Egypt Archives - Insideotherplaces

Posts tagged "Egypt"

The Egyptian Highway Code

Thinking of driving in Egypt? Don’t! Unless you are considering shortening your life span considerably or have an uncontrollable urge to invest in car body repairs. Don’t take this to mean Egyptian drivers are unskilled: it actually takes great skill to avoid getting killed in the malestrom of automotive chaos that is Egyptian traffic. In fact, they have the lowest road death rate in Africa, not far behind the European average. What you need to understand is that they operate…

An Englishman abroad in the time of Covid and Brexit.

How Coronavirus and Brexit have shaped my travels and plans for the year ahead

The dark side of Egyptian sex life online

It’s almost inevitable that the more you get to know a country, especially by making friends there, that you start to come across the darker sides to life, usually hidden from the passing tourist. Our own countries are no exception, as humanity’s baser urges hold little respect for wealth, culture or religion, these factors just influence the style in which these urges express themselves and how they are responded to by society. Almost universally it is women that are on…

Soul of the city: Alexandria, Egypt

Digging under the surface of Egypt’s famous city Probably the most important thing about Egypt’s second city according to its residents, is that it certainly isn’t Cairo. In particular they’ll tell you that it’s not as busy, dirty or noisy as the capital, which might come as a bit of a surprise to a westerner arriving in Alexandria who had yet to see Cairo, for by European standards it is all these things, even if it pales in comparison…

Divided Egypt

Who’s going to put Egypt back together again? “What do you think of President Sisi”, asked one of the charming young ladies who had been helping me buy a train ticket. “Well, er um”, I waffled, trying not to commit myself too much in one direction. We were, after all, standing by a group of people queueing for tickets and the wrong opinion, too firmly expressed has caused some to disappear without trace during his excellency’s reign. “I hate him”, she…

Egypt’s VIP police taxi service

Taking tourist security to that extra level in Egypt Deep in misty dreams of sumptuous temptations, something knocked on the doors of my subconscious, cruelly beckoning me back to the world of daylight. The unwarranted intrusion into my reverie metamorphosed into the insistent clatter of fist against the shoddy carpentry claiming to be my door. Some words of arabic had little trouble piercing the feeble woodwork, “hokouma” was the only word I needed to understand, government. “Yeah,yeah, yeah”, I grumbled…

Making friends in Fayoum

The first signs were good: within minutes of getting off the bus somewhere on the outskirts of Fayoum I’d found a motorbike taxi who didn’t make any attempt to rip me off, in fact I couldn’t be sure if he wasnt just some guy who was happy to help out. Certainly he spent most of the time shouting out to all and sundry as we passed by, something along the lines of, “look look a foreigner has come to visit”!…

Welcome to the back end of Cairo

A visit to Manshiyat Naser, Cairo There is one major obstacle taking the back streets in a walk to Manshiyat Naser: tea. At times it’s only a matter of minutes between the shouts of hearty fellows inviting you over to join them in another glass, that traditional measure of hospitality throughout so much of the world. My clumsy pronunciation of, “shukran, ana lissa shribt shai” (thanks I’ve just drunk tea) my only weapon to politely stave off the numerous calls…

Birqash Camel Market

Egypt’s biggest camel market near Cairo As we left the dusty concrete of Cairo’s outskirts behind us in the early morning haze, the mini bus driver replaced the calming tones of qur’anic recitation with the strident, impassioned voice of an Imam in full hellfire and brimstone mode. Of course the vast bulk of its meaning flew way over my humble understanding of arabic but with almost shouted exclamations concerning America and France I could be fairly sure he wasnt complimenting…

Egyptian sex and the city

Behind the veil of love lie dark secrets Egyptians like to gossip. Also they like to complain about gossiping, as for some it extends to an unhealthy obsession in other people’s lives. To many in the West the subjects worthy of gossip may often seem rather tame but this is still a conservative society, despite many external appearances of western modernity and it’s only by digging deeper that you discover the tensions created at the front line of the clash…

Tag: Egypt

The Egyptian Highway Code

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An Englishman abroad in the time of Covid and Brexit.

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Soul of the city: Alexandria, Egypt

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Divided Egypt

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Egypt’s VIP police taxi service

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Making friends in Fayoum

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Welcome to the back end of Cairo

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Birqash Camel Market

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Egyptian sex and the city

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