The Museum of Madness;

But the Chicken is real good...

I awoke a bit earlier than T and D the next morning, as I had to meet our travel agent in the lobby to pick up our train tickets. That was a bit of an ordeal, we had a hard time finding each other. Silly me, I thought he would have a sign that said something like... Oh, I don't know..."Egyptlegend Tours" or "James Dietrich" No such luck. Eventually we found each other, and We got the tickets. What was really nice was to wake up and see our hotel in the sunlight... wonderful..

God bless expensive hotels with lots of cheap, low quality rooms.

On my way out I noticed this parked outside the patio restaurant..

You guessed it...Shishas! (or Hookahs depending on what language you speak...) I had read that you could get a sisha in a restaurant, but didn't think it would be that easy to find... I was immediately excited.

With our very attractive train tickets in hand, we caught a cab downtown to the national museum.

No Camera's are allowed inside the museum, and that's a good thing... not only because it preserves the treasures, and sells more books, but IF YOU TRIED TO TAKE A PICTURE OF ONE 10TH OF THE STUFF INSIDE YOU WOULD RUN OUT OF FILM AND DIE!!!!!

I'm sorry, but MAN! The egyptian museum in Cairo almost defies description. I will try my best to illustrate it...

Immediately on coming in you walk into a giant hall filled with ancient statues, pillars and sarcophagi (sarcophaguses...??) that are not roped off. Everywhere you look people are touching them, playing with them, and in some sad cases... breaking or vandalizing them. If you look up you see a second floor, with rooms jutting off in all directions..

As you leave this room and head to the outside track there are long hallways filled to the top with ancient relics, and every so many feet another room filled with things representing a certain person, or place or time.. you have been in the museum now for 30 minutes and have realized that only 4 things have been labelled so far... As you continue the objects get grander and better preserved. Larger statues, paintings and jewellery start to appear. You have been her just over an hour now and 10 things have been labelled. The other 17,486 objects you have seen remain a mystery to you. From here you find a staircase, (ignoring another hall stacked high with sarcophagi) and proceed to the 2nd floor. Ok now you have some choices... The mummy room and the King tut exhibit are all nearby.. As you pay your extra 15 bucks.. (you'll have to fight with the line cutters at the ticket booth,) you proceed into the mummy room. Here about 9 mummies in various states of cohesion from badly damaged (1) to Oh my god, someone get that poor person out of that glass case before they suffi... oh wait, they've been dead for 2500 years... are there to greet you. I was not prepared for the mummy room. I was expecting to see roughly human shaped lumps of linnen. Oh no... the heads and faces are totally unwrapped.... amazing. I could barely believe my eyes... try not to let the stupid kids that walk by without noticing the amazing things on display get you down... those mummies were amazingly preserved.

I think I said it here for the first time... any ancient culture that came into contact with the Egyptians must have been in awe... I imagine ancient conversations went like this.

"I am Joe from Babylon. Our people have mastered the wheel, and can build clay pots. We have brought you gifts of incense and oils."

"I am JoeTheshput of Egypt. I am a living god. We have built obelisks made of stone, and pyramids that will stand for centuries.. and also our dead don't rot. They lie forever in a perfect state of near life. Thanks for the incense."

I imagine conversations went on much like this until it finally went

"I am Tutankomin of Egypt. I am a living god, Our people have charted the stars, learned to make beer, and our dead do not rot. "

"Smashing, I am Guissippe of Rome, I am not a living god. We haven't really figured out the stars, we got wine down, but that is basically bad juice, and our dead are dead... they turn to dirt.."

"We have however, figured out this stuff called Iron."

"Give us all your stuff"

That for another history lesson though.. back to the museum.

Let's recap. You have been in the museum for 2hours and 15 minutes now. 48 things have been labelled and explained. 26,723 have not. You have seen the mummies and now you turn down the long hallway of King Tut. The most recent unearthing, we have most of the things from his tomb. You go through the long hallways full of statues, weapons, toys, beds, and other other artifacts.. you pass the seemingly unending series of boxes that they found the boy-king lying in.. then you come to a room filled with the jewellery and artifacts.. and there it is.. the golden mask.. the most famous icon of Egypt there is.. and behind it the golden sarcophagus, and the silver and the stone, and the jewellery and amulets they found on him... it is a bit overwhelming.. You take your time in that painfully cold-mega air-conditioned room, stand before the golden mask and let it stare into you for a bit and finally, peacefully leave.

It is at this point that you realize you are halfway through the museum. I can't confirm it, but I am pretty sure that the museum only displays 1 fifth of the treasures it holds.. as Todd put it... "We've got twice as much stuff, but...whatever."

It is at this point that my simplest description of the museum applies.."You come into the museum, and you are amazed... and you make your way through the treasures, seeing more and more unlabelled, unfathomably old things... you stumble across the greatest and most ancient of treasures with little to no explanation, and just when you think you can't take any more... You can't."

You snap. You loose it.

Something inside you goes <pop!> and all of a sudden you can't care anymore.. you are over-egypted... you wander through the next series of rooms, piled high to the ceiling with treasures, and not a one is labelled.. I swear you walk through whole rooms, the size of an american restaurant, with nary a plaque or write up to be found... You start saying things, like.... Look... here's more stuff... and hey look, some ancient...things... you are a zombie. You turn the corner and find yourself staring down a hallway where every 10 yards, there is a cabinet stacked 4 high with mummies in their sarcophagi. You realize the hallway is about 70 yards long... you realize no one will ever see the ones at the top... but you don't stop to try... The one breath of fresh air is the well labelled and organized "animal mummies" room at the end... this is a positive note to end on, as it is interesting, small and well explained. You are now ready to leave the museum. You have been in there for 4 and a half hours... you have seen 600 libelled items, and 168, 247 unlabelled ones. You don't count the 86,356 items in the last few rooms of madness because your tiny mind can't handle it anymore.

As you step outside you are dizzy, confused and have never been so glad to see the sun. You have just visited the National Museum in Cairo, and survived. Congratulations.

after an ordeal like that you need a break. We retreated to the snack bar nearby for a quick snack..

Andy enjoyed a cool "7-up Ice" It's like seven up, just with a bit of mint. (by bit I mean 10% less than a lethal dose..)

Todd is shocked and in awe.

Having slightly refreshed ourselves we decided it was time to get something to eat... something real...we checked out lonely planet for a basic idea of which way was into town and headed off, following our noses...

After walking through the streets and finding only fast food, we were starting to get worried.. then we finally came across this restaurant called "falfela" It turns out it is a restaurant attached to one of the fast food places out front. we travelled deep into the restaurant, passing through what looked like several other stores and restaurants on the way, till we finally reached this eclectic bamboo dining room...

Stella beer. comes in 500ml bottles. Tates good. Costs 2-4 dollars. Nice.

My first real meal in Egypt. Fatta. Rice on a nice fried bread with sour cream and sauce and big chunks of meat in this case. Not so outrageously flavoured, but filling and satisfying.

Free baskets of pita bread, an order of Felafel to split, and a big bowl of stuffed vine leaves (awesome.. better than the greek ones..)

Todd looks happy, and with good reason... He's enjoying a tea with fresh mint (wonderful) and just finished the best tasting chicken he had ever had.

Well fed, and refreshed, we decided to get a bit of shopping in... We headed off to the islamic quarter, to the cities main bazaar; Khan al-Kalili.

The area around Khan al-Kalili is well populated with mosques, and shops.

More of the beautiful architecture around Khan Al-Kalili

We were lucky enough to arrive just as golden hour was setting in...

After passing a few coffee shops (ahwas) on the main street filled with tourists happily puffing away on shishas (hookahs) we headed into the bazaar proper. The first shop was loaded with hookahs. Turns out just about every shop is...

I guess I should just stop to mention, for those of you who may not know, I am a shisha (hookah) enthusiast. The thick smooth smoke, the fruity-ever changing flavour, the satisfying bubbling noise... the sweet aroma... they are, in my opinion, the finest way to enjoy tobacco on the planet. I have taken to collecting and smoking them, and couldn't turn a corner without finding them in Egypt. Awesome.

We shopped until the night had fallen. We didn't buy much... we were early on the trip, and didn't want to lug stuff we bought to Luxor and back... but we did lots of window shopping...

Mosques by night.

We decided to stop for a smoke in one of the ahwas in the bazaar, and it turns out it was fishawi's... the oldest one in Cairo. We sat there waving away people trying to sell us crap, and all manner of beggars and I actually stopped to enjoy a smoke... I split it with Todd... Man. The Egyptians smoke some heavy stuff..

Todd and I enjoy our first smoke in Egypt.

Tea with mint, a bottle of water (which you buy by sitting down) and in the bottom corner... the glowing coals of the shisha... at this moment, I never wanted to leave Cairo. Oh... and....umm... Andy's crotch. Sorry D.

I know that animated Gif's are totally 1997, but anyway, I just had to put these shots together. Paradise in 3 frames.

Fishawi's Thanks for the memories.

Some of the ambience from Fishawis. And, umm... the bustiest girl in Egypt. Seriously, we wanted a picture of the ambience.

It was getting late by this time, and I needed a brief hotel break. We left the market, (well, D left the market, Todd and I stumbled behind him in a helpless, near high state after that smoke.) and hailed a cab. We went back to the hotel, tooka brief bathroom break, and then headed out for a walk by the nile at night.

The island we were on afforded a great view of the buildings, permanently anchored ships, and city lights that make up the backdrop of the modern nile by night.

Anchored all along the banks of the nile one can find these "restaurant ships. Huge boats (or buildings made to resemble boats in some cases...) that house one or more restaurants. This one happens to have a "chili's" in it.

We decided to actually get on board one and have a beer on the nile. We chose one that looked a little more classy...

Two or three world weary travelers enjoy a beer and a light meal. In the background a older woman is smoking a shisha... Egypt is so cool.

The rest of the night was fairly hum-drum. After dinner we headed back to the hotel. Todd crashed while D and I checked out the Casino. I lost a few bucks, but not as many as I intended to drop. They must have hated me, making them work for dollar chips... when the guys beside me were dropping american hundred dollar bills on the outside track.

Let's see what tomorrow has in store...