picture in my mind

In Cairo, Egypt, I stayed, with my family of 16 people, in an apartment located in an Indonesian student hostel. It had a main hall, and several smaller rooms connected to it. I roomed wth my sister and 30-year-old cousin who always travels with us. There was always food in the main hall - 24 hours a day. Loaves of bread, jam, nutella, cheese, lipton tea (not that I fancy this much), hot and cold water dispenser etc. And at each meal, asian food will be served - nasi lemak in the mornings and fried rice at night. Suffice to say, food wasn't a problem.

There were always other people in our apartment. My uncle's friends and acquaintances in Cairo always came by... and this consisted of mostly Azhar University (the first university in the world) students. [Abang Hattar, Marhani, Rashid, Kamarul, Fauzan, Shamsul, Kak Siti Hawa and Kak Faridah.] There were Singaporeans, Malaysians and Indonesians. And we got to know them really well. Often, we'd just sit together in the main hall and talk. It was nice... and home-y. I think I missed that part most about Egypt - the apartment and the people and the nice times we had.

Anyway, we visited the Pyramids early on in the trip. The famous three pyramids of Giza. Unfortunately, I did not go into the pyramid. Elders had some qualms about it... some superstition. I brought back to our apartment, a pebble from Giza. To which has been blamed my consequent ill health. So I threw it away. Yes, I was sick, with fever and terrible sore throat and ear ache. And went to a doctor in Dandara, a small town in Lower Egypt. I had the flu.

I should describe the pytamids in detail. But... nothing much to say. There isn't much more than what you see in pictures or videos. They are big, of course... and really quite majestic... But, frankly, it was quite a flat feeling when I finally laid eyes on one of the seven wonders of the world. I'll paste some pictures later. Then there was the Sphinx, which we couldn't touch. We couldn't even get near. Maddenning. Again... it looked grand. But its face is... yes, quite gone. Weathered.

Very dusty. Very. Sometimes, you'd breathe in dust and won't stop coughing for minutes on end. Really quite bad.

Cairo, is a city of horns. The streets are constantly jammed. At some point in any journey, your vehicle will most definitely get stuck in traffic. And they will all start horning! Like they're talking to each other. Beeps everywhere. After a while, you get used to it, and don't jump in fright every time. Oh, and the traffic lights - they don't work. They just blink amber, that's all. No wonder traffic is bad, eh? Occassionally, when it gets too bad, the traffic police come in. Otherwise, it's a matter of hand waving, beeping and horning, and squeezing your van through gaps. Really quite mad. And crossing the roads are just scary. We just keep saying how, if we were to live there, we'd most definitely die getting knocked down by a car. I recall how I'd just grip the arm of the person next to me and we'd all dash across the road together. Haha.

Egypt, is also, a country of beautiful people. Really. I have never seen so many gorgeous people within so short a period of time. Ok, granted, Europeans have the nice colouring - the blond, brown, red hair and blue, green and gray eyes. Arabs normally have dark colouring. Ocassionally, they have light brown hair and eyes... or even greenish eyes. But what the Arabs have are perfect features. Almost every one of them have perfectly sculpted noses, and nicely lined eyebrows and absolutely enchanting eyes. I swear, it's not modern day make up or plasic surgery. 7 out of 10 people on the streets are beautiful. There was a sweeper, in an orange uniform, who made me do a double take. And when we went to the theme park called Dream Park, we were surrounded by good-looking teenagers. At some points, it seemed unreal. However... for all their good looks... they were an uncivilized lot.

6 of us - me, my bro, my sis and three cousins, were queueing up for this particular ride. The one like Wipe Out in Gold Coast, Australia; where you get flipped upside down and rolled about a couple of times. We queued up for it for an hour. Because they kept jumping and cutting queue and climbing the 1.7 m high gates. The 6 of us were about to go mad. I had never been so angry in public before. I am, I can safely say, a patient and tolerant person. But those people were driving us completely insane. They were a RUDE, ROWDY lot. And I have never gone to an amusement park with such lax security before. I kept muttering curses under my breath and called them 'uncouthed idiots' right to their faces. Some of them could understand english, I could see, because they stared at me when I cursed. But I didn't give a damn. They cut your queue right in front of your eyes... and push and were just absolutely uncivilized animals! And climb the gates! It was like a riot, I tell you. The 6 of us foreigners stuck together like glue, with me and my sister in the centre, surrounded by our boy cousins. At one point, Hefni, the oldest of us and who'd just finished his A-levels, started bellowing angrily when this group of boys started climbing the gates and crossing over our heads. Some of them weren't as bad... but they still wanted to cut queue. One of them sign languaged to my brother: "My friend -" and pointed to his friend in front of us. To which my brother replied: "My friend is right in front of the queue; CAN I GO THERE?" I tell you... we were so angry. But we couldn't possibly start punching any of them. For one thing we were small. For another, there were 6 of us and a million of them. There seemed to be some school trip. That was one hour of my life, which I will never forget.

We also went by train, to Luxor. The centre of old Egyptian civilization. There was the temple of Karnak. We also went to Cleopatra's temple, and Hatshepsut temple. Hatshepsut was a female pharoah (quite a feat to be so at that time) who often dressed as a man. And finally went into some tombs. At some parts, we had to crawl because the tunnel was so small. Pharoahs normally married their siblings and daughters and sons. Quite ewey. Incest fest. If I'm not wrong, Ramses II had about 50 wives, of which 2 were his daughters. His favourite however, was the fifth, called Nefertiti (or is it Nefertari? Darn, I forgot.) You sohuld take a look at some of the photos.

Will stop here for now.