Category Archives: Snack Sack

Egyptiana VII: The Watcher

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The Seventh Part in which Steve enjoys himself at Another’s Expense

Best supporting actor

 With our two-week tour drawing swiftly to a close. We reserved a sleeper on the night train to Cairo and spent the shank of the afternoon lounging in front of the Temple of Karnak, filling up the corners of our memories with mammoth pylons and soaring pillars and the entertaining chaos of tourists and vendors unfolding beneath them. Sweet Apricot left to mail a postcard and my attention drifted to a well-dressed, matronly woman standing about 30 feet away in the temple forecourt. She wore a flowered dress and a frilly, flowered sun-hat and carried a blindingly white purse. She looked for all the world like she’d just come from a ladies auxiliary meeting at First Presbyterian at the corner of Elm and Main. A little Egyptian boy danced and hovered around her like a new puppy. In his upraised hand he gripped a ferret-sized carved stone crocodile. I couldn’t hear a word, but I knew the script by heart.

He excitedly praised the rare quality of the sculpture’s workmanship, the luster of its stone, its impossibly low price. He flattered her dress and her hat and reminded her what great friends are Egypt and America. She thanked him, but, no, she had no need of a stone crocodile. She had no room for it in her luggage, and the price was out of her reach, and anyway she wasn’t fond of crocodiles, and where in the world is that tour guide? Every minute or so she’d make a break for it, gesturing with finality, turning her back and pacing quickly away. Each time she did, he’d bob around in front of her, walking backwards before her retreat and thrusting the object up to her face that she might better appreciate the remarkable detail of its scales and the incredible value she was being offered. As the duel stretched out, minute after long minute, my fascination grew until the crowds, the hawkers, the grand temples, the carriages along the Corniche and the feluccas afloat upon the placid waters of the Nile dissolved away until all that remained were just we three. I couldn’t look away.

After a solid 10 minutes, just about the time I was beginning to feel badly for the harried tourist, the over-matched woman surrendered. She put a hand gently on his shoulder, leaned down until their noses nearly touched, and said something. His face assumed a mask of somber seriousness and he nodded vigorously. A deal struck and sealed, she fished some money out of her purse and exchanged it for the crocodile. The boy immediately took off at top speed, smiling from ear to ear and holding the hard-won cash high above his head as he ran.

The strange little drama concluded, I sat back in my chair, well-satisfied. As people-watching goes, that was good stuff. I played the highlights over in my mind, and may have actually chuckled out loud. Defeated, but at peace, the woman stood there alone holding her crocodile, still waiting for her tour guide to appear, I supposed. Suddenly the little boy streaked up at a dead run, literally skidding to a stop in front of her. He held a carved stone bust of Nefertiti up to her face. I looked away. I couldn’t go through that again. I just didn’t have it in me.

But that wasn’t us. We were better than that. Stronger than that. We were seasoned veterans who’d seen the elephant, saddled the beast, and now rode astride it like warrior kings. We spent our last two days in Egypt knocking around Greater Cairo, and I didn’t lose a thin dime to baksheesh the whole time. My Formica armor was high-grade leather, by then, more than a match for local wiles. Although I’m not proud to admit it now, a good part of our conversation turned around self-congratulation. Egypt’s tough, sure, but we had its number. We moved about at will and were nobody’s fools. How smart we were, and how much to be admired. Now that we’d mastered that land’s exotic customs, there was nothing else for it but to return at our first opportunity and show some folks – the airport greeter figured high on our list – that the American Tourist is a person to be reckoned with.

Stone of contention

We were insufferable.

 

Next Time: Trapped!

Egyptiana VI: Soldier of Fortune

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The Sixth Part in which Steve has an Unsatisfactory Restaurant Experience

Tipping was mandatory

 Tell me if this counts as baksheesh: One morning I ran out to get a couple bottles of the viscous, super-sweet, neon solution that passes for orange juice in Luxor. The way to the market took me past a restaurant where three young soldiers were lounging around a patio table. Wearing dark combat uniforms and heavily armed, they exhibited the kind of excrutiating boredom distinctive to teenagers, which is exactly what they looked like. As I passed, one of them said something I didn’t quite catch. I stopped. I shouldn’t have.

“I’m sorry,” I said, eyeing their serious-looking military hardware and speaking with what I hoped looked like great friendship. “Did you say something?” One of them stood up, nonchalantly retrieved his rifle from the chair next to him and sauntered nearer. He looked even younger up close. “American?” he asked. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t exactly not smiling either. It looked like he’d been working hard on his first mustache without much success. “Yes, American,” I said, unveiling the winning smile I normally hold in reserve for job interviews and encounters with the DMV. “Can I help you guys with something?” I wondered why he’d picked up his gun, then decided not to wonder about that anymore. He may have considered the bonds of fellowship uniting our respective nations to be so strong and universally acknowledged as to be not worth mentioning, because he didn’t mention them.

“One pound,” he said, blandly. His two buddies, still sprawled across their chairs with elaborate indifference, turned their faces toward us with something approaching vague interest. “Why?” I asked, really wanting to know. For explanation, he tapped his chest. “You…give me…one pound.” The words “no baksheesh” formed briefly in my throat where they silently choked to death. On the one hand, I felt that this was an egregious abuse of the baksheesh principle. On the other, these were kids with guns. I fished out a pound note and handed it over. He accepted it without comment. I nodded and turned to leave. “Eh, eh,” he said. He pointed first to one inert friend: “One pound ”, and then to the other: “One pound.”

Damn and damn. Luckily I had two more pound notes in my pocket. One-pound notes are the standard currency of baksheesh in Egypt, and surprisingly hard to come by. I paid them off and fled. Back at the hotel, I breathlessly recounted the whole shabby business to Sweet Apricot, who was outraged, although by that time she existed in a more or less perpetual state of righteous indignation. She thought me craven and stupid for letting the punks shake me down without a fight. That I would have been fighting armed soldiers over a buck-fifty was, in her view, irrelevent. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and you’ll get my three pounds when you pry it out of my cold, dead hand. I’m not saying Sweet Apricot was wrong, but I am saying that on that day, on that hot, fly-blown street, I saw no profit in extending the uncomfortable association any longer than necessary. If three pounds was the price of a ticket out of there, I was content to pay it. In hindsight, I don’t generally regard the incident as baksheesh-related, since it felt more like armed robbery. Then again, anybody who knows me will tell you I’m a nervous sort, and prone to self-dramatization.

Next Time: A drama unfolds!

Egyptiana V: A New Hope

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The Fifth Part in which Steve disappoints a Small Child

Pay-per-view

 We toured Luxor Temple, the grand centerpiece of our new balcony-view. It didn’t disappoint. As I stood among the stones contemplating one great marvel or another, an old man standing several yards away gestured for me to approach. I ignored him. He gestured again, more urgently. I was made of solid temple stone. “Please!” he yelled. “You must!” There’s some weight behind “must”, and I figured if I was careful not to accept items, help or advice I’d probably be okay. I walked over to where he stood. He just smiled at me. I smiled back. He gestured toward the temple’s interior. I turned to look. It was a striking scene – the great seated figure of Ramses II framed on one side by a towering obelisk and on the other by an artistically disintigrating temple wall. “Beautiful, yes?,” he asked. “Yes, it is very beautiful,” I replied, meaning it. He held out his hand. “Baksheesh.” It took me a moment to realize he wanted me to pay him for a prospect 3,500 years in the making. It was touch and go, but at last I smiled back and, with a sympathetic shrug, said “no baksheesh.” He was furious, and started yelling at me in his native tongue. I retreated in embarassment, but he was right on my heels, maintaining a steady fire of unintelligible venom as I fled across the floor of the ancient wonder and clean out of Luxor Temple. And so it would go.

At a small, deserted temple south of town, we climbed a short flight of stone steps to see if there was anything interesting at the top. There wasn’t. A robed figure met us on the way down. The stairs were off-limits, he said, but he’d forgive our transgression for a fee. “No baksheesh,” I said. He also yelled at me.

At the Artisan’s Village on the West Bank we walked a few yards up the hillside along a well-used path to get a closer look at the façade of a worker’s tomb. A man yelled up from below that the much-traveled hillside could only be trod for a price. “No baksheesh,” I said. He yelled again, but less gently.

A worker’s tomb

We surprised a couple of young British tourists climbing out of a hole in the sand. “It’s a tomb,” said one. “Bloody brilliant.” It was bloody brilliant, and when we emerged a half-hour later covered with dust and glory a dusty robed specter was waiting for us demanding payment. “No baksheesh,” I said. His rage was Biblical, and we actually had to run away from that scene.

Burning with thirst at the Valley of the Kings visitors center, we ordered a couple of soft drinks at the lunch counter, paid for them at the register, and stood patiently awaiting delivery. After several arid minutes we went back to the cashier and asked when we could expect relief. Looking decidedly put-upon, she rose from her stool, fetched two cans from the cooler, handed them over, then rubbed her thumb against her fingers in the universally recognized gesture for “fork it over.” We pretended to not understand. “Baksheesh,” she barked, impatiently, explaining the obvious to idiots. I feigned surprise. “No baksheesh,” I said. We left her still hollering and shaking her finger at us. We ran straight into a tour bus in the process of unloading a cargo of middle-aged package-tourists. “You can go anywhere you want, and see any tombs you want,” the tour guide shouted to his flock. “You have 20 minutes.” They all went straight into the visitors center and ordered soft drinks.

I’ll admit to one weak moment. As we rested alongside a rural road near Qena, a small two-wheeled donkey-cart appeared carrying a load of fresh-cut grasses. It was driven in the most cavalier fashion by a little boy and a little girl, both perhaps 6 or 7 years old. The young carters were animatedly discussing their own innocent business and almost didn’t notice us. At the last minute, the girl looked our way and her eyes lit up like Ra on high. “Baksheesh!” she piped, excitedly. The boy instantly took up the cry, and they both yelled “baksheesh!” over and over as the donkey slowly pulled them away up the road. I was tempted, but only a fool won’t bend a principle for a child, and I was such a fool. “No backsheesh,” I said. The little girl lifted her chin in a haughty gesture surely borrowed from a much older sister and cast me a look of such magnificent disgust, such bottomless loathing, such complete and irredeemable disdain, that I laughed out loud. Then I chased down the little wagon and gave them each one Egyptian pound.  Sweet Apricot thought I was a sap, but I thought the performance was worth every piastre. The little girl seemed happy with the money, but no better inclined toward me.

Next Time: A sticky situation!

Egyptiana IV: The Meltdown

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The Fourth Part in which Steve is party to an Awkward Confrontation

 

Our coach awaits

 

We decided we might have an easier time of it in the provinces and bought bus tickets for Luxor. The ticket agent told us the bus station was right next to the train station. We could find no sign of it and grew anxious as departure time approached. Percieving our distress, an Egyptian soldier wearing neatly pressed olive drabs and toting an automatic rifle hustled over and politely asked if we needed assistance. Figuring that a little baksheesh was better than forfeiting our bus fare, we asked him to point in the direction of the bus station. Instead, he motioned us to follow and took off at a trot.

The was, indeed, right next to the train station, but only in the sense that it was right next to an elevated eight-lane highway, which was right next to several rows of dilapidated warehouses, which were right next to a long, narrow, rutted dirt lot, which was,in fact, the bus station. When we puffed up to our bus not less than 15 minutes later, I pulled a wad of pound-notes out of my pocket and started peeling off what I considered, perhaps for the first time, some richly-deserved baksheesh. The young soldier’s calm expression morphed into something that might have been embarrassment, or annoyance, or something else altogether, then he waved me off with a casual gesture, turned smartly, and double-timed back the way we’d come. Watching his straight back disappear in the chaos of the bus terminal, I got a little misty. No kidding.

As we prepared to board our surprisingly posh motor coach – complete with television monitors and meal service – I made the mistake of setting my pack down next to the open baggage compartment just long enough to check the bus number on my ticket. A kid instantly grabbed it and tossed it all of two feet into the hold. It cost me LE3. I wondered why nobody else on the bus took supper service until the attendant hit us with a LE60 bill for what amounted to two lukewarm Swanson’s frozen hot dog dinners. We still had much to learn.

We were met in Luxor by a swarm of energetic young touts in the hire of local hoteliers. We explained that we were looking for the Four Seasons, described in our guidebook as a four-story building one block from the river with stunning views of Luxor Temple. “Four Seasons, yes!”, said one bright fellow. “Very good! Come, please!” We followed him to a non-descript two-story pile about four blocks from the river with views of nothing. A sign behind the desk read “Hotel el Shaikh.” We were skeptical. “Are you sure this is the Four Seasons?,” asked Sweet Apricot, pointing to the sign. “Yes, Four Seasons,” he said, nodding with almost manic conviction. “Was Four Seasons, now Hotel el Shaikh. Name is changed only.”

He spoke warmly of the great friendship that exists between our two countries, and asked if we’d like him to obtain our required police passport stamps. The stamps would cost LE5 each, and he wanted his baksheesh up front. Since we didn’t know where the police station was and didn’t really feel like wasting any time looking for it, we handed over our passports and the cash and went out to find cold beer. We found it at a sidewalk restaurant about a block from the river and right across the street from Hotel Abu el Haggag, a neat four-story building affording stunning views of Luxor Temple. We inquired at the desk.

“Was Four Seasons, now Abu el Haggag,” the girl said. We were, again, skeptical. Noting our hesitation, she pulled down a room key. The plastic tag said Four Seasons. Brochures on the desk read Four Seasons. The guest register pages were headed “Four Seasons Hotel”. A black and white photograph on the wall showed the hotel with a large Four Seasons sign above the front door. “New owner,” she said. “Now Abu el Haggag.” I fancied I could see smoke rising directly off of Sweet Apricot’s velveteen skin. There was going to be trouble.

Two minutes later she was leaning over the desk at Hotel el Shaikh, raining 10 plagues and change down on the hapless clerk’s head. He put up a valiant fight, but never really stood a chance. He agreed in principal to refund our unused night’s stay, but unwisely drew the line at the as-yet unused police stamp fees. Sweet Apricot was bent on total victory. As an interested bystander I found the battle both horribly awkward and deeply satisfying. In the end, the clerk capitulated on all points but one – he kept the baksheesh. Sweet Apricot was outraged. “Is baksheesh,” he shrugged. I gingerly suggested we check in at the Four Seasons while they still had rooms available. She retired from the field.

 

The (eventual) view from our hotel room

 

That turned out to be a watershed moment in my personal touristic development. Sweet Apricot had been wearing forged steel psychic armor since our third cab ride, but I was still lightly clad in something more akin to Formica. Witnessing a determined opponent thusly crushed made me feel like maybe I didn’t have to dish out negotiable gratitude to every smiling local who took it upon himself to look both ways for me before I crossed the street, or to subsidize every shopkeeper who physically dragged me off the sidewalk to peruse his stock. It was liberating, and a little bit daunting, too.

Next Time: The tipping point!

Egyptiana III: Curse of the Mummy Room

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The Third Part in which Steve becomes a Collector of Fine Art

The Citadel of Cairo

I am not endowed with any special gift of understanding, but I came to understand this much: once a service, however small – welcome or not, needed or not, requested or not, recognizable or not – is provided, baksheesh must necessarily ensue. To the Egyptians, it’s an unbreakable social contract. And for what it’s worth, I’m perfectly comfortable with tipping as a general economic principle. It’s not like I’ve never tipped before. Anybody who knows me will tell you I’m a good tipper. In Egypt, however, the concept is flexible to the point of bankruptcy.

Every time I set down my backpack I could be sure that somebody would appear from out of nowhere to pick it up – not carry it anywhere, you understand,  just pick it up and hand it to me – occasioning baksheesh.The old woman holding the toilet paper hostage outside the public lavatory may engender more inconvenience than otherwise, but the moment she peels off those precious squares and puts them in your desperate hand, you’re on the hook. To my way of thinking, the only way to keep from getting skinned 50 times a day was to expend tremendous physical and mental energy trying to be utterly self-sufficient in all things at all times. I developed the habit of hanging onto my luggage like grim death, and if I had to lay it down for even a second I’d sit on it. I carried wads of toilet paper in my pockets. I’d eat standing up, lest anyone should show me to a chair. I surreptitiously scouted public doors before attempting to open them, then lunge for the handle before some watchful tip-monger could beat me to the punch. I was a tightwad on fire. My success was limited, but gratifying.

Emotionally better equipped than I to address our on-going taxi problems, Sweet Apricot adopted the tactic of buying a city map and spending half an hour memorizing our expected route before hailing a cab. If she so much as suspected the driver of deviating a single block from her charted course, she’d imperiously command him to stop and let us out. To my relief and amazement, it worked like a charm. Without fail the driver would offer a warm, smiling apology and return to the righteous path. Not once did they seem resentful, or disappointed, or even mildly abashed. No harm, no foul, baksheesh, please.

Strolling near the Citadel, we stopped to admire a big slab of ancient wall thickly inscribed with heiroglypics that stood alone in a tight space between two buildings. Neither of us could read heiroglyphics, which didn’t diminish our appreciation of the impressive object in the slightest. Nevertheless, a young man appeared at Sweet Apricot’s shoulder and began translating the relic using only the name “Horus” and what I assume were his only two words of relevant English. “Horus,” he said, pointing to a falcon-headed male figure. “Two babies,” he said, pointing to something that looked nothing like two babies. That little tutorial cost us LE5.

During our visit to the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, the gal at the ticket counter sold us two general admissions and asked if we’d care to spend an additional LE20 – each – for access to the popular basement “mummy room.” Of course we did. As we soon found out, the mummy room was closed for renovation, and had been for months. By the time we got back to the ticket counter, the girl who sold us the useless coupons was long gone and her replacement adamantly refused to refund them on the grounds that Egyptian law forbade any but the original ticketing agent to correct the error.

How I imagine the Mummy Room must look

One evening after dinner we were lured into a papyrus shop by the sight of two men wearing ancient garb squatting in the front window and fabricating papyrus paper from freshly cut reeds. We didn’t want any papyrus, but we thought the process would be interesting to watch. As difficult as it may be for some to understand, the meekly whispering, modestly scarved, painfully deferential salesgirl forced me – forced me – to buy something I didn’t want and couldn’t really afford by the simple device of repeatedly asking me to. After 20 minutes of successfully resisting her quiet brand of pressure I was growing exasperated, and when she asked me for the umpteenth time to consider a 1-foot-square papyrus portrait of Maat worth something like LE20 it seemed like maybe I wasn’t making myself perfectly clear.

“I’m not here to buy anything,” I said, firmly. I will go to my grave serene in the certainty that I raised my voice only slightly – for emphasis, nothing more. I’m not a yeller in any case, and deliberate rudeness is simply not in my nature. Ask anybody who knows me. Yet her immediate response was to clasp her hands together at her waist and snap her chin down as if anticipating a blow. I was so mortified that I instantly bought a 2-by-4-foot scroll featuring the Funeral of Osiris for LE140. Sweet Apricot was disgusted at my weakness, and even more disgusted when I blew most of the next morning trying to mail the bulky nuisance back to the States. 

Next Time: Hotel hell!