Michael Batson

Travel Writer

Travelogue

George of Tahir Square and the Pyramids of Giza - 28 June 2024

The Suez Canal is just 193kms long and one of the world’s key waterways, a strategic asset, and also a choke point, a bottle neck. The canal connects the “Med with the Red” seas and separates two continents, Africa from Asia. The canal saves maritime traffic the 8900kms journey around Africa which takes most ships on average about 10 days, quite a short cut. Officially opened in 1869, the canal took 10 years to complete with some of the work being done by forced labour. Estimates of worker fatalities during construction varies widely with some putting the figure as high as 120,000 lives. Previously owned by the British and French governments, the canal was nationalised by President Nasser in 1956, much to the chagrin of the Europeans who tried to take it back by force of arms before a humiliating withdrawal in what became known as the Suez Crisis (also known as the Second Arab Israeli War). Originally built as single lane – one vessel one way at a time - it was widened in 2014 in a huge feat of maritime engineering nearly doubling the canal’s capacity and speeding up transit times. About 12-15 percent of world trade goes through the canal, about 20,000 ships per year, including some of the world’s largest vessels, which can be a major problem if one of them gets stuck. Paradoxically, its core business can also present the greatest risk.

 

I have crossed the canal twice both times by bus, once on its waters by car ferry and once under it by tunnel. On the first trip the bus I was on from Gaza reached the edge of the canal near El Qantara, a city 160kms from Cairo which stretches across both side of the canal. El Qantara is a border town between Africa and Asia so full of border town activities. In 2001 they built a 4.1km long bridge across the canal south of the city, the Mubarak bridge named for the then president, or the Japanese Friendship Bridge as it’s also known, given Japan paid for most of it. But back when I crossed you went onto a flat-bottom vehicle ferry. The vessel was about 12m wide and 20m long; flat, slow, and not very aerodynamic. Top speed was about walking pace. As the trip is only about 200m there’s no time to get off the bus. As I sat there, I looked out the window and to my horror saw a large bulk carrier weighing about 100,000 metric tons its width seemingly filling the canal bank-to-bank, heading straight towards me. As there was no way for the vessel to stop and turning in the tight constraints of the canal waters was out of the question, my only hope was our engine didn’t suddenly cut out, because I’ve had that happen on vehicle ferries before. Coming back the other way by tunnel the journey was far less interesting.

 

Egypt is bordered by Palestine and Israel, Sudan, and Libya - countries racked by civil war, ethnic cleansing, bombing, shelling, and massive human displacement, suffering and much misery. The country has one of the longest histories of any in the world. A cradle of civilisation is a term that can be applied to Egypt. Dynasties have ruled come and gone. There have been pharaohs, kings, and sultanates. At times various empires have conquered, ruled, and been deposed. There have been revolutions, coups and dictators. Some were despots while others were seen as nationalistic heroes and champions of the developing world. Today it is a republic. Mostly desert, the country’s only arable land is found along the one of the world’s great rivers. A founding member of numerous global organisations like the United Nations and the Arab league, Egypt is the most populous Arab country.

Cairo on the Nile

 

My destination was the capital. Greater Cairo is the largest urban area in Africa, the Arab world, and the Middle East with a population estimated at over 22 million. The origin of modern Cairo goes back 2,000 years but it’s location at the junction of the Nile delta and valley has long been a focal point in Egypt. By the 12th century Cairo, known as Fustat (roughly translated as the City of Tents), the first capital of Egypt under Muslim rule, had about 200,000 residents, though for thousands of years, the capital of Egypt was moved with different cultures through multiple locations up and down the Nile. Today the remains of the Fustat have been absorbed by nearby Cairo.


The approach to my hotel near the centre of the city was through leafy suburbs of large mansions with wide quiet streets. Inner Cairo is chaotic. Nearly all the buildings have shanty houses on the top level. Like many cities electricity supply is a mass of wires grafted onto the original grid. Metering is impossible and maintenance a mystery. The summer heat (it was July) sat over the city as did a heavy haze mixed with smog. Traffic produces a cacophony of sound. Egyptians seem to use their horn to signal changing gear as well as for warning and irritation. Later, when travelling about by taxi, I found this was true. The traffic is so congested I wondered how emergency services would ever get through if a building weas on fire. They probably wouldn’t so likely once alight it would just burn.

 

The first hotel I stayed in was pre-booked. There was an old-style reception with a wooden desk and slots on the wall behind one for each room. They insisted on keeping guest identification there, which was a concern for my passport. At night wandering the neighbourhood there were shops selling all manner of items and lots of cafes and hookah bars for smoking tobacco. Hookah (smoking through a water pipe) comes from the Hindustani “huqqa”. The tobacco is often flavoured producing a distinctive smell. All the bars I saw were men only, no women. The heat smothered the streets, and the footpaths were alive with cockroaches and so was my hotel room, which I found out later the hard way.

 

I spent one day at the Egyptian Museum on Tahir Square, known formally as the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. The journey there was by taxi. The driver there and back beeped his horn every time he changed gear or lanes, which was often. I got the impression we were in high-speed dodgems but in bigger vehicles. Built in 1901 the museum houses the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities- over 120,000 items-anywhere in the world. The museum was first established in 1835 but the Egyptian government gave all the artefacts to the Archduke of Austria who had them bundled off to Vienna. In 1858 another museum was established near the river but was damaged due to flooding, so everything was moved to near Giza before being relocated into the current building. The building is big, red, and impressive. It was built by Italians and designed by the French. The signs tell visitors not to touch the exhibits but then you see security staff leaning on them. The museum houses many masterpieces including the treasure of Tutankhamun with its iconic gold burial mask widely considered one of the best-known works of art in the world and a prominent symbol of ancient Egypt.

 

Tahir Square is a major focal point in Cairo. Originally called "Ismailia Square", after the 19th-century ruler of Egypt, Khedive “Pasha” Ismail - also known as also known as 'Ismail the Magnificent - who commissioned the new downtown district modelled on Paris (a moderniser, he wanted Egypt to be part of Europe not Africa). After the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, its first modern revolution and nationwide uprising against British rule, the square became widely known as Tahir (Liberation) Square.


I was there one day taking in the sights when I was approached by George. George was famous as a Cairo “feature”. He apparently had his own entry in a guidebook, Fodors I think it was, but I may be wrong. George looked quite dapper, smart, with open neck shirt and business trousers. He looked a bit like Private Walker from Dad’s Army with dark slightly wavy hair well-groomed and a moustache. George was a cross between a font of local knowledge, guide, and a fixer. He was often involved in spurious activities shady if not downright illegal.

Museum of Egyptian Antiquities

 

Back in those days people used traveller’s cheques to carry foreign currency, so one of George’s activities was to engage in fraud. This would involve “selling” the cheques at a markdown price to the face value with some local merchants and then declaring the sold cheques “stolen”. George apparently favoured merchants out in Giza though couldn’t actually be seen with anyone selling cheques as he was too well known. A case of his reputation preceding him. The travellers “selling” their cheques would then have to obtain a police certificate declaring the cheques had indeed been lost or stolen. Once back in the country where the cheques had been purchased, this certificate could then be presented to the company that had issued the cheques and their value reimbursed. The thought of having to engage with the Egyptian tourist police would be enough to put anyone off such a caper but it seemed that George did quite well out of his “fee”.

 

I told him I was heading south to Luxor on the train but would be back in a week or so. He asked where I was staying and recommended other digs for my return. I did bump into him again a few days later but instead of taking his advice I went down market staying in a pension on the sixth floor of a building where the décor resembled a Beirut bombsite. It looked like it was in the process of drastic renovations or maybe it was demolition with piles of rubble everywhere. The bathrooms were communal and there was no hot water. People appeared to live there permanently. One of these live-in guests made a living as a professional forger. A young Englishman, his door was often open. He was quite open about his occupation and would talk to you while creating another piece for a client. There were stacks of passports and various forms of identity documents from various countries piled about. It was like something out of a Graham Greene of an Alan Furst novel.

 

On the first night in this flea pit, I was awoken by movement, which turned out to be the awful sensation of a cockroach running over my face. When I turned the light on the floor was alive with them. It’s often said these insects are one of the few species capable of surviving a nuclear holocaust. I can testify that they can survive being smashed by a leather trainer for no sooner had I dealt with one and saw it flattened on the bare floorboard than it had somehow popped itself back into shape and was mobile again. “What are you staying in that dump for?” asked George bewildered I’d made that choice and ignoring his recommendation of somewhere more salubrious. There were no hard feelings as, complete with a lady of the night on his arm resplendent with a thick head of peroxide hair and low-cut blouse, he took me off to a bar of a rather fashionable hotel where he chain-smoked Marlboros (preferring foreign brands to the local ubiquitous Cleopatras) and tucked into Johnnie Walker whisky telling me tales of life in the Egyptian capital. What a character and like the line from the Mastercard advertisement, “priceless”.

Great Pyramid of Cheops

 

In Java and especially Yogyakarta batik is all pervasive. There are galleries, shops, street stalls and markets full of the stuff. Locals sometimes employ detailed plans to entice you into buying. These encounters can start of quite innocently, often nowhere near the premises, and following an offer to discuss some topic or other you find yourself trapped inside pressured into buying. If you don’t, and your discomfort not to mention annoyance at such trickery rises to the surface, you can find yourself in a confrontation the outraged proprietor displeased you’re not interested in purchasing their wares. In Cairo these tactics are deployed in the name of perfume. The place is full of perfume shops. One late afternoon as the sun was beginning to lower on the horizon and disappear into the smog, I was crossing the Nile on the Qasr el Nil Bridge which connects downtown Cairo and Tahir Square with Zamelek Island, when a young bloke about my age engaged me in conversation. He was a student he said. He wanted to practise his English he said. He wanted to know where I was from and what I thought of his hometown he said. Not wanting to be rude I answered all his questions and then he invited me to his parent’s house not far from where we were standing. It was just a five-minute walk he said. “Home” turned out to be a perfume shop which was indeed owned by his parents, but they were nowhere to be seen. It was all a ruse to get me to buy something. I said I didn’t want perfume at which point he became somewhat irate accusing me of wasting his time. I said I’d never agreed to buy anything and wasn’t interested in buying perfume. “What would I do with it?” I asked. At which point to avoid further damaging international relations I left, leaving the young man behind me muttering under his breath.

 

Giza is a city, the third largest in Egypt and the fourth largest in Africa. It sits on the western bank of the Nile opposite Cairo and forms part of the Egyptian capital agglomeration. Giza (Al Jizah) is most famous as the location of the Giza Plateau, the site of some of the most impressive ancient monuments in the world, including a complex of ancient Egyptian royal mortuary and sacred structures, among which are the Great Sphinx, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and several other large pyramids and temples. I went there from central Cairo by bus and by taxi. The first thing you realise about the Great Sphinx is it’s not all that great. At about 73m long and just 20m high it pales in comparison with the Great Pyramid (sometimes called the Pyramid of Cheops), which was the tallest human made structure for 3,800 years. The sphinx’s nose is broken which if you’re a fan of Asterix you will know that his pal Obelix slipped while climbing the face and it broke off. The Great Pyramid initially stood at over 146m in height (now 138m) with its cubic measurement 2.8 million cubic tons. Early depictions show it to be flat surfaced in limestone casing with gold trim. The great pyramids of Giza were built for three 4th dynasty ((c. 2575–c. 2465 BCE) pharaohs: Khufu (Cheops), Khafre, and Menkaure. Cheops is the oldest and the largest of the three and they are all impressive. I climbed a few levels up the blocks of stone all chest high. If you look closely, you can me in the red circle. Climbing to the top would be a monumental feat in the heat and not the best idea for architectural heritage.

 

The smoothness over time has fallen away to reveal the outer edges of some of the 2.3 million blocks weighing 6 million tons in total. Closer inspection reveals graffiti from Napoleon’s soldiers from the French campaign in Egypt (1798-1801). In July 1798 French forces battled the Ottomans at the Battle of the Pyramids (more accurately the Battle of Embabeh in the Gaza plain where the battle actually took place). A major French objective of the campaign was to block Britain’s trade route to India and re-establish commerce with the Levant. Bonaparte famously addressed his forces before the battle with the words “From the heights of the Pyramids, forty centuries look down on us”. The reality of France’s Egyptian Campaign was less grandiose, and descriptions by surviving French officers of Napoleon’s decision to trek his 37,000 troops across the desert rather than follow the Nile River from Alexandria, tell of appalling mismanagement, thirst, discomfort, disease, and death.

At the Sphinx (writer - centre)

 

I’d taken to wearing a galabeya, a loose-fitting gown which resembles a full-length dress with sleeves, I’d bought in a Cairo market. To try it on I’d whipped my shirt off and when standing there admiring the feel and fit I chanced a look at the woman opposite. In the market with her husband and veiled her eyes popped wide at the sight of a half-naked foreigner. Comfortable the galabeya certainly is, more so than the t-shirts and shorts donned by many Westerners. Mine however was what a famer would wear which caused much mirth in fashionable upmarket bars and restaurants I strode into thinking I was blending in comfortably. Still, in suited the climate, mid-summer, to a tee. I’d gone to Giza with an Irish couple I’d met, Brian and Christina (in Irish slang “a good craic”). At the base of the great pyramid are various entrances which a local offered to take us down for a fee. I had visions of never being seen again, so declined. This opened me up for other offers like camel riding. A local with said beasts then followed me about trying to encourage me to mount this noisy smelly animal all to no avail. After a day at Giza the heat and hassle had done me in and it was back to the hotel to sleep it off before the long journey south by Egyptian rail, another adventure to come.