“Walk like an Egyptian”.....errr, more like "Push and Shove like an Egyptian"!

After a ‘mission’ to buy a hat and some dinner from the supermarket which went less smoothly than expected, I am possibly not in the best mood to be typing this....however it may make for more amusing reading for you lot!

So I find myself, after four days in the country amazed by the amount of pushing and shoving that occurs every moment of the day, both on the roads, on the foot paths and in the shops. Unbelievable, it’s worse than a public school canteen line when the teacher ‘forgets’ their yard duty!

So how is it that you handle yourself in a country where ‘pushing in’ is not just culture, not just a pastime, not a national obsession, not even a way of life, it’s just NORMAL? Honestly, lining up is as foreign to Egypt as 10mm of rainfall! I even witnessed our driver pushing his bus in to get in front of the bus ahead of us whilst we were in an armed convoy! Like we were going to get anywhere faster! Tonight at the supermarket I ended up with two boxes of biscuits being thrust almost up my nose and imbedded into my brain by a lady wanting to be served before us, and our groceries were half way scanned! She did manage to push well in front of the 20 other people with outstretched goods, a respectable effort some would say!
Walking down the footpath is a slower version of what occurs on the roads, there is no noticeable side to drive or walk on, just the side that looks the best at any given moment. Foot traffic has a habit of stopping still, halting traffic flow or veering wildly without indication, just like on the roads. Kids are a law onto themselves (well that’s true in every country!) But I cannot resist telling you of the kid who couldn’t see me in my bright yellow t-shirt with bright green zebras on it, like six of the stripy animals, wearing my bright red crocs and carrying my bloody huge yellow and black bumblebee looking camera bag and crashed right into my hip, yeah collected straight onto the hip bone with his skull bone making a thud, now it hurt me, but he must have concussion! I just dread the day when he starts driving...possibly in two years!

So for anyone travelling to Egypt soon, here is the benefit of my experience of pushing with the best of them (I have accumulated three bruises in learning the following)-

1. Sharpen your elbows, seriously, if you are spending more than one month here, you may want to consider a surgical procedure to make the point of your elbow sharper
2. Get a big bag, preferably with sharp edges, and a handle which allows maximum control for swinging wildly at people
3. Aim for the parts that hurt; kidneys, ribs and the neither regions on males are the only areas to bother landing an elbow, suitcases are ideal for shins and thighs and work remarkably on ribs and heads; although be wary of taking out anyone who has their head at a height where you can easily smash it with a suitcase, either they are a midget and you will be accused of discrimination, or someone else has hit them before you and you may get accused of laying injuries that you just didn’t dish out
4. “Cant beat them join them”... this is the pure reason why Egypt has adopted a national sport of pushing and shoving. No one person will ever change how things are, not even you! You can stand back and be civilised, but you will die of starvation or old age right there! Get your elbows out and get ready if you want to see anything in this country!

After you have pushed and shoved your way into the country (yep, customs at the border was still the worst ‘shove-fest’ that I have been a part of, I’m still cleaning the man sweat from my arms!) you then need to contend with the millions of sleazy men in this country. I am not sure if the sleaze is due to the excitement over a white female who is showing more than her eyes to the world, or if it is the erotically shaped coke bottles in these parts (I know that coke bottles are designed to look like a woman’s torso, but these are just unbelievable, closer to Barbies proportions than a normal coke bottle! AND only hold 191ml, now what use is 191ml when it’s 40 degrees?) It is common practice for men to hit on females, I wonder if they are surprised when foreigners actually say ‘no’! Just be careful not to stand in the back of a shop as most shop keeps are males and the shops always seem to have a small entry and exit area where the shop keeper tends to stand in, blocking you in!

I am missing the relative peace and quiet of Sudan, Egypt being a tourist country has perfected all the tourist trap tricks like over inflated prices and the old “where are you from?” Like you really give a s&*t where I am from? You didn’t even listen when I said I was from China and you just told me you were from China too! You just want to get my money out of me quickly! So far today we have been asked if we were from Slovakia, Ireland, South Africa, China, Australia, Ireland again, and Slovakia again, People didn’t flinch when I said I was from Slovakia and New Zealand, but I’m not sure what the bloke who asked if I was from Ireland was on, way to tanned for that!

Yesterday Morning we were up at 2.30am to board a bus at 3am for Abu Simbel The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside during the 13th century, the complex was relocated in its entirety in the 1960s it was cut into blocks and removed and placed back together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. The relocation of the temples was necessary to avoid their being submerged during the creation of Lake Nasser, which is the lake we took the overnight ferry from Sudan to Egypt on. It is a massive artificial water reservoir formed after the building of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River. Still amazed that you have to take a ferry from Sudan to Egypt, I did hear the conspiracy theory that the ferry company was paying off the roads authority to NOT build a road connecting the two countries to protect their earnings!

So we get on the bus to be told “sometimes I drive left, I drive right, I drive left, but don’t worry” by our driver….way too early in the morning for such statements! Besides after four months in Africa, I don’t really need to be told that we are going to be careening from one side of the road to the other, it’s a given! We follow seemingly hundreds of buses of every colour more suited to an haawain shirt than a bus, into a parking lot. Before we are able to enter the underside of our bus is checked with the torch and mirror set-up, we are then allowed in and start to form up our convoy for the three hour drive to Abu Simbel. The buses travel in convoy through the desert for protection from hijackers or terrorists. Sitting in one of over one hundred buses, I figure the odds of something happening to our bus were less than 1%, with 24 people on our bus, odds of us getting hurt approximately .02%, with this peace of mind I fell asleep in my basic “fly catcher position” for most of the journey, waking up just to watch the sunrise over the desert. An African sunrise still fails to disappoint me, just how do they make the sun look so bloody big in the sky? Surely it’s the same sun that we watch in Australia at, like half the size! Yeah, Yeah, I know it’s something to do with the dust in the atmosphere, the best sunrise that I have ever seen was the one at Johannesburg and I recon that had something to do with the pollution!

So we arrive at Abu Simbel to check out the temples and stand in awe that these giant structures could have ever been relocated! I was also very amused at some graffiti on the walls, dated 1879! That’s a hundred years older than I am, but still recent history in these parts! After tripping over camera wielding tourists in some of the worst attire ever sewn (seriously there must have been a convention of bad fashion and unfortunate looking people on in Abu Simbel that night; whoever was waving ‘the ugly stick’ had been really busy!) we make our way inside the temples, disappointed that I couldn’t take any photos, but super impressed with the hieroglyphics and the good lighting illuminating the insides. The day just got hotter and hotter, and inside the temples was surprisingly hot, but that may have had something to do with the ridiculous amount of people dressed in terrible fashion crammed into a small space! (and you all know that I am not one to speak of fashion, or care about it much, or know much about it, lets face it I have survived in the same three t-shirts for the past 4 months…..but, these people were dressed sooo badly, that even I noticed!) After trying to get photos outside whilst dodging tourists we headed up to have a cool drink on the grass before getting back on the bus and leaving with the convoy. If you ever get to Abu Simbel, stay at Abu Simbel and check the place out in the afternoon, all the tourists who come from Aswan all spend the same hours there and leave in the same convoy, it’s deserted for the rest of the day!

That night was Sonya’s 30th birthday, we adjourned to the roof top pool dressed as Arabs to celebrate over beer and pizza. Well just Pizza and one beer for me as I am still off the booze. Even Spencer dressed up, which I calculate to be the second time in the almost 9 years I have know him to dress up. He wore the traditional Arab white flowing gown, I wore a dark blue with red embroidery frock with an aqua and silver scarf covering up any hint that I was a female. Now these head coverings are darn hot, and I still had my face out! Not to mention dangerous, they are held together with pins, and not of the safety variety! Whilst in the shop, where the man said I could have the scarf cheaper if I gave him a kiss, sleaze! He tied and pinned it to my head, over my other head covering (it’s way too taboo for a man to take off a woman’s head cover!) and then got me to look into the mirror, as though it was a dress, not a scarf that was taking away my identity! He then got me to try my sunglasses on with it! I guess looks are important!

The Arab night went really well, we have decided to have an Arab day out in the western desert on one of our ‘driving days’, although I will leave the headwear in the locker and just wear my frock which resembles a grannies bed wear!, but useful in the heat. I was even considering that it would make a good Darwin dress, sweat could just roll down to your ankles without hitting a hint of material!

Tomorrow morning we board a felucca (boat) to cruise up the Nile for three days, stopping to check out temples etc arriving in Luxor, after five days in Luxor we are off into the Western Desert, more sand!
(Don't get too used to regular blogs, just taking advantage of great internet connections lately!)