Public Address | Cafe | Up Front: Egypt: It's Complicated

Emma Hart

Tue, 25 Feb 2014 10:08:01 +1300

Aw, thanks Jackie. I'm always a little worried that other people will feel I'm misrepresenting their experience.

And then of course, last night, while I was desperately working on the article on Egypt that's currently consuming my life, the Egyptian government resigned. I was in the middle of a sentence…

Jackie Spencer

Tue, 25 Feb 2014 03:32:27 +1300

Your shiny new friend misses you, Emma. Thank you for writing so well about our trip, I loved reading it.

headasunder

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 20:25:59 +1300

I travelled through Egypt 20 years ago with my sister, my memories are a little faded but I do remember loving the noisy chaos of Cairo. I had my pokerface dont make eye contact look polished up in India so no problems ignoring the touts. The tricky bit is engaging…

wendyf

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 14:55:29 +1300

Emma, thank you for all three stories. Egypt always fascinated me, as it did everyone I think. Hearing, as a kid, stories of the place from soldiers returned from the war (WW2 !!) fed a hunger to go there. But I never did, and now I guess I never will.…

Emma Hart

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 14:20:20 +1300

Also, sunset from the roof. You may be able to see what I mean about Aswan being more “African” than the more northern parts of Egypt. The architecture is completely different.

Emma Hart

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 14:19:14 +1300

The drawings on the sides of the houses depicting the family Hajj journey are fantastic also.

You can see some of the mural that ran all the way around the roof in this (permission-asked) photo of the woman of the house doing my henna tattoo. Three of us agreed to…

Emma Hart

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 14:16:45 +1300

Do they still have the white lines painted on the ground on the streets surrounding the temples that the touts are not allowed to cross?

There are definitely Touting Zones, everywhere but Giza, which was open slather. Those zones are positioned so you have to go through them, both going…

Glenn Pearce

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 13:42:55 +1300

Somehow they've managed to "keep it real" on those Nubian village trips. The drawings on the sides of the houses depicting the family Hajj journey are fantastic also.

Do they still have the white lines painted on the ground on the streets surrounding the temples that the touts are…

Emma Hart

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 12:59:30 +1300

One of my favourite memories is sitting on top of one of the little water taxis in Aswan as we cruised a bit further down the Nile stopping off at a Nubian village.

I forgot to mention this. The part of the tour that I was dreading most was the…

Fiona

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 12:37:57 +1300

Our trip to Egypt was made by our guide too, we still keep in touch.

One of my favourite memories is sitting on top of one of the little water taxis in Aswan as we cruised a bit further down the Nile stopping off at a Nubian village.

You are…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 09:30:00 +1300

SCUDs trained on various places in the region and Americans were bailing out from Europe and places like Egypt (we taught a couple of them to pass as Canadians

Those must indeed be smart missiles ;-)

Ross Mason

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 22:13:40 +1300

And it takes a few years before one has the nouse to stand back and have a good look at "foreign lands" before making crude remarks about what you think are the "World's Problems" easily fixed in the one sentence that blames one side.

And the American god is not…

Jacqui Craig

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 20:39:33 +1300

I was in Egypt in 1990, about a month before the Gulf war, when Saddam had SCUDs trained on various places in the region and Americans were bailing out from Europe and places like Egypt (we taught a couple of them to pass as Canadians). I think tourism was down…

Raymond A Francis

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 16:39:00 +1300

Thanks Emma
Definitely on my list of places I must see for lots of reasons including the ancient history and the family connections

JacksonP

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 15:59:35 +1300

Because almost everything is more complicated and because the simple-minded version of the world news we get is so very very inadequate.

It's a sad state of affairs when it comes to reporting from 'overseas', especially in areas of conflict. What is the role of the 'Foreign Correspondent' these days?…

Emma Hart

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 14:19:44 +1300

Because almost everything is more complicated and because the simple-minded version of the world news we get is so very very inadequate.

The reporting on Egypt since I got back has been making me bugshit. To pick a random minor annoyance, I've seen two Beeb reports refer to the Muslim…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 14:08:58 +1300

THIS is why we need to send kiwis out into the world. Because almost everything is more complicated and because the simple-minded version of the world news we get is so very very inadequate. Once you seen the complexity out there you learn to ask for all four sides of…

Public Address

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 14:08:58 +1300

Discussion from blog post.