Giant teddy bear

I was feeling jet lagged.

I'm certainly not old yet, but there's definitely the feeling of getting older.  Playing contact sports becomes more difficult, recovering from a bender takes longer, and the getting over of jet lag is definitely harder than when I was younger.

I was in Doha.  Well... I was at Hamad International Airport in Doha, waiting for my next flight.  I was off to the South of France to visit my dear friend Maya and her family.  Flying Qatar Airways had provided the best route.  We were arranging a big group meet up, and good fortune meant that Todd was able to get a flight from Indonesia that landed in Doha about an hour before me.  We would be able to fly onto Nice together on the same flight.

I started to walk around the airport to look for Todd.  He couldn't be far away.  The wifi seemed a bit spotty as I struggled to get online so that I could whatsapp him.  I'm really not sure what we did before smart phones became ubiquitous in our lives.

As I walked around, I saw a teddy bear in the distance.

A gigantic teddy bear....

There's something about being sleep deprived when you see these sorts of things.  It messes with your brain a little bit as you question whether or not you are actually seeing a gigantic teddy bear or if instead you have started to lose your mind a bit.  My sense of reality seemed to warp a bit as I stood in front of this gigantic teddy bear.

I eventually found Todd, who was also standing near the giant teddy bear.

I needed to get my mind straight, so we went to get some coffee.  We were in Arabia (technically speaking), so we went to get some Arabic style coffee.  It was nice to be able to pour the coffee from the dallah, something I hadn't done for a few years.  Arabic coffee is prepared differently to in the West and it's much lighter than you would expect.  I find it much closer in taste and consistency to a strong tea.

After a few refreshing cups (paired with some baklava and dates), I immediately felt better.  Soon enough, I would be swapping the dates and coffee for pastries and cafe au laits.

The Emirates

I had been enjoying my time in the Emirates.

It was a very tourist's view I had received, but it was still impressive.  Up close, the development of the city was amazing, particularly given how quickly it had all occurred.

I really liked the fact that even though these were all "modern" constructs, there had been a determined effort made for the Arabic styles to be pushed through as well.  It may have all been a facade, but it still made the building feel like they actually belonged to the region instead of merely having been airlifted in from some Western country.

I sat within the food courts or the cafes inside these buildings, and I drank the coffees and I ate the dates.  There was a feint hint of the experiences I had once had as backpacker, even if only passing.

It wasn't Syria, but it was still nice to be back in the Middle East.

Snow in the desert

This is very silly.

This makes no sense and there's something about being part of this that makes me feel guilty.

But this was still an experience I wanted to try at least once.

I was skiing in the desert.  Not skiing on sand, but actually skiing.  Snow, skis, stocks and everything.

The complex is enormous.  You walk into the middle of the shopping mall and you walk towards a shop front that feels like the front of a large department store.

Of course, it isn't a department store, it's actually the entrance to one of the largest indoor ski fields in the world.

I went inside, paid my money, got my gear and went skiing.

It definitely wasn't the "best", but it was far better than I expected and it was much longer than expected as well.  There were two runs (well.... there was one run that was split in half) and it was a few hundred metres long.  I did my runs and it was enjoyable.  It had been a long time since I had been skiing, the first time I had skied since my knee reconstruction in fact.  Who would have thought that the first time I would ski again would in fact be at a ski centre in the Arabian desert?

At the end of it all, it just felt a bit wrong.  I was pretty much alone skiing, with only the occasional office worker coming in to do a few runs (clearly a European expat longing for home).  It all seemed like an enormous waste that was there purely so that whoever sponsored the project could tell people it was here, rather than for it to actually provide the benefits of skiing.  On top of that, the poor workers inside (who looked to be Indian foreign workers) looked truly miserable in the cold.

After being blinded by the whiteness of the snow, it was extra surreal to be outside again and looking at the endless sands of the desert.

Into the desert

I was tired from the long flight and the early start, but my time was short.  I only had a few days in the UAE and I wanted to see as much of it as possible.

After a lovely wander around the beautiful Shaikh Zayed mosque, Pinar left Nader and myself to go do some chores.  Nader had planned more fun for the both of us without telling me.  I'm generally a fan of surprises (the good ones anyway) so I was happy to go along.

He wanted to give me a true Arabian experience.  This involved first getting decked out in the appropriate clothing.

Once we had all of that sorted, it was off to the desert.

I have often written about my love for the desert and this trip showed me that nothing had changed.  From the moment I walked onto the sands and looked out into the distance, I felt an immediate sense of ease.  Deserts and snowy mountains seem to both share a clean perfection that I love.  There was something so perfectly calming about being out in the openness that completely relaxed me.   What we did was probably the opposite of relaxing though.  Nader had arranged a 4WD expedition across the sand dunes for us. 

We were taken well into the desert and I definitely appreciated being so far from anything man-made.  It helped me to properly see the size of the place, the feel the scope of the desert and where I stood within it.

It was a touristy trip.

But I didn't care.

We were even taken to a small training ground for falcons.

The birds were uniquely beautiful, and the location added to the experience of "authenticity" which was in reality completely missing.  It was a strange paradoxical feeling to be able to embrace the culture I wanted to experience in such a manufactured manner.

Maybe this was just part of my progression and development as a traveler.

I certainly seemed to care less about seeking out what many would consider to be the most "authentic" experience, and was probably far more concerned now with seeking out the most enjoyable experience.

Those things don't need to be mutually exclusive, but there is definitely a time and place for some of the more guided experiences.  They help things along and can give you access to an activity that you simply wouldn't be able to organically achieve.

As I sat on a rug in the middle of the desert, eating rice and chicken, looking up at the stars and drinking tea, I was full of appreciation for where I was.  I was in the desert.  I was in Arabia.  I was with a good friend.  Did it matter at all how I had arrived at the place?

Beautiful people in a beautiful place

It had been a long time since I had been the Middle East.  It had been a long time since I had been able to travel at all.

I had been given the opportunity to take some leave and so I decided I would make the most of it by going to visit friends in some far away places.  I was now in a better financial position than I was when I was younger and so I even made the decision to purchase less direct tickets so I could stop in some other places and visit different people.

The first stop I decided to make was in the Arab gulf.

The United Arab Emirates has done an incredible job at promoting itself as a tourist destination, but I wasn't convinced yet.  My personal love for the Middle East was driven by what I would consider to be the genuine or "real" parts of the region that I had discovered back when I was backpacking.  There was something about the shininess of the UAE which didn't feel completely right.  It felt almost like a theme park version of the places I had grown to love.

Still, I hadn't actually experienced it yet.  I needed to look at it all with my own eyes to be able to make a proper judgement.  This trip would give me the opportunity, and it would also let me see my old friends Nader and Pinar again.  Meeting the two of them had been one of the great (and few) highlights of my trip to Egypt and so if nothing else, it would be amazing to see them again.

I landed early in Abu Dhabi.  So early in fact that there wasn't a chance that they were awake.  I decided to stay in the airport for a little bit to give them time to wake up.  Soon enough, I watched the sun rise over the desert and again felt the rush of comfort knowing that I was back in this part of the world that I loved so much.  I found a taxi and before long I was at their beautiful modern apartment next to the ocean.  The only way I can describe seeing Pinar and Nader again was joyful.  The happy expressions we all had combined with overall excitement is something that continues to encourage me to travel.  Seeing old friends is always an amazing experience.

So now I was in Abu Dhabi.  It seemed like a beautiful place and I was now with my beautiful friends Pinar and Nader.  They wanted to show me some of the most famous sights of Abu Dhabi and so decided to take me straight to see the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.

I had seen a lot of mosques over the years, but this was definitely on a different level.  There was a modern opulence to it that I was completely unfamiliar with.  Everything glistened and the white of the exterior almost glowed in the strong sunlight.  The size of the entire complex was also incredible and the grounds didn't seem to have an end to them.

Once we walked inside, we were given another shock.  The interior was covered with gold and other beautiful jewels.  There was an enormous chandelier that overlooked the prayer floor.

It was all very nice.  It was incredibly impressive.  Yet for all of this opulence and grandeur, it didn't quite impress me in the same way that other mosques had when I was young.  This felt big and it felt a bit manufactured.  It lacked the intricate beauty that was in the mosques I had seen in Turkey and Syria.  Those mosques were near antiques from a time long gone.  This mosque however was a modern construction.  As a modern construction, I couldn't help but think that it was actually overly simplistic for its time.  The real monuments of this era didn't look like this after all, they were the skyscrapers and enormous museums that were down the road.

It was still nice to look at though.

Egypt?

Do I really like the place?

This was a question that I had been asking myself since my first week in the country.  What I knew was that I would be unlikely to ever return.  The country did not give me the joy and excitement that I had hoped for when I first arrived.

The whole country is in a state of almost permanent ruin.  It didn't matter where I went, there was always a prevailing feeling that better times were in the past, which is an astounding thought when you consider the troubles that have been experienced by this country.  Even the new buildings felt tired and slightly run down, as though neglect had managed to seep into their very foundations.  I had been particularly disturbed by my time in the Cairo Museum, where I was shocked to find priceless artefacts slowly falling apart in the display cases and cabinets that were meant to protect them.  Thousands of years in the tombs hadn't been enough to destroy them, but a few decades in these museums would likely see them gone forever.

This was just a part of what was a generally just a poor treatment of people on the whole by this country.  That is an understatement.  It was more than just poor treatment, it was a horrible treatment of people.  Tourists were merely walking sacks of money to be targeted.  Even the locals were subject to an aggressiveness rudeness by those working in the tourism industry.

I could understand the terrible infrastructure in the country either.

For a country so dependent on tourist dollars for survival, I would have assumed that it would have been protective of these dollars.  I would have assumed that it would have done everything necessary to ensure that the tourists were well catered for with adequate infrastructure to support their travels.

This was not the case.

Instead there was a distinct lack of simple transport options.  The accommodation on offer was usually overpriced and of poor quality.  The services being provided almost always second rate.

The entire pharonic link purported to exist between the people of Egypt and its past was also a lie.  This was an Arabic country and the continued insistence that they were the decendents of the Pharoahs was as frustrating as it was tiring.  Many of the ancient locations had been completely forgotten and covered in sand until they had been rediscovered by French and British archaeologists.  To claim that they were an integral part of the culture of the local people did not resonate with any truth.

What surprised and horrified me the most of all was the treatment that tourists were specifically subjected to.

As I have noted time and time again, Egypt is a country that is heavily dependent on tourism.  In fact, to say that it is "dependent" is completely inadequate in describing the complete reliance that the people and economy have on tourist dollars.  It was difficult to find any part of the country that wasn't in some way either directly or indirectly geared towards the servicing of tourist needs.

It was difficult to maintain much respect for a country where an old lady (a tourist) getting robbed elicited little surprise from the girl working at the hostel.  She seemed to be more annoyed that the lady hadn't heeded her advice to be careful than that the lady had been robbed at all.  When such events become common occurrences to the point of indifference, I hold grave concerns for its social structure.

Thankfully, there was one thing that I was able to consistently enjoy throughout my time in Egypt.  The elegantly simple pleasure of being able to sit down and quietly drink a cup of tea.

The less of Egypt I experienced and more of Arabia I found, the happier I seemed to be. 

Food in Egypt

I expected more.  I expected much more.

My memories of the Middle East have always included particularly fond experiences of incredible meals with intense flavours and unique textures.  I had grown to love the food of this region and my tastes had become far more sophisticated as a result of my travels.  The old kebabs I used to savour in high school and which sustained me through my university days were no longer what I considered to be the height of Middle Eastern fare.

Egypt really offered only a shadow of these memories.  It was a dull image compared to the bright and vivid recollections in my mind.  It is definitely unique in its offerings, but it lacked character and quality in what I had come to love.

Almost everywhere I went, there seemed to be one food that just dominated the entire culinary landscape of Egypt.  That dish was kushori.  It was without a doubt the national dish of the country.  This was a dish of rice, macaroni, tomato sauce and fried onions that appears to be almost universally eaten throughout Egypt by every class of Egyptian.  There's nothing wrong with kushori.  I actually quite enjoyed the dish and found myself craving it for dinner most nights as the easiest available option.  However, it was distinctly utilitarian and tasted more Italian than Middle Eastern.  This was unsurprising considering the Italian influence that Egypt once had.

Much like many other experiences in Egypt, it was just not memorable.

Most of the other culinary experiences were the same, with no meals being able to recapture in me the joy I had once had.  I wondered whether it was because I had become so accustomed to foods of the region or whether it was the food itself.  Had I reached a point in my traveling where even one of the most basic and primal of physical experiences, that of taste, had become dulled?

It concerned me.

Instead, I found that it was often not the food or drink itself, but the events surrounding them that I found myself enjoying the most.  Sitting in an old Egyptian bar with other travelers drinking the insipid and tasteless Egyptian beer gave me no end of delight, but it was the noise and atmosphere of the place that I captivated me.  It was the feeling of being in a place and time that no longer fit in with the rest of the country.

Even my morning meals were not immune to this disease of apathy.  I no longer looked forward to the actual food itself, but instead found myself reveling in the wonderful drama of the routine itself.  It was like a perfect procession, with the careful and deliberate actions of the waiters, the settings on the table and the stark white or everything that made the entire event so memorable to me.

I began to find that I was actually seeking out the simple things, for the things that I found comfort in.  I was no longer reveling in my searching for the new and unknown.

My old favourites such as the Arabian pastries were soon providing me more joy than I could have imagined.  The baklava in Egypt was nothing compared to what was available in Turkey, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable.

I found myself returning time and time again to the same gelato store in the middle of Cairo with Emily.  The smooth and creamy dessert was uniquely Italian, yet it had a definite Egyptian twist in the flavours.  I was surprised that could be so happy with this lack of compulsion to explore.  I was content with the familiar.

It seemed to all go back to the kushori.

The dish that was eaten everywhere and by everyone for every meal.  Was my repetitive behaviour merely a reflection of the Egyptian experience that I was meant to have?  Was the lack of exploring a sign that I had actually embraced the nation more closely that I realised?

I cannot be overly critical of everything though.  It wasn't as though the food was bad.  The food was generally good, but it was just that it seemed overly simplistic and bland in comparison to what I wanted.  It was probably a failure of the realities to match my overly lofty expectations that had no doubt grown and expanded in the years since I had last been in the region.

For instance, there were still definite highlights (relatively speaking) to what I was able to eat, such as the poultry and the spinach soup, malokhia.

The soup was nourishing, full of the goodness of all things green.  I was also surprised by just how good a roasted bird the Egyptians can do.

I should probably stop complaining so much.  Expectations can be painful thing.  A burden that destroys the beauty of what is there through the comparison.

A revolutionary place

When I told people I was planning a trip to Egypt, I was usually confronted with looks of horror and disbelief.

I wasn't completely surprised by the reaction.  After all, Egypt had been a frequent topic on the nightly news, and not for the best reasons.

My usual response was to further their shock by telling them that not only was I going to Egypt, but I would also be going for a stroll to the very centre of the revolutionary violence in Tahir Square.

At this point, I was usually greeted with a roll of the eyes and a "whatever".

Most people didn't realise that I wasn't joking though.

Getting to Midan Tahir was far easier than I expected.  I was able to catch the Cairo metro which took me to directly to "Midan Tahir Station".  A very convenient thing to assist me with my all my rioting needs.

It was a relatively quiet day which disappointed me.  I had been hoping there would be a bit more in the way of disturbances.  There was plenty of evidence of the violence and upheaval that had occured, but on the whole it was relatively calm.

After walking through the middle of the square and waving to some of the locals in the tents, I decided that I had seen enough and that I needed a nice cup of tea.

Islamic Cairo

My time in Egypt has changed significantly since I arrived in Cairo.  It's been a positive change.

I correlate this with the move in focus away from Pharonic Egypt and towards Arabic Egypt.  The Egypt that is seen in all the tourist books is a manufactured product.  I could not mentally escape from the Egypt that is a staged creation and it dominated my entire perception of what this country was.  However, the Pharonic history may be a part of the land that is Egypt, but what I had been seeing was a faint echo of what was once there.  There was little evidence to me that Pharonic Egypt had anything to do with the modern political entity that is Egypt or the culture of the people other than as something to be appropriated and sold.  In fact, the more time I spent in Egypt, the more I realised that even the Egyptian people themselves had very little to do with the Pharonic history.  They had barely even known that many of the great monuments I had seen were there, having been covered by sand until they had been excavated by the English and French archaeologists.

The Arabic side of this country was different though.  This was true history of this country as it currently was.  It is the past of the people that is continuing to change and develop through to this day.  This side of Egypt represented the culture of the people and I quickly realised that this was what I had been seeking out in my travels.

Accompanied by my lovely American friend Emily, we started walking through the old part of Cairo, also known as "Islamic Cairo".

It didn't take us very long at all to find some towering heights from which to get some better views.  I tried to climb to the highest level of the tower, but my courage deserted my legs.  I was content with staying at the same level as Emily and taking a photo of her in her corresponding tower.

The buildings in this area were captivating.  They were all still working buildings, but that didn't mean that they weren't jewels from the past.

The intricate patterns and designs on almost every building was the highlight of the Islamic architecture I had seen on the trip.  Every details was a beautiful reminder to me of everything I loved about the Arabic world and the imagery it created.  There is a perfect symmetry to each piece of design.  They all sit together within something greater and yet everything is still so unique even when so crowded.

We continued walking through the streets of Islamic Cairo.  There was a dirtiness and grittiness to the place that added a realism to the surroundings.  Some may recoil at the filth, but once again I found it to be just another wonderful part of this place.

As Emily and continued walking, we encountered a particularly ornate building.  We were welcomed into the building by a friendly custodian who explained to us that we were actually looking at one of the major attractions of Islamic Cairo, the old Ottoman sabil.

The place was a clean water dispensary to the local people, providing a source of clean drinking water to the local community.  The building was decorated in lovely Ottoman designs and Turkish script.  This building made me think of what King Faisal said in the movie Lawrence of Arabia, that centuries ago the city of Cordoba had miles of public housing when London was only a village.  The sibal was like Cordoba for Faisal.  It was a beacon of just how progressive the Islamic world had been so many centuries ago in comparison to their Western counterparts.

Standing inside the cistern of the sibal itself I closed my eyes and listened to Emily singing.  Her voice echoed softly inside the amazing acoustics of the empty space.  There was a soft glow of light that bounced off the walls.  It was hard to believe that this had been here for so long.

We left the sabil and continued our walk.

The number of foreigners began to grow and it was clear that we were now in the truly touristy part of Islamic Cairo.  We had in fact reached the "famous" market known as Khan Al Khalili.

This place was awful.

The touts were in full force and the relatively low number of tourists meant that we were receiving the full attention of touts.  Poor blonde Emily from the American mid-west was receiving some particularly intense attention and I was particularly shocked when a child that looked about 12 ran up to her and started screaming truly filthy expletives at her.  Just lovely.

It seemed to be the nature of Egypt that even the beautiful things were more often than not ruined by the horrific.

Imposingly beautiful

The Cairo skyline is as dominated as it is shadowed by the Citadel.  From most parts of the city, it seems to be visible.  It locates you wherever you are and it is a constant reminder of the militaristic past of this country.

Together with a few people I met at the hostel, we made the journey to the top of the hill.  We flagged the first taxi we could find and told the driver we wanted to go to the Citadel.  The driver said they didn't know where that was.  I found this difficult to believe considering I could see it out the window of the taxi.  We pointed to the Citadel and the driver grunted and began driving in its general direction.

The closer we were to the Citadel, the more I was impressed by its enormity.  It wasn't just a single building, but rather a complex of buildings, centred by the imposing Mohammed Ali Mosque.

The Mohammed Ali Mosque was the first building we went into.  Its size and position drew us towards it (like a gravitational pull really).  It was one of the biggest mosques I had ever seen.

It wasn't particularly beautiful in terms of its decorations.  In fact, it felt relatively utilitarian compared to some of the mosques I had seen over the years.

Yet the sheer size of the place made it impressive.  It was the biggest mosque I had been to for several years.  I craned my neck to look at the detailing on the roof of the dome and for a moment I felt like I was back in the Blue Mosque in Turkey.

We left the mosque and went next door the less famous Al Nasir Muhammad Mosque.

At one point, this mosque had been used as a stable.

It had been constructed in the old Mamaluk style and I couldn't stop looking at the beautiful arches and pillars.

Standing in this mosque I found myself thinking of the old stables in Akko.

My love of this region clearly hadn't been eroded by my poor Egyptian experiences.