Quest for the Ratty Hat pt. I

So, after my jungle adventures I did a few normal tourist activities, like visit the Pinnewalla Elephant orphanage, one of Sri Lanka's top attractions. There's fun stuff like watching the baby elephants drink two quarts of milk in about two seconds, and not-so-fun stuff like seeing the elephant whose foot was blown off by a land mine. Definitely a downer, that. I also bought an elephant leather satchel there to replace my worn-out backpack, "The Albatross." (I talked the guy down to $25 for a used one, as opposed to $65 for a new one. Aren't I clever?) (PS - just kidding about the elephant leather part.)

I then went to Anaradhapura, an archaeological site with plenty of ruins and large dagobas. (Also known as stupas or pagodas - they're those big, domed temples.) I also visited Dambulla, where a bunch of large Buddha statues lay around in caves looking wise and peaceful. Buddhism seemed pretty boring compared to other religions until I saw some of the paintings there depicting his life. It could have been Homer's Odyssey, starring  Mr. Siddhartha Gautama. (I'd learn later that there are lots of different types of Buddhism. The Nepalese ones get pretty wild by incorporating some of the Hindu stuff - multi-armed, tusked, monster-gods and such.) From there I also visited Sigiriya - my favorite. It was a impenetrable fortress created high on top of a steep rock mesa, also famous for its vibrant frescoes of some rather busty, actually really busty, women. Do a Google search and you'll see what I mean.

Another attraction everyone kept telling me about was the climb to the top of Adam's Peak. It's where two rather significant things are supposed to have taken place. For the Christians, it's where Adam descended to earth from heaven, and for Buddhists it is where Buddha ascended into Heaven. The guide books mention a visible footprint on the highest rock, though they don't specify who left it. After Israel and the dawning realization that pretty much everywhere in India was a Hindu pilgrimage site, I was burned-out on such places and intentionally avoiding it. Then I heard it was also the highest point of Sri Lanka, and also an unusual climb that most people do at night in order to watch the sun rise, so I changed my mind. (Later research confirmed my suspicion that it is not the tallest peak. But you can't climb that one because it's topped with a government radio tower.)

The morning before I decided to climb it, I got on the train in the small tourist town of Ella. Since I had most of the day to kill, I decided I wanted to take the train the entire way to Kandy to enjoy the scenery. And it is a beautiful ride, on a classic 1940's style train (Not retro - just never updated.) through the mountains, past waterfalls, over old iron rail trestles, and around tea plantations, with the rows of bright green tea bushes lined up in some cool geometric designs. The only bad part was at the end when I missed my stop. (I almost made it, but someone was blocking the doorway - jumping from a moving train is quite possible in this part of the world, and seen as an "At your own risk." endeavor.)

I had to take the bus back to Kandy, where I took another train returning from the direction I had just come. After that, another bus took me into the mountains. Finally, after all that travel, I left my satchel, now filled with all the stuff I wasn't going to take on the climb, at a hostel. It was already almost 8:00PM. To get to the top you climb 5,000 steps - it took me about 3 1/2 hours. The hike is a little surreal - The entire way there are lights and speakers playing traditional music and you can stop almost anywhere to buy goodies or tea. And not only is there a temple at the top, there's a teahouse with a TV right below it. (Makes our mountains back home seem positively primitive by comparison.)  I even had a climbing partner about half of the way - a little dog who, I think, would have gone the entire way had he not fallen asleep when I took a break. (I couldn't bring myself to wake him - why have an animal do something so silly only a human would choose to do it for a reason other than there might be food at the top?)

The guys with the TV teahouse let me sleep on their floor. In the morning they even came over and put a cap on my head to keep me warm (It was surprisingly chilly.) and it was shortly after that that I realized something horrible had happened. I had lost my hat. It was the hat that my recently deceased grandmother had given me nearly ten years ago. The one that had "Made in New Zealand" on the tag - the very first foreign country I had ever visited. It was the hat I had with me my very first day of archaeology survey and every field day since, hiking over thousands of miles throughout the west. It had been to over 40 countries, on my very first train ride, inside the Great pyramid at Giza... the list goes on. And now, it was gone. I had lost Grandma's hat.

At first I was in denial. I had probably left it in my leather satchel below. So, after watching the sunrise, (Yeah, yeah, it was a nice sunrise -whatever. You can't even see the bloody Adam/ Buddha "footprint" - it's covered by the temple.) I practically ran back down the mountain. It wasn't in my bag. I quickly made up a lost and found poster that I posted on the trail, and then grabbed the first bus to the train station. I kept telling myself I didn't really care; it was just an old hat, after all - pretty beat up, the edges were a little frayed. The sweatband had come apart a long time ago. It was sweat-stained and even smelled a little funny. Either way, I didn’t have time to go looking for it - I was supposed to fly back to India the next day and still wanted to see the Colonial Portuguese port city of Galle. I made it there that night just in time to watch Sri Lanka loose the World Cup to India. (Soccer is a HUGE deal here -  I wasn't the only one to go to bed upset that night.)

The next day before leaving for the airport I saw a small tin globe with the following cities on it for the USA: NY; DC; Atlanta; Dallas; LA; San Francisco; and Billings. That's it. Not Chicago or Seattle. Not even Salt Lake City or Denver, but Billings, MT. A town I know well, as it is about 2 hrs from where I grew up. It has a population of about 100,000 people. Go Billings, I guess, for somehow making an impression in Asia.

That night at the airport I said farewell to the hat and went to get on the plane. With flashbacks of the Denver incident, I quickly realized there was something wrong. There was a lot of discussion behind the counter about my passport - a lot more than there should have been. I was hoping it was just because of me now having two bags, but I knew what was happening because I had been warned by another traveler in Sri Lanka. They weren't going to let me go back for two months because of a recent law designed to, somehow, keep terrorists with a tourist visa out of India.

It looked like I was now going to have plenty of time to go find my hat.

Return to the Temple of Doom, pt. II

Laying there, I guess my first thought was "Wow - that was really stupid." But, the ankle still worked, so I got up and looked at the branch, thinking "What if it had split, and impaled my leg?" (I always have these thoughts after it too late to do any good with them.)

But, since I was still able to walk, (Though that ankle would still bother me a bit for another six weeks.) I continued down the hill. After another 15 minutes or so I was really close, but I ran into a similar obstacle - a large rock on my right, and the razor-wire fence on the left, but I was just barely able to squeeze through the gap in between, with only minor damage to my shirt because of the wire. Down some more, now that shirt is almost completely soaked through with sweat, and I'm completely covered in, I don't know - grass seeds? Jungle detritus? Sticky, itchy, plant crap. 

But now I'm so close I can even see the faux decoration on the faux pillars. I stumble a bit farther, and stop to try to figure out how to get the rest of the way, since the stupid things are, naturally, on the other side of the fence. Good thing, too, as a few feet farther would have probably taken me over the edge of the cliff, which was hidden in the undergrowth.

Now, a reasonable individual might have decided that it was a good idea not to try and cross the fence into the security zone, but I hadn't put myself through all that for nothing, and, after all, it was only a little ways over. And I'm sure that if I could ask the guards, they would let me through, I mean, what's the harm, right? So... looking around I did find a spot where I could snake my way underneath, with only a little more damage to the cut-up shirt. And there, in all their artificial magnificence, where the concrete supports made to look like stone and the remnants of the steel cables that supported the bridge. I took a bunch of photos, making sure not to get any of the dam in case I got stopped later. (Seriously, who cares? If you really want, you can even get  lat. and long. coordinates and print images off of Google Earth. (That's what I did, anyway.)) I only ducked back into the jungle once when I heard a truck approaching on the other side, discretion being the better part of valor, after all.

Time to go back up. I can tell you that even in 112 degree heat, hiking with a pack in the deserts of WY, (Yes, it did happen once on an arch. survey.) I have never been so hot in my entire life. Even the Turkish sauna in Amman (That was a slightly bizarre experience that I'll share later.) seemed pleasant in comparison. Maybe it was not having any water, or maybe it was the humidity, but the slog back was exceedingly miserable. Never mind having to go under, around, and over all the obstacles from before. (The tree branch held together enough I could use it to climb back up the rock.) It got to the point where I would walk ten steps, lay down in a shady spot, or just the grass, rest, then do it again. I started to wonder what heat stroke was like. Probably like hypothermia - irrational thinking. But at what point in this venture was there any? The thing that kept me going, besides not wanting to lay down and die, was remembering a little stream that formed a beautiful little pool under a bridge I had seen earlier. (Beautiful may be an exaggeration, but you'll remember my heat-induced delusional thinking.)

Finally, after about ten years, I made it to the top. I was half expecting armed guards to be there waiting on the road for me, so I was pleasantly surprised to find there weren't any. A quick hike up the road brought me to the bridge, and a short crawl through one of the concrete culverts underneath brought me to my swimming-hole. It took about three seconds and I was naked as a jay-bird, splashing around in the cool, refreshing water. I briefly considered that the black wiggly things in the water with me might be leeches, but they were actually only tadpoles. And tadpoles are cool - they don't hurt anything. I spent as long as I could there, wishing I could drink the water (I wasn't that delusional.) and rinsing out my clothes.

When I was done, I got back on the road feeling like a new man, which probably helped my cause when a couple young army guys on a motorcycle stopped and asked me where I had been. I told them the truth: "In the jungle - it's too bloody hot! But there's some very pretty butterfly's over by the stream there. I don't imagine you could give me a ride?" They gave me a slightly puzzled look, then an apologetic look, and continued down the road.

Eventually, I found a tuk-tuk that drove me back into town past the first security gate, without stopping there. It was for the best - I wanted the guard to see me, which I think he did, so he didn't think I was still inside, but I also didn't want to have to answer questions about what had taken me so long. ("Well, after crawling  under the fence and taking a bunch of photos I was really hot, so I went skinny-dipping...." )

Return to the Temple of Doom

So... I wasn't planning on going to Sri Lanka. I don't think it even occurred to me until I took that three-day train trip from Delhi to the South of India.  (It really wasn't as bad as it sounds - I had a coach with A/C and a sleeping bunk. Plus, it gave me a chance to read my guide book and figure out what I actually wanted to see besides the Taj Mahal, and the oh-so-polluted Ganges where all the cremated bodies get dumped. (Turns out they don't all get cremated - more on that, later.)) And with a chance to look a little more closely the map it became a pretty obvious side-trip.  I mean, when would I ever be this close again?

And, there was actually another reason, that I hate to admit. Growing up, my knowledge about India didn't come from Rudyard Kipling or even Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, it came from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. (Sorry, India.)  At some point I started wondering where they had filmed it. A quick google search revealed they didn't film it in India at all - the government wouldn't let them because of the script. (The whole British saving the day at the end probably didn't go over so well - that and the eating of chilled monkey brains. Seriously, Lucas?) So, instead, they went to Sri Lanka, and that sealed the deal in terms of me wanting to visit there. Who wouldn't want to see where Harrison Ford muttered the classic line: "Prepare to me Kali - in Hell!"
(Again, India, sorry.)

So I tried finding a ferry. There were rumors about one starting up again after a 30 year hiatus because of the war. (Yes, if you haven't been paying attention, the country had been having a civil war until just a couple of years ago.) Theoretically, it should have started about the exact same time I was wanting to go, but it got delayed, again, indefinitely, as the ship that was going to be used was sent to Libya to transport refugees out of the country. (Stupid refugees, interfering with my travel plans.) So, I bought a 1:30 AM flight from Chennai (Madras) to Colombo, instead.

My first impression of the country wasn't a good one. I stuck my head out the door of the airport shuttle bus to call over a couple other backpackers and a woman scolded me for not paying close enough attention to my bag. So I wondered -were there really people who would board a crowded bus in the pre-dawn hours, grab my 40 lb. backpack, and run off into the jungle as I stood three feet away and we all watched? I was doubtful, but still...a little disconcerting. The bus took an eternity to get to the city, and after the bus dropped me off, I remembered I never got my 200 Rupees in change for the fare.

But my second impression was even worse - downtown Colombo is about as bad as any city in India. (Well, maybe not that bad.) Crowded, polluted, hectic, and ugly in only the way that modern third-world sprawl can achieve. I was ready to get the heck out of Dodge when a motherly woman who I'd have guessed was from Hawaii, stopped me on the street and offered to help. 99% of the time this leads to the offering individual A) providing terrible help and b) wanting money for it. But her smile seemed genuine, and her calm demeanor seemed to lack the desperation that you often find with most touts. Plus, her slow, precise way of explaining things made me think she actually knew what she was talking about. And for once, I was right. She took me to her house, fed me, did my laundry, found a cheap place for me to stay nearby, and arranged a trip to the zoo. ( I got to see meerkats and dancing elephants -not bad!) She also fed me a snack when I got back, and then dinner later after a walk along the beach that night. (Maybe she was concerned about my weight?)

There was one thing she was off the mark about, though - Sri Lankan busses are NOT any better than the ones in India. Of course, I could have paid the extra $1.00 for the bus with A/C like she recommended, but nooo... I wanted to take pictures out of the open window on my way to Kandy. Because of that, I was treated to an interminable ride past what looked like one long, run-down, strip-mall lining the crowded, diesel-fume-choked, two-lane "highway" in the jungle with stops every 100 ft. for about 5 hours.

My first tourist activity once I got there, finally, was to visit holy Temple of the Tooth. My unsolicited guide explained that it's importance was that the only mortal remains of Buddha were housed there. They consist of, obviously, a tooth. This tooth, all that remained after Lord Buddahs' cremation, is locked behind a door which gets opened every evening about 5:00 to reveal... a big gold cup which covers... another gold cup, and then... five others. But under that final cup is, well, maybe a replica of the tooth according to some conspiracy theorists. Still a big deal, though, and a lot of people come to check it out.

The nest day was off the tourist trail. I was in search of the former "Indian" village set that Indiana Jones and crew visit in the film. On the way I met a very nice young banker who was up in the hills visiting a plot of land he was farming. He offered to help me find the right spot, which he might not have if he'd have known how long it would take. It wasn't easy to find - the jungle has overgrown everything. I could tell he was getting a bit impatient, so I was glad when I found the niche carved in a rock where the "sacred Shiva Lingam" was kept. He got into it then, and thought that was pretty cool. (He even paid for the rickshaw - what a guy!)

The following day was a bit... er... crazy. Maybe stupid is the word I'm looking for - you be the judge. I went to the gorge where the infamous rope-bridge sequence was filmed. And here's an interesting bit of trivia - just upstream from that spot a dam was being built, so the filmmakers had the British firm that was building the dam also build the "rope" (steel cable) bridge. The upshot of all this is that the area is a bit of a high-security zone now. Because of that I had to go past a guard at a check-point, who said I could go into the area, then got stopped at a second one where they said I couldn't go any farther. (Actually, they didn't speak English, but I got the point.) Back up the road I found a way down to the canyon edge and could just make out what was left of the rope-bridge, but it was quite a long way off, so I went back down and asked again at the guard post about how to get down to the spot. They knew what I was trying to do, apparently, as I could make out "Spielberg" in the conversation, but were, again, not too helpful. Good natured, though, as I could hear them laughing as I left.

So I went as close as I could, which was along the 10-foot-tall razor wire covered fence, and started slogging my way through the jungle down to the canyon edge. The grass was about five foot tall, and at some point I started thinking about what might be lurking there. Now, unlike Indy, I'm not especially afraid of snakes, but I certainly wouldn't want to get bitten by a cobra in the middle of nowhere, especially when no one knew where I was. And then I saw it - far down below, the top of one of the bridge support pillars. Down, down, down, I went until I reached a ten-foot tall drop off the edge of a smooth boulder. To the left - razor wire. To the right - impenetrable jungle trees. So I thought to myself - is this really worth it? It was hot and humid, I was nearly out of water, and I would still have to climb all the way back up. All this because of a really crappy movie from 30 years ago. I'd have to be insane to continue.

But wait... what's this? A broken tree limb, with a fork, leaning conveniently half-way up the rock? All I'd have to do is drop five feet, land one foot in the Y of the branch, and that would slow my fall enough to make it the rest of the way. Sure - why not?

The last thing I heard was a loud pop from my ankle as I fell into the thick, snake-infested undergrowth below.

(You know I lived, so it's not so suspenseful, but I really need to get off of the computer for a while, so I'll tell you the rest later.)

I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts

Do you believe in ghosts?" asks Shine, a slightly plump young lady of 21 years, late at night on my train to Ahmedabad.
"No.", I say shaking my head. (I don't know that this really translates - in India you'll often ask a question and get in response a sort-of bobble-headed side-to-side gesture which means, I think, "OK." The problem is that often times this is the response to questions like "Is there a bathroom? Toilet? Water Closet?!")


"I do." she continues. "Maybe I'm old-fashioned. But I watch all the ghost programs on T.V. Have you seen Ghost Hunters? The Exorcism of Emily Rose? I watch them all. My mother yells at me because I get scared, then don't want to sleep alone! "Why do you watch these silly movies?" she says. In my village we have a ghost. There is this bungalow and this woman was killed there years ago..."


At this point I start to fade out. I keep wondering if anyone has the top bunk above me, so that I can lay down, since my spot has been usurped by a very persistent middle-aged, gruff-looking Indian who knows I'm not going to start a fight at 12:00AM to get my spot back.


"....so about 20 people have been murdered there and no one can explain it."
That, of course, grabs my attention. "What? How long ago was this?"
"She was killed in 1987."
That really grabs my attention.


I ask her to start over, along with a lot of other questions along the way. She explains that there was this woman who worked at the house. She was pregnant. She slipped and fell, was knocked out, and the other people working and living there were afraid to call the police for fear of being implicated. So, naturally, they dug a hole in the basement and buried her. Alive. (They didn't know that of course. Well, maybe they did, and just didn't care for her all that much.) 


"As she lay there she kept wishing: "Please let me live so that I can have my baby!"" (Again, how one knows the final thoughts of an unconscious woman under six feet of soil... (And, it was probably only one foot. I've seen Indian construction standards.)) She continues to tell me that everyone involved was eventually killed - they were all found in the yard with "mysterious injuries to the neck". And, everyone who has stayed there since has befallen the same foul fate at the hands of "the witch". Apparently, even the "T.V. shows" have gone there, but wouldn't enter the house because it was so foreboding. The State Government called for an investigation, but "The police couldn't find any explanation." (Police investigation is, I'm sure, of the same high level as construction.) 


"The entire village is terrified. No one will go into the house anymore."


This really gets me thinking. The anthropologist in me is coming up with titles for a paper: "Modern Superstition and Urban Legend in Central India - a Case Study." (Scientific papers have to to have ponderous titles like that, or they're just not scientific.) Also, I figure that if I go inside, and come out alive, then perhaps the "curse" will be broken, and people will no longer be "terrified." (I could be a local hero!)
So, I decide that, considering I got screwed into paying far more for the ticket than I should have, I will oversleep my 4:30 AM stop and go on with her to the small town of Parbhani. I was lucky the new conductor we got in the morning sympathized with me getting taken for a ride (no pun intended) by his predecessor, and didn't fine me.


Me, Shine, and her mother, who speaks no English at all, get a motor-rickshaw from the station to their house. The town itself is small, rural, dusty. People stare at me with more than passing interest - they don't get too many tourists here, I'm sure. We pass kids playing cricket in the empty dirt lots. (Man, how they love cricket here.) Their place is a very nice, little white house with a courtyard in front, the deceased fathers small white sedan sitting on blocks,  partially covered with a canvas tarp. The living room is a fairly standard affair with pictures of various Gods on the walls, no-where to sit but the carpeted floor, and a TV in the corner. They're a middle class family with a few servants/ tenants living with them, who serve us chai (tea) and breakfast while the Rickshaw driver arranges, I am told, permission to go inside the house.


Did it occur to me to be worried at all? Only after I asked her if she actually knew anyone who had been killed...
"Yes. My fathers friend that he went to school with. He stayed there a few nights and was found dead, too."
Hmmmm. That was a little disconcerting, actually.
"Are you sure? I mean, it seems like the kind of thing that would be in the news."
"Oh yes, you can look it up in the newspapers."
Discounting that the local Indian journalism is likely on par with Rush Limbaugh's own "Excellence in Broadcasting" (Maybe not that bad, but still...)  I start thinking... What if...? OK, if  I learned anything from watching Scooby Doo, it's that the idea of a murderous witch from beyond the grave killing people is, in a word, absurd. BUT... what else could cause this? Is there a murderous monkey living in the house? No - somebody would see it. Cobra? No - different injuries. What about.... hantavirus? Is that even a thing in India? What about carbon monoxide? Is there mining in the area. Methane gas, maybe?
Now Shine is getting into it. "Oh - maybe! There was one lady who stayed there, who said she wanted to prove there was no ghost, and she burst into flames and died!"


Not really where I was going with that, but it was a nice bit of information to have.


So, just to be on the safe side, I pack up a few things to be sent home with brief notes explaining that I was killed by a ghost witch in central India. I mean, if you have to go, you might as well do it with flair. I bring a handkerchief, just for Hanta virus.


Finally, the two of us get into the rickshaw and go to the house. It was remarkably un-spooky. Just a plain one-story house fenced off of the main street with barred and shuttered windows, and a large padlock on the door. We stop at the all-purpose shop next door and a lengthy discussion takes place, the shop owner looking slightly more irritated than concerned. Cell phones are called, and conversations I don't understand take place. (Everyone in India has a cell phone. They pay about $1.00 a month for service. Try to tell me we're not getting screwed in the US.)
The rickshaw driver explains: "The owner says it's OK to go inside. He'll bring the key later."


Back outside the house a small crowd is starting to gather. Not wanting to wait for the rest of the town to arrive, I tell them: "Well, if it's OK, then I'll just take a look around." Without objections, I hop the fence and head toward the stairway off to the right, leading to the roof. At the back of the house is a small private, walled-in patio with two back doors leading into the house. Neither have padlocks. Hopping down onto a crumbly brick wall, I am able to then jump onto some stairs leading down to the patio. The first door seems to be unlocked, but a very heavy, 50 gallon metal barrel only moves a bit from my shoving before getting lodged on something. The next door is completely covered in Hollywood-horror-movie-style cobwebs, which I brush aside with my hat. The door handle turns, but it's latched from inside.


Like the front of the house, there are two boarded-up windows to the side of the doors, so I decide to climb up onto the window sills and look through the open upper transoms. Inside the first is a nightmarish scene. Pink paint, the the color of which would embarrass a 1959 Cadillac, covers the walls. And that was it. A few cobwebs and an empty water bottle. Really a boring room, minus the pink paint.
The second is a dingy, cobweb covered white room so boring it's painful. No blood spattering the walls. No axe with hair and dried gore clinging to it.
"William! Are you OK?!! William!!!"
I yell back: "Yeah! I'm fine! Just a minute!"
I climb back on the roof.  For a brief moment I consider screaming like a banshee as I wave my arms running to the edge of the roof, but decide it wasn't a very professional thing for an anthropologist to do.


By now, a large crowd has gathered and they want to see the photos I took of the rooms. There's a few laughs from the younger people in the crowd. The rickshaw guys says something to Shine. She tells me: "We should go before the press arrives. I'm serious - they'll come." (Secretly, I'm a little disappointed. Getting my picture in an Indian newspaper wearing my Indiana Jones hat would be kind of cool.)


Back at her house we have lunch. Time passes. I try to nap. I inquire about the key again. "Oh, we have to wait, the driver's brother will bring the key." Shine and I spend a few hours chit-chatting. I take a bucket water shower in the squat-toilet bathroom. I ask Shine, again, about the key, as I've now missed the first train leaving town and will have to catch the 5:30. She's a bit evasive and makes a  comment, half to herself. "If my mother finds I'm delaying you, she'll kill me!"
Hmmm. "Delaying" me?


After more tea (It's a wonder I'm ever able to sleep, with all the tea I drink here.) the conversation eventually turns to language. I explain I speak some Spanish, and we write down expressions and phrases for each other. For me, the Hindi for: "How much is it?" "That's far too expensive." "Thank you." "Excuse me." "I don't speak Hindi." "Where is the Train station?"
I write these down in Spanish for Shine. She adds a few to her list she wants translated: "I like you." "I love you." "I can't live without you."


Now, I'm finally starting to get genuinely worried.


My relief comes when the rickshaw driver arrives. He talks in a subdued tone to Shine. I ask: "Is this about the key?"
"Yes"
"Well? Does he have it?"
"Uh... It's complicated."


Complicated. Great. I ask her to explain and in a quiet voice she tells me. "Wait a minute. I don't want the workers to hear." (Not that the guys working on the electricity spoke English, but, whatever.) After they leave she tells me. "His brother was bringing the key on his motorbike. But he crashed. They are saying it's because the witch is mad you went into the house."


Oh oh. That's not good. This is usually the point in the endeavour when the guys in the pith helmets end up in a large boiling pot for bringing harm to one of the villagers.


"Is he OK?"
"Yes, he just hurt his leg."
Well, so much for that. "No key, then, I bet."
"You still desire to go into the house?" She asks, surprised.
"Well... no.... I don't care. I mean, I just wanted to help, but it looks like I'm just causing trouble, so I guess I better not."


Between the amorous Shine and a potentially pissed off village, I decide I really don't want to spend the night, so I get myself packed up. About a half hour before the train was to leave we get in the rickshaw. As we pass the house, Shine jokes: "Maybe you want to say goodbye to the witch?" I lean out the open door, and waving my hat at the passing house I yell: "Goodbye witch! Goodbye!!"


Scariest of all was the train station. The entire town had shown up to buy a train ticket. All 5,000 of them were gathered in the station. There was no way I'd be able to get a ticket in time.


The rickshaw guy muscles us through to the back of the building where he talks to a station guard, pointing at me. The guard disappears into the building, then comes out a few minutes later, with a ticket in hand. I pay the guard and shake his hand. Relief mixed with gratitude just as quickly fades at what I hear next from Shine, as the train pulls into the station: "The driver wants 500 rupees."
"What?!"
"For the day."
"He wasn't even with us most of the day!"
"For helping to get the key"
"He didn't get the key."
"But his brother got hurt."
Uhg. "I'll give him 200."
"I can give him 300, too."
"No... OK, fine, I'll give him.. uhg.. 400, but that's it!"
She translates. "He says OK."


I hand over the cash and get on board. As the train pulls away, Shine waves and yells to me: "Goodbye, William!! Goodbye! Call me!!"
The rickshaw driver, with a devilish smile and a wave, also yells up at me, in a slightly disconcerting way: "Yes! Goodbye, William! Goodbye!"


The train that night was so packed, and hot, I joined the locals and stood in the open doorway. It occurred to me that my demise would most likely come that night, not from a ghost, but from someone accidentally pushing me out the door.


But I held on extra-tight to the hand-rails, just to prove the old witch wrong.

Failures to communicate

Here I am in Mumbai, formerly Bombay. The Indians have taken to giving places the original names they had before British colonialization. They must still be a little bitter, as they've gone one step farther and started re-naming things the British built, such as Victoria Station. Most people can't pronounce the new Indian name, so it's still mostly known as Victoria station, or the abbreviated "CST". It is, without a doubt, one of the most gorgeous train stations in existence, especially if you like the Victorian Neo-Gothic style of architecture, which I do. 
 
Conveniently, the pages for lodging in Mumbai/ Bombay are missing out of the used, travel-worn Lonely Planet I found at a youth hostel in Jordan, so I am left to falling back on what is usually a last resort option - ask an auto-rickshaw (aka "Took-took") driver where to go. Oddly for India, however, there are none in this city - only cabs. The guy I pick, based on a none-too-common grasp of the English language, will undoubtedly take me to a brother/ cousin/ friend's place and get a commission in return. He takes me to three pretty scary dives in pretty scary looking neighborhoods which are in my price-range before I settle on one. It has a private bathroom, though, which is nice as I have finally gotten a case of "tourista", which had me going to the bathroom on the train all last night, so I'm pretty bushed. (A word about Indian train toilets - actually, Indian toilets in general. They are basically holes in the ground/ floor, usually with a spigot and a small bucket nearby that you can use, along with your left hand, in lieu of toilet paper. If this sounds a bit unpleasant, consider that cleaning of these facilities isn't at all regular, and also try to imagine using one as the train shakes you back-and-forth.)
 
Still, after a shower (Again, on bathroom facilities - I've been traveling for four months now and can remember one shower curtain in that entire time. The water, which is never warm, simply goes everywhere. Upscale places sometimes provide a squeegee for the floor.) I go out to do some sight seeing. I catch a Bollywood matinee only to find it really isn't as crazy as I expected. Production values were as good as any romantic comedy back home, and it looked like it might have actually been pretty funny. Still, between the musical numbers and it being in Hindi, I leave during the intermission. Very 1950's. (The intermission and musicals, not the Hindi.) 
 
The next day I go immediately to CST (Victoria) train station to buy my ticket for the overnight train to Ahmadabad and am told that the train I need actually leaves from Central Station. This ends up being the easiest ticket transaction I have ever had here. Usually you stand in line with half of India’s 1.2 billion people hoping the train isn't full. Of course, it's not really a line so much as a mob all trying to push in front of whoever is at the ticket window, usually me. (Oh, and I've learned women have the privilege of doing this any time, any where, they please. It's really irritating when you see a father pushing his 12-year old daughter to the front of the line to get the ticket he needs.) The one thing I have to say is very nice, is that there is sometimes a "tourist" window, where you can usually secure a spot on the train because of the "tourist quota" of berths/ seats they leave free just for tourists. I sometimes feel bad about this exclusive privilege, then I remember the 12 year old girls father. So, after getting my ticket, I go to Central Station and leave my bag in the cloak room so I can pick it up right before I leave tonight. 
 
I take the ferry out to Elephanta Island, about 1 1/2 hours off the coast, and check out the cave temples. This part of India is littered with these things, and they are amazing. Like Petra, people over 1,000 years ago carved entire temples out of the granite mountains. I'm looking forward to Cave 16 at the site known as Ellora -it  may very well be one of the seven wonders of the world. It's massive - 200,000 tons of rock were removed by workers over the course of 100 years. Unlike Petra, there are incredibly intricate carvings of the rock inside and out. Thousands of small statues, designs, and other sculptures cover nearly every surface of the dark grey stone.    
 
On the way back to the city that night, I crack open the guide book to see exactly how to get there. It's just outside of Arangabad. Arangabad? Why doesn't that sound right? I look at my train ticket - crap! I have a ticket to Ahmadabad in the North, not Arangabad to the East! Panic starts to set in. I have to get back to the station ASAP and change, hopefully if it's not too late, my ticket. As soon as the boat docks, about 100 million bickering women all push to the edge of the boat so that they can cross to the deck of a second boat, which in turn is docked next to a third, which connects to the main dock, all with the same desperately overcrowded situation made worse by the fact that most of the women feel pretty uncomfortable making the hop between the two gently rocking boats. It's at this point I decide I'm making my own tourist window, and discreetly move to the back of the boat, behind the cabins, and make much more substantial leaps between the three ships. One of the deck hands starts to yell at me, but when I point at the mass of semi-hysterical women, and then my watch, he shrugs his shoulders, gives me a "Yeah, I guess I don't blame you." look and lends me a hand across. 
 
I get the first cab I can who doesn't try to rob me blind, and head to Central station. I now have about an hour before the train leaves, so I grab my bag and run around, stepping over some of the hundreds of sleeping Indians on the floor, (they can, and do, sleep anywhere) trying to find out the name and number of the train I need, hoping the reservation office is still open. (They like you to have that info in-hand, and are not very happy about time-wasting inquiries.) There's monitors in the station here, which helps, since they scroll back-and-forth between Hindi and English, but there's no train that I can find to Arangabad. I ask around, and finally find an man who tells me: "Impossible - that train leaves from CST in less than an hour - you don't have time." "Victoria?!" I ask semi-rhetorically. "Yes - You'll have to cancel this ticket for a refund and go tomorrow or take a bus." The prospect of staying in Bombay another day is about as appealing as risking my life once again riding with one of the insane Indian bus drivers. (Here, most roads are only two lanes - at least, in theory. A third lane always opens up in the middle for passing vehicles going far too fast, edging opposing traffic onto the shoulders, and swerving back into the appropriate lane only millimeters before a head-on collision. This includes, especially includes, the buses.)

Not accepting "no" as an answer, I run outside and flag another cab. 
"I'll give you 150 Rupees if you can get me to CST before 9:30."
"Victoria?"
"YES! Victoria."
"200 Rupees."
"175."
"180."
"FINE - 180! I'll even tip you if we make it in time."
"As you wish."
 
As we speed through the congested streets I have the same thoughts I usually do riding with these guys: What happens if we hit someone? Would we stop? What if we get hit? I also note that I kind-of like Bombay. I reminds me of Europe. Fill a small European City with 12.5 million people and half as many cows, and you might have Bombay.

We make it before the train is to leave, but now I know I don't have time now to do anything but find and board it, so I do in the hope that the ticket collector can help me out. Often, if a person buys a general ticket, they can pay on the train to upgrade to a different caste, er... class. I've never had a problem doing that before, but tonight is a little different. I don't, technically, have a ticket. Not to the right city, anyway, and the ticket collector, dressed in a the standard black suit, tells me the entire train is full. He doesn't seem happy, either, that he has to help me. So, when he charges me three times what a ticket should cost and gives me his seat, I figure I've just paid my first pseudo-bribe. I ask a fellow who watched this all happen, and he explains: "You are the responsibility of the Indian government while you are here. He has to help you. If I boarded without a ticket, it would be much different - there would be no place for me on this train."

As it is, there really isn't any place for ME, either. After a while, the locals, who know I shouldn't be in the ticket collectors berth, start joining me. One of a group of young ladies nearby explains this to me and tells me I should chase the one man who seems to be settling in, out. I try, but he simply says: "OK, OK... Here, here..." and points at the half of the bench near the window where I should lay down. I do, but between knowing the guy is laying millimeters away from me and being ticked-off about what I just paid to have a decent night sleep, which is now obviously not going to happen, I decide to sit with the young woman who speaks decent English. We exchange to typical pleasantries: 'Where are you from?" "Are you married?" (This is usually the second or third question you get everywhere from everyone south of Bombay. I even had a young man start a conversation with it before I even knew he was sitting next to me.) I tell her no. "Ohhh.... single and ready to mingle!"  The other girls laugh. We talk for a bit before she asks me a question I haven't heard yet in India: "Do you believe in ghosts?"

This single question results in one of the most bizarre experience I have here, which is saying something.

Egypt, part 2

After Cairo, Sean and I took the overnight train south to a town on the Nile called Aswan. It was a great a change of pace from the chaos of Cairo, sitting on the roof of our hotel, drinking a couple beers (remarkably difficult to find sometimes in these muslim countries) and watching the felluca sailboats go by. There are a few sights to see in the town itself, including a stone monolith that, had it ever been removed from the rock it was carved from, would have been the largest known.

But most people use Aswan as the base to visit a site called Abu Simbel. I think most everyone has seen this at one point - it's those four massive, three-story-tall, sitting statues of Ramses carved out of a cliff - but few people actually know that it's located really close to the the Sudanese border. Hence our 4:30 AM police convoy to the site. Run in typical Egyptian fashion, we get out the door of the hotel at 3:00 AM, hop into our waiting cab, drive about a block before realizing that the cab wasn't actually for us, run back, find the waiting bus, then spend an hour and a half picking up other tourists and waiting for the massive convoy of tourist busses to congregate. I would say that the tourist to police ratio was probably about 100 to 1. Not that it would matter if anything happened, anyway, as the "convoy" quickly broke up and didn't get back together until three hours later when we arrived at the site. Now it seems to me that having a huge convoy of tourist busses leaving down a desolate desert higway at the same time every day, someting which has become pretty common knowledge, might be a bad idea. Yet, it happens every day witout incident. (At least so far.)

Abu Sibel is amazing - the preservation of the temple, and the massive, labrynthine interior is outstanding. Maybe as remarkable, though, is the fact that it isn't located in the same place where it was found by Swiss explorer JL Burckhardt in 1813. With the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960's, the site would have been flooded, so an international team set to work of relocating the entire complex further up the cliff. It took four years. But the result is impresssive - if you didn't know it had been moved, you probably wouldn't ever notice.

The next part of our trip involved hiring a medium size sailboat to take us down the Nile to Luxor. We talked to a few of the thousands of captains who offer this service, but in the end decided to book a trip through our hotel. First, we were told we would leave in the morning. Then noon. At noon, we waited for our cab driver, and waited. He eventually showed up, but once we actually got to the boat around 1:00, and met our two felluca operators, Allah and Ramadan, it became clear we weren't in any great hurry. This gave us the opportunity to have some overpriced beer delivered to take along with us. We finally set sail around 2:30, and shortly after, well within sight of where we had left, we pulled up on shore to pick up a young fellow from Mexico. We stopped a little further downstream to have our papers checked by the police. Allah, the rastifarian Bob Marley wannabe, then treated us to the musical rythyms of a propane tank being beaten within an inch of it's life in order to get the valve open, creating only few minor, temporary, leaks.

We finally left sight of the town around 4:00, but the eight of us on board were a little surprised when we docked, again, to pick up another group of five people. This was followed by some angry discussion from the newbies on the bank as to why there were already so many people on the boat? (We had also been told there wouldn't be more than probably four. Or six. But no more than eight.) They reluctantly joined us, having been assured that they would be picked up by another boat once we got a little farther downstream. The Skipper and Gilligan started to get nervous about doing this, though, as by 8:00PM, we were past the sailing curfew that fellucas have placed on them. After a few more unexplained stops, we got to where the other fallucas were docked.

We were now near Ramadan's village, so when he said he had to go into town for a while, I asked if some of us could join him. I'm glad he agreed - the walk through the sand and palm trees with the full moon out was a beautiful sight, with all the colors of the desert muted into various shades of blue. Meeting his mother and sister in their simple adobe house was great. They treated us to red hibiscus tea, and we sat around on the floor talking about life in the village. Ramadan stepped out for a while, and when he returned, he sat with us and divided up the pot he had apparently just bought. Seemed a strange thing to do in front of your mom and sister, but maybe that's just me. (They didn't seem to mind.) He then explained how much dowery it would take for him to take a Nubian wife (I guess they are the luxury model, though, as he never gave a price for the standard Egyptian model. It's 40,000 Egzptian pounds, in case your wondering.) and I couldn't help but wonder how much he forked over for the weed he just bought, knowing that this was also probably a routine occurence.

Back on the boat, we managed to find enough blankets, but just barely, to sleep side by side on the deck.
The next morning, Lucia, a young woman from the US, confessed she hadn't gotten much sleep the previous evening - apparently Allah had cozied up next to her during the night for an extended bought of footsie. (This wasn't her only bit of bad luck at the hands of the less-than-Dynamic Duo. That night, after we finished sitting around the campire, she was walking up the plank from the beach to get back on the boat, when it came loose and she dropped straight down into the Nile. Impressively, she was able to laugh it off.)

Later in the day we were presented with an opportunity to visit a large camel market in Dawa, and it just so happened that it was on the day that the big gathering was supposed to be there. (Really- it even said so in Lonely Planet.) It would only cost us $5 a piece. Now, I realize that this seems to be a piddling amount of money, and it is, but it really was a lot by Egyptian standards considering that we wouldn't have very far to go once we got on shore. When we balked at the price, and started thinking of ways we could go without the private escort, suddenly Dawa went form being 45 minutes away, to being 4 hours away. This prompted negotiations between me and Ramadan, who finally agreed to take us to a small village near Dawa, where I was hoping to score our own minivan/ collective taxi. (I sweetened the negotiations by helping with the dishes.) Alas, the village was a lot more rural than I expected, and all we found were took-tooks. Still, it was fun, as all the kids in the village thought we were quite the attraction, and all came out to run around the streets with us and play. Pretty danged adorable, really.

The next morning, at the end of the trip, I couldn't bring myself to give Cheech and Chong (Sean's nickname for them) much of a tip. (Did I mention they helped themselves to our beer without asking?) Ramadan, in fact, seemed insulted by the amount I offered, and initially refused to accept it. He changed his tune, though, when it became obvious I was going to fall into the high tipper bracket among the group. Allah, in typical fashion, stood by and seemed rather confused and/ or stoned.

Having been on the boat for a few days, we were unaware that things were starting to get violent in Cairo. Protesters were starting to gather in Tahir square, and each day their numbers were growing exponentially. There were violent clashes with the police, and people on both sides were getting killed.

Meanwhile, we were simply temple/ monument hopping. There really is an inexhaustible supply of amazing temples in Egypt. I met an archaeologist from Texas who had been working at the Karnack complex for 20 years. The thing I most wanted to know was where all the money we were spending on entrance fees was going, as it obviously wasn't going into signage. (Seriously, I have never seen such institutionalized ineptness in my life. If anyone, before shelling out thousands of dollars on interpretive materials, had even bothered to ask a 10 year old tourist to proofread the text before putting it up permanently, it might not come off as quite so laughable.) He explained "The money all goes into the government pool. From there, who knows? Very little makes it back to us."

We then took a terrifying bus ride through the night, with another "police convoy" across the Sinia to the Red Sea-side resort town of Dahab. (WHY, for the love of Allah, don't they drive with their headlights?! Passing is done, at any point, at any speed, regardless of oncoming traffic, with the ever-blaring horns somehow signifying who wins the deadly game of chicken. Imagine yourself in the front seat, without a seatbelt, nothing but glass between you and the oncoming traffic, only inches away at times, and you might understand how easy it was for me to be chivalrous and trade my seat with the your Irish woman who was getting carsick sitting in the back.)

The final time we spent in the country was relatively uneventful. Everyone was glued to the TV watching events unfold in Cairo and Alexandria. Mainly, though, we went snorkeling (I had so missed that!) and soaked up the sun. There was one small protest in Dahab that came bustling out of a mosque, which I didn't see, and apparently quickly dispersed. The government shut down the internet for a time, in an attempt to keep the protesters from gathering, but by then is was too late. Everyone was coming to Tahir square, now dubbed "Liberation Square", even from neighboring countries. As we now know, Mubaraks days were limited. There was some concern among the small group of friends we had collected along the way how this would affect our travel plans, and people did end up having to get alternate flights to avoid the chaos of Cairo. I heard a number of stories from people that had actually been there, and despite my instinct at the time to want to go check it out for myself, I think I'm glad I didn't. Despite my long fantasy of being an international correspondent, I also realize that to put myself in harms way without some sort of compensation (hopefully, substantial) would be, well... stupid.

Still, I would love to go back someday and see how all this has changed things, if it has. If it will. The Egyptians I spoke with don't want their own religious right in power, or the military. They want a real democracy, with capable candidates to choose from. I neglected to tell them, though, that that can be a tricky proposition anywhere in the free world. But why rain on anyones parade?

Egypt, part 1

Last fall my friend, Sean Marcum, wrote me saying he was going to be travelling to Egypt. Being high on my list of places to go, I  decided I would meet up with him. It would be the first time I had traveled abroad with someone, but with Egypt's reputation, it seemed like it might be a good place to have some back-up.

My initial interactions there were great - I made one of my classic spontaneous, and wholly foolish, decisions to hop on the bus at the airport that everyone else was getting on, without a clue as to where it was actually going. This may make even less sense when you consider that these are the kind of busses that are old enough not to really have doors or windows anymore - which is very handy for those who want to get on and off while the bus is still moving - but is slightly terrifying if you happen to be standing in the rusty stairwell with a lop-sided, overweight backpack, watching the asphalt wizz by at 60 KPH. (Kilometers Per Hour - Even Egypt has the sense to recognize the superiority of the metric system. But I digress.)

On that bus, I met a young man whose English was sparse, but after a few questions, he quickly realized I was definately not going the right way.  At that point, he not only gave me a ticket (not that anyone checked) and got off the bus with me, he also led me to the "station", (ie, the parking lot/ flea market where the other mini-vans congregate, with the drivers shouting out where they are going, and only leaving when they are full)  wrote down instructions to the driver in arabic of where I needed to go, and told me how much the one I needed should cost. I paid as sooon as I got on, but I only had a 20 Egyptian Pound note (about $3.00 US) and the ride cost about five, so when I didn't get my change back, I figured the cabby was trying to make a nice tip off the foreigner. But, as I later learned, no-one in Egypt ever has change, so it took nearly the entirety of the half-hour trip, with money being passed constantly between all the passengers, and the driver, to make sure everyone got their correct change, and for me to get mine. It took one more transfer with the help of a little old man to get me to the now famous Tahir Square.

I knew that the hostel I was staying in was nearby, but I had lost the address. So yet another stranger wound up spending a lot of time on his iphone trying to help me find it, even making a few calls to friends who might have heard of the place. When he didn't have any luck, he even lead me acrosss the square. This sounds like it would be a relatively simple thing to do, but you would be wrong. If you are familiar with the old Atari games Frogger or Freeway, you can get a pretty good idea of what it entails. You dash in between lanes of speeding traffic, with horns constantly blaring, (and I do mean constantly - apparently they use them an a sort of automotive morse-code to convey everything from "I'm coming up from behind you on your left.", to "You're the son of a flea-infested camel.") all the while trying to repress your normal instincts not to dash out into oncoming traffic in good faith that the drivers will slow down, or at least swerve around you.

So far, so good.

Then it started. I paid $55US for a relatively nice hotel that night and the next, thinking it was the same price as Sean's 55 EP hostel. (What a steal!) I'm almost positive I clarified the important detail of "Pounds - right? Not Dollars?" with the front desk, but I couldn't remember for sure. In retrospect, and considering that I later met someone who only paid $33 a night in the same hotel, I probably did ask. It seems to come with traveling in this part of the world that you will be exposed to every conceivable scam, distortion, deception, half-truth, and outright lie designed to part you with your cash. It's almost a game. If you know that no price is ever fixed and that, as a tourist, you will be asked for 5x what anything is worth, (only double if you're a local) then you can start to negotiate a fair price. By the end of the trip, I was the best. (Or worst, depending on your point tof view.) Most street vendors aren't used to someone who will argue over a price for 20 minutes, only to walk away from the transaction. Of course, I like to waste the time of telemarketers, too.

Where it's worst is at the pyramids. I could go on about how majestic they are, and they really are amazingly photogenic, but what most people aren't braced for is the constant badgering you receive there. I had already been warned that they are not out in the middle of the desert as the postcards suggest, (they are actually right on the edge of bustling, uber-smoggy Cairo.) but, good grief, you can't walk ten steps without hearing the words "Hell-O! My Friend!" This then followed by an offer to sell you every conceivable crappy trinket in existence at 5x what it's worth.

But it's not just the trinket guys. Our cab-driver, Sa-id, who we had for the entire day, first dropped us off at his friends camel shop. He took us on the roof and pointed out how far away the pyramids were, and how it would take us all day to walk the 8km between the pyramids. There's a few flaws in that argument that I've picked up from previous experience: A) Camels at their normal pace aren't all that speedy, and B) They will be hand-led by someone walking ahead, anyway. So, after having the price re-re-renegotiated, we finally peeled ourselves away and told Sa-id we'd be back around 1:00. It was, or course, easy to walk between the pyramids, easier to take photos, and a lot cheaper, sans camels.
Thinking about it now, though, and considering that some of those camel guys were hired to beat down anti-Mubarack protesters, having a camel would have been a good way to possibly avoid all the touts who try to give away "free" gifts. Here's a typical interaction:
Tout: "Hell-o, my friend!"
Tourist: (Until now, trying to avoid eye conatct.) "Er...hi."
Tout: "Look, for you, this (cheap crap probably made somewhere even poorer that Egypt and imported for pennies.). Special price!"
Tourist: "No, thank..."
Tout: "But WHY?! This VERY good price! Here... I give to you for (only 3x what it's worth)."
Tourist: "I don't want any..."
Tout: "OK, OK... here, for you... for free!" (If you don't quickly accept, it might be forcibly stuffed in your arms, your bag, or, in the case of beduin style head wraps, shoved on your head.)
Tourist: "Uh... thanks."
Tout: "Baksheesh?" (This is essentially, a "tip". I was there two weeks and never learned the word "yes", but "baksheesh" I picked up in the first couple days, after hearing it about two dozen times.)
At this point, if you don't give a tip approximating at least half the original asking price, you will have your "gift" snatched back, and you will be called something you assume to be highly insulting, of which you have no idea what it is, but in arabic, even sweet nothings sound like a violent argument. (Though I did end up with a free set of postcards from a guy who said he liked me because I reminded him of Chuck Norris. I am a lot of things, but a dopelganger to "Walker - Texas Ranger"? I guess maybe all white people do look alike.)

Then there are the guys who ask you for your ticket. Unsuspecting tourists might assume that they are having their ticket officially checked. They would be wrong, of course, as this is just an attempt to blackmail you into a "tour" (with highly dubious information, by the way) for a generous baksheesh at the end of it in order to reclaim your ticket.

So, where are the police through all this? There are plenty of dark-blue uniformed individuals with automatic rifles hanging about, and I think if I were a con-artist, I might tone it down a bit in front of these men, but alas, they're as bad as the touts. Most of us, seeing a barrier with obvious "Do not enter." markings, universal despite the language they're written in, wouldn't cross for no other reason than to avoid the wrath of the guys with the guns. But never fear, the Tourist Police are here, ushering you over (sometimes with the barrel of the gun, which is a little disconcerting) to peek into places you shouldn't be allowed, all for a little baksheesh. (More often that not I'd ignore them, or at least stiff them for the baksheesh. Not only am I put out by the abuse of power, I figured they weren't going to shoot a tourist over $.50. Of course, that was back when the only recent black marks on the countries tourist industry were a few sharks and coptic church bombings. Now, though, they may have less to loose.) *Note to self - ask Sean next time not to book a hostel down the street from a coptic church.

We endured this throughout the morning, but after waking Sa-id from his nap back at the car, we continued on our way. We were about a half an hour late, since we weren't able to climb into the Great Pyramid, Cheops/ Khufu, until after the hour-long break they give it daily between noon and one. Sa-id seemed a little put out at this. Shaking his head, he told us: "I said 1:00. Now, maybe no time for the others." The others he spoke of were the Pyramid of Djoser and Memphis. The Giza plain is dotted with all sorts of pyramids, built for various higher-ups, but we wanted to see this one since it is considered the world's "earliest large-scale cut stone construction".  (Actually, we were told it was "the worlds oldest manmade structure", but my cursory Wikipedia searches afterwards always ruin the fun.) Now, it was a pretty long drive to get there, but I can't help but think that if we were really pressed for time, perhaps along the way we wouldn't have been offered the chance to see his friends gift store, and soon after, a stop at the restraunt of what I assume was yet another friend.

The Djoser pyramid, though somewhat crumbly, is neat for its antiquity, but for my money the best pyramid in Giza is the "Bent" pyramid. Apparently, an early attempt at making pyramids as we know them somehow went haywire, and the sides of this one ended up a bit... crooked, hence the name. I can't help but wonder how, with an investment of what must have been a fortune, plus the efforts of hundreds of people, over the course of who-knows-how-many years, it came to pass that someone didn't notice that the thing was wonky while being built and try to fix it. I can only assume that at some point, someone said to the head of the project: "Sir... uh, doesn't it seems like it's a little, er... well... off, somehow?" But, contractors being contractors, I'm sure they had already been paid and were biding their time in the hope the pharo would be long dead before anyone noticed.

Memphis was.... meh. Kind of creepy, actually, as there was a LOT of security for some reason. Being surrounded by manned gun-nests, no matter how bored the gaurds look, doesn't lend itself to a very peaceful stroll through the antiquities park.

Through all of this, though, I was aware that Egypt is, like all places, a result of it's current socio-political and economic status. Culture plays a part, of course, but given the chance, I believe most people probably don't enjoy trying to pawn off crap merchandise to aggravated tourists. For me, seeing the parallels between recently deposed President of Tunisia Ben Ali, and soon to be deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubark (though I couldn't know it at the time) were striking. Both were western-friendly dictators who had been in office for approximately three decades. Both had been suspected of skimming quite a lot off the top of the national economy for their own benefit. Both had a dissatified populace, especially among the young men and women who couldn't find work, regardless of their level of education. And both had their creepy Dick Clarkian never-aging faces plastered over every wall and in every shop in the country. Few people I talked to were happy with Mubarak or his administration, (some were afraid to talk about it for fear of retribution) so when I got an email from home, saying "I hope you weren't anywhere near that guy who lit himself on fire in Cairo yesterday." I had a feeling that, like Tunisia, that one solitary act could very well be the spark that would ignite the flames of revolution. (Self-immolation pun intended.)

Turns out, I was right.