Excursion: Khan el-Khalili and Downtown

We started the day with a visit to Khan el-Khalili, a large market in the Islamic district of Cairo.  It was around 10 am when we arrived, which was definitely the wrong time to visit.  I'm still learning that Cairo takes a while to wake up and parties on well into the night.  At 10am, even the cats were still asleep.

The shopkeepers were lacklustre in their spruiking this early but John still got asked a lot if he came from Holland - everyone knows the Dutch are tall - and when we answered (at first we did) cousins and friends popped up in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.  The routine is pretty smooth but they need to work on different play-books. The upside was that we were able to wander around the market without any crowds.  We'll need to return to get the full experience.

We seem to have a knack for discovering great cafes amongst the chaos of Cairo.  In the souq selling Nefertiti figurines and miniature pyramids, we found a cafe dedicated to Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian Nobel prize winning novelist.  This may sound a little kitsch, but the cafe was anything but.  It's operated by the Oberoi Group and has high ceilings, beautiful floor tiles, and is decked out in purple velvet and gold.  It even has a security screening point to put the expats at ease.  Catnip for us - all exotic arabia with waiters wearing Fez's and elaborate brass ashtrays and candle holders- ok maybe it was a little kitsch but we enjoyed it.   We tried Naguib's drink of choice, tamarind and hibiscus juice, and Salep, which is quickly becoming a favourite.  This was the deluxe version of Salep, prepared with coconut and dried fruit.  On reflection, I think maybe our 'knack' means simply heading to the most expensive place with air con and set up for foreigners - it works for us.

To compare the koshary that we had tried the day before at Zooba, we took a trip to the suburb Downtown to what many believe is Cairo's best koshary joint, Abou Tarek.  It was recommended by John's Arabic teacher.  When John asked what makes the koshary so good, his teacher shrugged and said "it is a gift from Allah".  That's good enough for us.

We arrived at midday for lunch.  It was busy, but there weren't the crowds of people that we had been expecting.  John's teacher later commented that midday was a very unusual time to visit.  It's somewhere between breakfast and lunch for most Egyptians.  So, we ordered some koshary - that's what we came for, and that's all they sell.  It's a highly specialised operation.

The verdict? It was tasty and fresh, and has the added advantage of being a fraction of the price of the Zooba koshary.  And being located Downtown, it's got a different vibe to it - hectic and a little less polished.

In other news, Finn has a new photo face.  He has, thankfully, moved away from the cheesy forced smile that we didn't appreciate at all.   However, I'm not sure the new photo face is much better.  It's his 'surprised look'.  This is the look I get whenever I point the camera at him.  He's chuffed with it and enjoyed showing us how to pull it off.