travelswithalice

February 21, 2007

At Khan-el-Khalili

Day 2 was devoted to the chaotic streets of modern-day Cairo and the medieval labyrinth that is the fabled Khan-el-Khalili, Cairo's bazaar complex. It is said to have inspired the market setting for Scheherazade’s tales.

It was a quick and easy ride on the metro and we emerged a few meters from a public park which turned out to be not too public after all. You have to pay to get in.

Crossing a pedestrian overpass, we surveyed the busy street below. If I blotted out the cars, I could imagine I had gone back in time, in a land known to me only in books and movies.

The call to prayer boomed out from loudspeakers at a nearby mosque. The sound seemed to seep all around me as the prayer was taken up by people close by. Soon the hypnotic murmuring swelled as more and more people took up the chanting.

I noticed that we were the only foreigners around and I wondered why. We were thrilled to discover that we were in the local shopping area, not on the tourist belt.

I like the people here: very gentle, kind, and genuinely hospitable. Very good looking too. They happily give directions, help read our maps and give shopping tips- where to go and how much to pay.

Too soon we found ourselves in the heart of the tourist mecca when we stopped for lunch at the atmospheric Khalili Café dedicated to beloved Egyptian writer, the late Naguib Mahfouz.

Then off to do an important shopping errand: belly dancing gear for my sister Annette’s dance class.

Stuart quickly located the place suggested by our guidebook. And then it was three or four hours (difficult to tell; could have been a thousand and one) of wandering up and down four floors of Arabian nights material.

Beaded gilt collars and headdresses channeled Cleopatra and Nefertiti. Sparkly net veils, floaty scarves, gypsy dresses and genie pants, all encrusted in crystal beads, sequins, and coins. There were tambourines and tiny copper cymbals; thousands of jingly silver and copper coins jangled on chain belts, bracelets, arm bands, and anklets.

It’s difficult to tell what the locals really think of all this. Conversations with hotel staff and shopkeepers suggest an ambivalence in their regard for the once notorious- but now hugely popular, even trendy- art of belly dancing. An aura of disrepute still surrounds it like so many floaty scarves and jingly veils; which is probably why today’s celebrated belly dancers are mostly foreigners.

Navigating the maze of medieval alleys that make up the Khan can be daunting, not to mention the stress of haggling if one is not so inclined. I had the luxury of having my own personal buyer/guide.

We had bought a shop's entire stock of white bedlinen, so the linen man was a willing conscript as my point man in the Khan.

He showed me how to pick the really good dates and taught me to soak them overnight in milk to soften them and to keep the resulting flavored milk for drinking. He showed me some nasty looking dried lemons, black with age, excellent for cooking with rice. He led me to a tiny shop in a back alley, no tourists in sight, for saffron and vanilla pods- the really good stuff. He explained the nature, flavor, and in some cases, miraculous powers of the contents of the ancient wood barrels and hessian sacks stacked all around us.

We turned a corner and immediately found ourselves swimming in a pool of delicious scents. Flowers and spices and musk were the usual suspects. Plus several others I couldn't identify. We were on Perfume Alley.

All in all, an intoxicating day.

Labels: belly dancing, Egypt, Khan-el-Khalili, linen