Cairene Weekend

Salim, a wiry, balding taxi driver in his 50s, weaves in and out of the labyrinth of jostling cars and motorcycles on one of Cairo's countless jammed highways. Yelling abuse at other drivers one second, conducting conversations with other stationary chauffeurs through his open window the next, he ducks into an opening in the traffic to take the junction he wants. He asks me for my phone number so that I can call him whenever I want to 'go somewhere'. We both know that he is going to try to overcharge me for airport parking fees when we arrive at my friend's apartment in the district of Mohandesin, and he has already driven a hard bargain over the fare. I am hungover, the car is hot and stuffy, the air chokes my throat. The concrete sprawl seems to go on forever. A short flight from Beirut is turning into a long haul.

A growling, restless, polluted behemoth of a city, the version of the Middle East that confronts you in Cairo is a world away from Beirut, which seems positively serene in comparison. Its population of around 20 million is 4 times greater than the whole of Denmark but squeezed into an area the size of Copenhagen (population: 1.2 million).

Required to temporarily leave Lebanon within 3 months of my arrival due to visa regulations, I chose to visit friends from Aarhus University who are spending their exchange semester learning the markedly different Egyptian dialect. In a place of such overwhelming size and stature, it's lucky to have someone you can rely on to help you find your way around as a newcomer. Walking through the area between Mohandesin, Midan Lubnan and Sudan Street, a friend and I got completely lost among the narrow alleyways. Here, men stood ironing on the street (an Egyptian take on dry cleaning), goats and horses scratched around in the dirt, traditionally dressed women shopped for food and clothes and men sat playing dominoes and backgammon or prayed inside open-doored mosques. Asking for help to find the way back, we were helped by a number of people giving directions, many not really knowing the way themselves even though we hadn't come far. One overweight man of about 20 years walked with us for over 20 minutes taking us to the address we had given him, purely out of good will. He took us to the address we gave, but the wrong one - for some reason there are two roads with the same name and three buildings all with the same address just in this one district.

We also visited the more touristy Khan el-Khalili market. The taxi ride across town in the interminably busy traffic was itself another mesmerising glimpse of the average Cairo day. The millions went about their business amongst the dirty underpasses, dusty brown rectangular apartment slabs and towering Ottoman minarets, all to the drone of the incessant honking of car horns. Walking around the market, we received constant attention from hawkers and sellers trying to bring us into their shops. Their tactics range from shouting the unimaginative 'Excuse me' or 'Where are you from?' to holding up an item and saying 'Do you know the price?' (easy way out: just answer 'yes'), to using humour. One shop owner called out 'Excuse me, can I try to hustle you please?'. Another: 'Hello, would you like to try to get some?' while pointing to a rack of galabiyas, the traditional Egyptian male outfit still worn by many.

Attitudes towards Western women, from the men in this market at least, are awful and surely some form of education is needed. From mild verbal abuse to shameless physical harassment, the frequency as well the nature of the attention inevitably takes its toll on long-term foreign visitors. As we walked through the market, a man of around my age muttered 'sharmuta' (whore), about the most insulting thing you can say to a woman in Arabic. When we stopped and remonstrated with him in his own language his cockiness disappeared and he looked away.

The medieval Saladin Citadel lies at the top of a hill overlooking the otherwise flat landscape of the city. Here, we visited the magnificent Muhammed 'Ali mosque, an imposing collection of domes and minarets, the interior a breathtaking example of Ottoman architecure. The mosque was added to the citadel in the mid-19th century. Now it is mainly frequented by tourists, Egyptian and foreign, although there were also people praying inside. We then walked across the citadel to the military museum, complete with its rough English translations, excellent range of Ottoman and Muhammad 'Ali-era artefacts and glossing over of conflicts that didn't go so well. Outside the museum are a number of British, American, Russian and other tanks and aircraft used during the '67 war with Israel, Suez Crisis and Second World War.

The best thing about the citadel, though, was the view. The metropolitan expanse of Cairo stretched away as far as the eye can see, with only the many minarets and few skyscrapers breaking up the brown concrete monotony, a fitting image to the impossible vastness of the city. Cairo, of course, was witness to a revolution a little over a year ago. The post-revolutionary road has been bumpy and no new president is yet in place. Despite many Cairenes apparently being worse off since Hosni Mubarak was ousted on 25 January 2011, and demonstrations against the decision making of the interim military government still common on Tahrir Square, there is an impression that people are calm about what the final outcome will be. Seeing them up close and their city in all its enormousness in a single frame, it's difficult not to be in awe.

The Pyramids at Giza

In September 1991 I was taught history in school for the first time. The class of fresh new middle school children was to learn about Ancient Egypt. The teacher, a tall South African called Ms. Fraser, who had frizzy blonde hair and always wore a polo shirt with the collar turned up, introduced a class of excited kids to a fantastical world of pharaohs, hieroglyphics, hidden tombs, buried treasure, spirits and mystery. We learnt how to write our names using pictures. We were told of the mystical and enormous triangular structures built by this ancient civilisation, so big and strong they still stood today.

So began an unhealthy obsession with travelling, history and visiting relics of ancient civilisations. During my recent Egyptian sojourn, I had the privelege of seeing the pyramids, arguably the most famous archaeological wonder in the world, with my own eyes. We took a taxi to Giza, now part of Cairo's urban spread. The city ends as suddenly as the desert begins, giant monoliths springing out of nowhere beyond the modern buildings.

The taxi driver dropped us off about half a mile from the entrance. An unavoidable aspect of any visit to the pyramids is Egypt's take on the tourist industry. This means dealing with constant attention from camel and horse drivers, souvenir sellers and plain scam artists. The latter approached us as we walked towards the ticket booth, claiming that way was for 'cars only' and that we should instead follow him down a side street. I didn't know whether to laugh or be irritated by the sheer audacity of his patter. After buying our tickets for the pitiful price of 30 Egyptian Guinea (around £3.50), we passed through the low-key entrance and security check. Walking up the ramp behind the building onto the plateau, we were confronted by a man wearing the all-white tourist police uniform who yelled at us for not having a 'horse ticket', ordering us to go back. A group of Egyptians in normal clothes milled around nearby. One came over and told us to ignore the 'crazy man', which we did and walked past. The 'helper' then proceeded to try to sell us a horse ride, the apparent end game of a bizarre sales technique. 

This aside, we were not seriously hassled, only having to continually politely decline offers of camel rides and postcards. The former are offered for a ridiculously low price which inevitably goes up without explanation once you are sitting on the camel and cannot get down. Souvenirs are sold in the same way - offered for next to nothing to get your attention before the initial price is conveniently forgotten about.

None of this should, and indeed it does not, take away from the utterly mindblowing and magnificent spectacle that the pyramids, as well as the Sphinx, are. Thought to be between 3,000-5,000 years old, they were originally covered in limestone, evidence of which can be seen on the tip of the second-largest Pyramid of Khafre. They were therefore once completely white. The pyramids contain up to 2.3 million blocks weighing 2 and a half tonnes each. Despite theories that aliens did it or that the Ancient Egyptians had 'massive, massive whips', the commonly held concensus seems to be that a highly organised workforce was responsible for this incomprensible feat of engineering and construction, a theory backed up by a worker's village currently being excavated at the site.

All the fascinating facts and theories in the world cannot substitute for the astonishing sight of the pyramids themselves. They are mindboggling to look at, their combination of size and aesthetic geometric quality unlike anything else. I wandered gobsmacked through the exposed desert sunshine for two hours, unable to take my eyes off them. I imagine my 9-year-old self would have reacted in much the same way.

How to Lengthen Your Mind

I recently received a mail from a friend who visited Lebanon in February, partly in a professional capacity. Her stay in the country involved visiting the majority of its Palestinian refugee camps in order to collect data on social conditions within them. Since returning home she has written an article on the living conditions within the camps. Harrowing and heartrending, the article paints a bitter picture of the hard life endured by many in Lebanon.

I have still not visited any of the camps. Many have open access, and I would like to go in order to understand them better, but would rather be invited than traipse up with my camera and sunglasses. I am therefore still waiting but hope to write later about my own impressions - superficial and lacking in understanding though they inevitably, at least to some extent, will turn out to be.

In the meantime I will focus on something entirely different, which may provide some context in future, and which, for better or worse, plays a huge role in my lifestyle here - Beirut's nightlife. A number of the city's neighbourhoods have good bars. The two main destinations, Hamra and Gemmayzeh, which are somehow appropriately on different sides of the city so that one is in the Muslim half and one in the Christian half, both compare favourably in their own right with other big cities I know well, such as Cardiff or Aarhus, for entertainment value. You can go out and do something every night of the week, be it drinking in a bar, clubbing, attending the theatre or going to a concert. The crowds vary from place to place. Rich teenagers in Downtown's superclubs, bohemians in Gemmayzeh's indie bars, students in Hamra, lonely souls in all-night boozers all over town. Foreigners form a decent proportion of the clientele but are a clear minority. Concert venues range from intimate to stadium-size, hosting experimental jazz, Polish folk, Arabic pop. Cat Stevens and Bob Marley's band The Wailers have both played here recently. Red Hot Chili Peppers come to town in September.

In the midst of this plethora of places to go and endless nights on the town, one particular event stands out for me as the most unique and memorable. PC Party is a monthly event which takes place in different venues such as former hotels or theatres. Each month there is a new theme and in the days leading up to the Saturday the event takes place, the organisers use hanging drapes, masses of cotton wool, lighted flooring and whatever else is needed to transform the venue into an over-the-top tribute to angels, Viennese balls, or whatever theme has been chosen. Partygoers are asked to go along with the theme by conforming to a dress code - wear something white, bring a mask, be fabulous.

PC Party is the biggest gay-friendly event in Lebanon. In a country where homosexuality is illegal and even hetero public displays of affection are frowned upon, gay people don't get as much opportunity to be themselves and be open about themselves. The PC night is a big monthly event that takes a lot of organisation and has attendances in the thousands, about half of them gay by my estimation. The style of the party leaves nothing to the imagination, with its drag queens, dancers on stilts, topless men and posturing. The organisers must need a certain amount of influence to be able to run something like this, to put it tactfully. Said without tact - I'm sure they pay a sizeable bribe to someone.

In my last blog I alluded to my irritation at the attitudes of men towards the opposite sex. There is none of that here. Straight or gay, everyone is friendly, easy going, happy to be there. Finally, once you have paid the cover charge of approximately £20, the bar is an open free-for-all. This is a recipe for disaster for those of us who cannot shake our English/Danish binge-drinking ways, but the Lebanese keep it respectable and no-one gets aggressive or violent. You may wake up with a hangover the size of the moon, but you'll have a stupendously funny night and you and your friends will come to no harm.

Lebanese Arabic has an expression which translates to 'lengthen your mind'. It does not mean the same thing as the English 'open minded', but is used when you want someone to relax.

PC Party's facebook page

Extra Time

Spring has arrived in Beirut. The temperature over the last few days has edged into the high twenties, the evenings are balmy and the air in the city streets dusty and warm. Easter weekend has coincided with a bright yellow full moon, which casts a glow over the people of the Christian suburb of Geitawi as they gather in the streets on their way to church. Fustu the cat is leaving a trail of white fur all over my apartment as he sheds his winter coat.

My daily routine now has a regular pattern. As well as studying at language school I have started work as an intern with the Beirut branch of Time Out magazine, writing listings for the website and conducting the odd interview. I go to school in the morning and work in the afternoon. I only began this job a week ago but it is a 3-month placement, which means my stay in Lebanon has now been extended by one month until the end of June. Since deciding to take the internship and stay longer, I have had a lot less free time - homework also takes up a fair proportion of my weekday evenings - which means I'm able to appreciate the 4-day Easter weekend a lot more.

Last weekend I relaxed by spending the day in Tyre (known here as Sour), the southernmost major city in Lebanon, within a half-marathon of the firmly closed Israeli border. Like many other cities around the country, Sour has impressive and well-preserved Roman ruins. The procession of pillars in two parallel rows gives an easy mental image of a boulevard in a Roman city. The modern town has a relaxed atmosphere with a wide corniche running along the shore like a quiet version of the one in Beirut. Oranges and lemons grow in the fields on the outskirts and by the road leading back north towards Saida.

The different areas of Beirut and Lebanon are home to many different types of people, and they all seem friendly, laid-back and open minded, but how they actually feel about eachother under the surface is difficult to gauge. A friend who recently stayed with a family in the countryside was subjected to some fairly extremist Christian opinions which, as a guest, she was forced to listen to. A taxi driver who took us across town a couple of weeks ago began to insult any woman he drove past who happened to be wearing a headscarf. However open intolerance like this seems seems quite rare to me and not different from the wide spectrum of opinions you can find anywhere in the world.

All the Lebanese friends I have here are male with one exception, my flatmate's girlfriend. Men are a lot more free to go out and do what they want. My female friends, all foreign, have all had at least one experience of harassment from local men. I recently shared a taxi with a friend. The driver was silent until we reached my apartment when I got out of the car. As soon as I left he began to touch her and harass her. This is cowardly behaviour and happens regularly, but is by no means the worst example. Two different friends been confronted by men who have proceeded to masturbate in front of them on the street, one in broad daylight. Men of all ages and social statuses seem to think all Western women are fair game. Although I can't say for sure, I presume they treat Lebanese women with more respect. Regardless, this is by far the most negative aspect of Lebanon I have experienced. At best it is a cultural misunderstanding, at worst utterly reprehensible behaviour and in either case unacceptable.