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More Mosque and Minaret Madness
Entry 51 of 60 | show all | print this entry |
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Saturday (December 27)
Whilst eating breakfast this morning I noticed there were 2 other non-Asian people at the hotel (the first I had seen since arriving at the hotel), so before long I was having a "normal" English conversation for the first time since arriving in Cairo! One of the girls I was chatting to, Shauna from Canada, thought it sounded good if she joined me in seeing the parts of Islamic Cairo that I missed the other day. I had previously sworn to myself not to do any more traveling with females due to previous bad experiences, however I she seemed like she could be fun to do some sightseeing with, and she was good looking also (fingers crossed she doesn't read this blog!).
I won't go into detail about every single sight seen or exactly what we did but it turned out to be a good day. The highlights of today:
Al-Azhar Mosque - The courtyard of this mosque is by far the most beautiful in Cairo. We got stuck with some guy giving us a tour unfortunately (who of course demanded baksheesh).
Bab Zuweila - A magnificent city gate now studded with two minarets, which dates back over 1000 years.
Mosque of Ibn Tulun - One of the more popular mosques of Cairo, although I am not sure why. Still however the vast space of the courtyard is a welcome relief form the traffic and chaos outside. The minaret was well worth climbing for great views of the city, even if those views are thousands upon thousands of concrete apartments!
Mosque of Mohammed Ali - No its not named after the boxer. This mosque, contained in the citadel and dominating the skyline of Cairo looks absolutely horrible from the outside but it actually very beautiful on the inside - well worth a look.
Mosque of Mahmoud Pasha - Regarded as the mosque to see in Cairo. The inside is unimpressive in my opinion, but the building from the outside really looks impressive.
For some reason we got off very lightly on the baksheesh request and only paid 2 pound baksheesh the entire day between us. Although Shauna got a lot of attention from the men, which always happens to women in the Middle East, she handled it very well and was respectful enough to "cover-up" at the right times (e.g. wear a headscarf in mosques). So it ended up being a very enjoyable day of seeing some of the lesser known mosques and buildings of Cairo and sightseeing with a female ended up being enjoyable for the first time in the entire trip! Maybe traveling with a female wouldn't be that bad after all. :-)
To end the day we went up to the citadel, on one of the hillsides overlooking Cairo, and enjoyed the fantastic views as well as saw the sights the place had to offer. One of the more bizarre sights was the National Police Museum which was actually really bad except for a room called the "Assassination Room" which had all things related to assassinations and attempted assassinations in Egypt. It was sort of weird for there to be pistols on display with the caption "The Assassination Weapon", can't say you see that every day! The views from the citadel extended all the way to the Pyramids some 15 kilometres away and it was very surreal to see the silhouette of the Pyramids serving as a backdrop to the crowded, polluted and chaotic city.
Sunday (December 28)
I started off the day by taking the subway to the main train station to book my train ticket for Luxor tomorrow. The Cairo subway is surprising extremely clean and efficient, and it only costs 20c to get anywhere in the city. I had nightmare visions in my head of it being like a Japanese subway where people are packed in like sardines, but luckily every 3-4 minutes you have a 10 carriage train pulling up so it is nearly never ever full.
Once I bought my ticket (and successfully avoided the touts who try selling you a train ticket to get a commission) I caught the subway again to section of town known as "Coptic Cairo" as it contains the cities oldest Christian Churches as well as the oldest Jewish Synagogue. Many of the buildings in this section of town are in fact the oldest in Cairo.
Once I got to the place I suddenly realised I had absolutely no energy and it was only 11.00 in the morning. I thought I would stop off for some hommus (which looked and tasted awful) and hoped that I would make me feel more energetic after eating something. That didn't work either and I tried looking at one of the churches but was so disinterested it wasn't funny. I realised that in the past 3 days I had walked so much and seen so many sights that I had absolutely lost the desire to see anything else. So within 30 minutes of arriving at Coptic Cairo I was back on the subway back to the hotel. I spent h rest of the day just relaxing with my feet up and trying to catch up on he travel blog and photo processing, both unsuccessfully.
My thoughts on Cairo? I really, really liked it to be honest. It has been one of the most pleasant surprises on this holiday, a place I thought I would hate I have ended up liking. The people are friendly and it is cheap, and there is an absolute abundance of things to do that are in no way related to Pharonic Egypt, which is a very welcome relief as that's pretty much all people come to Egypt for.
So tomorrow I am off to Luxor, one of the premier places to visit in Egypt due to its huge abundance of ancient Egyptian sights. There is a lot I have not yet seen in Cairo however I will be back in Cairo a few days before my flight out of here (10th of January) so I will have time then to finish seeing everything.
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| 51. | More Mosque and Minaret Madness - Cairo, Egypt Dec 28, 2007 (  28 ) |
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