The Sheraton, Cairo, Egypt, 3rd October 2000
Off by coach to the Egyptian Museum (the one that has Tutankhamen’s gold mask). Noisy and chaotic streets; half-finished buildings and grimy tenements; decay and poverty above the bustle of business.
Museum crowded: guides talk to their intermingling groups in a cacophony of English, Italian, German and Japanese, against a susurrus of exclamations and muttered asides. It’s a scrum, people jockeying for position to take photographs.
Lunch in the Khan al Khalili, the main souq. Leaving we hurry, eyes fixed ahead, past jewelers and sellers of carpets and all manner of tacky tourist geegaws. In narrow everyday streets of workshops and stalls no one takes any notice of us, no one cares: people who are not in the business of tourism (a very wide business these days) are not interested in tourists.
Children are exceptions, they call out, ‘English’, ‘Manchester United!’, ‘Hello, what’s your name?’ Below the soaring walls of the Citadel, they find another English word, ‘Money!’ and scrabble for patronising coins tossed down. Two Fagin-like adults count the cents, pence and piasters.