Egyptian Hairdressers, Feluccas, and Time with Dad

As you can see from the subject, I have a lot of ground to cover... I'll start with the topic of greatest interest (at least to the maternal fam): I got my hair cut this week. It was a strange but pleasant experience. I went to a really fancy (Egyptian fancy) salon and spa, replete with a doorman, elevator man, and various floors for the different services. Despite the separate floors for women and men, all of the staff on the women's floor were men. The guy who cut my hair was very friendly, but spoke limited English. Unfortunately, my Arabic vocabulary does not yet include words like "trim," "layers," or "bangs." After finding someone to interpret, he got to work on what was maybe my longest haircut ever. In the end, it turned out pretty well (pic forthcoming).

This is one of several times I've had my hair cut in a foreign country without command of the language and, yes, it is nerve-wracking. Nonetheless, as long as one isn't too vain, I highly recommend it; it's one of those small ways to gain real cultural insight. [Right up there with visiting aquariums...]

TRAVEL W/DAD: My dad took a break from retirement to come visit me. We spent 10 days hanging out and touring Egypt. It was a blast. I booked him at the Marriott in Cairo, which was built originally as a palace for the celebrations around the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. We did the usual Cairo sightseeing during out first few days--Giza pyramids and the Egyptian Museum.

The pyramids are an incredible, awe-inspiring sight... but that's about it. There's no real element of design or architecture, beyond their immense size. They were built during the Old Kingdom, approximately 2500 BCE. All of the treasure within was looted many years ago and what little remains has been spread out in museums across the world. The Egyptian Museum is similarly fantastic in terms of size; it's also extremely difficult to navigate. We went with a guide, which helped to put it in context, but we were still looking at about 5,000 years worth of artifacts. The mummies were really neat--they made the preservation of Mao's body look like nothing. The Ancient Egyptians were also into mummifying various animals and household pets, including everything from crocodiles to cats and dogs. Strange.

We also took a day trip to Alexandria. It's only 2.5 hours by train... and it's a bit shorter than that if you get off at the wrong station as we did. However, this was not immediately clear to us, so we spent some time staring cluelessly at a map and trying to dead-reckon our location. After concluding that the sun does in fact rise in the east, we hopped on a tram and made our way into town. The city itself is beautiful, much of it built in the style of its 19th century colonial rulers. We wandered along the corniche to the Citadel and back again; we walked through town and eventually to the Biblotheca Alexandrina. Unfortunately, it's not the original, but instead a modern resurrection and architecturally quite amazing.

The next night we took the overnight train south from Cairo to Upper Egypt... a seeming non sequitur, but the Nile flows north and the geography has been named accordingly. My father loves to travel by train, but I don't think either of us envisioned the experience quite this way; the train itself was reminiscent of something out of the Soviet Union, c. 1950. We woke up in Luxor and, after a brief stop at our cruise ship, had a full day of touring there, including the Valley of the Kings and Queens, Karnak Temple, and Luxor Temple. The pic above is of my dad (um, does he look like a tourist?) at Karnak Temple. We spent the following day cruising to along the Nile toward the locks at Esna. We joined about 30 other cruise ships there, each waiting for its turn to go through the locks. The process took the better part of the day and night, but the weather was beautiful and, fortunately, the shops came to us--since the cruise ships don't dock here anymore, the guys selling assorted souvenirs gotten into the entrepreneurial spirit and now row out to meet the ships. They do business by tossing up the t-shirts, fabrics, and other kitch to the passengers on deck; merchants and tourists then shout back and forth to establish a price, sometimes tossing the item in question back and forth. It's worth noting that the guys are throwing straight up about 30 ft. and are absolutely dead on. Quite entertaining. [Picture above shows this taking place on a neighboring boat.]

The rest of our cruise consisted of ruins and more ruins as we made our way down to Aswan. The temples/tombs are all beautiful, meaningful, etc., but after a while they begin to look the same... and we definitely hit saturation. There's an enormous dam Aswan that prevents the Nile from flooding, but submerged most of the surrounding community, including the homes of hundreds of thousands of Nubians. We also saw the Temple of Philae, which was moved and reconstructed on another site to accommodate the higher waters.

After a day wandering Aswan, we took another night train back to Cairo. We did some shopping, continued to eat well, and visited a few mosques in Islamic Cairo. The trip ended much too soon, but was a great success. Turns out we make pretty good travel companions.

FELUCCAS: (A felucca is a smallish sail boat, similar to a sloop or dhow.) It's a wonderful way to see the Nile, but for this pleasure one must endure the solicitations of dozens of touts along the corniche in Aswan determined to sell you on a ride. The conversations are invariably the same and go something like this--

Felucca guy: Hey mister, madame! You want felucca ride? Felucca very nice, I make you good price.
Dad and/or me: No, thank you. La, shukran.
Felucca guy: Where you from?
At this point, I continue walking while my dad, who turns out to be really pleasant in this sort of situation, continues the conversation.
Dad: We're from America.
Felucca guy: Ahhhh, Amreka! Amreka very good. I make for you special price felucca.
Dad: No, thank you. Have a good afternoon.
The felucca guy then usually repeats some combination of the above; my father continues to wish him well and eventually is able to extricate himself.

About the 34th time this happens, whatever small amount of patience I had for this charade has disappeared...
Felucca guy: Hey mister, madame! You want felucca ride?
Me (not pausing to slow down; probably wearing my don't-mess-with-me face): No, we don't.
Felucca guy: Mister, why she look so mean? Why she not happy? Felucca very good. She be happy on felucca.

Oh poor felucca guy...