Photo Essays of Cairo Monuments

Hey everyone, I know I haven't updated my blog for ages. I've just been dealing with a lot and blogging has had to take a backseat for awhile.

A friend of mine recently visited Cairo and his pictures are far more evocative than my words. He has captured images that seemed new to me, even though I have visited each place so often. I'm sure you will enjoy them too.

Here are the links to his photo essays with a sample photo for each as a teaser.
Sayyidna al Hussein Mosque


Bayt al Suhaymi


Fishawy Cafe and Khan el Khalili


Madrasa-Khanqah of Sultan Barquq


Al Azhar Mosque and Around


Citadel of Saladin


Al Aqmar Mosque


The Silksellers Street


Sabeel Kuttab of Kathkuda


Sharia al Muizz li Din Allah


Shops along Sharia al Muizz li Din Allah


Madrasa and Mausoleum of Sultan Qualawun


Sultan al Mu'ayyad Mosque


Bab Zuwayla


Out and About in Cairo


The Thousand Minarets of Cairo


View from BD's Hotel Room

All the pictures in this post are from Bhaskar's Photo Blog He owns the copyright on all these pictures. Please do not republish his pictures without checking with him/giving him credit.

Fatimid Walk

It was such a pleasure to be able to attend a PTP walk again (Its been over a year since I could last attend a walk) yesterday.

As added bonus, my husband was able to come along too and he too got to see the beauty and history of Islamic Cairo through Camel's eyes.

We started at Bab Zuwayla (entry 15LE for foreigners, 1LE for Egyptians) where the gate itself was built by the Fatimids, but the minarets were added about 300 years later. We climbed up the gate and some PTPians even climbed up the minarets. The view from here is lovely. Unfortunately today was not a very clear day, so it was hard to take long range pictures of the skyline.

Our next stop was at the Fakhahini mosque where we heard the stories behind Al Hakim the "eccentric" 3rd Caliph in Egypt.

We then crossed the road to reach the Mausoleum of Al Saleh Nagm ad Din Ayyub which is built on the site of a Fatimid palace - Beit Al Qasreen (which lent its name to one of the books from the Naguib Mahfouz trilogy).

Most PTPians then headed back for some refreshments, but since my husband had come to the area after so long, the 2 of us decided to carry on walking down Sharia al Muizz ud Din towards the Northern Gates.

We looked for some of the other Fatimid monuments that were mentioned during the presentation. We identified the Al Aqmar mosque and Al Hakim mosque before arriving at the Northern wall.


We also wandered into the Beit al Sihaymi which is a beautiful Ottoman house (actually 2 houses), not as well furnished as the Gayer Anderson museum, but some rooms are semi furnished.
We had a wonderful time. The weather was comfortable for walking, the pace relaxed, we met old friends, made new ones, learned a lot, ate roasted batatas, some wonderful local bread stuffed with dates(boreik - sometimes also stuffed with cheese) and some interesting pink and white sweets (moz halawa) and fell in love all over again with Islamic Cairo.

On another note, I would also recommend that you visit the Bein Al Qasreen area in the evening when it is all lit up. It transforms into something mystical in its beauty.

Maadi Women's Guild Christmas Bazaar

One of the Best Bazaars that I have attended in Cairo. This was a mammoth effort. Around 80 stalls. There were the usual suspects from the Tupperware/jewelry designers/shawls/sweaters/candles brigade.
But what was truly unique was the sheer number of charities and NGO's that were given the opportunity to present the handiwork of their wards. Some beautiful work was exhibited by the nuns of St Barsoum Monastery - Toys, decorations, embroidery, lace, knits, Coptic Icons, Stained Glass and needle point made by underprivileged families in the Helwan area. They have a wide variety of handicrafts and I would highly recommend visiting their workshops at El Maasara in Helwan.


Other Charities that exhibited work of wonderful quality (which is so hard to find in Egypt) were House of Charity (3381 1063), Woodwork Center of Hagaza (012 759 9479), Touch her World and Tukul Crafts.
There were products created by orphans, young girls, prisoners, refugees and other marginalised groups. This was an excellent opportunity to pick up Christmas gifts in one location while contributing to some great causes.

Entry was 30Le which was completely worth it, unlike the over priced bazaar at Narmer American College

There were stalls that had activities of finger painting, wax hand impressions, decoupage etc. for the little kids, like Art Cafe


There were quite a few Food stalls too. Chinese by Peking and Dragon House, Shawarmas from Bistro, Smiley, Max's Restaurant and a few others.
Amera was offering some excellent hot dogs (I wonder where they buy their sausages from, but they are the best quality and consistency I have eaten in Egypt)

Jared's bagels were making fresh waffles and corn dogs on the spot. I'm not sure if corn dogs are on the regular menu at their Road 9 outlet. I'll have to check the next time I'm there.

If you attend only one bazaar in the Christmas run-up, then this should be it!

Eid Mubarak - Kol Sena Wenta Tayieb

Eid Mubarak to all my friends who celebrate this feast.

Cairo has these special colored cloths associated with different feasts through the year. The color for this festival is red as seen in the pictures below of the butchers shop all decorated for Eid.

They were taken from a moving car, so the picture may not be as sharp, but its colorful :)

New Campus - AUC, Future University Egypt - AUC Book Sale

Since we had already driven all the way to New Cairo and the AUC Press bi-annual sale was supposed to start today, we decided to take a look at the bookstore on the new campus.

We just got to see a bit of the campus when we drove in at the Visitors Gate (no1) . The buildings do look beautiful and they have tried to replicate the architecture of the original campus in some ways, but even the briefest look showed us that the campus wasn't ready to be functioning full time.



The bookstore at the new campus that was opened at the end of August, had more space and seemed well laid out. They are offering a flat 20% off on all books, but the bargain books (upto60% off) are only available at the downtown campus. The sale will continue until the 5th of December. The downtown bookstore remains my favorite of their 3 locations and we returned here to buy our book fix :) today.

New Campus Bookstore 2797 5927
Downtown Bookstore 2797 5887
Zamalek Bookstore 2739 7045

While on our way to AUC's new campus, we also passed by the Future University of Egypt. I'm not sure about the University itself, bu their building did stand out on the road, kind of like a modern structure pushing its way out of the Roman Colosseum. Take a look.

Narmer American College - Christmas Bazaar

Narmer American College is situated in New Cairo. They had advertised their Christmas Bazaar quite heavily, so we thought it may be worth our while to drive all the way across town to check it out.

Big Mistake! We should have realized that, when they charged us Entry fee of 30LE each. (most Xmas bazaars charge 10LE and the few really good ones charge 20LE) My husband who has insider insight, mentioned that if the gate priceis too high, then it means they can't make money off of you on the inside.

There were a lot of stalls, but 90% of them were focused on kids toys and accessories. The only good stall around was The Bookspot run by 2 lovely ladies, but I normally pick up books from their store on Road 9 in Maadi and prefer to browse the wider collection that they have in store.

What was really irritating was that the snow and streamer cans were being sold for about 5LE and badly behaved brats from ages 6 to 14 were running riotously around the place spraying the snow all over the silk and pashmina items in stalls, the books, the food stalls and the live animals stall! Terrible behavior by the kids and complete lack of interest and control and respect for other peoples property by their parents! It was disgraceful!
The better behaved younger kids were occupied with the bouncy castle and slides and the wide open playgrounds while the older ones assaulted our ears with some off key and off beat blaring karaoke!

The senior class boys who were manning the bake stall were much better behaved, compared to the rest of the lot.
Not at all a bazaar I would recommend to anyone unless you had no time to visit toy shops to pick up Chritmas gifts. If the European Embassies Bazaar was a 7.5, this one was a 1.5

European Embassies Christmas Bazaar at the Nile Hilton

Visited the Christmas Bazaar organised by the European Embassies at the Nile Hilton yesterday. As was to be expected, the quality of goods on offer was way superior to most bazaars in Egypt as the goods had been imported from various European embassies.

We reached about 11am and the place was overflowing. We were wondering what the rush was about, as we haven't seen such crowds at any of the previous bazaars that we have attended in Egypt. People had even come with strolleys and suitcases.
When we went in, we figured that a large majority of the crowd was there to buy the alcohol that was freely available. A lot of embassies had their countries traditional alcohol on offer: Russian vodkas, Pimms from UK, Irish Whiskey, Gordons Gin, the range was much wider than you would ever see in the Duty Free Shop in Egypt. Prices were a little higher than the Duty Free Shops. We did not pick up any alcohol as we travel frequently between the 2 of us and normally bring our legally allowed limit in with us. But a lot of people were stocking up for the holiday season.

Alcohol was just the surface of the goods on offer. Traditional foods, home baked goodies, snacks on site, traditional embroidery, crystal, jewelry, souvenirs. All these were in plenty.

We picked up some Croatian pasta sauce which I have yet to try and fresh chocolate cake from Greece. The cake we got was charred on the bottom, and more like a chocolate flavored bread.

On location we had a European Union brunch ranging from cheese toast from Holland to crepes, waffles, Hungarian Goulash and Slovenian burgers, British Pimms based punch to Irish coffee. The Swiss cheese Raclette smelt a little too strong for our taste but plenty of people were enjoying that with potatoes and gherkins.


Children's Christmas Choirs provided background music and there was even a Santa's grotto for the younger ones. Entry at 20LE was a bit more than most other bazaars, but all the money was being collected for Egyptian charities.

An enjoyable start to the day.

ICAE Diwali Function at Mena House Oberoi

Had a ball of a time at today's Diwali function held by the Indian Community Association in Cairo.

Met a lot of old friends, made some new ones. The decorations were awesome and felt like being back in India with bright diyas and colorful rangolis all over the place.

Usha Uthup was in town, to perform for the function and she got the crowd on their feet (although some of them were on their feet just to capture her on camera)

Good Indian khana. Over 800 guests. This was a diwali party to remember!

Ramadan around the world in Pictures

Mandy sent me this link from boston.com and it does have the most beautiful pictures of people around the world observing Ramadan.

Take a look, it will be worth it.

Toilet Hygiene - Grand Hyatt

I saw a new innovation that is so much more practical than the old one on my last visit to the Grand Hyatt.

On a visit to the washroom, I saw the toilet seat, loosely wrapped in plastic and I was initially horrified, because loosely wrapped plastic has the potential to harbour germs and other wastes for longer than the vanilla toilet seat and is more difficult to thoroughly wash clean (because of the folds in the plastic)

On a closer look. I saw a green button to be pressed, which rotated a fresh roll of plastic around the toilet seat, so every user can sit on a clean seat! This is so much better than the old butter paper toilet seat covers, which tended to get soggy if the seat wasn't dry and wasn't 100% hygienic.



This new invention is foolproof, the only problem of course being the plastic waste being generated. But I'm sure the makers have taken into account the proper micron count.

The only other comparable technique is the one at Dubai airport washrooms, where disinfectant solution is provided in every stall to wipe down each seat before using it.

Pictures of Cairo from 1966

This Lady's dad clicked these pictures way back in 1966 and turned them into slides. So they have amazing quality and colours.

Dare I say the city looks so beautiful and peaceful? :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ancientmariner/sets/72157606773671616/

Villa Grey Cultural Center

Villa Grey
24, Abdallah al Kateb Street
Between Midan Fini and El Nil Street
Dokki 12311

+2 02 3338 2184

Villa Grey is the latest location on the Cairo scene to host photography/painting exhibitions and screen interesting off beat movies that do not normally make it to the regular cinema halls.

This center was opened under the auspices of Grey worldwide and Gerard Avdessian, their Managing Director in Egypt.

Gerard studied theater in the Soviet Union and has directed, produced and written plays in Lebanon for several years, a parallel with his almost 40 years in the advertising business. He came to Cairo in April 2007 to head up Villa Grey and to realize, as he puts it, the “dream child” of Grey’s director in Lebanon, Philip Skaff, the “madman” behind the beloved community arts project.

“The idea behind this is to create a social link between the agency and the city of Cairo, the people of Cairo. It is non-profit because I don’t think it is our calling to make any money out of this. Once we cover our expenses, whether from sponsors or from sales of art, all the rest is cashed by the artist himself. We don’t charge a commission, la’a. We’re not an art gallery. We just have this non-profit movement within the agency and in the garden, and we open our doors to talented people, whether young or old.”

This talent will come from the visual arts — including painting, graphic design, sculpture and installation, photography and fashion, performing arts, music concerts, poetry, script readings, film screenings — and whatever else shows up on the marble steps to inspire Monsieur Avedissian and his team.

(Italicised extract from Egypt Today, December 2007)

We had the chance to visit the Villa a couple of weeks ago and check out "Oum el Dounia" - a photo exhibit by Dr. El-Sayed M. El-Sayed. Dr Sayed retired in 2005 and took the opportunity to develop his talent for photography. This is his first solo exhibition and the theme is Old Cairo and Egypt, its architectural heritage and its people.

We had gone for the Wednesday night movie screening that the Villa Grey holds, hoping to watch the Oscar winning German movie "The Lives of Others"

Unfortunately, the copy of the movie that they received that day, did not have English subtitles, so they could not screen it. They ended up showing Travolta's Hairspray so we left. (We had already watched the movie)

The viewing room is quite cosy and comfortable, so I'll definitely go back when they next show a movie that I want to watch.

To receive the schedule of Villa Grey movies and other events in Cairo, do send a blank mail to whazzupcairo-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or whazzupcairo-subscribe@googlegroups.com

The Villa Grey building itself is worth a trip. Its a traditional old style Egyptian bungalow with lots of Mashrabiya work, beautifully inlaid doors, ornate ceiling and lovely flooring. Reminded me of the Eicher Consulting office in Bangalore for the use of an old building as an office space. This is one of the best kept old bungalows with access to the public that I have seen in Cairo.