There's a very long story about how we almost didn't make this flight due to the incompetence of Malaysia Airlines, but the end is the best. With little more than an hour until takeoff, Steve had to ride on the back of a motorbike with a man from their operations department to a travel agency's ticket office where he was instructed to buy a ticket for travel on June 1st and guaranteed that it would get us on the plane leaving in an hour. After months of irrational and sketchy travel arrangements, he followed suit and amazingly we made the flight. But to be clear, don't fly this airline!
In Cairo, our first tourist stop was to Islamic Cairo, a section settled around 1000AD known for its beautiful mosques and markets. We powered up with some fast-food falafel (pretty good!) and jumped in one of the cities dilapidated taxis.
Walking around the city, we immediately found the locals to be incredibly friendly and interested in meeting foreigners. They all walk with you for a while, which makes you suspect they want something, but amazingly they generally don't. The men are very touchy and walk arm in arm with each other. The women stay covered and reinforce that this is a pretty serious society, despite how modern it may seem. Traffic laws don't exist and we think of the song 'Walk like an Egyptian' everytime we scurry across a street. The weather is beautiful, not nearly as hot as we'd expected. Everyone says 'Welcome to Egypt', and EVERYONE loves Obama. The only negative side of the city is the practice of bakseesh, in which you have to tip everyone who happens to do any small deed for you. It gets to be a bit ridiculous.
Our first stop in Islamic Cairo was the Mosque of al-Azhi, which is the center of Sunni Islam eduction. The university-mosque was filled with friendly-students (mostly from Egypt, Sudan, and Malaysia) cramming for exams. A man led us around the mosque (this time someone looking for money) on a tour that covered many places we wouldn't have felt comfortable venturing. Lindsey stayed covered up as directed and Steve was ridiculed for not producing any offspring at the age of 27. The man, Saeed, literally thought there was something wrong with Steve and constantly chastised him for the entire tour. We learned a bit about the Muslim architecture and were generally just taken back by our new surroundings.
We got to climb to the top of the minaret for a good view of the mosque and Islamic Cairo.
After getting hassled into making donations to both Saeed and "Allah," we escaped the mosque and headed to the Wikala of al-Ghouri. This complex is the city's best example of a medieval merchant's hotel. The bottom floor would have been used as stables and the upper floors for the merchants. Again the architecture including the wooden screens, marble fountain, and arches were amazing and would still make a great hotel. At night, the venue also hosts whirling dervish dance performances which we hoped to make.
Following this, we headed across the street to one of the biggest bazaars in the Middle East. Khan al-Khalili, which now mainly caters to tourists, dates to the 1300s and is the spot to buy hookahs, gold jewelry, belly dancing outfits, bronze lamps, spices, or just about anything. It was a great change from Buddhas and more Buddhas!
Exhausted from our pace, we stopped for lunch and again devoured some falafel sandwiches. After lunch, we headed to 200 year-old Fishawi's, one of the city's oldest coffee shops. We sipped mint tea aside mostly locals who puffed away at sheeshas. We met some Saudis, one of whom gave Lindsey an incredibly ugly bracelet from a street vendor. It was a great place to relax for a bit.
After tea, we stopped in at Beit as-Suhayami, a stunning example of a 17th century Ottoman house. We loved the wooden screens and intricate ceilings and the numerous "party rooms" throughout with dozens of pillows and low tables. This picture doesn't begin to show you how amazing it would be to live here. Look at the full album to get a better idea by clicking on any picture.
After a day of cramming in tourist sights, we started to crash and took in a four hour nap to adjust to our new time-zone. We headed for a late dinner at what turned out to be a disappointing fast-food style restaurant--we're losing all faith in Lonely Planet food.
At the end of the day we were amazed at everything we'd seen and happy for the new experiences of a different continent. We slept well excited for another two packed days in Cairo.
Be sure to check out the complete picture album and check back soon for day 2 in Cairo.
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