A day in Cairo with Bebeji & Makhmood!!

24th December 2008

Bebeji (aka Rohini, Nohni, CM, Saila, Habibi, Shakira) & Mamu (aka Pravesh, Paro, Makhmood) arrived in the morning... YIPEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! Rohini and I go way back... school days, may be we were meant to be sisters or something... wait a minute we are sisters 'by choice' ;-) Distance or no distance we've always kept in touch, almost on a daily basis, and have been there for each other through everything! Needless to say it's always extra special to spend time together and to vacation together... for years it was just the two of us and our mums (who also happen to be best of friends, so it had been very convenient for the four of us)... but since we got married we had two new members in the equation, our hubby's...  of course they didn't have a choice and knew from the beginning that they had to fit into this equation... he he... but jokes apart, luckily for the two of us our husbands get along very well with each other, and we all get along very well. Touch wood! This was our first vacation together, the four of us and we all had a wonderful time, looking forward to many more :o) I must say we both have two very special husbands who have embraced our friendship and have excepted us with warmth and love, thank you boys, we are truly blessed to have you and love you very much :o)

Getting back to the trip... Bebe & Mamu arrive in Cairo... it was too early for me to be up... we had been traveling non stop plus the all day trip to Alexandria, reaching home late, so as expected we were dead tired, and I was still asleep while hubby was in the shower... the door bell rang... rang... rang till I realized I was not dreaming and someone was really at the door, so half asleep Mattu ran to check the door, and there was Ashraf with two of her favorite people + their luggage at the door!! Yipee they are here :o) They both came in and the four of us plonked on the couch right away and started our chit chat session, while we drank our left over half a bottle of bottled water and relished fresh ladoos brought by Bebeji from India (they had just spent two months in India), shortly after we all were feeling rather hungry and cooked some maggie and hard boiled eggs for breakfast! We could not drink the milk, as our fresh one day old milk smelled and tasted so sour like khatti daahi, so we threw it away, later to learn that is how that type of milk smells and tastes... but none of us were going to drink khatta milk ;-) So no morning chai, coffee, milk or cereal for anyone...

After breakfast we all sat down to make our plans for the day and for the next few days... we also called Ashraf to guide and advise us on how to go about making arrangements.  He was extremely kind and took us to the closest railway station, which happened to be Giza station to help us book our sleeper train or overnight train to Luxor. Sunny and I had tried to do this ourselves earlier in Alexandria and with no luck had failed due to the language barrier as we had not been able to get our queries answered by the booking agents. So today we had Ashraf on our side, an Egyptian who spoke fluent Arabic, but he was a bit naive about the public mode of transportation and it's workings, so after hopping from one queue to another and standing for a while we learnt that it was too late to book any sort of train ticket as they all were booked till 1st Jan! We had come too far not to go to Luxor... so we all decided to check out the expensive flight alternative and after further discussions and enquiries at the Egyptian Air airline office @ Sheraton we had 4 tickets for Luxor!!!! Departing Cairo on the 26th @ 5 am and returning the next morning on the 27th at 3 am... we already knew it was going to be one hell of a day... Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut Temple, Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, The Nile, Luxor City and of course some surprises... we were excited and a couple of hundred pounds lighter ... yet there were happy smiles all around :-)

After we got our tickets, we were dropped off by Ashraf outside the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo... as we were famished and could not think about wandering in a museum on empty stomachs, we spotted a KFC on the other side of the road and headed towards it, not attempting to cross the main road, Egyptian style this time (i.e. dodging traffic by walking through the traffic with closed eyes) but instead we went underground and used their subway... 

It was 4ish pm by the time we got done with lunch, and since the museum closed at 6.30 we decided to do it another day, as we did not want to be rushed through it... later realizing the one and a half to two hours would have been more than enough ;-)

So instead we hailed a cab and headed to Cairo's very famous and old 'Khan al - Khalili' bazaar, which is a couple of hundred years old... and was one of the must visit/shop at places on Bebe & Moi list ;-) We were told it would cost us 40 LE in total to get there, so when our cabby said 10 LE we all jumped in feeling rather proud of ourselves on getting an amazing deal without any bargaining efforts! Later at our destination we understood & realized the cabby meant 10 LE each :p On our way to the market we had some pretty interesting cabbi and Bebeji moments which I would like to disclose later in a dedicated blog entries!

After reaching Khan al - Khalili we all explored the market and it's surroundings, we were in old Cairo, Muslim influenced district and there were plenty of interesting mosques and buildings to admire for their architectural design.  We decided just to explore and experience the market and the vibe of the place before Bebe and I indulged in any shopping ;) We walked through old streets with beautiful carvings and buildings, admiring all merchandize being sold around us.  Something everyone needs to know before you go shopping in Egypt, if you are really keen on buying something then you should enquire about it or else the shopkeepers will continue to follow & convince you to buy it, or get offended and might argue with you for wasting their time... they can get a bit aggressive!  The girls were praised for their eyes, beauty and were even called 'Habibi' and 'Shakira' by many shopkeepers, to which Bebe and I responded with the same greetings... later to learn Habibi meant 'my darling' or 'I love you' and Shakira we are still not sure about as when we asked one of our cabby's he just giggled and refused to tell us ...  our best guess was 'sexy'... either way, Bebe and I addressed a lot of strange men the same (unaware of the real meaning) to get a bargain...LOL!

Something we encountered a lot from the locals was, their eagerness and curiosity to know which part of the world everyone was from, and once they learnt we were Indians... they all smiled and said "Oh! You know Amitabh Bachchan"... yeah sure we dine with him all the time :p

This was truly an obsession that got on our nerves by the end of the trip... I truly mean anyone and everyone stopped us and asked, "Where you from?" or "You Indian?"...

The shopkeepers there also have very interesting one liners they love to use on tourists, some of the memorable ones I recall were:

"What can I do my friend to get your money!"... followed by "I am very honest" :D... a bit too honest my friend!

"You Indian!!... no money, no buy"

"These are real mummy bead necklaces... Cleopatra wear these"

It was truly an amazing experience and sure enough we returned to the market a few days later and were greeted by very excited shopkeepers who still remembered us and were very happy to see their Shakiras again... probably trying to think of more new ways to get our money! ;)

The two pictures above were with the shopkeeper who sold us our souvenirs, he would not let us leave till we took pictures with him... LOL... we felt like asking him for a bakshish for taking a picture of him ;)

Anyone for a 'Kabetchino' or a 'Ax Prose Caffe'

After shopping a little for souvenirs and enjoying the market, we walked around a few mosques in the neighborhood and found our way back in front of the market area where they had a row of 'alfresco' local restaurants/dhabas, so we decided to have an authentic (or so we thought) Egyptian dinner with the locals... with sheesha smoke blowing in our face, stray cats under the table, little children running up to us, beggars, shoe shiners, and non-stop interruptions by the street hawkers, trying to sell us random nonsense things while we ate. Never had we experienced this even in Indian Dhabas! Egypt walas you are truly enterprising and one of kind! 

I am sorry to say this but as candidly stated by a street hawker earlier, Egyptians will try any and every way to get your money... so in the same style, waiters too try their luck to pocket some money off your bill... and keeping in tradition our waiter tried to add a little extra on to our bill, but you see it was our second night there and we were catching on ;) So we asked to see the menu again and added up the bill ourself which came out to 115 LE, and we were being asked to pay 150 LE, when we confronted him, he just giggled and said oh you must have heard me wrong, I said 115 only! This was truly an amazing day, and we were simply loving our trip... so much fun and the day was not over yet... we still had to catch a cab and get back home. The cabby we got that night was by far my favorite,  an old chap (who sounded a bit sleepy, a bit drunk and a bit crazy) with a very old run down Fiat... just like the one my dad had in India :) He spoke Arabic and we spoke Hindi/Punjabi/English... yet it did not stop him from being our unofficial tour guide, and he rattled on and on the entire way home about anything & everything we passed, so much so that he stopped the car in the middle of the traffic, on a flyover to the freeway and insisted we took a snap of the market, as it was the best place for a beautiful shot! Once I realized he would not move till I took a picture... I quickly pretended to snap a picture, of course not convincing the chap and Sunny had to actually take quiet a few pictures till he was satisfied and finally moved his cab... this was hilarious... and we laughed our way home to his antics!! 

At last we were home... exhausted and what a day we had... we hit the bed and slept soundly like babies, until tomorrow... a new day and a new adventure... we love Egypt!!!!