A day of touring!

Yesterday we took Fabia and Sam to see some more of the sights of Cairo around the Khan-El-Khalili market.

We began by taking the metro out to Attaba, changing at Sadat, and from there grabbing a taxi to Midan Hussein. It was the same journey as we'd done with Brad and Emily a few weeks previously to go to Iftar in Midan Hussein, so we felt confident doing it and knew a ballpark figure to pay.

Arriving at the square, we checked out the architecture, and then headed into some of the streets of the Khan to go exploring. A man stopped us and spoke to us, encouraging us to check out the spice market. It later emerged that he owned a shop, and so we went to visit him there later.

Fabia was keen to buy some shoes, and despite being a hard bargainer with one particular seller didn't get down as low as she hoped...so we headed off on a further explore.

We stopped off at Abraham's spice shop, where we were invited inside to check out his stuff. He had shelves and shelves of every concoction under the sun, all of which he knew intimately and could advise what it was good for both taste and health wise. We spent a while in there - at least an hour, I think, having spices crushed into our hands to smell and taste.

We all bought something from him - on reflection considerably more than we will ever find use for - and consequently spent a fair amount of money there! I likened it to looking at TV's in Dixons - you see hundreds of televisions next to each other, and so the 42" plasma screen doesn't seem that big. But when you get it home...blimey! I guess that, ultimately, buying over a quarter of a kilo of spices was always going to be a bit overboard!

On reflection we were probably overcharged a bit and should have bargained him down more, but on the other hand it was quite a fun experience being in the shop and trying everything out. We were all feeling a bit sore from the shop, I think, because we spent more than we'd thought we would, but soon got over it.

We stopped by Fishawy's coffee shop - another place we were introduced to by Brad and Emily - where none of us had a coffee. Indeed I had some tea with mint, while Alice and Sam had the sahlab and Fabia tried karkaday, which Sam will be brewing up back in the UK thanks to buying a load of hibiscus flowers from the spice shop.

Outside Fishawy Fabia had another round of bartering with a different stall owner over a pair of shoes, which she managed to get for a good price. While this was going on, I went to find out what music was thumping out, and stoppign by a CD shop spent some time chatting with the owner and bought the new album by Mohamed Hamaki called Naweeha. It's a mix of rai, R'n'B, and various other clashing sounds, and is actually rather good - and I think a fair price at 40LE. We'll play some of it tomorrow night on the radio show.

We moved out, and crossed out of Khan-El-Khalili and into the "proper" Old Cairo. The change was noticeable almost immediately - although still incredibly busy with people we suffered much less hassle (for which read "none") from stall owners, and felt confident walking through the streets. We headed down to Bab Zuwela where we visited the mosque of Sultan al-Muayyad, which we had been in when we toured this part of Cairo with Tom in our first week. It was (and is) a beautiful building, and although I initially felt that 20LE each was a bit pricey to climb up to the roof, felt it was well worth the cost when we were up there. You're right in the heart of Cairo, and really understand why it's called the city of a thousand minarettes. Preparing to leave the mosque, one of the men there starting saying "baksheesh good". I was going to give him a couple of LE anyway, so felt it a bit rude that he was prodding for a tip, but when both Fabia and I gave him 2LE each we were confused as to why he was staring blankly. I still am, a bit!

Anyway, we carried on through old Cairo and fortunately only experienced one wrong road (which Alice corrected the route of very quickly) and so managed to navigate our way all the way to Sultan Hassan mosque at the far end by the citadel. We hailed a taxi, and made our way back to Maadi - a successful day, all told, and now we're some of the UK's leading spice importers by volume!