khalifa. I was so heatstricken that I literally
collapsed at the top of Burj Khalifa. I
then went skiing. I flew home after
that. That trip I was more immersed into
the culture, but I was still sheltered.
I saw the big cities, but I couldn’t really get a feel for their style
of life.
A couple of months later I went
to Iran, which is a Muslim country, even though it is not Arab. I was required to have a guide with me the
whole time, but I got a better feel of the culture that time. We drove between the big cities, and I got
see the small villages in between. We
spent time in plazas and the kind of WHS that were frequented by locals. We took public transportation and walked the
streets. That was new to me. It gave me a sense of their culture, but,
again, I had a guide, and it was not the Arab world.
January 1st I found myself in
Turkey. No guide this time, just a
rental car. Turkey is a far more secular
country than many others in the Middle East, and the culture is very different
accordingly. Yes, I got a great feel of
the Turkish culture and way of life, but that is not Arab, either. A year ago this weekend, I went to India,
which has a significant Muslim population, and the culture and way and life is
very similar to the Middle East. Again,
I had a guide the whole time, but I was definitely able to witness what life is
like in India, even if I wasn’t full immersed.
Just being there was enough.
Now,
this was different. As I mentioned, it
was my first time on my own in the Arab world.
No guides, just a few taxi drivers.
I walked around Alexandria on my own.
I spent almost two hours at a hookah lounge. Perhaps most telling was the train ride from
Alexandria to Cairo. I walked around the
Pyramids on my own, dealt with the hagglers on my own. The camel ride through the village was also
very telling. This was a true experience
with Arab culture, one I had not previously experienced. What shocked me the most is that hagglers
seemed to have learned the same techniques.
I was smart enough not to fall for them, recognizing the tricks they
were using, especially after hearing them more than once.
In Zambia, they used the same tricks too,
different tricks than in Egypt, but each vendor used the same tricks, and, like
an idiot, I kept falling for them. Here
I was wiser. What bothered me most was
when they would try to trick me on the exchange rate. That was insulting. We would agree to one price in Pounds, and
then they’d ask to be paid in Dollars.
However, the dollar amount they wanted was usually four or five times
the proper conversion rate. When I
pointed it out to them, they said I could pay in Pounds, now asking for double
the original price. I stood firm each
time, but I screwed myself over by not having the exact change and having to
round up sometimes.
Along those lines,
that’s another trick they’d pull. We’d
agree to one price, and I’d pull out my banknotes, and there would be a
banknote of a larger denomination on top.
“That’s okay, you can just give that to me” or some variation would be
their reply. Of course they’d be okay
with the larger banknote, but I intended to pay the agreed upon price. Another trick was to tell me I was the first
sale of the day. That elicited no
sympathy from me. A price was a price. I understand the need of people to make a
living by whatever means possible, but I cannot tolerate them doing so
fraudulently. It’s just them telling a
lie here and there, it’s them running an entire business model through
fraud.
The taxi drivers were just as bad
as the vendors, though the local taxi drivers were all right. I didn’t even have to negotiate up
front. A typical taxi ride cost the same
as the starting price on the meter of an NYC taxi. I guess the locals aren’t used to ripping off
tourists. I would have loved to see
Cairo, but, I got the sense it’s just not what it used to be. In fact, they are going to be building a new
capital, anyway. On that note, I will
close and treat the Return Journey in its entirety on my way back from the airport. I’m
really looking forward to some Chinese food for dinner tonight.
En route,
Mohammed’s Jeep, New York
I’m not sure
if that is the proper caption, but it’ll have to do. Yes, I have an Egyptian driver. What are the odds? Anyway, it’s good to be home, and now I can
properly treat the Return Journey. Due
to a combination of various factors, it was 6:50 AM by the time I was in my
Uber to the airport. That meant I would
have to go straight to the airport.
Google Maps said it would be about an hour to the airport, no time to
stop in Cairo. At some point I lit up a
Partagas. Google Maps severely fucked
up. We got there with it still saying
there was 30 minutes left. I could have
stopped at Cairo, easily. I waited
outside to finish my cigar. That fucked
things up further, it being 8:20 AM when I went inside, my flight being at
10:20 AM, and it being questionable if I’d have time for a cigar before I
boarded.
There was quite a process going
through airport security, check-in, and emigration procedures. There was no traditional security checkpoint,
though, just a general scan of my bags before I entered the airport. That was weird. I bought some cigars at duty-free, using up
the last of my Egyptian Pounds. I then
headed to the smoking lounge, but time was tight, so I only lit up my smallest
cigar, an H. Upmann. I could have stayed
longer, wrote more in my entry, since there was quite a line for the proper
security screening before the gate. We
went straight from the security point to the plane. I was starving, but I was told I’d be fed as
soon as we took off. That was good.
I got all situated on the plane and fell
asleep, waking up when food was served.
It was the same dry English-style breakfast I had had just 48 hours
prior. I fell asleep and got a good nap,
waking up in time for lunch. I don’t
know if I slept a little more after lunch or not. Afterwards, I worked on my philosophy
assignment, loving how my new computer folds back with the touch screen to make
highlighting the key points in the book easier.
After I was done with that, I wrote the rest of my reflections. I then watched the movie Big Eyes, which was
kind of good, but it cut off as we made our descent, and I missed the end,
which really bugged me.
We soon landed,
and I got caught up on my social media notifications. It was annoying since, rather than all coming
in at once, each app’s notifications loaded at a different time. I cleared border control with no hassle, and
I saw that the taxi line was atrocious.
The express bus would not there for 20 minutes. I started to open up Uber. A driver offered me a ride. His price was a third more than a taxi. I turned him down. Another driver, Mohammed, offered me a ride
at the same price as a taxi. I
accepted. I had the feeling he’d let me
smoke in the taxi. I was right.
We were soon underway. I called my parents to let them know I was
okay. After I hung up with them,
Mohammed said that he was from Egypt. We
talked a little, and then I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now
close, along with closing out this trip.
Next stop: well, that’s a little confusing. China and Korea, if I can get approval to
take a few days off unpaid at the end of the year. If not, I might switch up the trip a little
and push it back a few days doing Korea first or just do two weekend trips for
each of the holiday weekends at year-end.
Either way, I will not write again until after Christmas, so I’d like to
wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas.
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