Greetings from Cairo! :-) Alexis and I are relaxing at my parents’ “flat” which is in the suburbs of Cairo. We drove down to see the pyramids yesterday! Alexis has had this big wide grin as she’s been soaking in the bizarreness that is Cairo - the totally chaotic traffic, the camels, the pyramids, the colorful peoples, etc etc. I’ve been soaking in the multicultural experience myself too - it’s been wonderful to share them with Alexis as we observe something notable, e.g. startled awake together somewhen around 4am when the nearby mosque blares out the pre-dawn call to prayer…

So, this is day 10 of our multifarious intercontinental vacation (itinerary still on track here: trip details), and this is the first place I’ve had some time to blog from!

Unfortunately, I’m on a dial-up connection (can you believe it? dial-up???!!), at a blazing 46.6 kbps… Aaaaaah, I miss my 6 Mbps cablemodem back home :-(

We have tons of pictures I wanted to upload, but the slow dial-up speed means we’ll have to wait until probably Dubai to find a decent high-speed connection and send some pics out on the Internet :-)

Some field notes in the meantime:

  • Travel so far has been amazingly smooth and hassle-free, thank God! Alexis and I have had no troubles with baggage or airport delays or paperwork hassles. As we head further east, though, things are getting more “stretchable” :-)
  • Case in point : in the US and UK, when an airline plane lands and is taxiing, the flight attendant gets on the PA and makes an announcement to the effect that passengers are to, please, stay seated until the aircraft has arrived at the terminal and the captain turns off the seatbelt sign. And, in the US and UK, people stay seated obediently until the seatbelt sign is turned off, even if the captain delays a little while at the terminal with the plane parked. Not so when we got to Egypt. As soon as the plane got within sight of the terminal, while it was STILL moving, and while the announcement about “please remain seated” was STILL being made, everyone on board the 747 got up and started gathering their things from the overhead bins. Welcome to the east!! :-)
  • In the UK, we noticed the following :
    • Cars are SMALL. And the traffic lanes are NARROW. Everyone prefers much smaller cars (I’m talking Geo-Metro size here) instead of the SUVs and minivans we’ve gotten used to seeing. I didn’t see a single pick-up truck. We saw a few minivans and the occassional luxury SUV, such as a Range Rover or a Lexus, but the only “regular” SUV I saw was a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which I still consider one of the “luxury” SUVs.
    • People in the UK seem to have much more of a fashion sense than people in the US. We saw ordinary folk walking around in Nottingham dressed in fashionable winter wear, even though they were just popping down to the pub at the end of a regular workday.
    • The Indian subcontinent has taken over the British empire! We saw so MANY people of Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/SriLankan descent all over the place. The integration is so widespread, we saw “Chicken Tikka Masala” on the menu of the Leicester Arms pub in central London, just off Regent Street, and samosas were standard fare on the small snack carts in major London railway stations.
    • British TV is … BORING. The British “stiff upper lip” dominates all programming, even the sports debates about a football match where the opposing coaches came to blows at the end of the match over a particularly controversial penalty call. Such an event in the US would have caused loud and heated debate on each side (see the T.O. circus for example), but here on the “telly”, there were three smartly dressed British gents (in suits, complete with ties) who chatted amicably about the “disagreement”.
    • The public transport system in London is friggin’ awesome - you don’t need a car in London. We got all over central London in a matter of minutes via bus or tube, and we saw major London sights without any traffic delays. Awesome!!
  • Egypt is surreal - We got here three days ago, and we still can’t quite believe we’re actually here! We are going on a five-day cruise on the Nile river starting Tuesday, and we’ll blog more when we get back.
  • Spiritually, too, we’re having quite a journey - I am noticing how the Muslim faith practices in Egypt and my parents’ Hindu faith practices at home have much to teach us “contemporary Christians” on meaningful and significant experiences of the divine in “everyday” life. “Contemporary Christianity” is severely impoverished in terms of daily faith experiences when compared to the richnesses of devotion in Islam or Hinduism. For example: having significant community prayer five times a day? What community experience in contemporary televised Christianity can compare?

So, we’re enjoying this amazing journey with God and with people, and we’re looking forward eagerly to where this adventure goes next! We miss our friends back home and are excited to see them again when we return :-)

Till the next dispatch, from who knows where!