Life, the universe, and everything

It was weird and wonderful being in the Middle East, an area that’s so negatively perceived right now by the West. Crazy to be so close to Pakistan, to Iraq, to Palestine and Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, all these volatile nations and the Saudi states, especially during the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. I don’t think I’ll ever forget hearing about her death. When I first heard the news, I was sitting in the lobby of our ship on the Nile somewhere between Aswan and Luxor (woo that sounds surreal) and the ship’s crew plus tourists were crowded in front of the plasma screen TV in the corner of the room, where we watched the reporter on Al-Jazeera say that Bhutto had been killed, her aide saying something about seeing a bullet at her head. I couldn’t believe it at first, but then of course after I thought about it, I wasn’t surprised at all. Earth to Richa, this is Pakistan here. One can only hope Pakistan has some sort of miracle in the next month and during the elections (if they ever happen...). I don’t even know that Bhutto held promise for the country in the first place, but her death is still terrible shame, whether it was done by some Al-Qaeda jihadist or by some opposition party. How it’s possible for democracy to function in that country eludes me. Musharraf clings to power, and the US is pretty smitten with him, I think (we’re giving them a buttload of money to fight Taliban/al-Qaeda militants and diminish Soviet influence...and a lot of that money is, of course, going to nuclear development and defense programs against India instead…). Extremists are still spread across the Pakistani border and even within it, that it’s almost as though Musharraf is just trying to play off both Bush and Islamic militants. All Musharraf really cares about, it seems, is making sure all his opponents are derailed (like that supreme court justice guy). And then Bhutto comes back from exile, and bam. Suicide bombing after suicide bombing. Until one of them finally kills her, and the country is even closer to being Talibanized. But while Bhutto was a US-supported, liberal, secular, pro-Western leader, she was no saint. What with corruption charges against her family, her failure to do anything really substantial while in power, and highly frowned upon deals with Musharraf, it’s no wonder that Islamists are gaining power! It was under her rule, even, that jihadis and their training camps flourished in Afghanistan and Pakistan, probably the very same jihadis that killed her. Chilling how history works like that.

Anyways, enough of that, my trip was nothing short of amazing. It was completely surreal. My first experience in one of the most powerful, most culturally rich nations of the Middle East, and of the African continent. In my mind throughout the trip, I kept comparing it to India, since India is really the only country I’ve ever spent substantial time in that has any semblance to an Arab developing nation. While the two nations might share common aspects in terms of ambience and, very, very vaguely, culture, the similarities stop right there. India is generally much, much worse off, while Egypt is not a true democracy. (Well, no Arab country is a true democracy in the Western sense anyways). Hosni Mubarak has been in power for, what, 26 years now since Anwar Sadat was assassinated, re-elected each time by referendums of questionable validity. His portrait is everywhere, in Cairo, Aswan, Luxor, and he’s worshipped by NDP (National Democratic Party) supporters. Most likely, his son will succeed him whenever he steps down. In any case, he has good ties to the West and has been successful in keeping the Muslim Brotherhood Islamists down and out of power, even if by repressive measures (unlike Uncle Musharraf over there). Interestingly, the Muslim Brotherhood holds about 20% of power in the Parliament, not quite enough to be a huge threat but still enough to have an impact. This is sort of the same situation in almost every Arab country. (FYI the Muslim Brotherhood is a group that seeks to fuse Islam with the state, extreme members of the party follow sharia and all that, Quran is law, women are denied rights, strongly linked to Wahabists and jihadis and such, etc. But don’t get me wrong, there are more moderate members who don’t follow all that, but still want to fuse religion and state). Egypt, by the way, is 90% Muslim (all Sunni), 10% Coptic Christian. Mosques and churches alike = beautiful.

Egypt is also quite unlike India (other than the whole culture thing obviously) because it has infrastructure. Plain and simple. Roads are good and largely animal-free (but crazy, esp. in Cairo), airports are functional, universities and schools are there (in urban areas), public areas are cleaner and more highly patrolled by guards and security forces, and Cairo even has a metro system. Exciting! Also, while Cairo is densely populated, and Egypt’s population is growing, which is definitely causing great strain on the country, it is, of course, nothing like India. After Suez Canal rights, tourism is the country’s biggest industry, and to attract tourists, you have to have infrastructure in place. Beyond that tourist and antiquities police, are everywhere. Crawling in all tourist sites, from mosques to bazaars like Khan el Khalili, to museums, temples, and other tourist hotspots. Each site is heavily protected by these armed policemen (at least like 40 at each location, more in the bigger places like the Valley of the Kings) in blue trucks, who leer over tourists that trample their grounds. Two words. Big. Guns. AK47/Kalashnikov type things. Does this work? No idea. Intimidation factor? I suppose. But it didn’t stop the bombings back in 1997 in Luxor, which killed 58 tourists, or the attack on some tourists back in 2002 on the Red Sea. Oh yeah, did I mention that the very same flight I took from JFK to Cairo (Egypt Air flight 990, Google it), crashed in 1999, killing all on board. It’s highly suspected that the pilot was on a suicide mission, and if that was the case, efforts would definitely have been made to hush that up. Each of these events were, of course, devastating to the Egypt’s tourist industry, and it wasn’t until around now, now that we’re a little more decently post-9/11, that things have started to pick back up again and Egypt has reeeaally buffed up security.

All said, Egypt is not a country you can do alone, without a travel guide, or someone who knows the Arabic language and knows the ins and outs of the system well. Even though this means being herded around with other American, European, Asian, and Indian tourists, it’s not a bad thing, because you meet some really interesting people along the way, from all over the world, or from right in your backyard (Texans woo), and the country isn't as overwhelming. It really is the only way to get to see everything you want to see, efficiently and safely. You have a personal security guard at your disposal (that’s actually required by the Egyptian government I believe), and traveling from city to city and site to site is so much easier and quicker. Over our entire trip, we never drove from city to city, it was always by plane or by ship. Traveling by taxi or bus between cities require escort by a police convoy. Extra hassle factor. The place is like India, where it’s so easy for locals to take advantage of tourists who don’t get the country and leave them bankrupt.

This was completely a touristy-type trip, visiting the main ancient Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, and Islamic monuments (as much as we could…our days of sightseeing literally began at 5 AM sharp (sunrise) and ended around 9 PM (by which time my brother and I and the people we were with about to pass out, even though my parents seemed to be fine…they have weird stamina issues…). But even though we ran around the country to all the touristy hotspots we could like the mad American tourists we are, it’s hard to separate the ancient from the modern. Modern Egypt always breathes down your neck and you can’t escape it (not that I wanted to of course!). It was a perfect balance of old and new, which is sometimes really strange to experience. Namaz blasts from mosque loudspeakers five times a day (sunrise, noon, afternoon, sunset, evening). And the neat thing about that is it’s all live, so you hear it and you’re almost forced to stop whatever you’re doing and listen, (even though the only words I ever pick up are “Allah u Akbar” each time). What’s cool is if you’re in a city where two mosques are right by each other, and they start prayer at slightly different times, then both voices interfere and it’s a big jumble of—I don’t know what you call it—song, chant-prayer? Anyways, it sounds neat. It was almost decided in Egypt to make all prayers in a recording so that each mosque would simultaneously play it so that interference wouldn’t happen. This ruling never passed, and I’m glad it didn’t. I feel like a recording would sort of diminish the importance of a prayer, since there wouldn’t be someone actually physically saying it or leading it. Instead it would becomes something rote and repetitive, and lose meaning. It’s harder to take a recording you hear every day as seriously as something that a local sheikh announces on a loudspeaker each time.

We were in Egypt at the time of haj, so our flights from JFK to Cairo (and Cairo to JFK) were full of people returning to their homeland from the States and coming back. (To get to Mecca in Saudi Arabia from Egypt, you just have to hop over the Red Sea and you’re there). Back at JFK in New York, as we were collecting our baggage to go through customs, it was neat to see bags and bags filled with a gallon of zamzam, or holy water (that pilgrims had brought back from Mecca), drop onto the luggage carousel by the dozen. Our flight and the airport in Cairo was full of Africans, some Nubian (native to Egypt) others clearly from southern African countries of the Sahara and further south (the women have absolutely beautiful dresses, I thought Indian saris were pretty, nooooo, what these women wore was stunning), and the men’s garments as well. Then you have your group of Saudi men, with their skullcaps or tagiyah and ghutra checkered scarves (Yasser Arafat look-alikes, holla). The traditional Nubian attire is called the galabia. It’s much like the long Indian kurta, but with a headpiece as well. And then of course, there’s traditional Islamic wear. Hijabs everywhere, and increasingly, burqas.

It seems like there is so much social and religious pressure on women to be covered in public and don the hijab. Unlike places like Saudi Arabia, the hijab isn’t enforced on women or anything. Rather, women willingly and acceptingly cover their hair as part of their faith. Media in Egypt is still very Western, women on TV are uncovered. But actual life is very, very different. Recent years have marked a resurgence in Islam and for certain interpretations of the Quran that has partly led to, and physically manifested itself in the resurgence of the hijab throughout the Arab world. I didn’t see a single local woman in the Nile Valley (Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Edfu, Esna, any of those cities), who wasn’t covered, except maybe like one. In Cairo, more and more women are uncovered, especially professionals. But still, in the streets, they are largely covered. And then there’s the infamous burqa. Definitely a decent number of women wearing those, and I strongly suspect, more women wear it now than they have before in recent years. If you’ve read Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns or Marjane Sartrapi’s Persespolis, you know what I’m talking about (both are such good books, read them if you haven’t). I read Hosseini’s new book while I was in Egypt, and it was strange to read it there. I almost felt like it was something I shouldn’t be seen reading in an Islamic country. That’s so silly of course, the author has such a huge fan base in the Arab world other. What I’m trying to understand is, why is there such a sudden resurgence of Islam in these countries? From an article in the Chicago Tribune, “Many Egyptians, rich and poor, see a return to Islam as a way to restore hope, peace and dignity to their lives. Threatened by a changing world, rife with Western influences, they perceive Islam as a comforting source of strong family values, an unyielding moral code and a clear guide to life.” And what this resurgence is doing is making it harder and harder to separate religion from state. It’s a good article that explains a lot, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-0403210513mar21,0,1505965.story?page=1

Check it out.

The hijab can still be confusing. Covering the head is a gesture of modesty, of reflecting the fundamental Islamic belief that everything should be done in moderation. In the streets of Cairo, and even in the South, I see women who wear the hijab, and the long black robe. And sometimes that black robe is completely sheer, showing tight, tight designer jeans underneath, high heels, a skimpy white top, completed by a face caked with makeup. How is this sort of thing made acceptable or excusable by slapping on a hijab? No idea. It seems contradictory to make the decision to wear the hijab based on societal pressures, not religiously or out of modesty, and I guess that’s what’s a little bothersome. Or is this some sort of rebellion against a generation of people who are turning back to hard line Islamic beliefs and trying to bring Western influences back? I have no clue, and obviously I’m in no position to judge either, I’ve never grown up in that kind of society.

Like I said, the religion of Islam preaches everything in moderation. And it’s a good religion, as legitimate and moralistic as any other in the world. The religion just turns upside down when Islamists take the word of the Quran too literally, interpret it in a backwards way, or try to infuse religion with the political system. The very few Muslim groups that do this in turn have created such a negative image of the Arab world as perceived by the West, and it’s sad. It’s equally baffling to imagine how the Arab world must perceive the West right now, how the West still so horribly misunderstands what Islam really is about based on the actions of a few extremists, and oppositely, how the Arab world feels about Western influences. Clearly, it’s mixed. Many embrace the West, others reject it and look to strengthening their religion as much as possible. It’s confusing.

Anyways, I’m digressing, a lot. Back to my trip. Egyptians are very friendly people, have a good sense of humor (that can get a little creepy sometimes if you’re female) and for the most part, love American company (but definitely love Indians more, Bollywood, I suspect). They joke around a lot, love bashing Bush (who doesn’t) and, as in any developing country, make you feel incredibly guilty about being a tourist, even though tourism is their livelihood. Pretty much all Egyptians in the street trying to sell stuff, or in bazaars, or working on ships and in shops, are men. Rarely do you see a woman ever doing that kind of work at all, which is different from what you find in bazaars in India. While street sellers in Egypt are persistent, they’re definitely not as aggressive (with exception), as those you find in India, who just don’t know when to stop. What’s funny, is Egyptians can spot different nationalities right off the bat. Take my family. You look at my mother and you don’t know what the hell she is, as she doesn’t look Indian at all unless she’s wearing Indian clothes. She has light skin and freckles. Strange right? Not for Egyptians, somehow they always recognized her, even when she wasn’t with me or my dad. Every time we walked through a bazaar, we’d be referred to as “India,” and would hear “Hey India! India! Come to my shop!” My dad is a Gandhi look-alike. Seriously. While most people generally don’t make that connection, Egyptians made it, right away. Shopkeepers would run after us, screaming “Oy Mahatma! Oy Gandhi!!” Hilarious. And if they weren’t calling us “Gandhi” or “India,” they were chattin us up about Amitabh Bachan and Shah Rukh Khan. One guy even called us “Ganesh.” But, my dad isn’t entirely an “India” giveaway. He passes for Mexican at home, and could very easily pass for an Arab over there (it's the mustache). Oftentimes if he kept his mouth shut, he did, and people would try to start talking to him in Arabic, then get confused when he gave them a blank look. As for myself, most of the time, I was a dead giveaway for the “India” title. I definitely look more Indian than my mom thanks to whatever facial structure my dad gave me. So, I’d get asked by the sellers if I was from India. At the beginning of our trip, I’d always say, “No, we’re from America.” Then they’d look at me confused and say, “No you are from India.” After that happened a couple times, I just told everyone I was from India and that made them happy. In fact, whenever we bought something, and my mom was haggling their brains out, they’d finally concede to whatever ridiculous price my mom tried to get them to come down to and say, “Okay, because you’re Indian, and I like Indians.” Which really meant, “Okay, because you’re from India, you know how to haggle like a biatch like you do in the homeland and I’ll never be able to sell you anything otherwise because you Indians are frickin cheap.” I guess that’s a perk of being Indian, and it didn’t really bother me that they ran after us screaming, “AAAMITAAABH, GANDHIIII!!!! HEY INDIAAAAAAAA!!” all the time. What can I say, Egyptians love us. Hah.

You go to India, and Indian men stare creepily like it’s not awkward or anything. I don't know what it is, a culture thing? If you've been, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Egypt is a bit similar, only different in a way I can’t really explain. Eye contact in one of these countries means a bit more than it does in the Western world (according to my mom), and that’s something you sorta have to be careful about, apparently. You make eye contact with people on the street even accidentally (I mean you look at people when they talk to you, nothing wrong about it, right?) but not over there, where they take it as an open invitation for conversation, which can be a bad thing. For one, some get super talkative, over-friendly, and super flirty. I definitely found that out the hard way, but it’s not hard to shake people off if it goes beyond joking. At Giza when I wasn’t with my mom, there was this guy who literally trailed me around for like five minutes asking me if I wanted stuff.
-“Where you from? You speak English or Arabic?”
-“English”
-“You want postcard?”
-“No”
-“ Papyrus bookmarks, you like, no?”
-“No thanks”
-“ You want statue of pyramids?”
-“Noooooooo, la shukran” (means no thank you)
And so on and so forth through all his merchandise until finally he asks,
-“You want me?”
-“What?” I didn’t understand what he said, I thought “me’ was something he was trying to sell.
-“You want ME?” Ohhh. Wth is wrong with this guy.
-“uhhhh, heh, no that’s okay” *walk away quicklyyyyy*
Wtf right? Awkward. And then he started giggling. It was sooo creepy. He finally walked off and I felt a bit sorry for him but wtf. The guy looked like he was in his 20s, so at least he wasn’t like 50 or something and hitting on a poor tourist half his age, right?

50 like the guy in the bazaar outside the Temple of Horus at Edfu. Jesus Christ. This guy comes up to me outside his shop, does the usual ritual of hi where are you from, oh ‘Omrika,’ okay.
And then he says,
-“Shake my hand” and holds out his hand. If I said India, I wonder if he would have still made me shake his hand.
-“Uhhh that’s ok.”
-“Come on lady, don’t be rude, shake my hand”
I thought, Muslims weren’t supposed to touch other non-relative women, even if it’s shaking hands but, what harm can come from a hand shake, I thought, and this guy is accusing me of being rude.
So I shook his hand.
The instant my hand touched his, I regretted it. He grabbed my hand and yanked me into his store. And before I could yank my hand back he was showing me shirts, statues, books, whatever crap he had, yapping his head off about Egyptian pounds until I had to interrupt him “la shukran, I don’t want anything thank you!!” and walk out feeling really stupid for shaking this guy’s hand. My mom laughed at me when I told her about it later and called me an idiot. Yeaaa pretty much.

I think those were my two worst experiences in bazaars. At one point in Luxor, some guy at the bazaar screamed at me, “Why don’t you smile, India?” (They call me India, most places). So I gave a weak smile (it was awkward I didn’t know what to do) and then they start clapping. More awkward! At another place some random rickshaw driver passes me, blows a kiss and says “Muah! For pretty lady.” Cute. Tourists are like their playthings, they wouldn’t dare say that to a local. And then if they want you to buy something or want some sort of tip, they try to flatter you. At least like three times, street vendors and such would come up to me and say “You look like Egyptian, very beautiful face.” Etc. It got old. But it amazes me sometimes how they never show any sort of irritation towards the crapload of tourists that overrun their country. I'm sure a lot of the locals perceive tourists to be disgustingly ignorant, but there is absolutely no hostility, no resentment, they're all smiles and welcomes.

Two and a half days in Cairo was not enough. I left the city wanting more. Cairo is huge, pure chaos, so much to see, so much culture. I could easily spend a month there, just exploring, and never get bored. Like New York, Paris, or Mumbai, the city is its own foreign world. Once you’re there for a while, you get over the pollution, over constantly inhaling dust and sand, over the fact that your lungs are probably black with fumes and exhaust. Navigating traffic is a pain in the ass, but it gives you a chance to really take in the havoc around you. Walking is also pretty hazardous. When you try to cross the street, you play a game my dad called, “grab a local and use him/her as a human body shield while you run for your life.” I swear it works like a charm. Like any major city, Cairo is home to huge disparities between the rich and poor. Heliopolis is the affluent suburb of Cairo, laden with beautiful villas belonging to old retired high-ranking army and government officials, and home to old Papa Mubarak himself. Downtown Cairo or Midan Tahir is a zoo of traffic, high-rise hotels (two Hiltons, a Four Seasons, Hyatt, Marriott (which is a converted palace), you name it), Banque du Caire buildings, the Cairo Stock Exchange, train station, huge condos compacted together, people crawling everywhere, the Nile, the Egyptian Museum, a few token mosques, a bunch of chaos. Then there’s Khan el Khalili, the main bazaar, which lies just around downtown, and where I was introduced to everything that is Amr Diab. He’s pretty much a god. There’s Islamic Cairo, where the Mamluks built most of their mosques and you can find the famous Citadel and adjacent Mosque of Mohammed Ali. Everything is simultaneously beautiful and poverty-stricken (but a different kind of poverty, not like India poverty). Towering minarets with crescents and rounded domes everywhere you look. I’m officially obsessed with Islamic architecture.

I hardly got to see everything I wanted to in Cairo. We saw the main tourist spots, the Citadel, Giza and the pyramids/sphinx, (I missed Saqqara, that’s saved for when I return), Khan el Khalili, some famous mosques, and the Egyptian Museum (home to two rooms filled with royal mummies, the King Tut room with all his treasures, and some of the most stunning artifacts in the world from the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms of ancient Egypt). The Museum isn’t particularly large, it’s two big floors with like 70 rooms or something. But there is sooo much crap inside, it’s unbelievable. In some rooms, artifacts that come in droves from recent digs are just hastily stacked and piled since there’s no room to give them a proper display. Things are poorly labeled, so it’s useful to hire a personal guide who can point out the masterpieces and explain stuff to you. The museum is scheduled to move to a bigger location in 2011 on the Giza plateau, and hopefully by then the resources will be there to properly label, document, display, and organize everything. The Citadel is beautiful, I’ve always liked mosques, even when my mother takes my brother and I to visit them in India (we’re not Muslim, she calls it a ‘cultural education’ thing). But the Mosque of Mohammed Ali in Cairo doesn’t even compare to what you find over there. The pyramids are even more grand than they look in photos. I went inside they Pyramid of Khafre with one other guy from our group. It was an experience. Acutally, you don’t go ‘inside’ the pyramid, you go underground, into the labyrinths beneath it. Inside is the king's burial chamber, the roof is about 4.5 feet high and it's very claustrophobic, narrow, dark, humid, musty, smelly and something like 5% oxygen so you can't stay in very long without passing out. I was literally crawling through the passage down and up again (its pretty short) clinging onto the back of my friend’s shirt in front of me to figure out which way to move since parts were pitch black. But it was so much fun. Not for claustrophobic people...like a year ago a tourist passed out and died inside. That was definitely the highlight of Giza, besides seeing armed security guards running around like crazies on camels and asking for tips from tourists who illegally take their picture. I wanted to run around on the Metro for a bit, and do more of Cairo by foot, but didn’t get time.

New Years Eve in Cairo was a blast. It was Sunday night. We went to the sound and light show at the pyramids of Giza and afterwards the Ramses Hilton threw a huge banquet with a live Egyptian band, dance floor, belly dancer, whirling dervish, the whole works. Followed by fireworks over the Nile. New Year’s Eve doesn’t get much better than that. The night before that, Saturday, we were in Cairo too, and our tour guide took us to a tourist-friendly club nearby (yes, tourist police here too) for those of us who just wanted to get a feel for nightlife. I went with a few of the younger members of our group, and it was great. Egyptians have great taste in music (Amr Diab all over the place, in fact they played this exact song at the club we visited!!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY841PBYFoY I can’t believe I actually found it! And then I went on to download three of this guy’s albums, I’m a lil obsessed, this guy is so popular over there, it's all they play everywhere...him and some other guy named Mohamed Mounir, I have one of his albums too, not bad). You don’t find too many clubs and bars though (well, it’s a big city so you’ll find them if you look), just not as many as you might in major Western cities, probably because drinking and such is frowned upon by Islamic culture. During Ramadan, only tourists are ‘allowed’ to drink in the country.

Food in Cairo. Amazing, as long as you go to the right places (as in, where the locals go if you're out on the street or at reputable restaurants in hotels). We had Thai food, Lebanese food, even Indian food (Dad: "OHMYGOD INDIAN FOOD LETS GO"), and of course, traditional Egyptian food, which they call "Oriental." My personal favorite was the Lebanese place we went to at the Intercontinental in Cairo. Daaaamn they can cook.

And then there's baksheesh. Baksheesh baksheesh baksheesh everywhere. If you ever go to Egypt, make sure you have 1 and 5 bill Egyptian pounds. Because everyone will ask you for tip everywhere (and I'm sure they need it). Whether its a guard or random guy who tries to take you to an hidden passage in a temple or show you something hidden at some monument that tourists generally miss, or cab drivers, or the people who manage to make La Pieta out of your hotel room towels. You give them all baksheesh.

Cairo was actually our last stop. We started our journey practically at the Sudanese border, at Abu Simbel, home to the Temple of Ramses and Temple of Hathor. (check out my facebook pictures). After that it, was Aswan, followed by Luxor. Luxor and Aswan are beautiful, the weather was amazing. Highs around 74, lows in the upper 50s lower 60s. Sunny, clear blue skies (besides smog and pollution in the mornings in Cairo and Luxor). We traveled from Abu Simbel to Aswan by plane (driving requires escort by a police convoy like I mentioned before), and we went from Aswan to Luxor via the Nile, stopping at Kom Ombo, Esna, and Edfu along the way to hit up the tourist spots there. Aswan is home to the high dam, the unfinished obelisk, Fatimid cemeteries, Aga Khan’s mausoleum, and the Nubian museum. Kom Ombo, Esna, and Edfu each are home to beautiful temples. A lot of these temples are situated in the middle of villages, under which a vast amount of ancient stuff (70% of everything still lies underground) still remain unexcavated. Insane.

And then there’s Luxor, aka the ancient city of Thebes. Possibly my favorite city next to Cairo. While we were in Luxor, BOTH Nicolas Sarkozy (with his new gf apparently) and Tony Blair were vacationing there. Crazy right? Egypt isn’t exactly the first place that comes to mind when you think of places prime ministers like to vacation. Bush visits Egypt this week (not for pleasure of course, but for his Middle East tour. Good luck to him, he’ll need it, and good thing I’ve already left…). Anyways, Luxor. Luxor is interesting, as it’s divided into two halves by the Nile. The West bank is the side where the sun sets, and is thus the Land of the Dead, while the East bank is that of the living (sunrise). The city is still situated the same way today, the East bank has the actual city of Luxor, while the west is full of mountains, ruins, temples, and suburbs. So on the west bank, you find the Valley of the Kings and Queens (huge labyrinths of elaborately decorated tombs for major pharaohs and queens), the temple of Hatshepsut, the Ramesseum. The east bank contains all museums, the Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple. Everything is stunning. Karnak is huge and you still see archaeologists hard at work in the back of the complex (pics on fbk). I could have easily spent another week exploring Luxor, it’s so hard to cram everything into 2-3 days, but we hit almost everything, somehow.

Probably the highlight of my trip (or one of, rather) was the hot air balloon ride I got to take with two other people in my group over the West Bank of Luxor. My first hot air balloon ride ever, in Egypt! (The best place to do it too since it’s a LOT cheaper, do it in the states and you pay a couple hundred bucks, easy for the kind of ride we got). The three of us from my group who did it were the only ones not afraid of heights, and crazy enough to get up at like 4 AM to do this. There was the one guy, the 40something year old retired air force officer, some sort of high ranking, bragged a lot that he did “more jumps from planes than you could count.” Yea yea whatever get over yourself. Then there was another guy, Texas Tech graduate, with an architectural consulting firm in San Antonio, who was, a licensed skydiver. Holler. And then there was me. Little Indian girl. The ride was perfect. We hit the skies right before the sun rose and watched the sun rise over the East Bank, the land of the living. From the sky we had phenomenal views of the entire Nile valley, the desert, the Valley of the Kings/Queens, Ramesseum, and Temple of Hatshepsut. Our basket had a really big family from India on one half, and some Scottish people besides the three of us on the other half. Things were going well, and then the pilot tried to land us. He definitely didn’t know what he was doing. We went up and down and up and down for a while since we kept running into electrical lines on the ground. While we were passing over one of the lines, I was taking a picture of a pretty house (see facebook), and the basket smacked the top branches of a tree. I lost my balance, landed on a Scottish lady, almost lost my camera (luckily, it was strapped tightly to my wrist), and got a nice bruise. We finally landed on some uneven dirt in the desert, an “American landing” as the pilot called it. We bounced a couple times and then the basket fell over on its side and had to be turned back upright by the guys in the rescue squad truck thing that was following us like it was chasing chickens or something. Except in the sky. Chickens in the sky. From the ground.

I have plenty more stories from my trip but this post is seriously getting way long. I’m sure nobody is actually reading this whole thing either.

There’s an old saying in Egypt, “Once you’ve drunk from the Nile, you will return.” So unbelievably true. I have to go back. I want more time in Cairo, I need to see Alexandria, and there’s so much I didn’t get to see that lies outside the Nile River Valley, deep in the Sahara. Beyond Egypt, I want to visit Jordan, Turkey (Turkey especially), Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. And if areas like Afghanistan and Pakistan or the Sinai Peninsula ever become stable within my lifetime, a trip to Kabul, Karachi, or Lahore, or even south to Khartoum or Nairobi would be amazing. I swear I’m going to turn into one of those people who only lives to travel to the world’s most inaccessible places. I've found that whenever I'm in foreign countries, I tend to do things I don't expect myself to do. Whether it's downing some of the local wine on New Years ("Drink it now so you don't drink at school!" --my mom, hah), trying one puff of the shisha a guy on our tour ordered to try (wowww, never doing that again...) or trying to do and see everything, cramming as much as possible into one day, getting up religiously at 4-5 AM every day to do it, no matter how exhausted and dirty I am, living that day like I'll die if I don't see everything I can, as if it's my last day on earth. I mean, I wasn't even with people I knew too well at the time (maybe that's why?), and now I feel like we're so close but of course, since the trip is over, we'll lose touch. I don't know why I act like that...I do the same thing when I'm in India or Europe. I'm never like that back home or in Austin--I'm always my rational self. I guess it's the whole idea that these are really once-in-a-lifetime situations that I'll never get to find myself in again...and it gives me such a high to do try and do EVERYTHING. When in Rome, right? Really weird things give me a high. Like sometimes, feeling stressed gives me a really weird high. I'm strange.

This trip has also made me decide to most likely (with, oh 87% certainty) take a year off after I graduate, before med school, to work abroad and travel as much as I can. Which means, I’m sort of re-thinking my study abroad plans for this summer. I figure I should probably start earning as much money as I can, now, so that it’ll actually be possible for me to travel during said ‘year off’ before med school. I’ll divide the year into different parts of the world. (Or maybe divide 6 months into different parts of the world, use the other 6 months to finish my Masters up and work more…or something…hell I don’t know…). One trip will be North Africa/the Middle East. One trip for south India. One trip for Europe (might cut Europe out if funds are short). One for South America. One for South Africa. One for China/the Philippenes/Singapore/Thailand. Yes, I live in my own little unrealistic world, shush.

Anyways, pictures are up on Facebook, complete with captions. Check them out.

I end with some quotables from dad:

-“I think they get weirded out when they try to talk to me in Arabic and they see that I don’t understand what they’re saying. Just like back home when they try to talk to me in Spanish, and I don’t understand what they’re saying.”
-“Why are they all calling me Gandhi?? Ah well, I don’t have a problem with it.”
-“Terrorists don’t scare me. To hell with ‘em. If I’m scared of anyone, it’s your mother.”
-“Richa, just grab a local, use him as a human body shield, and run. Just make sure he’s the one closer to the traffic, not you.”
-“You know, a lot of things go into making good coffee. You need to have the right water, the right beans, the right roasting time, the right amount of milk and sugar, the right coffeemaker, the right temperature…why aren’t you listening to me, this is an important life lesson, pay attention!”
We’re looking at some big tanks outside an Egyptian air force training facility: “When we get home, I’m selling the goddamn minivan and never driving that thing again.”
-“Richa, hyper is on the phone and she wants to talk to you [hyper = my mom].”
-“Richa beta, why do you choose to read everything in the world written by liberal wackos. You know it’s all so slanted, you can’t take these things seriously. Read something balanced for once. You’re turning into your mother. What are they teaching you in college?” (This is coming from the man who listens to Rush Limbaugh religiously (not so much anymore though, after my mom yelled at him), worships fox news, voted for Bush, etc…).

Sitting in front of the TV on our ship,
Me: OHMYGOD Bhutto died!!
Bro: Whooooaaa
Dad: Huh?
Me: I can’t believe it!! ohmygod!
Bro: Shutup and watch!
Me: Watch what?? It’s all in Arabic!

5 minutes later after staring at the TV

Dad: WHAT?? BHUTTO DIED?!?
(granted, we were watching Al-Jazeera, I’ll give him that…but still…wooo reaction time…).

School next week. Good thing too, I’m ready to get outta here. Even though this semester looks again like another crazybusy one. And I have so much crap to do/organize before school starts so I won’t be bored. I just need to motivate myself to do it all.

I best be gettin on it.

Life, the universe, and everything

Friday, February 1, 2008

Ugh

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I have the BEST trains of thoughts EVER when I'm driving...

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Bush hallucinates, once again

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Goli Maar Bheje Me

I'm an idiot

Monday, January 7, 2008

Once you've drunk from the Nile...

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