VICHCHOOBHAI GOES TO CAIRO Part 3
B efore I begin Day 2, I must mention this whole kissing thing. Egyptian men greet each other by kissing on both cheeks. Yikes! Looks terrible. One would think it is a country of homosexuals were it not for the fact that their population is too high to support this hypothesis.
Anyway, none of my business; I will stick to my travelogue!
So, Sunday was the day we were due to move up in life...from Hotel Longchamps to the Semiramis International( on expense account) . We checked in and then set out to see the famed Egyptian Museum which was supposed to be a walking distance from the hotel.
What happened between the hotel and the museum merits a diversion. So, here goes :
How we were made complete suckers in the heart of Cairo
We left the hotel and were standing near the bridge (over the river Nile) wondering which way to take to reach the Museum. Suddenly, a friendly looking young Egyptian man materialised out of nowhere. He said in good English ( rare in Cairo) "Can I help you? I work in the Semiramis hotel" When we told him that we were looking for the museum, he gallantly offered to take us there!! And chatting very nicely he "led us to the museum" ( it was more like led us up the garden path). He took us in a direction we knew was not quite right but could not get ourselves to question this very urbane and friendly soul.
It was 12 noon. He told us very casually "Dont u know the Museum timings have changed? It opens at 9 am but only for tourist groups; for individuals like yourself, it opens at 1.30 pm. This was a tub of lies, as we discovered later, but we actually believed him. Then he asked us whether, since we had so much time on our hands, we might want to see some of his paintings. He told us he was an artist.
We didnt see any reason to say no since we thought we had a couple of hours to kill anyway. He l ed us to his shop and engaged in smooth talk... slowly led us to his paintings. Then "explained" to us how he had "painted" them. We discovered later that his paintings were acatually prints which were mass produced.
He showed us a painting of an ancient Egyptian couple getting married ... he said it was the Pharaoh Tutankhamen and his wife .. Cleopatra. Cleopatra was not wed to Tut - in fact they were not even contemporaries ! I told him as much. He looked very offended and said " I am an Egyptian, I know my history. If u like I will accompany u to the museum right now and check it out" In the face of such confidence, I withdrew....but shouldn't have. He was wrong as wrong can be.
But today was our day for being suckers and we ended up purchasing paintings worth over 200 Egyptian pounds!
As we walked from his shop to the Museum, we realised that actually the museum had been a 2 minute walk from where he waylaid us and took us to his shop .. a 10 ninute walk in completely the opposite direction. He was a consummate con artist; gained our confidence by lying to us that he worked in the hotel he saw us standing outside, he lied that the museum was not open for us at that time; he took us to his shop which was nowhere near the museum, overcharged us for the paintings (prints) ..man oh man... no end to his evils. We just paid double of what we should have.
The Museum
So we reached the Museum and I put the duping episode out of my mind. The Museum is supposed to be among the richest in the world in terms of what is kept there. The Lonely Planet had warned us that the museum was too vast to see in one day and so we honed in on the main attractions.
The Royal Mummy Room
For an extra charge of 40 pounds u can see about a dozen pharoah mummies kept in a separate room in which conditions are controlled so as to preserve the mummies best. They r kept in glass cases and r not completely wrapped in bandages the way u see in movies or comic books. The body is loosely bound but the face is exposed. To me, it just seemed like well preserved corpses. No, I haven't dealt with too many corpses in my life but I imagine this is what they would look like a few weeks after "The End" Of course, these corpses were 3000 to 4500 years old, a small difference there.
I cant say that I was very greatly impressed by what I saw but of course, it is quite an experience to see 12 dead kings at the same time. I couldn't also help imagining how they would have reacted if they knew that their funny mummified bodies would finally be in glass cases with Americans in shorts staring down at them!!! Also rapidly speaking Japanese, indifferent Cairo college kids and one very cautious Indian man! Maybe, they would have preferred cremation!!!
Well, tomorrow, I will deal with the Tutenkhamen galleries.
Bye till then.
Anyway, none of my business; I will stick to my travelogue!
So, Sunday was the day we were due to move up in life...from Hotel Longchamps to the Semiramis International( on expense account) . We checked in and then set out to see the famed Egyptian Museum which was supposed to be a walking distance from the hotel.
What happened between the hotel and the museum merits a diversion. So, here goes :
How we were made complete suckers in the heart of Cairo
We left the hotel and were standing near the bridge (over the river Nile) wondering which way to take to reach the Museum. Suddenly, a friendly looking young Egyptian man materialised out of nowhere. He said in good English ( rare in Cairo) "Can I help you? I work in the Semiramis hotel" When we told him that we were looking for the museum, he gallantly offered to take us there!! And chatting very nicely he "led us to the museum" ( it was more like led us up the garden path). He took us in a direction we knew was not quite right but could not get ourselves to question this very urbane and friendly soul.
It was 12 noon. He told us very casually "Dont u know the Museum timings have changed? It opens at 9 am but only for tourist groups; for individuals like yourself, it opens at 1.30 pm. This was a tub of lies, as we discovered later, but we actually believed him. Then he asked us whether, since we had so much time on our hands, we might want to see some of his paintings. He told us he was an artist.
We didnt see any reason to say no since we thought we had a couple of hours to kill anyway. He l ed us to his shop and engaged in smooth talk... slowly led us to his paintings. Then "explained" to us how he had "painted" them. We discovered later that his paintings were acatually prints which were mass produced.
He showed us a painting of an ancient Egyptian couple getting married ... he said it was the Pharaoh Tutankhamen and his wife .. Cleopatra. Cleopatra was not wed to Tut - in fact they were not even contemporaries ! I told him as much. He looked very offended and said " I am an Egyptian, I know my history. If u like I will accompany u to the museum right now and check it out" In the face of such confidence, I withdrew....but shouldn't have. He was wrong as wrong can be.
But today was our day for being suckers and we ended up purchasing paintings worth over 200 Egyptian pounds!
As we walked from his shop to the Museum, we realised that actually the museum had been a 2 minute walk from where he waylaid us and took us to his shop .. a 10 ninute walk in completely the opposite direction. He was a consummate con artist; gained our confidence by lying to us that he worked in the hotel he saw us standing outside, he lied that the museum was not open for us at that time; he took us to his shop which was nowhere near the museum, overcharged us for the paintings (prints) ..man oh man... no end to his evils. We just paid double of what we should have.
The Museum
So we reached the Museum and I put the duping episode out of my mind. The Museum is supposed to be among the richest in the world in terms of what is kept there. The Lonely Planet had warned us that the museum was too vast to see in one day and so we honed in on the main attractions.
The Royal Mummy Room
For an extra charge of 40 pounds u can see about a dozen pharoah mummies kept in a separate room in which conditions are controlled so as to preserve the mummies best. They r kept in glass cases and r not completely wrapped in bandages the way u see in movies or comic books. The body is loosely bound but the face is exposed. To me, it just seemed like well preserved corpses. No, I haven't dealt with too many corpses in my life but I imagine this is what they would look like a few weeks after "The End" Of course, these corpses were 3000 to 4500 years old, a small difference there.
I cant say that I was very greatly impressed by what I saw but of course, it is quite an experience to see 12 dead kings at the same time. I couldn't also help imagining how they would have reacted if they knew that their funny mummified bodies would finally be in glass cases with Americans in shorts staring down at them!!! Also rapidly speaking Japanese, indifferent Cairo college kids and one very cautious Indian man! Maybe, they would have preferred cremation!!!
Well, tomorrow, I will deal with the Tutenkhamen galleries.
Bye till then.
posted by vichchoobhai at 6:05 AM
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