Author: Joel

Aswan, Egypt

Aswan, the end of the line

Joel

I’ve now hopped on the train once again to make my way about 4/5 of the way through Egypt to the Sudanese border where I spent the night in the town of Aswan. Aswan is an old trading crossroads with the rest of Africa and you can feel the presence of the rest of the continent much more strongly here. It also happens to be the end of the train line from Cairo.

I spent most of the day yesterday wandering through street markets and visiting some Nubian villages on Elephantine Island in the middle of the Nile River. There is lots of rich color and culture everywhere about. The weather has been warm, dry, and sunny all day, but a bit chilly at night. The Egyptian people seem very warm and friendly towards tourists throughout the country.

I checked out the Nubian Museum in town this morning. It is probably the nicest museum I’ve come across in Egypt. It covers the history of the Nubian people who live from here south into Sudan. The museum was established to showcase a collection of saved relics from the beginning of civilization through the Egyptian period and up through today spanning thousands of years.

The British designed and built the huge Aswan Dam just south of here in hopes of being able to control the annual Nile floods (which also used to fertilize the banks of the river for good farming) in the 1960s. The dam created Lake Nasser, the world’s largest man made lake, and flooded out many ancient ruins. The UN got a number of countries to donate money and expertise in salvaging what they could from the area and showcase it in the Nubian Museum (and probably others).

This afternoon I caught another cheap ferry across the Nile to the West Bank where a number of old tombs were built into the side of a mountain. I spent a few hours exploring the various passage ways and checking out the inside inscriptions and spectacular views back across the river.

Tonight I’m boarding the overnight train for Cairo again, for a few more days of exploring before flying off to Delhi.

Egypt, Luxor

Odd Egyptian Encounter #1: Luxor

Joel

When I first arrived in my remotely located hotel outside of Luxor, I was told they were full and the only available room would cost me extra since it was a little nicer. I was also told they offered meals in their beautiful courtyard. As there was really no other place to eat nearby, I planned to have a snoop around the area, take a nap, and return that evening for dinner. Oddly enough, the full hotel always seemed pretty dead and empty to me, and the courtyard restaurant they claimed they had never seemed too busy either. It must have been another scam, I concluded.

I came out to eat at around 6PM on my first night and found the courtyard deserted. The hotel manager was sitting around and socializing with some of the locals who stopped by for their daily chat. He was very friendly, offered me tea, and proceeded to talk with me in his fractured English. A local taxi driver, obviously friends with the manager, walked in and joined us for tea and conversation. He appeared to be a dead ringer for Libya leader Omar Khadafi, threads and all. A big guy, about my age.

I was told the kitchen wasn’t going to open until after 7PM. When the manager stepped aside for a few moments, the taxi driver said he would be happy to have me over to his place for dinner if I was hungry. Trying to be culturally sensitive to such offers (as I had to be in Fiji) and not wanting to offend, I agreed to accompany him to his house for dinner — putting some weight on the fact that he seemed to be known and trusted around the hotel. My biggest concern, as always, was in getting food poisoning. He seemed thrilled to have a guest and insisted it was all his treat. I figured it would be interesting to experience a middle-eastern meal with a local Egyptian family.

We hopped into his modern taxi van, and he told me he had to run a few errands to make the meal complete. I just waited in the van while he popped into a few neighborhood shops to get chicken, bread, and some drinks. It started to become apparent that he had no family, and that we would be eating alone together. It was getting dark when he turned down a dirt road that led to his home: a mud shack near the border of some agricultural fields. As far as I could tell, there was no one else living around the immediate area.

Needless to say, I was started to feel a bit uncomfortable and a bit vulnerable in such a remote darkened location. I wasn’t even sure how to get back to the hotel. The house was very basic, with cracked mud walls covered in paint, few decorations, and sparse furnishings. He was nice, smoked like a chimney (like all good Egyptians), and desperately tried to communicate with me using his broken English. He told me that he had learned the language from conversing with tourists at the hotel over the years. He seemed thrilled to finally have a visitor at his house and retreated to his kitchen to whip up a meal for us.

He brought out a simple spread of barbecued chicken, a vegetable soup, and flat bread. We would try to talk about things, but it wasn’t always easy to understand what he was trying to say. After eating, he seemed eager to sit down next to me on my side of the table. He told me he wanted to hold my hand while we talked.

Now as odd as that may sound, it is actually quite common to see Egyptian men holding hands and walking arm in arm in Cairo. Nothing is meant of it, but I still didn’t like the idea. Some of the conversation we had also had me a bit concerned. He went on about how he hated women, and didn’t believe men and women should be friends. He told me he was divorced and his wife had moved to Cairo with the kids. He seemed quite bitter towards her. He also mentioned something about having met some married men once. It was hard to decipher what he was saying with his poor English.

My alarm bells were starting to go off, and I began making excuses about how tired I was from not being able to sleep on the overnight train from Cairo the previous night and how I really needed to get back to my hotel room for a good night’s sleep (even though it was only about 7:30PM). He suggested giving me a massage to help me relax. I started insisting that I really needed to get back to my hotel, trying to be nice, but also quite adamant about getting out of there.

He finally complied with my wishes and took me home, but not before insisting on arranging to meet me the next day. Still wanting to be polite, I agreed to allow him to ferry me around the local sites in his taxi. I was very relieved to get out of there, and vowed (to myself) never to return.

After I returned to my hotel room, I quickly paged through my Lonely Planet Guide to dig up the section on homosexuality to see what local customs I should be aware of. While it pointed out that holding hands and walking arm in arm was nothing but a male bonding experience in Egypt, homosexuality was taboo in their culture. However, Egyptians men didn’t consider themselves homosexual if they played the male role in such a same-sex relationship. It is only the passive partner that is considered to be gay. Because of this, it is not unusual for Egyptian men to hit on male tourists. They are safer to approach than members of their own society.

I was never really certain whether this guy was hustling me for romance or hustling me for taxi service, but for the rest of the time I spent in Luxor, I had a very difficult time getting rid of him. He was constantly trying to get me back to his home, and I was constantly making excuses about not going there. He was taxiing me around, as he was doing for other hotel guests, but he was also refusing to charge me any money. “You pay me later”, he would always say — forcing me to arrange another time to meet with him for another taxi ride.

At one point he failed to meet me at an arranged time to transport me to my next chosen tourist attraction. After being twenty minutes overdue, I thought for a moment I was finally free of him and jumped into another taxi. On the way back to the hotel, he managed to spot me in this other cab. He whipped his taxi around, flagged the other taxi driver down, and got into a huge argument in Arabic with him over me — demanding that I was his customer and that he be allowed to transport me the rest of my journey. He was quite upset. It was all very unnerving.

The unfortunate thing about this odd encounter is that it made me feel uncomfortable enough to leave Luxor a bit earlier than I had wanted. I could have easily spent another day in the area touring the fascinating ancient ruins. I finally told him that I was going to go to Aswan, a town further south. I had to assure him I would return a few days later even though I had already booked my train ticket straight back to Cairo from Aswan with no intention of stopping back in Luxor again. This seemed to be the only way I could make a easy break free of him.

When he drove me to the train station on my last day, I pulled him out a generous payment that was more than enough to cover all his taxi service and the meal he fed me. He seemed very pleased and quickly tucked that cash into his wallet without any hesitation and with no suggestion of giving me back any change.

The experience left me wondering… he was probably one of the world’s greatest hustlers — but I will never quite be sure what exactly he was hustling me for!

Egypt, Luxor

The tranquil life along the Nile

Joel

After a long (and mostly sleepless) overnight train ride from Cairo to Luxor (aka Thebes), I hopped into a taxi and made my way to a nice quiet hotel on the west bank of the Nile River. The hotel was right in the middle of an area full of aincient Egyptian ruins and tombs and farm fields still in use today. Originally built by archeologist in the 1920’s, the hotel later became an artists’ retreat. Most people living around this very quiet area are still riding donkeys and working by hand in the fields.

The location was perfect because it was within walking distance of a number of famous temples and tombs. And it was so nice to breath clean desert air again after all the smoking I was forced to do in Cairo. It was really nice to be able to easily walk to Medinat Habu (an old temple built by Ramses III, Hatshepsut, and Tuthmosis III — each adding their own bits) and places like then Valley of the Queens (where Nefertari, Amunherkhepshef, and Khaemwaset were entombed). It was also close by the Ramesseum and the Valley of the Kings (where lots of the Ramses, Tutankhamun, and Tuthmosis III and others were entombed).

It was really amazing to be able to walk around these old, largely reconstructed temples and through these excavated tombs to see the designs and think about what it might have been like those thousands of years ago. Many of the temples were reconstructed from ruins and excavations and most still had huge yards full of pieces that they hadn’t figured out how to put back together again.

Some temples showed signs of ancient vandalism where one king would have the face of a predecessor chiseled out everywhere it appeared throughout a temple. Many of the tombs were very well preserved with bright colors still in existence among the hieroglyphs used. It was also interesting to try to make out the message they were trying to make with their pictures and symbols. The most amazing temple I toured was the massive Temples of Karnak, which ran about 1 mile by 1/2 mile in size, just north of Luxor.

Cairo, Egypt

Pyramid Schemes

Joel

I spent my second afternoon hiking around the Great Pyramids of Giza, just outside of Cairo. I decided to take the interesting route and mix with the locals by hopping on the Cairo subway to Giza, followed by public van transfer (which were for locals, not tourists). The van would pick up any passenger they could fit inside for 1 Egyptian Pound (about US$0.15) and drop them anywhere over a 10km stretch to the base of the pyramids. Everytime the van emptied out, the driver would desperately try to woo new customers. By the end of our jaunt we were riding down dirt lanes and competing with donkeys pulling carts. The locals were very friendly to me throughout the journey. I decided it was fun enough to return to my hostel the same way.

The Pyramids themselves were impressive, but hard to appreciate with all the touts trying to get every last cent out of your pocket. They were clearly on the edge of the desert with sand blowing in to dry out your eyes and mouth. Like the Egyptian Museum, they produce the artifacts, but offer very little additional information.

The hustlers at the Pyramids were much worse than the ones I encountered in Cairo yesterday. I got really upset at one who pretended to work for the administrators of the Pyramids. He asked to see my ticket (as though he were some sort of official), and then directed me into some tombs with a guide. Of course, I knew they were up to something and vowed (to myself) not to fork over any baksheesh (tip). The guide to brought me deep into the tomb was a bit less pushy, so I was about to get out without any problem, but when I abruptly turned away from the “official” and head off on my own he started yelling about his tip. I just kept walking. I later saw tourist police chasing after these guys at every chance, but there just didn’t happen to be any police in the area at the time.

I’ve booked a sleeper cabin on an overnight train along the Nile River to Luxor tomorrow. It’s supposed to be quite the experience, but we’ll see how touristy it is down there. The manager of my hostel is already trying to sell me on reservations for his hotels in Luxor, but I thought I’d better check them out first.

Cairo, Egypt

Hustle City

Joel

After a long day (or two) of travel from Philadelphia to London to Cairo on New Year’s Eve, I was pleased to finally touch down in this very smoggy city just a couple of minutes into 2005. They say breathing the air in Cairo is as bad as smoking four packs of cigarettes a day.

The flight over southern Europe was pretty cool to do on the big party night, with Athens, Greece lit up in spectacular fashion. I was greatly relived find that the reservations I thought I had made were actually still being held for me at 1AM in a nice clean hostel right on a busy square in the center of Cairo. I felt the strong presence of the Middle East from the moment I landed — probably due to the arabic writings and the fine desert silt that seemingly permeated its way into everything I came in contact with. The drivers are the craziest I’ve ever come across with no regard for traffic lights or even cops trying to direct traffic.

I spent my first afternoon at the Egyptian Museum (just a few blocks away from my hostel), where I got to scrutinize all of King Tut’s relics. I also saw lots of famous mummies and endless other artifacts. The museum isn’t really very well presented. There is hardly any information on what you’re looking at available. Just the odd type written note taped inside a glass case.

One of the coolest rooms contained a series of miniature models found in various tombs depicting everyday life thousands of years ago. There were scenes of things like butcher shops that really didn’t look much different from what you’d find in the Third world today. It’s one thing to do an archeological dig and come up with theories about how life was, but it’s another to find actual models available. It was pretty amazing.

I’ve read lots of warnings about touts (hustlers) surrounding the tourist areas here, lying through their teeth about anything — in hopes of getting you into their trinket shops. They always start out very nice and walk along side of you on the street, striking up a casual conversation. It all sounds innocent enough, and you want to be nice to those who are nice to you — but the intermittant conversation always seems to start accelerating until you’re being given the hard sell on something. One guy outside the museum actually had me going for about a minute, pointing me to the wrong end of the museum (as the entrance) and telling me it was closed for prayers for an hour. He told me he worked in the museum on the second floor and sounded somewhat genuine. Of course, the second he tried to direct me across the street to a trinket store I knew he was working for someone. He was not pleased when I finally caught on to him and turned tail back to the main entrance of the museum!

Hawaii, Kauai: The Garden Island, United States

A bit of Oz to finish things off…

Joel

For my final night of camping before hopping a flight to Los Angeles, I chose the driest place on the island — knowing I would probably need to dry out my tent before packing it up. The main perimeter road around Kauai dead-ends at either side of the northwestern Na Pali ranges. One side is very wet (near the YMCA where I camped), and this other side was very dry. In fact, it reminded me a bit of Australia and even had one of the nicest beaches I had come across in Hawaii with broad banks of white sand running for miles along the coast. The drive into this area, known as Polihale State Park, was pretty far off the beaten path. There were miles of dirt roads to traverse to get to the very end of the line where the Na Pali Cliffs started, but it was a very serene place to camp for the night, and my neighboring campers all actually seemed to be travelers themselves. It was a very nice was to spend my last night of camping on the island.

One interesting characteristic of this most western point of the most western inhabited Hawaiian Island was all the secret U.S. government installations. Along the cliff tops and along the sand there were mysterious installations for NASA, the U.S. Military, and the Hawaiian National Guard.

Hawaii, Kauai: The Garden Island, United States

The Dry Side…

Joel

After a number of days dodging rainstorms, I was looking forward to seeing the sunny side of Kauai. I made the long trip half way around the island (about a 45 minute drive) down to Salt Pond Park on a Sunday afternoon. Well I blessed my lucky stars that I didn’t schedule a Friday or Saturday night at this place because it was party city. Sunday afternoon was still pretty busy, party-wise, but things finally simmered down in the late evening as families packed up their celebrations and went home to rest up for the coming workweek.

Salt Pond was a pretty nice little spot with a nice sandy beach and a nice calm surf (something hard to find in Kauai this time of year). Like just about every Hawaiian campground I came across, you were expected to park your car far away from your tent. I suppose this is all part of their efforts at discouraging long-term campers, but I found it a bit unnerving to park in dark isolated places late a night without being able to stay near your car. I had a dream sleeping here about repeated car crashes down the road from my office in a city office building only to wake up and realize I was listening to the sound of the surf crashing just meters from my tent. I think I slept closer to the crashing surf here than anywhere else. High tide must have just missed me by ten feet or so.

Hawaii, Kauai: The Garden Island, United States

Life with Jungle Chickens…

Joel

Not being one to hang around on beaches for very long, I woke up early, packed up my stuff and headed up into Kokee State Park for a day of muddy hiking and exploring. I have to say that up until this point, I was not all that impressed with Kauai. I hadn’t really seen anything on Kauai that I hadn’t already seen on The Big Island. Kokee State Park was definitely different, and really quite spectacular. 4000 feet up in a rain forest, Kokee State Park had lots of nice hiking trails, a grand canyon, and a spectacular view out over The Kalalau Valley, where the Na Pali Trail ends up.

Although the canyon wasn’t nearly as big as the Grand Canyon in Arizona, it was much greener and very beautiful. And while the region was known for its persistent rain, I happened to luck out and see the Na Pali cliffs overlook with anything but deep blue sky. This place even had really nice individual campsites, carved out of the rainforest undergrowth. The only problem I ran into was with the jungle chickens and roosters (known as Moa) that insisted on cock-a-doodle-doing all night long. The Moa were introduced by Polynesian visitors ions ago and have been removed from all the other Hawaiian Islands but this one.

Hawaii, Kauai: The Garden Island, United States

Bali Hai…

Joel

Spending a few nights in Kapaa allowed me to get the rest of my accommodation organized for my week on Kauai. I did my research before descending on this place and learned that camping was really the only option for budget accommodation. And like The Big Island, the state and county (island) parks required you know exactly where you want to be and when. I spent my first afternoon cruising around to visit the various beach parks to see what the camping was like. Afterall, the island really isn’t that big.

What I hadn’t anticipated was the amount of rain this place gets. The rainiest point on top of Mount Waialeale averages more 40 feet (12+ meters) of rain a year! And I thought Milford Sound in New Zealand was wet! Fortunately the coastal areas aren’t THAT bad, but they are still very wet on the eastern and northern coasts. My strategy was to camp where it’s wet first so I could use the camping where it’s dry (in the south and west) to dry out my tent before I have to pack it up for another flight.

My first night of camping started out very nice. I found a beautiful spot right on the beach under some pine trees at Anini Beach Park. The swimming was very nice, but as with most of Kauai at this time of the year, the sea was a bit too rough for good clear snorkeling. There was a brief shower after I got my tent set up, but no other precipitation problems until around 6AM. I wouldn’t have minded a downpour overnight while I stayed nice and dry in my tent, but to have an 8 hour downpour start at 6AM is no fun at all — especially when you are expected to pack up your tent and head for your next destination by 10AM.

Having a nice lightweight freestanding tent, I worked out a strategy where I could pull up the stakes that were holding it in place, carry it into the men’s room, and pack it up out of the rain in there. It seemed to work okay and I got the tent and the rest of my gear back in the car. Good for the time being, but the thought of attempting to set the tent pack up in the continuing downpour at a dodgy-looking park didn’t thrill me. I was confined to my driver’s seat, where I tried to read papers and pass the time waiting for the downpour to finish.

And then I remembered something about a YMCA camp being available if it wasn’t hosting any groups. I found the deserted place, knocked on all the doors I could find, and as I was just about give up, a woman came walking across the lawn (in the rain) with her dog. I saw a big pavilion on the far side of the grass on the edge of a beautiful cove and asked whether she’d mind if I pitched my tent under there. It was cool with her and it turned out to be one of the best spots I found to camp on this island. I could set my tent up out of the pouring rain, sprawl out on the picnic tables and read the paper, cook my meals, have lots of privacy, darkness, dryness, and quiet when it came time to sleep. I decided to stay there two nights while I explored the area. It was the perfect spot for the rainy climate.

For my last few days on the northern wet coast, I explored the area around Hanalei, Princeville, Haena (where I camped) and the rainforests of the Na Pali Coast. There was a hike I was hoping to make along the spectacular northern cliffs (known as “Bali Hai” in the movie “South Pacific”), but I was advised by the state park service that it was very slippery, very wet, and closed in many sections due flash flooding. Instead I did some short hikes instead and a bit of snorkeling on Tunnel Beach that turned out to be okay.

Hawaii, Kauai: The Garden Island, United States

The Garden Island…

Joel

After spending a week on Hawaii’s newest island, I hopped a flight from Hilo to Lihue on Hawaii’s oldest and western-most (inhabited) island: Kauai. Kauai is known as “The Garden Island” for its greenness, but all I saw my first few days there was traffic. Kauai is just a fraction of the size of The Big Island with a population of only 58,000, so there aren’t as many places for tourists to spread out. Basically there is just one major road that doesn’t even make it the whole way around the island, and everybody seems to be driving on it. It’s also the wettest place on earth, so there is lots of rain to contend with.

I decided to head up to the town of Kapaa on the east coast as soon as I hit the ground. Although half way up the island on a map, it was actually only 8 miles from Lihue (where I landed), the biggest town on the island. I found a groovy beach house hostel overlooking the ocean in Kapaa. I later realized it was the only hostel worth staying at on the whole island.

On the one hand, the laidback hostel owner, a purported chiropractor (who never seemed to tend to any clients) had done nice job setting the hostel up with mosquito nets and drapes around each of the beds for privacy. There was a nice constant sea breeze flowing through the premises to cool things down in the evening. On the downside, it quickly became apparent that most of the tenants were long term.

Most of the hostels I visited in Hawaii seemed to be deserted, perhaps because of having a restriction on the length of time a visitor could stay. I witnessed two people being kicked out of a HI hostel in Honolulu for overstaying their welcome. This one hostel in Kapaa was about half full, but most of the tenants seemed to have had menial jobs in the area and old clunker cars parked out back. They had no real ambition other than to live in Hawaii. The showers were full of old half-used shampoo bottles, just like you would expect to find in someone’s private bathroom. These are the kinds of things you wouldn’t find in most hostels. And the long-term tenants also seemed a bit flaky. You would ask someone why he or she chose to live on a particular island and they would respond with phrases like, “I didn’t choose this island. It chose me!”

The problem I find with allowing long-term tenants is they’re not interested in what they perceive as transient tenants, like myself. They’re only interested in networking with other mainlanders with the same lame ambitions as themselves. The whole fun of staying in hostels is meeting other travelers from around the world with similar interests and comparing notes on what’s worth seeing and what’s worth skipping. This policy of allowing long-term tenants made my stay at this hostel somewhat awkward after a few days.

One thing I found different about backpacking around Hawaii was the tourists. Where in most countries you would find about half local tourists, lots of other people from all over the world, and a smattering of American visitors, Hawaii seemed to be 99% Americans and hardly anyone else. And while most Americans seemed to end up in resorts as part of package deals, the low budget places were full of not tourists, but mainlanders trying to make a go of it in Hawaii.