A Little Eire in Egypt

My original plan for getting to Upper Egypt involved taking the Abela Sleeper Train from Cairo to Aswan. It sounded romantic in a neo-colonial sort of way and offered the added advantage of being cheap. Exercising an abundance of caution, I visited the reservation office at Ramses Station a full month before my expected travel date, only to be told by a puzzled clerk (who had probably never planned anything a month ahead in his life) that I couldn’t reserve a seat more than two in advance. I returned two weeks later as instructed, and found that the train was completely booked. My advice for anyone interested in travelling on the sleeper train: skip trying to decipher the conflicting instructions of the confused Abela staff. Instruct a local travel agency to get the tickets for you instead.

In the end, we had to fly, but trading a twelve hour train ride for a one-and-a-half hour flight did at least give us an extra night in Cairo. We used it to have dinner with a couple of my old ILI roommates, one of whom convinced me to try Egypt’s most schizophrenic dish: a bowl of Molokheya. I wanted to write “Egypt’s most revolting dish,” but that’s not quite fair, because it actually tastes fine. What’s revolting is the texture, which botanists describe with the appropriately disgusting word “mucilaginous.” Molokheya is the Egyptian term for Jew’s Mallow, which as near as I can tell, has no more politically correct name. When cooked, the stuff turns to slime – a clear, thick slime with the consistency of saliva...after a night of heavy drinking...when you have a sinus infection.

I washed it down with half a bottle of Omar Khayam, which as noted before, has the useful property of acting as a general anaesthetic in situations like this. This time it also had the unfortunate side-effect of causing me to suggest to Ms. C. that we should go to Harry’s Pub for a couple post-dinner drinks in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. I blame the Omar Khayam, because in sober circumstances I dislike St. Patrick’s day and I hate Harry’s Pub. I can’t imagine a situation where I'd like either of them better when combined.

Harry’s is a faux Irish pub attached to the Marriot Hotel in Zamalek (or maybe it’s the Sheraton – I can never remember, which has irritated more than one cab driver). Harry’s is popular with older (mostly English) ex-pats, local alcoholics, itinerant students, and prostitutes. Unfortunately, this is more or less the exact same demographic that is attracted to St. Patrick’s day, which doubled the potential obnoxiousness of the crowd. Luckily for us, in my enthusiasm I had failed to notice that we’d already missed the holiday, which was the day before.*

St. Patrick’s day may have passed, but there was still one night left for the Irish band that the hotel had flown in from Dublin for a four-night stand. The crowd, many of whom were probably still nursing hangovers cultivated the night before, was more subdued too. Everyone’s enthusiasm had been dampened just to the point where an old crank like me could enjoy himself, and enjoy myself I did. Probably as a consequence of my father’s collection of Dubliners cassettes, I love traditional Irish music. I was delighted anytime they pulled out one of the classics. They have so much energy to them that half the time I don’t realize how ridiculously depressing the lyrics are, which reminds me of a few of my favorite lines from G. K. Chesteron:

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad
For all their wars are merry
And all their songs are sad

Very true, G.K., very true. We didn’t hear anything as conspicuously mournful as “Danny Boy,” but even the upbeat, sing-along numbers like “Whisky in the Jar,” and “Irish Rover,” (which are about a double-crossing lover and the annihilation of a ship’s crew, respectively) are actually quite sad. Some of the poignancy of bleak Irish songs is relieved, however, by the recognition that nobody living in whatever Irish backwater is the subject of a song like “Dirty Old Town” has it nearly as bad as the dozens of poor Sudanese and sub-Saharan prostitutes who frequent places like Harry’s. You would have to take Ireland’s gloomiest songwriter off his anti-depressants for months before he could write a song that could even come close to capturing how terrible that job must be.

We settled the bill just as the band started on to a series of Journey covers. It was definitely the right time to leave Harry's and probably also a good time to leave Cairo for a while, too. I’ve found that a good rule of thumb is that by the time a person starts frequenting fake Irish pubs (which exist everywhere on earth), either they’ve run out of ideas to explore or the town has run out of options to offer. In either case, it was a good time to take to the road for a bit, or, as the Irish appear to say: “mush-a ring dum-a do dum-a da, wack fall the daddy-o.”

*St. Patrick's Day was a month ago, which shows just how many posts behind I actually am on this thing. They're all there, they just need typing.