Out and about in Egypt ….. planes, trains and automobiles! Planes brought us here but we have been enjoying a range of transport whilst in Egypt. Road travel seems straightforward enough but in addition to private cars and drivers, the domain of the agencies and rich individuals, most travel around Cairo for us is by foot or by taxi. These are largely small and black and white – well used Fiats and Peugeots mainly but a wide range of types. The drivers are all skilled but impatient and often need some slowing down – we’ve learnt the word for “slower”. I’ve also a command of “go left”, “go right”, “go straight ahead” and “here” – all of which are handy if you have some idea where you are going. The drivers generally have little or no English so you need to be able to converse on their terms a little.

The trick is to wave down a cab, if needed, (mostly you are waving offers away). The procedure is then to announce through the window where you want to go – preferably the suburb and some landmark. If the traffic is very bad in that direction the driver may just drive on or, thinking you a tourist, is likely to take the fare expecting much more than the locals pay. You pay by how far and how long the trip (the meters don’t work). I know the Egyptian rates but am happy to pay around twice that for the privilege of being a foreigner. Ten Egyptian pounds is certainly enough for anywhere around inner Cairo and longer trips might warrant 15 or 20 – the range is therefore $2.50 to $5 Australian – still pretty cheap.

The other curious thing is that you might have hired the cab and be travelling along when at some hold-up someone else will jump in with you and all of a sudden you are share riding.

The taxis at Alexandria, black and yellow, were generally newer and neater than the Cairo taxis, but the process was much the same.

Incidentally, taxis caught from outside hotels are generally dearer so I find it best to check them out before departure to avoid an argument. Drivers will often try to extract a very high fare from the unwitting tourist so it is not unusual to have to be firm with them.

A cheaper form of transport for the locals – not yet tried by me – are the buses and minibuses. Each is incredibly crowded and the larger buses may not fully stop but the locals just jump on anyway. The springs are generally truly “shot” and the buses lean at awkward angles. No real stops, you may imagine that you are standing waiting to cross the road with a bunch of people only to find that a bus pulls up and some hop on while others wait for some other, unidentifiable vehicle

The other means of transport we have used is the Cairo metro, or underground. Not all that extensive in coverage, it is very efficient and mostly modern. Electric trains run every 8 or 10 minutes max. and although sometimes crowded, they are easy to use. The first two carriages are for women only so that makes it less crowded for the girls. The fare, anywhere in the net work, is one pound per trip – less than 25c.

The Alex tram system, which we caught but once, is less efficient, fast and comfortable, but can carry you a long way for 25 piastres. A 25 piastre note is one quarter of a pound and an Australian dollar buys around 4.5 pounds, so a tram trip costs around 8 cents – not bad for public transport.

But just when you think you are mastering public transport, a sobering event. Last Wednesday night we planned to take in the 6.00pm “light and sound show” at the pyramids and to dodge the traffic, we caught the metro to Giza station and caught a cab for “Giza pyramid and sphinx” to make a shorter taxi ride. Seemed straight forward enough although the route was unfamiliar. Unfamiliar until I noticed the Giza zoo, just around the corner from home. We were being taken it seems to the Pyramisa Hotel, not far from the Sheraton near us – we had boomeranged. The driver would not stop or be redirected and even my attempts to draw the pyramids and sphinx (not a bad effort on the run if I do say so myself) led to no more than a knowing and inscrutable smile. We missed the light show and the driver missed a large fare getting only the local rate for such a journey (home).

Last week should be marked down as the “week of the resort”. I had three nights away from Cairo, in two different “resort” areas. One of those twisted ironies, given that Cathy had travelled half way around the world to be here …… still!!

First, I went without her to Ain El Soukhna for a two day workshop. This is a newly developed area with large numbers of villas in gated communities and, at least one, luxury hotel and conference centre. It also has developed a petro-chemical industry in concert – so one drives to the conference centre past refineries. Our hotel included a huge pool, maybe 70 metres long, adjacent to the Red Sea (an even bigger pool). I took a walk to dip my hand in the Red Sea during lunch. Not the peak season for beaches of course, but the water was clear, if cool and the seas calm. With typical Egyptian style, the lawns were immaculate and the sand on the beach scrapped perfectly flat, giving the beach a somewhat manicured appearance.

We travelled from Cairo in a mini bus and returned in a coach – the latter broke down twice on the way home – some form of fan belt broke – so we were delayed for an hour or so and then were caught in the end of week (Thursday night) traffic. Ain El Soukhna is about 90 minutes drive east of Cairo along an excellent toll road through the desert.

Early on Friday morning the three of us left for our private trip to Alexandria by express train. Cathy & Co. had done a great job in my absence and purchased the tickets for the 9:00am express train so we travelled by the underground to Mubarak Station. All went smoothly until we arrived in Alex and disembarked. We battled through a bevy of taxi drivers with their yellow and black charges (Cairo cabs are black and white), fending them off because we had “the map” (Cathy had bought the tourist guide) and the sea was not far off. We reached the sea and turned left heading for the hotels. Eventually it became apparent that we were on the wrong part of the sea front and our short walk took over hour and a half and covered nearly ten kilometres. It seems that the express train stops once in Cairo but twice in Alex and the popular stop is the first one – everyone else alighted so we assumed we were there.

By then, in the actual harbour area, we were ready to take any hotel that we saw but chose the Cecil, a Sofitel hotel. I am sure we paid way too much but we did get the best room in the house and were pleased with a weekend of luxury.

Our room had both a number and a name (the only one with a name on the third floor) – so that must have made some sort of statement. We had a corner room with one set of French doors overlooking a gardened square and the other with an uninterrupted view of the harbour. With such views of the Mediterranean, we thought we had gone to heaven. Particularly lovely was the sandcastle magic of the ancient fort that sits where the even more ancient lighthouse used to stand on Pharos Island, still containing some of the lighthouse stones, and topped (in good sandcastle style), with the delightfully flowing Egyptian flag.

So we had a touristy time at the fort, the foreshore, and the town. We went to the Roman ruins – the Odeum – an ancient amphitheatre, Pompey’s Pillar – a huge and major attraction of Alexandria for centuries that I had forgotten about, the Montaza Palace – now a retreat for the President but surrounded by extensive public gardens, hotels and harbours, and the Bibliotheque. This is the new library. The ancient library of Alexandria was famous for its world-record-breaking store of ancient knowledge. The Egyptians have done a wonderful job of creating a more modern marvel, architecturally imaginative, massive, impressive and beautifully finished. The new Bibliotheque Alexandria is an entirely modern structure, ideally situated next to the university.

The library includes antiquities museums, art galleries, a science museum and a planetarium. We timed the planetarium badly but certainly indulged in all the other delights.

A very full day, a late train (left from the station we were meant to go to originally) and a cold trip back to the hotel saw all three of us elated but exhausted.

My two ladies have had a very busy time of it so far – venturing to new places every day and mastering Cairo’s peculiarities very well. They are having a ball together, and promise me that they have only just begun.

We have also been galloping gourmets, testing every restaurant that I have heard about since I arrived and enjoying them all. The food here is delicious and generally very healthy, leaving us feeling good about eating and probably losing weight at the same time.

Egypt is famous for many things but perhaps not for its wines. Some of the red wine is drinkable enough, but the whites are best left to age, for many, many years – perhaps another 50 or more. On the other hand the beers are really very good to drink and there is no need to seek out foreign beers when Saqqara Gold and Stellar beers are available.

The girls have discovered a shortage of shops that sell makeup suitable for their pale complexions. We did discover that there is one called La Beauté in the neighbouring suburb of Mohandeesen but our first expedition led to an hour walk and no Beauté. Just goes to show that beauty can be just as elusive here as in Australia but we will not retreat from our quest and will try again

So, my sojourn here is now half through – so suddenly in many ways. The silly season approaches as in Brisbane, although it is mostly the Muslim Eid commencing on 30 December and the Coptic Christian Christmas on 7 January. This might yet have its complications for us, certainly for me in terms of work as my contacts are likely to be holidaying for a while.
I trust that your Christmas will be cool – the weather here is quite cold at times now, but we cannot hope for a white Christmas.

It’s just not fair to have a place’s reputation affected by how the observer feels at the time of the “observing”. And so, I should not let my personal (positive) feelings reflect positively on Cairo – but last Saturday was the finest day that I have had here in five weeks. Beautiful blue skies, pretty much clear of haze, perfect temperature, neither hot nor cold, and Cairo just seemed (for Cairo) “peaceful”. Was this only because my world was looking bright in many other ways?

Cathy joined me in Cairo on Saturday and that is just fan-@@@@-tastic! She safely made the long and exhausting journey and is now installed here for a while. Our good friend came with her and she will be with us for a while also – so a double treat. Also, a number of work colleagues have arrived or are about to arrive from Rome, so things are really “bopping” now.

As is the wont of our unpredictable lives, all my plans to meet the two girls from Brisbane at the airport came unravelled at the last moment when I received an invitation to a weekend work meeting that I couldn’t refuse and that coincided with the time Cathy was touching down in Cairo. So I sent a car out from the hotel. They were great and have given us very good treatment.

The other reason that I am “cock-a-hoop” is that the meeting was crucial to my time here and went far better than anticipated. In fact it was all but perfect. This means that the remaining time I have here will be much more productive and I can really see us getting somewhere.

But I still think that the air was clear and the sky was blue by anyone’s measure.

I dined out a bit last week and enjoyed some new experiences. We also visited Khan el-Kahlili bazaar, a popular haunt for the tourists. The bazaar is tourist-centric but still fascinating with a huge network of shops spread out over a large area but with extremely narrow alleyways. There are loads of shishas, scarves, jewellery (variable in quality and cost but including solid gold), brassware, perfumes and ornate perfume bottles, galabyas, and antiques. The most delightful of these are the spice shops with their fragrant aromas and bright colours. The bazaar also includes what I am told is the oldest, continuously operating coffee shop in the world – El Fishawy – variously reputed to be between 300 and 600 years old with continuous service as a coffee shop. How about that! It is a Mecca for tourists who want to boast of a Turkish coffee at El Fishawy’s.

The bazaars or souks are institutions of “haggling”. The process usually goes something like this – “I give you a good price – come in and have a look” or “Where you from?” for every possible answer the inquirer has a cousin who lives there - most commonly for us, Melbourne or Sydney. John Howard might be keen to see Australians taught history, but the geography of the touts in the souks is pretty good. They do get a bit stumped with answers like “Bulgaria” or the “Falkland Islands”. The slightest hesitation to look at something for sale marks you as a “mark”. A machine gun of sales pitches follows until you ask “How much for this?”. Expect to hear an amount that is about three times what you would need to pay. Idle inquiries when you have no intention of buying usually expose something like the true price as you walk away. A series of discount price offers will follow you. But it is a bit hard to pursue the haggling too much because, at any of the prices, most items are cheap.

On the night we went to the souk the shopkeepers seemed in holiday mode with very little banter coming from them and what there was often was just playfulness. Did I previously mention in my blogs that the Egyptians generally have good senses of humour and enjoy a laugh with you? So some of the statements were “Come in here and give me all your money” or “Come, take a look everything is free today”.

Nearby are the more orthodox markets where the day to day necessities are actually bought. The butcher shops with the carcases halved or quartered and hanging on hooks outside. The poulterer who will sell you a chook that you can have a conversation with before you depart and it departs – killed and prepared to your instructions. Tailors, tinkers, interspersed with mobile phone shops to bring one back into the 21st century with a thud.

And always there are young men rushing earnestly with a tray carrying two or three glasses of tea or pots of Turkish coffee. I never see where they come from or end up. They are surely not doing it for exercise but clearly there is some form of cafeteria delivery service near every street corner. Incidentally, the offices here (my office certainly) have cafeterias on site where a range of food s and beverages are provided. A quick phone call with have it delivered to your desk and a bill appears once a week. Better service than most Brisbane office blocks, what!

A long walk along the Corniche on Saturday night to show the newcomers Cairo by night (before they collapsed with jetlag), a day’s outing for them to the oldest of the pyramids, and dinner with a group of 8 on the “Blue Nile” a floating restaurant (or series of restaurants) completed the week.

So, will my bride’s presence distract me from blogging to you? Hopefully not. Maybe I can convince her to contribute her experiences to the Douglas Report.

The streets of Cairo are a very different world to the world that most of us antipodeans are used to. There can be no doubt that here I am somewhere that is delightfully exotic.

So far, in this blog, I guess I have been somewhat “retentive” about the traffic here. But putting the motor vehicles aside for a moment, what is unique to Cairo?

It depends on where you are. I took a long walk on last Friday night (remember that is equivalent to our Saturday night). I walked to the bridge near the Sheraton, across to the island, Zamalek (Zam-mar-leck), past the Opera House and across the second bridge over the Nile to what is referred to as “downtown”. Probably the most notable feature here, apart from some very flash hotels (Nile and Ramses Hiltons, and the Intercontinental), is the imposing presence of the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. A massive pinkish domed structure, it houses the mummies and treasures of the Pharaohs (including Tut Ankh Aman’s trove) that have not been previously plundered from Egypt. It is a work of art in itself that oozes some sort of “Indiana Jones”-like charm. It has a delightful garden at its entrance but a much wider space in front of it is now a vacant construction site. I am told the non-air-conditioned space is hot and not the best for tourists or treasures and a new museum is under way – but it would be sad to see this old institution not being “the” museum.

The downtown area has the feel of being designed to be a London or Paris. It contains a number of road junctions that see six or seven roads coming together, with “pie-slice” buildings fronting these roundabouts, some centred with fez-ed, bronzed “pigeon stands” of clearly famous Egyptians of yesteryear that mean nothing to me. I certainly had the feeling that I was in the central part of a European city.

Downtown is a major shopping centre – some mall-like spaces within buildings but mostly, for Cairo, wide footpaths and shops with windows and entrances that are more familiar to us. These tend to be specialist shops that congregate in areas. So there will be store after store of ladies shoes, then children’s clothing, then menswear. I am assured that the choice of menswear is better than ladies clothes here – and there will be a number of reasons for that. I (again) became a little disoriented in the walk in and took a wrong turn that saw me in the “automotive repairs and parts” area. This had plenty of small shops with various parts, some aligned to just one or two brand names – Fiat, Peugeot etc.

Add to the normal shops, a bevy of temporary stands and of goods laid out on the footpaths and side streets and you have something, a little like our weekend markets, but more essentially Cairo. These small vendors will generally be “themed” also. So you will see laid out an amazing array of headscarves, for instance. Further on, a similarly wide display of bed linen. This is more like the souks or bazaars we have come to expect. I am not sure if these vendors are licensed or if they just set up but they seem a very acceptable part of the fabric of life here.

What do the people look like? Well, they certainly look Egyptian but most of the men are in western-style dress. A smaller proportion will wear the traditional long, loose garment (galabiya – no doubt the wrong spelling), usually along with a scarf tied around the head and/or draped over the shoulders. The fez is no longer in fashion – it is more something that will be worn by a hotel waiter or by a doorman outside a large hotel.

The situation with the women is probably reversed with western dress as we know it relatively rare. In keeping with the notion of modesty, teenage girls and older will wear long dresses and long-sleeved tops covering all but their hands. The vast majority will also wear scarves that cover all of their hair – the hijab. A few, wear the black garments more common in the Arabian Peninsula countries with a veil covering the face except for the eyes, and some also wear black gloves.

So, I presume the ladies clothing shops are obviously restricted in demand for a range of clothing types. The younger women will wear jeans and more trendy clothes so I guess there must be outlets for them.

Again, given the local standards for modest behaviour, there is little affection shown in public between men and women. Young couples walk hand in hand along the Corniche on a Friday night and some will slip an arm on a shoulder or waist but this is regarded as “poor form”. My English-language paper has run a series of articles and letters to the editor about the decline of moral standards. Yet there has been a lengthy and heated debate here about veils on women.

In contrast, for both women and men, rather more affection is shown between same sex friends who will commonly walk along arm in arm or hand in hand. I have not noticed particular greetings between women but men have a range of greetings dependent upon the closeness of the association. Formal meetings between strangers (such as I have) involve a standard “how do you do” and a handshake, much like that in Australia – except the style here is much gentler than in Australia and I have to remind myself not to squeeze “as is my wont”.

You can tell when friends meet because that handshake starts some distance away with the hands coming together from the side with a slap and then a shake. And really good friends, old friends, will greet with kisses. Something like the continental kiss but these tend to be much more audible. Such behaviour is not seen in Australia expect within certain sub-cultures, so it is clearly a difference.

I have mentioned the sweet potato roasters previously but there are also other vendors operating from barrows and stalls. There are sweet corn cookers. There are bread sellers with their puffy loaves on wooden frames, and sellers of what looks rather like a bagel – a ring with a bar across it, all hung out on a frame with wooden “dowels”.

And, of course there is the Nile and the work and entertainment that go on there. The fishers trolling lines behind their small boats as their wives row earnestly; the net fishermen; and the rod fisherman from the banks. And there are all sorts of cruise boats from the very large and permanently parked on the banks to smaller cruise boats with their bright coloured lights and music blaring out. Old-style horse-drawn taxis taut for work beside the Corniche and it is not just tourists who make use of them.

The scene is delightful as the sun sinks over Giza and the lights begin to stand out in the twilight, reflecting from the blackness of the Nile. Add to that the evening call to prayer and you have the quintessential Cairo.

In a week I will be joined by my darling wife and I will be showing her, in person, some of what I have seen on the streets of Cairo.

Sensuous Cairo. I guess we can only appreciate a place through our senses and Cairo is, in most sensual aspects … exotic. My senses continue to be stimulated by strange sights, smells etc. Very different sensations from those that confront me in Brisbane.

So “sight”. With so many people in this large city, and so many cars … largely old cars with worn rings…. it is little wonder that the pollution levels are high. Add to that dust drifting from the deserts and a lack of consistent strong winds to blow it away, and you have a haze over Cairo that ranges from mild to severe. This is really noticeable when you drive back into the city. Clearer (but never pristine) blue skies of the nearby rural areas make way for a brownish-grey fog (smog). But, like all things, you get used to it by and large.

The buildings are unique as well. A lot are apartments. These tend to be quite large and, I am told, generally very well appointed inside, at least in Dokki and Zamalek, but the effort has not been placed on the facades or the entrances. Some have elevators but these are very old, double metal-gated affairs that take me back to my childhood in some of the department stores in Brisbane, elevators manned by lift drivers. (We still have lift drivers in Cairo). I previously mentioned the building style of leaving reinforcing steel exposed from the columns for future building. This is probably a reflection that builders and architects have not shown much interest in outside appearance in general in more recent years.

However, there are lots of delightful old buildings and the embassies are often quite beautiful buildings. There are also lots of wooded squares and boulevards around Dokki. Proud old trees but sadly with “dusty” leaves. I can’t help urging them on to de-tox the air for me. When walking it is a bit hard to appreciate the trees because you really need to keep an eye to the traffic at all times.

One major downside is the litter that “is” Cairo. There are street sweepers but rubbish is just put out on the streets and people think nothing of littering. It wasn’t unusual to see someone littering in Brisbane in the 50s and 60s but these days, in Australia today, if you see someone littering it seems dreadful. We have a different culture here.

“Touch” – well I don’t much touch Cairo, but it touches me. The smog tends to gather in my nostrils and sinuses, and my eyes are constantly red – a combination of the dust and smog and the dryness of the air-conditioning in my hotel room.

“Sounds” are a major attraction of the place. Car horns play a never-ending symphony. It is a thrill for me to walk among people speaking foreign languages and Arabic has a particular appeal. It is a harsh language, often spoken loudly and it can sound aggressive when people are not being aggressive (sometimes they are). The call to prayer (five times a day) is part and parcel of the Middle East and that is no different in predominantly Muslim Cairo despite a strong Coptic Christian influence. I like to hear the call, although in other places the early morning call has awakened me. I never hear it here and generally the mosques are quieter in Cairo than in other places I have been. Egyptians are very keen on music and most taxis and cars will be playing cassette tapes of Arabic music. It always seems to me to have a strong “belly dancing” feel to it but I am sure the locals would have a better appreciation than me of that.

“Tastes” are mostly confined to meal time. I have been opting for fairly bland food by and large – a personal preference – but some Egyptian food can be very spicy. Others are not so spicy and are really very good to eat, leaving you feeling well satiated. Probably the best meal I’ve had here so far was a combination of entrée-like dishes (mezza) at an Egyptian restaurant in Zamalek.

I really like Egyptian bread – very puffy pita bread – with a great taste and smell when served fresh and warm.

Which beings me to “smells”. These unique smells range from shisha pipes – ubiquitous in restaurants and sidewalk coffee shops – to smells of the street. Shisha is a very popular social conduit here. Smokers abound anyway, but shisha smoke tends not to be very acrid and if you have to passively smoke anything, the smoke of shishas – often fragrant with apple tobaccos etc. - is probably the way to go.

While there is no shortage of carbon monoxide on the streets, there are also other gems. Like the sweet potato roaster with his barrow and oven. I pass one every night on my way home and the smell is just great. I am not so keen to eat the products but I do enjoy the smells.

My social life has improved dramatically of late. I went to the pictures to see “Rabbit Proof Fence” at a building in the Opera House complex. This was part of an Australian Embassy film festival. I hadn’t seen it but I enjoyed it immensely. I also had a home cooked meal on Thursday night, generously cooked by a young Dutch chap for his 8 or so friends and couple of old codgers who tagged along. We all went to a 10:00pm session of Casino Royale afterwards. I had not previously seen a Bond movie with so few romantic scenes, but our movie had been trimmed a little for Egypt. An old style, large cinema, the locals seem to converse loudly all the way through. Perhaps that is because they do not need sound, being able to read the sub-titles.

I went on a work social club outing to old Cairo on Saturday. This visited two old Coptic Churches, a Greek Orthodox Cathedral, a Synagogue (one of the two? In Cairo), a Mosque and the Coptic Museum – all fascinating, the museum was probably the highlight. Really excellently set up and some wonderful exhibits. And I met some really nice people.

Perhaps the hardest thing that has confronted me since being here was facing the fact that the Ashes Test in Brisbane was going on without me. I saw an interview with Ricky Ponting after day one, on the Gabba pitch, and I felt quite homesick and thought “I should have been there”. At least I was able to follow the good performances on the TV and net. This seemed like a very one-sided match.

Oh! I should include in “sensuous Cairo” something of the “sixth sense”. By that I mean the knowledge that you are someplace significant. Such history, such contributions to civilisation, such a cradle of humanity. Yet, for instance, the Nile still drifts by as much to my delight as it was, no doubt, to Tut Ankh Amon. I am embarrassed to say that the other night when I went to the Opera House complex I had to walk across the bridge from the west bank to Zamalek – across the Nile. I managed to get half way over before I realised that I was crossing the Nile. I couldn’t help chastising myself that I did not have more awareness, more respect, more reverence for this unique opportunity. Sorry Tut!!!

I am entering my third week in Cairo now and I guess, as familiarity grows, I am getting more relaxed with my unusual life – so far mostly spent between my offices and hotel. Although I have so much to learn, I no longer feel so out of place on the streets.

The friendliness of the people continues to impress me. On the streets, I get no favours. It is “a jungle” out there. By that I mean that it is each to his own when it comes to crossing streets and navigating the footpaths and intersections.

Last week I had occasion to travel by car (driven by experts - not by me) to four separate destinations. The first was to the other side of town to a complex that was built by the Brits in the early 1900s and is a delightful combination of old Edwardian-style buildings and beautiful gardens. The two other excursions took me to other Governorates, to the north and east. There are 27 Governorates in Egypt and they form an important decentralised government somewhat between an Australian state and our local government areas.

Al Qalyubiyah (cal-you-bé-ya) is north of Cairo and situated at the southern end of the Nile delta. Cairo is situated on the Nile but is essentially in the desert. The founding fathers clearly wanted to be near to the fertile delta for its agricultural value but not so near that they would be flooded. Most of the delta is low lying with a high water table. Of course, the pharaohs didn’t have the Aswan High Dam to protect them from some of the effects of flooding. Rural Egypt is quite different to Cairo – but still crowded by Australian standards. No sleepy dogs and empty small town streets here.

The villages tend to coalesce so that you need to be told when leaving one and entering another. Each has its weekly market – different days – so when driving about you will run into a market or two. These are a great hubbub with people, cars, trucks and donkey carts coming from everywhere. Of particular interest to me are the women who go to and from with what seems like large loads on their heads. Some make use of a scarf folded into a doughnut to give a solid base on their heads for their loads. Others just balance a carton or bucket directly onto their heads – and walk with ease apparently unaware of their balancing task. I guess if you’ve done this for years it is a snap.

Building is a bit variable here. Timber is in very short supply but cement, bricks, mortar, mud, and render are readily available and form the basic building media. Even the animal houses tend to be solid walled. It is not unusual to see a poultry house, made of bricks, three stories high.

Our thrill was having a flat tyre at speed when re-entering Cairo, on the freeway. Thankfully a rear tyre that was pointed out to us by an obliging overtaking lorry driver. I was sitting in the back seat on that side and thought I felt a vibration but the road was rough at that point and we were driving with that wheel running along the lane marks (these are for decorative purposes only). Changing a tyre is never much fun but on such a busy freeway was an extra challenge – for the driver. His three passengers looked on appreciatively and the two Arabic speakers no doubt offered words of encouragement.

Incidentally the Government has expressed an intention to ban donkey carts from Cairo. That would probably also take them off the nearby freeways.

The second rural trip was towards Port Said on the Mediterranean – in Ash Sharqiyah Governorate (shark-key-a). This was a longer trip of about four hours all told, including a short period being lost. A major canal (the Ismailia Canal) runs towards Suez from the Nile. Built to enable the Suez Canal to be constructed, it now feeds a major irrigation area. An amazing job is being done of reclaiming the desert with large circular paddocks of crops, on desert sands conditioned with manure etc., and watered by large pivot irrigating systems. Peter Cundall from “Gardening Australia” would be impressed. The fields are large but still harvested by hand – or, at least, by lots and lots of hands.

My final excursion was a private one to visit two farms owned by my Egyptian friend, Karim. These are north-west of Cairo, past the Giza Plateau and off the Alexandria Desert Road. He has large areas of citrus trees, mangoes and table grapes growing on one established farm and another that he is building up. He is also having a house constructed on the new farm. I am sure it will be beautiful when finished. It is spacious and tiled and rendered with exposed rocks facing much of the outer walls. The beauty of the climate is that it practically never rains so there is an ill-defined separation between an outdoor and indoor lifestyle. We came away with a supply of delightful oranges.

I also did some dining out this past weekend. On Friday night, I went with Karim and a group, and on Saturday, with a couple of work colleagues from here. Each was very pleasant and the change from routine was just great.

On a very sad note, two other consultants working here were killed in a car accident in a rural area on last Saturday. Travel by road is a real hazard here and terrible events like this bring the reality of that to the fore.

My time away from Australia is already passing quickly with more than 20% gone already. I am in that strange twilight zone where it is difficult to recall how the past days disappeared so quickly and it seems both a blink and an eternity since I travelled to the Brisbane airport.

My week will be a little different this week. But life has a habit of throwing up surprises, particularly in Egypt, so I will leave open all possibilities. Tell you about it next time.

I have now been a “resident” of Cairo for over a week. But first – my retreat from Rome.

My appointments finished early on the Friday afternoon and I was free to play tourist again. I was keen for a walk, so set off for a four hour “walking tour”. I had been conscious of not having seen the Spanish Steps during our previous visit so, although it was a fair way from my hotel, like a yet to be climbed mountain for the mountaineer, this became a target for me. I walked across the Circus Maximus, walked through the forum, viewed the forum from a vantage point above, and went to the Trevi Fountain. Taking an each way bet and keeping my options open, I threw a very small coin in.

I made it to the Spanish Steps (I walked down them – they were covered with tourists so I couldn’t really see the steps). There I realised how tourism works in Rome, when I was quoted 7 euros (around $11) from a kiosk for a Coke that costs $2.20 in Australia. I walked to St. Peters, and looked at the Pieta again. This was another icon from my art books and is truly magnificent. In fact the Vatican could not fail to impress and St. Peters is awe-inspirng.

I returned to my hotel a little tired but very much stimulated by the sights and sounds of Rome. The weather was changeable in Rome for my visit but clear and sunny on the last two days and pleasant to walk in. But it was very cold – ranging from 0 – 11 degrees Celsius.

Everything has gone smoothly so far, and so was the trip to Cairo. I flew Alitalia this time (all other flights are Emirates). It seemed more like our domestic flights than an international event, and was relatively short at a little over 3 hours. We flew across the “toe of the boot” – near to Calabria, and also over-flew Crete and Alexandria.

Arriving in Cairo I was met by a lady from the hotel who was first in the name-signs queue (before immigration), grabbed my passport and whipped me past everything and everybody. This is fairly valuable because the queues are long and the scene a little frantic when one arrives in Cairo. We beat my luggage to the carousel by 10 minutes. She had a car arranged for me. The drive across Cairo brought back a lot of memories and gave a reality to the notions of traffic and chaos that, although you think you remember them, need to be re-experienced to really be understood.

Maybe the contrast with the serenity of where I stayed in Rome was involved but I was quickly reminded that this is Cairo – it is not neat and it is chaotic. Egypt is a very poor country with a very large population. Like many similar countries, it has a lot of very rich people as well. Cairo is huge with some 8 million living in its boundaries and nearly the same moving in to work each day. The area I am staying in is Dokki – regarded as a good area but quite central and old. It is largely high-rise with narrow streets.

Cairo drivers are very skilled in avoiding one another. If we drove like that in Australia we would quickly become victims of road rage – but, beyond a few shrugs, everyone seems to accept it and squeezing ahead of the car next door seems part of a game.

The footpaths are often un-navigable so people walk along the edges of the roads. The locals are care-free about this and wander all over the road. The rule seems to be that the cars should look out for you. As they approach they sound their horns to let you know they are there. They do the same with every other car they encounter. This makes for a constant cacophony of car horns. Drivers always seem to have one hand on the horn. The other curiosity for us is that at night many prefer to drive with their headlights off.

My walk to work takes about 20 minutes. I have to cross three major roads. This is quite an art because there are no walk lights or crossings. The rule is to make eye contact with the driver and walk in front of the car. In effect, as one walks across there are cars (and buses and trucks) whizzing past in front and behind you. On the first few occasions the term “cheating death” came to mind but surprisingly, I have become used to it and the adrenalin doesn’t even flow any more. The secret is not to do anything “sudden” or unexpected. I did make the mistake of changing direction suddenly without looking and almost had an intimate relationship with a push-bike.

This will be a new experience for me – living in a hotel for three months. It was tempting to find a flat but that carries additional complications that I don’t need. I have pretty much settled down to the life here. Egyptians are very friendly people in general and are gracious to foreigners like me. They are keen to help. English is spoken by many but by a relatively small proportion of the general population. Sadly, my Arabic is non-existent – so there are some problems. This did come to the fore on my first walk home from work – one wrong turn and the language problem meant that I was consistently pointed in the entirely wrong direction. The 20 minute walk became two hours (but I did see a lot of back streets).

I had some button problems and needed some cotton to do some running repairs. I found an old cotton shop on the walk home from work. With a short diversion into a back street and two inquiries, I found the little shop with years of dust on everything, undisturbed by the ancient shop-keeper who hasn’t tidied up for a very long time. His movements about the shop are restricted by the ravages of age and by being unable to find a clear place on the floor to put his feet. But I got my cotton and enjoyed the exercise.

I am not planning to play at being a tourist here, at least not initially but I will regularly post some of my responses to “the report”. So, stay tuned and keep safe and happy.

And so, the odyssey begins ….

This blog commences with my departure from Australia for Egypt. The trip is a work trip but this blog is not about work, but rather the places and people that I encounter….. how I react to them and, I guess, they to me.

I left home at 5:30pm on Tuesday, 31 October 2006. My first stop was Rome where I arrived at my hotel at around 9:30pm on the following day, Brisbane time (12:30pm local). With a 90 minute transit at Dubai, I was 27 hours door to door and just over 24 hours airport to airport. This is not only tiring but says very clearly that, although all roads lead to Rome, we are a long way from this city.

The travel all went very smoothly. This was my seventh trip through Dubai airport in the last 11 months but the place continues to fascinate me. I arrived just as the dawn glow was creeping over the horizon to illuminate the desert haze. This, and a port side window, provided me with a wonderful view of the lights of Muscat and Dubai and the incredible street-light equipped highways that run between them and all over the desert.

My first entry to Dubai airport in December ’05 was stunning – the huge domed terminal full of people from seemingly every nation in the world. Subsequent visits have been less busy but no less interesting. This time we had chaos again – crowds and crowds of people – more westerners than middle-eastern people but moving through the duty free area was a time consuming process.

Our route to Rome passed north from Dubai across the Gulf and over Iran, which we traversed south to north, skirting Iraq. There was a good deal of cloud but the same port side window gave me magnificent views of the very mountainous Iran, showing clear indications of a long history of earthquakes (and of a couple of craters that spoke of visits by extra-terrestrial rocks). But I was really surprised by the extensive snow coverage of the mountains to the north of Iran to southern Turkey. I had expected some snow capped mountains but this was on a massive scale – hundreds of square miles of just pure white snow. Was this the last of the previous winter or the start of this? Maybe a bit of both but a number of towns and villages were nested in the valleys, cropping the flood plains of the rivers that flowed from the melting snows and some of these were adjacent to the snow line. I wondered what the area might look like in a few months time.

The “track was rough” across the Black Sea – only cloud below and an interrupted food service due to “bumps”. Then we flew over the Adriatic and across Italy. Landing in Italy is a very smooth process with an express trip through immigration and customs. A black Mercedes spirited me down the autostrade peaking at 150 km/hr. It might have gone faster but I couldn’t always read the speedo as my eyes were shut for some of the time.

My hotel in Rome is delightful – an old building on the hill adjacent to the Palatine Hill – a few streets back the buildings would look over the Tiber. This is a quiet residential area but only an easy 15 minute walk to the Colosseum. When in Rome … do as all the other tourists do. After a much desired shower and shave, and despite my body telling me that it was actually around midnight, I set off on foot to do some walking.

I walked past Circo Massimo, the Colosseum and forum, past the Monumento a Vittorio Emmanule II. By then I was so far from home that I just followed signs that give no indication of how far. I went on to the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. We had visited all of these in 1997 but, maybe because it was the summer then, everything seemed “bigger”. Except, thankfully, the Pantheon. I had been disappointed in ’97 to see the thing I so much admired in my art texts as a young boy, in a little square with the forecourt being excavated (an archaeological dig) and the unique golden arches of a McDonalds about 30 metres away. Now, no dig, a seemingly bigger piazza and no arches, although it seems from the signs leading to it that Ronald is still active in the area. The multitudes were being entertained by a somewhat extravagantly dressed Germanic marching band (that wasn’t marching but had set up in front of the portico). They played very well but they were a distraction for me to pondering the great antiquity.

In Navona, the Bellini fountain is being restored and the church opposite is scaffolded. The whole of central Rome was crawling with tourists, more that the summer of ’97, yet the weather is a bit ordinary right now – the hotel says it is still a high season.

I was starting to head spin from the jet lag so I took a shortcut home, crossing the Tiber twice via the Garibaldi and Sublicio bridges and buying some Coke and water en route. This area is definitely off the tourist map (perhaps not mentioned in the Dan Brown books) – a relief in many ways. Back at the hotel – no interest in dinner – I hit the sack at 5:30pm (local) and slept like a baby until midnight. I rested until 3:00am and arose to capture the events so far on this text so I can later post it to “thedouglasreport”.

Later this morning, I start the real reason for coming here and will be departing the ancient city in two days time (for an even more ancient city).