Into Egypt: Visiting the Land Where Pharaohs and Their Descendants Once Lived 02

Chapter 02: Salam Alaykum, Egypt, I'm Coming!

(Photos please visit my blog: )

November 15, Still Beijing Time

A day ahead, I wrapped up all the miscellaneous work at the office, forwarding emails and calls to my secretary. It's definitely inconvenient to answer calls, costly too – even worse if it's a telemarketer for insurance. Checking emails is also inconvenient; without a laptop, how could I read them if the local internet cafés have Arabic operating systems? (I once saw an Arabic Windows XP in a joke post about Bin Laden – dizzying.)

Then I started packing:

Clothes: fleece jacket, long-sleeved shirts (sunburn on arms is no good); underwear essential; two pairs of shoes per person – sneakers and slippers (I forgot the slippers later);

Food: considering taste and Islamic dietary restrictions, after consulting with the travel agency, I brought ZZ's signature Wuxi sauce spare ribs, ham sausage, vacuum-packed spiced eggs (only brought 8, later realized I should have brought more), pickled mustard tuber, Qia Qia sunflower seeds, Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa lozenges;

Medicine: cold granules, berberine, antibiotics, Band-Aids, and more importantly – vitamin effervescent tablets. Drop one in mineral water every day – tasty and nutritious~~~.

Camera: We bought two 2GB SD cards, but after a frenzy of shooting, we only used one. The camera is too small, only 5 megapixels, palm-sized. If you don't bring a big-lens camera to Egypt, this one will just have to do for snapshots.

Miscellaneous: COOLING OIL!!!! Must bring plenty. The most fluent Chinese phrase Egyptians say, besides 'hello', is 'cooling oil'!! Also chargers and such. And my book 'Next Stop: Egypt' and my little notebook.

Also, someone in our group brought lots of Chinese gifts for bartering, like handheld fans, brocade shawls, etc. – useful.

At 4 pm, I took a taxi and arrived at the tour group meeting point under the 'China Customs' sign at Exit 6 of Terminal 3 at 5 pm.

Upon arrival, I saw many people already gathered. I casually asked and they said they were going to Egypt – I thought they were our group. But upon chatting, they suddenly said 'We don't have a tour leader,' so I realized they were a different group. Quickly searching, I finally found our group of 20. I handed the tour leader $136 for tips for two people and went through procedures. The tour leader was called Hou Yangyang, tall and slender, warm and beautiful. She said US dollars printed before 2000 are not easily used in Egypt and suggested we exchange money, but the Bank of China at the airport was closed, so we let it be. In the evening, EgyptAir flight MS961 took off at 8 pm, with a stopover in Bangkok. Security went smoothly. Once in the departure lounge, there were duty-free shops, but aside from cigarettes, everything seemed more expensive than outside. A Chinese-style pavilion surrounded by an artificial lake sat among the shops, creating a neither-Chinese-nor-Western 'Chinatown' feel, making one think the silk and giant pandas sold in the nearby stores were just for fooling foreigners.

There was still over an hour before boarding, and XX was hungry. He found a Chinese restaurant called 'Hao Shi Hui' and quickly grabbed a bite. The international departure hall was not as good as the domestic one; domestically, there are many restaurants like KFC, Café de Coral, Ajisen Ramen, all at the same prices as outside. Don't people going abroad eat?

There were three surprises during the trip (both pleasant and unpleasant surprises were called 'surprises' by XX):

The first surprise: When leader Yangyang returned our passports, she did not return our old passports (three in total!). We handed 5 passports to the travel agency, but got back only two – looks like this matter isn't over yet.

Before boarding, I unexpectedly ran into Teacher Wu, who was going to the US for a conference. He was the director of the university's network center for both XX and ZZ (again, XX and ZZ are not classmates! XX is much younger than ZZ, only alumni), and also the former chairman of XX's previous company. I saw him talking to a couple going to Egypt for work; I thought he was also going to Egypt! Fortunately not, he was going to the US for a conference. What a small world~~~

The plane was a 777-200, and EgyptAir's configuration wasn't great – no TV or games on the seats. If I had known, I'd have brought a bound volume of 'Reader's Digest' – 16 hours! The in-flight reading material had lots of Arabic, stringy like lamb kebabs. ZZ pretended to look at it for a while and said, 'So this is also written from left to right?' I leaned over and saw that he was holding it upside down! $%&^^#@&$. Then the third surprise happened: When leaving home, since XX was the sucker who did the final backpack check, he forgot to pack slippers. Looks like I'll have to get some Made-in-Egypt slippers.

After 4.5 hours, the plane stopped in Bangkok for 1 hour. We got off, went to the WC at Bangkok airport, looked at the Thai script that looked like little crickets, then boarded again for the second leg of 9 hours.

At 12:00 Beijing time on November 16, which was 6:00 am Egypt time, we arrived at Cairo Airport. XX had been sleeping all the way – that's XX's superpower. Later in the trip, everyone experienced jet lag, but XX had no problem thanks to his sleeping skill. The plane served three meals, and ZZ ate them all – his superpower is eating. On the second day in Egypt, a lady in our group already called us 'Little Pig and Little Pig's Wife' (one can eat, one can sleep – quite a match).

On the plane, we adjusted our watches to Egypt time. The Egypt tour officially began!~~~

After getting off, the tour leader led us to fill out customs declaration forms and organized everyone to exchange Egyptian pounds. Now 1 US dollar only exchanged for 5.5 Egyptian pounds – had the pound appreciated? ZZ took out a 100-dollar bill from 1996, trying to test the exchange guy's eyesight. The guy pinched the bill for a while and said in English, 'Can you tell~~~? Anyway, I can't.' ZZ didn't catch what~~~ was, but it proved the guy had good eyesight. So he had to exchange a 2003 100-dollar bill instead, then queued for customs. Anyway, after exchanging $100, we queued for an extremely long time. The Egyptian staff sitting in the small windows seemed more jet-lagged than us, moving slowly. Inch by inch, we finally got out at 8:30.

The tour leader took us onto a 54-seat luxury coach (spacious) and we went to a hotel called 'La Pass Ni Ge Wang Guang Guang' (full name forgotten) for a buffet breakfast. The breakfast was plentiful. We met the representative of the local Egyptian ground handling company, a handsome 24-year-old single guy named Mohammed who could speak Chinese. He told us that our local guide was called Nana (not a handsome guy～～ XX was disappointed), waiting for us at our first stop.

After breakfast, the coach headed straight to our first stop: the Egyptian Museum.

From the moment we got off the plane, we sensed the legendary characteristics of the airport avenue – everywhere were soldiers wearing black berets, black coarse wool uniforms, and black combat boots. According to our company rep, Handsome Mo, they were Egypt's unique tourist police, with two common features: each had a small handlebar mustache and each carried an AK-47 submachine gun – as if cloned.

The airport avenue was straight. The first thing that caught our eyes was the giant statue of Ramesses II – I wonder if this one is the real one. The buildings on both sides were not very tall but fairly tidy. According to Handsome Mo, this area housed high officials and dignitaries; President Mubarak's official residence was nearby, so these blocks were full of soldiers in green and black uniforms, police in red hats and white leggings, and the presidential guard in black leather jackets. It was said that when the president went out, the roads were sealed off. I wonder if people catching flights when the president goes out can only pray to Allah.

The car drove along Ramesses Street into the city center, and then we began to see the real city. Looking around, dozens of tall, straight minarets of mosques rose up, making us feel we were in an Islamic world. The other buildings were even more distinctive: except for hotels and restaurants, ordinary houses – whether multi-story or single-story, two or three floors or over a dozen – were almost all bare brick shells without exterior finishing. Some buildings even had only frameworks on the lower floors while upper parts were already walled and inhabited – truly 'castles in the air.' According to the guide, Egyptian families generally decorate the interior with carpets, making it cozy; but the exterior is none of their business, so they save money there. The government handles the unsightly exterior. It's said that once a house is fully completed, taxes are levied, so everyone makes their houses look unfinished. If this were in China, it would be intolerable. Our Party and government place great importance on 'face projects' – like the 'Little Red Cap Project' to add uniform sloping roofs to flat-topped buildings, and alley renovation projects – all to showcase the government's grandeur. Truly, every country is different.

It was rush hour, with people and vehicles bustling about. There were no pedestrian crossings, and pedestrians crossed at will. Cars, buses, horse-drawn carts, donkey carts – all were present. Handsome Mo said that with so many people and vehicles, and with almost everyone not following traffic rules, fender benders happened often. But most Egyptians considered these 'Allah's will,' so despite the chaotic traffic, few people got angry. In a flash, we spotted Chinese-made Chery and Geely cars, which excited everyone.

The taxis were all painted in three sections of white, black, and white, shabby, looking as if they were welded together from different colored cars. They wove through crowds and traffic, and the drivers even had time to stick their heads out and happily wave to us in the luxury coach. Seeing the taxis reminded me of Po from 'Kung Fu Panda,' which I had just watched on the plane.

The Nile River cuts through Cairo, with several bridges spanning it, and large hotels and bars lining the banks. Pedestrians on the roadside all happily greeted us; in the following days, we always encountered waving locals. This might be the Egyptian attitude towards guests of the country's pillar industry – tourism – but I prefer to believe it's their cheerful nature. And seeing their joy, I was quickly infected by it.

When the car reached the Nile, we saw many couples dating by the river. Before coming, I had misunderstandings about Muslim customs, thinking they had arranged marriages and didn't date. Face veiled – how could they date? (They could talk, but only fantasize, no kissing.) Now I know they also have free love. They just don't hug or cohabitate before marriage. You know the 1950s? The way our parents' generation dated is like how Egyptians date now. Except Egyptians don't talk about communist ideals; and they don't have to go to kindergarten to find virgins. On the road, we saw the famous central train station. It's famous because I knew from a book that a statue of Ramesses II once stood there – an absolute treasure! A 3200-year-old stone carving. Later I heard that due to chaotic traffic and air pollution in the square, with unanimous public support, it was moved elsewhere in 2006 (maybe the one we saw outside the airport?), and it's said it will be placed together with a new museum. The move was a big event: Cairo citizens were extremely excited, jumping up and down; they moved it one night in August, and when it arrived, everyone cheered thunderously.

When the car drove along the Nile, we could see in the distance the legendary Cairo Tower on the other side of the river. Cairo Tower is 187 meters tall, the crown of Cairo's thousand minarets. It was founded by the late Egyptian President Nasser and completed in 1961, then the world's tallest reinforced concrete tower. Its exterior features Muslim-style openwork floral patterns. I heard there's a revolving restaurant at the top; eating there probably offers a panoramic view of Cairo – it can't be cheap.

Speaking of the Cairo Tower, after returning to China, ZZ bought a secondhand book in a used bookstore: 'The Cairo Documents' written by Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, then editor-in-chief of Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper. The book mentioned something about the tower: After the secret revolutionary group Free Officers led by Nasser drove out the British and abolished the monarchy to establish the Republic of Egypt in 1952, they elected Naguib as head of state, but Nasser was actually the real power behind the scenes. At that time, Nasser wanted to build a television transmission tower but was troubled by funding. Then his intelligence officers told him that the Americans had given Naguib $3 million, vividly describing that a US agent secretly delivered the money in a large handbag to Naguib's residence and hid it in a safe. Nasser asked Naguib if it was true. Naguib admitted it and explained, 'The US president gave me this money to settle some private affairs.' Nasser angrily accused him of 'taking bribes.' Naturally, with his power and ability, Nasser eventually recovered all the money and used it to build the Cairo Tower. The $3 million made the tower extremely tall and splendid, supposedly to humiliate the Americans. Later in 1954, Naguib was placed under house arrest, Nasser became Prime Minister, and in 1956 he officially became President. I guess for the rest of his life, whenever Naguib saw the Cairo Tower, he would think painfully, 'That was built with my money!'