Egypt

Travel: 12 days in Egypt

Sunday Tasmanian (Mike Bingham)

A NILE boatman able to recite slabs of Shakespeare in between mimicking tourists' accents was just one of the surprises which Egypt holds for visitors.

For another, add the attendant at the main mosque in old Cairo who put my shoes in a rack and slapped down a numbered disc in front of me. "Okay," he smiled, "now you're a member."

And how about the security man at my hotel late one night as I returned from dinner carrying a bag. I offered it to him for inspection, and he jokingly responded: "Have you got a bomb in there?"

Not tonight, I replied. He laughed and waved me through.

Then there was the small cafe beside a mosque near the pyramids in Cairo. The fact that tourists like me were sitting back under sun umbrellas enjoying a thirst-quenching beer as the call to Friday lunchtime prayers echoed around the area, caused no offence.

Egypt -- 94 per cent Muslim -- is like that. Enthusiastic about tourism, welcoming, and quite laid back. True, the souvenir sellers have to be survived, but most of them will accept a polite "no, thank you". However, touch the goods and you are set for a long haggle, mixed with mock protests and anguish.

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- Travel: Feeling Safe In Cairo
New York Times (Jennifer Conlin) An interesting article, and reassuringly positive. A family visiting Egypt were in the Cairo square where the bomb went off only days before. The writer's daughter had a photograph which showed the bench where the...

- Travel: Islamic Cairo
The Guardian, UK (David Shariatmadari) The attendant, Samir, unlocked the wooden door to the minaret and left me to go in alone. I had taken off my shoes to cross the threshold, but he explained I would need them again for the minaret climb. As I walked...

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http://www.algomhuria.net.eg/gazette/1/ The article on this URL will expire shortly I do wish that the Egyptian Gazette would archive its articles. Here goes with the latest from reporter Salah Attia, but it was too long to reproduce in full, so have...

- Recent Cairo Attacks - Impacts On Tourism
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/02/wegypt02.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/02/ixworld.html "Seven tourists were reported to be injured in Saturday's incidents, which came less than a month after a bomb near Cairo's well-visited...

Egypt