Cairo Day 3: Shopping at Khan el-Khalili Market

Cairo is a shopping mecca.  Everywhere you go, there are things to buy or, at least, reasons to shell out more money to more people.

We had done a little bit of shopping here and there on our first two days.  In particular, after we visited the pyramids, our guide took us to a perfume factory, a papyrus shop, and a cotton shop.  In the perfume shop, we got to sample all sorts of Egyptian fragrances. I'm not that big on perfume (when the salesperson asked me what scent I wear, I had to say ". . . uh . . . soap"), but it was fun to hear about how perfume is made and smell the pure oil scents. The papyrus shop was the most interesting of the three. There, we were treated to a demonstration of how papyrus is made and told how to distinguish faux papyrus (made from banana leaves) from real papyrus (real papyrus has cross-hatching, whereas on banana paper, the lines go all one way).  The cotton shop had all sorts of things made from Egyptian cotton, from clothes to bed and table linens. At each of these shops, we fulfilled our touristic obligation to buy a few items.

But the third day was dedicated to serious shopping at the famous Khan el-Khalili Market.  This is perhaps the oldest and most famous bazaar in the Middle East. It started in 1382 and is in the Islamic district of Cairo.  Khan el-Khalili draws both tourists and locals. It is a maze of narrow, crowded, alley-like streets lined with shops.  There are a few coffeehouses where tired shoppers can rest and have a drink, and street vendors sell food.

We were warned: "Prices are high; quality is low." Moreover, Khan el-Khalili is known for being a place where buyers and sellers vigorously negotiate prices. Keeping these things in mind, we ventured into the market.

It was kind of like being at a really intense carnival where the carnival workers are all calling to you trying to get you to waste your money on their game. We were bombarded with great offers, like "Egyptian scarves, only 5 pounds." (By the way, 5 Egyptian pounds is equal to about $1 US). But, when we actually tried to buy anything, it was significantly more than 5 pounds.  We paid more than we should have for some things, but got reasonable deals on other things.  For example, we ended up paying 100 pounds (about $20) for a poorly-made Egyptian flag, but I got a great bag for 50 pounds (about $10).

Where we really got ripped off was in a cotton clothing shop.  We had a great time in the shop, but we really let things get away from us and made a few critical errors that, in the end, cost us.  Here's what happened:  I wanted to get an Egyptian shirt. I had been regretting not buying one at the cotton shop we visited the day before, and so when I saw one hanging in a store, I decided to go in and take a look.  That was my first mistake.

I tried on a couple of shirts and decided I wanted the spiffy green one that had attracted my attention to begin with.  So, I asked the salesperson "how much for this shirt."  He didn't answer me.  Instead, he said, "um . . . well . . . let's make sure you don't want anything else because the price will be better for two items."  So, I said "OK," and turned to my family and asked "anyone else want anything?"  That was my second mistake.

Now, he set out to outfit our whole family in Egyptian clothing . . .

We actually had a great time in this store, and were there for quite a long time.  We were served tea with fresh mint, and it was perhaps the best tea I've ever had. When all was said and done, we had selected six items to purchase.

"How much?" I asked.  This time he told me.  He suggested a price of . . . get this . . . 2500 pounds.  That's over 450 US dollars! And, the stuff was not that great.  The original shirt I wanted to buy was made of a thin cotton fabric--about the weight of doctor scrubs--and the seams and edges were not well finished. I should have just said "forget it" right then and walked out.  But, I didn't.  That was my third mistake.

Then, the negotiation began.  Paul and I were trying to negotiate with the salesperson and the owner. That was our fourth mistake: too many people involved in the negotiation.

It quickly became apparent that trying to buy multiple items (mistake number 2 above) was the biggest mistake because this gave them two grounds upon which to negotiate.  In other words, when I went down in price, they suggested removing items, so that I was still, at every price point, paying too much for the items still on the table.  Add to this the general difficulty of trying to do money conversions from Egyptian pounds to Jordanian dinars to  U.S. dollars and back again. In the end, we paid 500 pounds (about $100) for two items.  A complete rip off!!

Oh well, we had a good time and got the full Khan el-Khalili experience!

Morals of the story:  (1) buy one thing at a time; (2) know how much you are willing to spend on that one item and be ready to walk out of the store if they won't take that amount; (3) when you mess up and pay too much, chalk it up to having a good time and get over it! By following #1 and #2, I got my awesome bag for about $10; by violating #1 and #2, I got to learn #3 the hard way.

After the clothing store experience, we were ready for a break at the famous El Fishawy coffeeshop. This popular coffee shop has been in business for over 200 years and has never been closed one day. It is located right in the alley of the souq, so shoppers continue to walk through as you sit and enjoy your drink (no food served here).  Vendors walk through trying to sell everything from fake Rolex watches to single tissues.  We had numerous offers to brush off our shoes, and even one offer to comb off our shoes.

Cairo Day 2: The Great Pyramids

We set out early to see the pyramids and the sphinx, but by the time we got there, it was already hot and smoggy, and there were huge crowds. School groups from all over Egypt come to the pyramids for their field trips. (How awesome would it be to get to go to the pyramids for a school field trip!) But, even though there were what seemed like hundreds of busloads of people there, the area is so huge and expansive that it didn't seem crowded at all--at least not when we were there.

The pyramids and the sphinx were awesome.  It's almost surreal to see them in person. You probably think that since you have seen millions of pictures, you don't need to go see them in person.  Not true. What you need to do is go buy yourself a plane ticket to Cairo and see them for yourself!

The desert area surrounding the pyramids is huge.  But, you can get up close and even climb on and go inside the pyramids. There are several parking lot spots, and some of them are quite close to the pyramids, so not much walking is required to get up close. Or, you can hike up from some of the more remote parking areas--if you really want to walk across the hot, dry, smoggy desert. (You can see the thick smog in the picture.)

Or you can take a camel ride. There were lots of camels lined up waiting to give tourists a lift closer to the pyramids.







After we visited the pyramids and the sphinx, we went to a couple of shops. (I'll have more to say about shopping in Cairo in the post for Day 3.) The shops had a great view of the pyramids.

Then, we visited Muhammad Ali Mosque in the Cairo Citadel. (No, it is not named after the boxer.) Unlike at the mosque we visited the day before, Maggie and I did not have to cover ourselves to enter this one.  It was filled with tourists--from inside and outside of Egypt. Many, many school groups were there.




Maggie was approached numerous times by groups of teenagers asking if they could have their picture with her.  One girl introduced herself in extraordinarily good English and inquired about Maggie's name and nationality and then very politely asked for a photo with Maggie.  We said "sure, where is your camera?" and she replied "no, with her camera!" Apparently, it was exciting just to be in a picture with Maggie, even if she would never even see the picture.  Here is the photo of Maggie with the two Egyptian girls. Some kids just came up and snapped pictures of us with their phones or cameras without even bothering to ask if it was OK or if they could be in the picture with us.

Here are a few more pictures of the Muhammad Ali Mosque.

Stay tuned for Day 3, on which we visited Khan el-Khalili Market.

Cairo Day 1: Old Cairo and Egyptian Museum

Only a couple days after the tragic journal loss, we went to Cairo.  If the Curse of the Wadi Rum Scorpion could be broken anywhere, it was in Cairo.

OK, we didn't go to Cairo only to break the curse--we had already planned the trip in advance--but the timing was right to shed all that bad luck that had been following us around and regain our good luck, ancient Egyptian style.

Cairo was perhaps the most awesome place I've ever visited.  It is a city of contrasts. The city is dirty, dusty, gritty, polluted, over-populated, impoverished, and crumbling.  But, it is also spectacular, mysterious, moving, beautiful, and magnificent. It's ancient but modern, ugly but beautiful, hectic but mesmerizing.

When we arrived, we quickly checked into our Nile-view rooms in the Ramses Hilton . . .

view of the Nile from our hotel room

. . . and immediately set off to explore the city and see the Egyptian Museum.

On the way, we experienced the absolute craziness of driving and walking in Cairo--which occurs simultaneously in a huge tangled mess. Until I went to Cairo, I thought Amman driving was the craziest ever, but Cairo driving made Amman driving seem like taking a country drive on a Sunday afternoon. There were people everywhere: people riding, people walking, people waiting, people sitting, and people standing. People were beside the cars, between the cars, and all around the cars. The cars don't slow down for the people, and the people don't watch out for the cars. Add in some busses, carts, donkeys, and anything else you can think of, and you get an idea of the tangled mess moving in the streets of Cairo. We didn't see anyone get run over, but that was a miracle, it seemed to me, because the people and cars seemed to be in a constant clash in the streets.

Our first stop was in Coptic Cairo to see three churches, a synagogue, and a mosque. My favorite was Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church, which is built on the spot where Mary and Joseph supposedly hid out with baby Jesus to avoid Herod. I looked down into the 10-meter-deep crypt where Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus are said to have rested when they arrived in Egypt. We next visited the Hanging Church (pictured), and then Saint George Greek Orthodox Church.

Then, we visited Ben Ezra Synagogue, which is at the place where the Pharaoh's daughter supposedly pulled Moses out of the Nile.

Next, we visited Mosque of Amr ibn al-'As, which is the oldest mosque in Africa.  We went on Friday, so there was a lot of activity at the mosque while we were there. Maggie and I had to enter through a special door for women; our guide and Paul and Charlie went in the men's door.  We got to the door, took off our shoes, and we each put on one of the special robes to cover our heads and clothing.

We entered the women's side and went into a large open room, which had some benches scattered here and there mostly near the edges. We stood out like two sore thumbs.  Apart from the bright green robes that said "TOURIST" as clearly as if we had been wearing neon signs on our heads, we also didn't know what we were doing--we didn't know where to go or which way to walk.  We were met by curious looks, smiles, and even some laughs from the women there.  A couple of people said "hello," indicating that they identified us as English speakers. There was one group of women sitting in a group listening to another woman who seemed to be giving a sermon (but, of course, it was in Arabic, so we could not understand what she was saying).  Then throughout the rest of the very large room, women were scattered around either talking in small groups or resting on benches or on the floor.  There were some children playing at one end of the large open room. It seemed like, for the most part, there were just a lot of women taking it easy and enjoying rest and conversation with their friends.

The next stop was The Egyptian Museum. When you see this . . .

. . . you know you are in the right place to see awesome stuff. But, you have to actually go there to see it;  there is a strict NO PHOTOGRAPHY policy in this museum. We had to check our cameras outside and were not even permitted to bring them in.  But, . . . we saw a lot of cell phone cameras inside.

This museum was fabulous.  They have so much ancient Egyptian stuff, they don't have a place to put it all. There were stacks of things here and there.  There were boxes marked for shipping to other museums.  There were lots of things right out in the open where you could touch them and really examine the detail, but other things were locked up tightly in cabinets. Everywhere you looked in the museum, there were amazing artifacts from one of the most fascinating periods in human history.

There is a special mummy room in the museum.  This was the most creepy part of the museum because it had the acutal mummies intact and on display.  Some of them still had hair!  One thing I could not  help but notice was that these folks had extraordinarily long toes. The notes about one of the mummies said she had been obese and had bad teeth.  However, the years have been good to her: she is quite thin now and her teeth were all but covered by her upper lip. Perhaps she's one of those rare individuals that looks better after having been dead for a few thousand years; forget all that plastic surgery, just go for mummification! 

King Tut (actually pronounced "toot") himself was in the basement, so we didn't get to see his actual mummified body.  But, we did get to see all his stuff. There is a special King Tut room with his mask, two of his sarcophagi, and a lot of his jewelry and things. This room, along with the mummy room, were the highlights of the museum for me. We got the not-so-brilliant idea for Paul to take an iPhone picture of King Tut's amazing mask and just as he was raising the iPhone toward the cabinet holding the mask, a guard approached Paul.  Holy smoke!  I thought he was going to be hauled off to Egyptian Museum Jail--which could be kinda cool, actually (maybe it's down there in the basement with King Tut and some of the other too-awesome-to-display mummies).  But, no, he just got a stern talking to and he put away his phone for the rest of the day.  We didn't get any pictures.

Throughout the museum, signs and markers explain about Egypt's relentless efforts to reclaim all of the ancient Egyptian artifacts that have found their way into other countries and are being held by other governments, museums, and even private individuals.  For example, the notes accompanying the mummy of Ramesses II indicated that some of his hair and other objects related to his mummified body had appeared for sale on an internet website in France and had been retrieved (and by "retrieved" I do not mean "purchased") by the Egyptian government from the would-be seller.  So, here's a message to all of you people out there hoping to sell your ancient Egyptian artifacts on e-Bay:  don't even think about it! 

That evening we went on a super-tacky Nile dinner cruise. There was a buffet with marginally edible food and terrible wine. There was even a belly dancer and a roving photographer.  It could have been Las Vegas!

We had a great taxi ride back to the hotel.  As frequently happens, when the taxi driver realized we were American, he started playing American music.  This taxi driver started with some Backstreet Boys and moved on to 50 Cent's "Candy Shop." He cranked the music and sang along. The entertainment in the taxi was much better than the entertainment on the boat!

Stay tuned for Day 2, on which we saw the Great Pyramids.