It's a creekmore world » Egypt

The 2009 family trip to the Middle East

David — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:45:35 +0000

Our Middle East posts are done! We still have about 60 percent of the video to compile and edit — it’s beginning to look like that may never get done.

They look great! Thanks to Trish for photographing, editing and producing these.

Traveling with kids? Seek drama and keep moving

David — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:51:11 +0000

Some of the joys of travel are subtle. I spent a fair amount of time in Siberia, and despite the romantic image it produces in our minds, it was hardly exhilarating in reality. The enjoyment was distributed evenly across the experience and noticable only when I would look across the flat landscape to the horizon thinking, “Shit, this tundra goes on forever.”

Those are not the kinds of experiences you want when traveling with kids. Kids (ours are 6 and 9) can’t appreciate the endless tundra of Siberia. Well, they can, but only for a moment. To keep kids engaged and interested, we suggest you adopt the mantra we developed last summer in the Middle East: Seek drama and keep moving.

Once we got the hang of it, building a kid-friendly itinerary was easy in the Middle East. It’s packed with exciting, inspiring, visually-impressive sites. Petra’s cavernous pedestrian george, Jerusalem’s old wall and caves and of course, the pyramids and restored temples of Luxor, Egypt are all so accessible to the child’s imagination. In many places, the kids could climb and interact, which made it so much more real.

We did find, however, that guides were generally a mistake. Of the five or six guides we used at different points, only one could adapt the program for children. Out guide in Luxor, with whom we were stuck for two long days, was obviously so proud of his University-level knowledge of ancient Egypt. No prompting or signal to ‘keep moving’ got through his determination to say every word. It was even tough for the adults and really painful in 115 degree heat for the kids. In places where we had no guide, the family enjoyed the experience more.

Presentation matters a lot. We were surprised at how little they enjoyed the Egyptian museum in Cairo compared to the much smaller museum in Luxor. Cairo was cluttered and confusing, whereas Luxor was better curated. The girls spent twice as much time in Luxor as they did in the twenty-times-more-extensive Cairo museum.

You can’t spend much time in the same place. We would do mosques in under an hour — up to the minaret, once around, ‘Allah Akbar!’, and out again. As an adult, would I have spend more time admiring the architecture? Yes, I would, but I can’t. Happy family travel is about compromise. We know that, right?

In Morocco, we hit a bump. The girls got really restless driving over the High Atlas mountains for two days. It was gorgeous and remote. Lunching in a tiny backpacker hotel overlooking the mud-hut village was delightful to adults, but pretty boring for the kids. Car rides are especially deadly without frequent stops, a luxury our itinerary did not afford in Morocco. Children don’t get get tired until they get bored. (well, mostly anyway.)

But we rescued win from the jaws of fail! Our destination on those long rides was the the drama highlight of our trip: an overnight camp-out in the Sahara Desert. Overall, the Middle East was pretty easy to arrange for kids. As we build our kid-friendly travel plan for Mexico and Italy we’ll post our drama-filled, fast-moving itinerary. Maybe you can suggest great stuff to see!

A scouting mission to China and memories of Paris playgrounds.

David — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:22:36 +0000

A big reason we travel so much is I work for an international organization that has offices around the globe. And, when I travel on business, I can take family along. It’s at our expense of course, but we save on the hotels and my airfare. Most importantly, they encourage family travel. (Well, not to Afghanistan, of course.) We are lucky to have such an arrangement – it’s not everyone’s good fortune to have this deal.

But sometimes I have to travel alone, most frequently to northern California. But I’ve also been to Afghanistan, Thailand, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Paris, Kiev and Pakistan. This November, I’ll head to Beijing, China for a week. It’s a first for me and I’m excited.

Great wall at Jinshanling

Traveling alone sucks after you’ve done it with kids and wifey. God, how I miss them when I go to a new place. I imagine that I see their faces reflected on the airplane window. I think I hear them at night getting water in the hotel bathroom. And of course, I wish that they could see what I’m seeing.

My solo trips are almost all business, so I stay busy and there isn’t a great deal of time for sightseeing. They double nicely, however, as ‘scouting’ missions for future travel. We hope to get to China, Thailand and Japan for 5 weeks next summer. I’ll learn what I can before we go.

So what do I scout? I check out hotels and the tourist sights a bit, but the guidebooks are pretty accurate about that stuff. You really don’t need to be there for that stuff. The more difficult, but important, things to know in advance of traveling with kids are:

Surface travel: Can you get cabs? Public transportation? How long does it take to get from place to place? Can you walk?
Food: What can kids eat? Are restaurants accommodating? What might my picky child eat?
Culture: Is it crowded? Will the kids feel safe? Are there parks – playgrounds? Do people like kids?

In the end, it’s the subtle things that make a trip seem easy or hard and those are the things you don’t read in a book. For example, we stayed a month in Paris in 2007. We had such a terrible time getting food. I know, I know, that seems crazy. But my kids, especially my older daughter, like ultra-boring food. Even ‘plain’ pizza would often come with parsley sprinkled on it, and would go uneaten. We ate bread and fast food a lot. The girls did come away with an appetite for good bread, but Paris is an ‘adult’ food scene they have yet to appreciate.

Who would have imagined that Paris is also the best city on the planet for playgrounds. There are (small) amusement rides all over the place. The parks all have elaborate playgrounds and there are swings and sandboxes tucked around every corner. We had some of our most memorable experiences at Paris playgrounds – including a baseball-sized shiner Emma got when she and I played too rough on a see-saw.

The fun really helped break up the otherwise ‘adult’ features of the City of Lights. (Here is another traveling family‘s musings on European playgrounds including their favorite: the one near Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. )

I scouted Cairo too – and it really helped. Cairo is a very friendly city but mortally dangerous for pedestrians. Knowing that, we wasted no time trying to walk from place to place – something we love to do. Kid food is also a little tough in Egypt, so we dined close to the hotel most of the time.

Without a doubt, the ‘scouting’ trip is a luxury. But it can help so much. I’ll let you know what I discover in Beijing.

Dr. Ragab’s Moronic Village and Carnival of Death, Cairo, Egypt: Day 21

David — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:10:09 +0000

We’ve had so much success sightseeing and touring that it’s tough to have a bad day. Today wasn’t great — easy, but not great. Our final stop in Cairo was supposed to be the Egyptian ruins at Saqquara and Dashur, which include the Step Pyramid of Zoser — the oldest stone monument in the world. It represents an engineering and architectural breakthrough. But it’s about 20 miles south of Cairo and requires a car and driver for the day. I just didn’t have the energy to pre-arrange the transportation. Plus, we’ve seen so many ruins, it’s hard to get excited about another, even though it’s an important one. So we abandoned the plan over breakfast and decide instead to go to Dr. Ragab’s Pharonic Village, the ancient-Egypt-themed museum/amusement park for kids.

The park is ‘cheesy’ according to the guidebook, but our hope is that the kids enjoy the accessibility and change of pace. We know it’s a bit of a risk. It’s located on a marshy mini-island in south Cairo, not far from the Great Pyramids. They take our ticket and sit us down in a cafe-gift shop, a combo we’d see again shortly. The English tour leaves in 5 minutes we are told. It gives us time to check out the expensive, cheap souvenirs.

Isis in the reeds. Is that a scary ferris wheel in the background?

Twenty five minutes later we head off on a boat ride around a marsh. The information from the recorded presentation is not bad: we learn a few things, but we are just staring at cheap statues floating in the reeds. Further on, there are a few live ‘actors’ pretending to be ancient Egyptians plowing fields, making pottery, blowing glass. Off the boat we take a walking tour and it’s basically the same type of stuff. Emma likes it enough. Lily less so. It’s not Disney, but it’s somewhat interesting.

It’s just us and a middle-aged couple in our ‘tour’ group. She, an Egyptian woman in hijab and he, a European man in tourist gear complete with gigantic camera. They hold hands the whole time, clearly in love. It doesn’t appear they can speak more than a few English words together. We wonder what their story is. You see interesting people when you’re traveling. I remember the single, attractive woman in her 40s at the resort on the Dead Sea. She wore glittery club clothes and drank a bottle of wine by herself over dinner. What was she doing at a remote resort by herself? Or the Dad we saw on vacation with three kids but no mom. Where was she? A business trip? Divorced? Dead?

Even Lily knows this is a scam.

We enter another cafe-gift shop and the tour fades away. For the next 45 minutes we are shuttled from cafe to gift shop to cafe to gift shop, with barely a pretense that we are still on an edutainment experience we paid $120 for. Glass blowers will write your name on a bottle, copper smiths will write your name on a copper plate. They will draw your likeness on papyrus and even sell you the bread they baked in the ‘ancient’ oven. Even the guide makes excuses for the lameness.

You've got to be kidding me.

The kids can see a ferris wheel in the distance and we tell our guide that we’re done and going off on our own. We stop at a playground, but most of the equipment is too hot from the sun to play on. I’m getting pretty frustrated and tired. We turn the corner to the amusement part and it’s a death trap. The tilt-a-whirl is rusted out and the ’swings’ look like they’re made from concrete. It’s unclear if the rides are even running, but there are a few people hanging around that might switch on the rides if we paid. But you couldn’t pay ME to allow my kids go on those rides. They look medievel and scary. Lily thinks we are being too cautious and and tries in vain to persuade us that the everything is safe. We make a beeline for the exit of Dr. Rageb’s Moronic Village and Carnival of Death.

We’re Egypt’d out. It’s been 11 days in this fabulous country and we’ve seen a lot of the major attractions. It’s definitely enough, though. It’s a tough place to be a tourist with a family. And the ancient Egyptian stuff gets overwhelming after awhile. Out my hotel window, I see a fantastic view of the Nile and Cairo at night. The Mosque plays the final prayers. We pack and prepare for travel tomorrow to Morocco, an experience that should be very different than the one we leave today. I’m looking forward to it.

– David

[Photos by Trisha Creekmore]

Khan e Khalili Market, Cairo, Egypt: Day 20

David — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:32:47 +0000

Kids nap (as usual) in the Sharm el Sheikh airport.

The 5:30 a.m. wake-up call rings. My first thought is “What idiot scheduled a 7:40 a.m. flight?” Oh, right. That idiot would be me. My great idea was to be in Cairo early enough to do a full day of touring but I can see from the groggy, cranky faces of our kids that was a mistake. At the Sharm airport I decide to jettison the second half of today’s itinerary: Dr. Ragab’s Pharaonic Village will have to wait. It’s a kid’s museum and park that is probably great for Lily, but also could be cheesy dull. Maybe we’ll go tomorrow.

We get an early check-in at the Cairo Grand Hyatt and many of the staff remember us. The tattooed mom and cute blond girls are hard to forget. The view from our new room is stunning. They put us in a tiny corner room with two, floor-to-ceiling, 15-foot wide windows. Each one takes up nearly an entire wall. The effect is like floating above the Nile over Cairo, 500 feet in the air. Even with the heavy smog, we can see for miles, and Cairo sprawls forever. The Giza marina is right across from us with a hundred or so moored private boats. Traveling in low season has its advantages — we’ve gotten the best rooms in every hotel.

View of Cairo from our room. Those are pyramids obsucred by smog in the distance!

The (revised) plan for today is to attack Khan e Khalili, the old Cairo bazaar. It’s got a reputation for being a tourist trap, and it is in many ways. But it’s also an ancient marketplace, the home of trade craftsman working in tiny shops off tiny winding streets for hundreds of years. And since we need some gifts and souveniers, there is no better place to go.

Khan e Khalili is divided into the ‘Egyptian’ part and the ‘Touristic’ part (as they call it). We start down the Egyptian part, just wandering around. I expected it to be like the Muslim quarter in Jerusalem, which was old and scrappy but still very charming. It’s nothing like that. The first things we notice, besides the narrow alley-like streets, are the mud and trash. There are fruit stands aplenty, but many of the shops are closed. We see no tourists around, just the shopkeepers and working folk who pay us no attention. Turning a few corners, we are technically lost, although we’ve traveled such a short distance we couldn’t be far from the main avenue. Still, I begin to wonder “What have I gotten into?” I decide to just find the tourist-friendly part and skip this side. The girls, who are several feet closer to the pungent road than the adults, are visibly distraught. A few locals point and say, “Touristic bazarr. That way.” But they seem to point in different directions.

Dusty streets on the Egyptian side of Khan e Khalili market.

An Egyptian comes up to us and begins talking in very good English. We are so accustomed to being hassled, that I prepare my usual defense. But he’s got a much better command of the language than most, so it’s not so hard to just listen. And he doesn’t really ask for anything, he just asks where we are from and says he’ll show us to the touristic bazaar. Ok. I follow him. We are slightly lost anyway, so why not? As we walk, he describes the difference between the authentic and imitation goods that are sold in Kahn e Khalili. The major crafts are copper lanterns, boxes made with mother of pearl, papyrus, spices and, of course, silver and gold jewelry of every weight, size and quality.

He stops and points casually to a one-room, 4×6 foot shop on his right that he calls a ‘factory.’ A young boy works at a desk and in Arabic, he and the boy exchange a few words. Two boxes are produced. One the ‘fake’ and one the ‘real.’ It’s amazing how similar they look until he (articulately) points out many, many differences. I find it pretty fascinating. He doesn’t even seem to be selling the box. Most of the real stuff is on the Egyptian side he tells us.

Spice shop on the Egyptian side of Khan e Khalili.

I look around us and realize we have been taken to the back of an alley. My first reaction is fear, mostly because I hadn’t noticed the dead-end while I was looking at mother-of-pearl boxes. But we immediately head back out and I feel stupid for worrying. It appears now that we are getting a full tour of the Egyptian side. Our friendly guide is named Ahmed. Ahmed talks about how this is the ‘real life Egypt,’ referring to the fact that we are on the non-tourist side.

Measuring pepper with an analog scale.

I express interest in the spice market and we walk there, twisting and winding through the carpet and, eventually, the wedding section. Some of the alleys are only about 12 feet wide, some no more than five. Still we see mopeds, tiny Japanese trucks and a horse and wagon splash through the filthy puddles alongside a steady stream of people. At the spice stand we are seated and get a presentation of spices, perhaps 25 or so. They all smell fresh and the kids really like the show-and-tell aspect. Lily, the budding chef in our family, is particularly interested. I buy a few ounces of black peppercorns for about $5 — expensive, yeah. But I don’t mind paying for the show too. And we get to see an antique balance scale.

Inside the factory that houses The Delta Papyrus Center

Ahmed suggests we see papyrus being made. I saw a papyrus making demonstration last year and found it interesting. To make it, they shave long, thin strips of the raw papyrus root, soak them in water, weave them together, press the water out in a vice, then dry it flat. We go to a shop up three flights of stairs in a ‘factory’ building then down a long, dark, smelly hallway. On our right, men in small rooms cut sheets of black leather into shoes with hand tools. On our left are a dozen scrawny cats that get underfoot as we head toward a door marked ‘Delta Papyrus Center.’

Inside is an oasis — it’s air conditioned, bright and clean smelling. On the walls are papyrus paintings of silly ancient Egyptian and modern religious iconography. We don’t get to see any being made, but Trisha does buy a bunch of small prints for her co-workers.

Emma does her Pharaoh imitation inside The Delta Papyrus Center.

Outside, the mid-day heat and rising stench are getting to us again, so we head toward the tourist side, saying goodbye to Ahmed. Along the way he had mumbled something about a U.S. green card and wanting an invitation, which perhaps hints at his angle. But he was genuinely helpful and never asked for baksheesh, so I give him 50 Egyptian, about $10 for his troubles. It’s one of the rare times that I was happy to tip.

Through the tunnel that goes below the main avenue, we emerge in a different scene entirely. Every shop is densely lined with stuff: t-shirts, plastic trinkets and lots of jewelry. They are aggressive, but not as tough as the sellers at Luxor or even the Great Pyramids.

We were interested in a copper lantern and Ahmed couldn’t find an open shop for ‘real’ ones on the Egyptian side. So we buy a lower quality one. It’s still pretty nice for $35. I show Trisha the jewelry store I used last year to buy her a silver pendant necklace. We look at other stores, but this one is better than any other place: air-conditioned, nicely presented and fixed price. And they have the most interesting stuff. She picks out two beautiful necklaces, and we splurge for a few hundred dollars. They look great on her.

Next door, is some plastic jewelry we buy the kids for a few bucks. The seller tells me that he “likes America!” But he does not like George Bush! and “Obama is a little better.” Haha. “Yessir, you got that right,” I say. I’m reminded that we’ve barely seen any Americans in Egypt. Maybe they are on tours?

Khan e Kalili, tourist side

The kids buy some stuff — Emma a pocket mirror, Lily a fuzzy camel mini-backpack. I bargain for every item we buy, and often close the deal getting a few knick-knacks thrown in, like fridge magnets and key chains. The girls go home with some decent loot.

It’s been four hours since we arrived and all want to get back to the hotel. The ride back is one of the worst. The heat and car exhaust from sitting in traffic with open windows is nauseating. It makes me very excited to get out of the giant city and go deep into Morocco, our next stop.

Bargaining for trinkets in Khan e Khalili, tourist side.

We’re hungry because we skipped lunch again. It’s just too difficult, expensive and time-consuming to stop and do a full lunch. And there isn’t much we can get on the street that we trust to eat. Our top priority has been avoiding sickness, and we’ve been successful so far. But it means we can’t have every convenience with food. Fortunately, the kids and I discover that the hotel has a complimentary evening buffet. I send Emma and Lily back upstairs to “tell Mommy about the hors d’oeuvres downstairs.” On the way, Lily jumbles the words and excitedly screams to Trish in the hotel hallway, “Daddy says come quick, there are ARABS downstairs!”

A few hours later at dinner, the kids fall asleep in their chairs. An early flight and a long shopping trip were all we could take.

[Photos by Trisha Creekmore]