The Quran is too loud!

Hello again, I am in Bahariyya Oasis, I have just finished eating some sandy falafels.In my last message I told you that a friend and I were going to try and 'cheat the tourist system' for our train from Luxor back to Cairo. We had been told that there was a train leaving at 8 15 and that we might be able to get 2nd class seats by just hopping aboard. When we arrived and saw the train, we were stopped by the police, who said, this was not our train. Does it go to Cairo, we asked? They said yes, so we said we wanted to get on it. They said we had to wait for the next train (which would have been the tourist train). We decided to just walk down the platform and hop aboard the train... the train car had no lights, no overhead baggage storage, the hardest seats you could imagine, and best of all, no windows! To be honest, I was pretty stoked, it was going to be an adventure. This was obviously third class, the cheapest of the cheap, and there were a lot of sketchy dudes on board. We waited 2 hours however, and the train didn't move. Then there was an announcement in Arabic, and everyone started getting off the train and getting on another one. One guy motioned us to follow him, so we did so, and got on an equallty dingy train, where the police found us. After moving us to a few different seats, they had a long conversation and decided that we had to switch trains again. Luckily for us, it was still a second class car, meaning we would save lots of money and be riding with egyptians, and second class has windows and nice seats. We buy a ticket, and settle in for the overnight trip. Little did we know, our ticket wasnt for an assigned seat, so every stop along the way (this train actually stops at different towns along the Nile, the ones tourists aren't 'supposed' to go to!) new people hopped aboard with assigned seats, and we had to move. This meant that all night we were constantly getting woken up and shifted from seat to seat. Oh well. We saved 25 bucks.

Because Muslims must pray 5 times a day, many of them have alarms set on their cell phones which play calls to prayer at the appointed time and have Quranic verses being sung. Therefore, on train and bus rides, when people cant get to the mosque, at the appointed time, everyone's cellphone goes off with a cacophony of prayers.I am having trouble figuring out how the Egyptian psyche works. In some ways I find them to be incredibly annoying and rude twits that I just want to hit, and then I meet some genuine and amazing people that renew my faith in the place. I have met more than enough travelers that have said that Egypt would be good without the Egyptians --- and at times I have found myself sharing this sentiment, however politically incorrect it may be. So many people here are incessantly pesky and seem to lack any sense of social boundaries or picking up on social cues that essentially say 'fuck off' --- a phrase I wish I knew in Arabic. Everyone here wants to get your money... and they will go to extreme lengths to do so. I could rand forever, but a few examples:

-After returning from Luxor to Cairo I went to Iskanderiyya (Alexandria - a lovely city that reminds me of Istanbul). My first night there I was wandering around alone, when a man appears on the side of the street to say hello (as EVERYONE tends to do, always to sell you something --- you just have to wade through them, say your obligatory hellos and 'canada dry's! and run away) and follows me asking questions. He invites me to tea, which I agree to since I had been looking for a tea anyways and having tea with these people is usually harmless as you can squirm away afterwards without buying anything. So we have a tea and a shisha overlooking the mediterranean, and he tries to sell me drugs. After I make it clear that I am not interested, he backs off, and we get into a pretty good conversation. He pays for everything and refuses to let me pay, and then says he will show me a cheap good restaurant (I had semi-asked, since I was getting hungry). I figure I will see the restaurant and then get away from him and go to my hotel before making my final dining decision. However once we get in front of the restaurant he motions me inside, to 'show me', the next thing I know we are seated and he is ordering food. I ask to see a menu to see the prices but he insists that I dont, since I will be given the tourist menu and he will get me the 'Egyptian Price'. I'm pretty tipped off by now that something fishy is going on, but we continue to have a good discussion (which is welcome, because travelling alone can be a bit lonely) and the food is good. Then the mate goes and talks to the waiter, disappears, and comes back. He proudly announces that if I was here alone the meal would be over 100 pounds, but since he is with me, I only have to pay 80. This is very expensive, and I tell him that I know this after being here for 3 weeks already (the meal was worth 50, tops). I tell him that I am disappointed and that he was being dishonest, and after a few minutes of awkward silence, the dude gets up, goes to the waiter, who gives him some money, and he dashes! I run to the window and see him burn down the street. A young Egyptian couple sitting at a table beside me ask if there is something wrong, I tell them I think I've just been slipped a fast one, and they say that yes, I have. 'You cannot trust anyone in Egypt.' says Adham, the young man, who I join to finish my meal. The couple is incredibly friendly, he is Christian, and his wife, Rihan, a Muslim, both smoke and drink and seem incredibly liberal; Adham is keenly interested in Egyptology, like myself, and we have a great conversation, and they promise to help me sort out my bill. I ask for it, and it comes as 93 pounds. The tally is in Arabic, so I get Adham to translate, and there is a beer that I didnt order plus an extra 30 pounds added on. I ask the waiter what this is and he says that "my friend" took 30 pounds from him and that I will cover it. I tell him hell no, and Adham explains this in Arabic. One thing leads to another, and I put down the money that I owe for the meal I ate and say I'm not paying any more. The waiter says this is a problem and I lose it and start yelling and swearing at him, I make such a scene that he finally just takes the money and leaves... Adham seems amused by this and says we should meet the next morning and go to the Alexandria Museum together. But the whole thing just left me so fired up. Rarely do I lose my temper and yell, but I was just so angry and felt so disrespected. I was ready to fly home that night, had it not been for the lucky meeting with Adham and his wife... It is really terrible being in a place where you actually cant trust anyone.

But the next day I met up with Adham, and spent 4 hours over beer and coffee in the evening with him and his wife... he even gave me some gifts. He wanted to meet the next day, and even arranged to take me to the bus when I left Alexandria... we met again and had a great time, and he wants me to return to Alexandria. 'Not everyone in Egypt is like the man from the other night.' Rihan reassures me. 'Most are, though.' Regardless, my faith in Egyptian hospitality is renewed.

And so things go, up at and down. I meet all kinds of bozos who just want my money or to make fun of me and don't want anything besides that, and meet an equal amount of people who just smile and say hi, or want to talk for a few minutes with no ulterior motives.

From Alexandria I took an overnight bus through the Western Desert to Siwa Oasis, 80 km from the Libyan border, and literally in the middle of nowhere. On this bus, which departed around midnight, the driver chose to crank his Quran tape. Immediately people started yelling in Arabic, and everyone on the bus started yelling at each other for about 5 minutes. It was madness. The fellow beside me, who spoke a little bit of english, explained that some people were complaining that the Quran was too loud, but the driver didnt want to turn it down. I was able to fall asleep to the over-reverbed Imam's singing as we cruised through the dunes in the moonlight...

There was once an Oracle in Siwa, and Alexander the Great marched his army across the desert so that he could consult it before he went off on his tour de force into the Far East. The Persian King Cambysees and enemy of Alexander sought to destroy the Oracle at Siwa and marched his army into the desert towards it, where the entire army disappeared. Today Siwa is an isolated location that is inhabited by Siwans, who speak a different language from Arabic and who don't see themselves as Egyptians. The Egyptian gov't wants to build an airstrip at Siwa to make it more accessible for tourists, and is sending in Egyptian laborers --- who, it was explained to me by a female British expat who has opened a cafe in Siwa, are all 'dishonest wolves'. The Siwans, on the other hand are 'honest and kind'. Siwa is gorgeous, and has lots of wicked hotsprings, and attracts a lot of hippies.

After Siwa I hired a vehicle to Bahariyya Oasis with a Canadian couple: a book reviewer for the Vancouver Sun and an ex-editor of the Vancouver Province, who quit because 'the newspaper industry is dead', and apparently the Province is leading the pack. I have been given some very interesting insight into how the paper industry works. His obsession with tracking down hotsprings is only topped by his love for beer --- which, since you coudn't get in Siwa, was driving him insane. They were good company for a 7 hour trip along a decomissioned road that has been covered by shifting sanddunes in the Great Sand Sea, a large desolate expanse of sand on the eastern edge of the Sahara. There is no regular vehicle transport along this route, one usually has to go back to Cairo to get to Bahariyya, but by taking the 4x4 we were able to get off the beaten path and see some very spectacular desert. In Bahariyya, we have booked an overnight trip into the White Desert for tomorrow, and this has come with a surreal experience with one of the most obnoxious and fuckheaded people I have encountered yet... which I will save for the next e-mail, since there are about 15 kids behind me wanting me to get off the computer so they can play Counterstrike.

I am behind in the e-mailing, since there is much more that I wanted to tell you about... so maybe expect another one sooner rather than later. But for now, I will leave you with this piece of information that I read in another traveler's guide book:

If you grease a donkey's asshole, it cannot generate the force required to make its loud eeee-haww baying noise. This way, Bedouins can sneak contraband on donkeys into Egypt across the Libyan border without worrying about a baying donkey giving their movement away to border patrols.

Anways, until next time, all the best,
Bryn