Month: September 2008

The Pyramids

I don’t keep a list of places I plan to visit before I die, but if I did I imagine the Pyramids of Giza would be on it. And after what happened to me in Cairo (see post of 9.12) perhaps it’s good that I’m making progress on the non-existant list!

Was I inspired? Was I let down? Some mundane thoughts on the Pyramids, compared to what I knew about them before coming to Egypt:

1. You can go inside. They allow tourists to go inside the two bigger of the three main Giza pyramids, albeit for extra fees. Given the somewhat steep charges, the hot and grueling climbs in (as we were told by others) and no availability for the biggest Pyramid of Khufu, we did not go into any of the pyramids at Giza. We did later go into the Red Pyramid of Dahshur (more below) and another, smaller pyramid located in the Saqqara complex. Inside is, as you might expect, a series of shafts and small chambers.

Inside the Red Pyramid

2. You cannot climb up. I had thought that the pyramids were unclimbable because I imagined that the pyramids were smoothly surfaced, covered in bricks cut at the angle of the incline. Actually, those blocks are mostly gone now (except at the top of the second largest pyramid), and so the pyramids are not smooth at all, and the blocks form more/less climbable “steps.” In fact, climbing to the top used to be an essential part of a 19th/early 20th century Pyramids visit–but it is no longer allowed.

Pyramid of Menkaure–note the jagged “steps” at the bottom and the smooth original near top

“Casing stones” remaining near the top of the Pyramid of Menkaure

3. They are about as big as you might imagine. The Sphinx is somewhat smaller than it appears to be in most pictures, but certainly not a letdown. The Pyramids are in fact huge, although their geometric simplicity makes their size hard to grasp from medium range. Seen from downtown Cairo or up close, the Great Pyramid looks every bit of its 140 or so meters height.

From Cairo’s Citadel

4. They were all built in a surprisingly brief historical “window.” The world’s first monumental stone structure, according to the guidebooks, was the Step Pyramid of Saqqara, built by Djoser (2667-2648 BC). His successor Sneferu (2613-2589 BC) followed with the Bent and Red Pyramids of Dahshur, and then came, in direct lineal succession, Khufu (2589-2566 BC), Khafre (2558-2532 BC) and Menkaure (2532-2504 BC). The era of great pyramid building was thus over in six or so generations!

Step Pyramid, Saqqara

Bent Pyramid, Dahshur

Red Pyramid, Dahshur

5. One of the most amazing things to behold at the Pyramids of Giza is not made of stone but of wood. The barge of Khufu, known as the “solar barque,” was buried alongside the Great Pyramid over 4500 years ago, but has been incredibly well-preserved, its size and condition nearly unbelievable. It has been re-assembled and is available for viewing in a custom-built museum on the site of its burial.

Egypt

Risk–On Being a Lawyer

I never really planned on being a lawyer–never imagined myself as a Perry Mason or any other paragon of the profession. It was accidental–I took the LSAT on a whim, did even better than I expected and got into a great law school. I wasn’t sure what else I would do straight out of college, and it seemed like a good choice. And, even in hindsight, it was.

Choices can be deceiving, though. When choosing to attend law school, I thought (perhaps naively) that I was choosing what to do with the next three years of my life. I did not foresee the extent to which that choice would lead me toward so many other choices, decisions that I may not have made (or have wanted to make) had I not made the initial choice to attend law school. And this is what I tell people who are considering law school now: Law school is not simply a matter of getting an education in an interesting field with a wide array of applications, and “keeping your options open”; the reality is that, having attended law school, there will be certain paths set before you that will be very easy to choose, default options that you will fall into unless you to some extent swim against the current. These pre-packaged paths are not necessary bad ones, but given that most of my classmates and I chose one of them, it may be said that when you choose to attend law school you are choosing perhaps the next seven years of your life, and not just the next three.

But this post isn’t about career paths and choices–no, I wanted to discuss a bit how a legal education changes your general behavior, decreases your appetite for certain kinds of risk. Now, it is true that the profession probably draws the risk-adverse simply because a legal education is seen as a “safe” field for moderate professional and economic success. But it is also true that the numerous examples of conflicts, whether in torts or contracts, that a prospective lawyer encounters brings to the fore of his or her mind things that can go wrong, and how hideously and painfully things can go wrong. Yes, I believe that law school and law practice have made me a more cautious, risk-adverse person. In many situations, my mind goes through lists of potential accidents. I consider how language may be misinterpreted by others. When reaching some sort of agreement I double check to make sure that there has been a “meeting of the minds.” I have developed a deep appreciation of insurance.

What has made me think of all of this? It being Ramadan, with most of the population here in Egypt fasting from sunrise to sunset, our dietary schedules have been somewhat disturbed. Although we manage to snack during the day and eat a substantial dinner at night, the erratic eating routine has indeed been challenging, well offsetting what are some “fun” aspects of traveling in Egypt during the holy month (post to come). Well, walking home from dinner last night, we thought we would grab another little something to eat, and so stopped by the McDonald’s located across Talaat Harb Street from our hotel. Derek and I ordered a couple double cheeseburgers and sat down to eat. I was about halfway through my burger when I noticed that I had a hard object in my mouth–I removed it to see that it was a fairly large piece of glass. It didn’t cut me or do any other immediately noticeable harm, but I was understandably somewhat shocked. Derek took the burgers and the glass to the management and explained the situation.

After waiting for a few minutes, I realized that I should probably inspect the burgers and the glass to see if it was likely that there was additional glass, which I may have ingested. I was in disbelief to hear that the store employees had thrown the burgers and glass away. I was immediately suspicious of their motives–were they going to deny that it ever happened? Why did they throw away the evidence? I demanded that the burgers and glass be tracked down–they must be in the garbage after all–and eventually they did find our burgers (though not the glass). I carefully went through each burger and saw that there was no other glass, which gave me some peace of mind that the piece I caught may have been the only one. Nonetheless, I imagined dying of internal bleeding, recalling prison movies where inmates are murdered with glass-contaminated food and Derek’s story about his father killing a skunk with glass-enriched ground meat. I demanded that the garbage be searched again, thoroughly, went into the back of the store and watched an employee go through the refuse, to no avail.

I was, to be honest, somewhat hysterical by this point. One of the McDonald’s managers suggested that it may have been plastic, not glass, and this combined with their disposal of the object gave me concern that they were trying to shirk their obvious responsibility for whatever could happen to me. It was September 11, and I even contemplated the glass not being accidental, having been deliberately placed in the food of the foreigner. Any actual damage to health seemed unlikely, but I wanted the incident thoroughly documented in case any problems arose overnight. Though the hour was quite late, the incident was escalated up the Cairo-based management of McDonald’s Egypt. I demanded that someone sign my statement, confirming what had happened to me in the store. Not surprisingly, they refused, even when I had watered down the statement to say only what my allegations were.

Now, I didn’t really want to go to the hospital. It seemed unlikely that there had been more than one piece of glass. I wasn’t even sure what a doctor could do (given that glass cannot be detected by x-ray). But the operations manager who had been called in to the store suggested that I go to the hospital, and I knew that I could not refuse. However great a waste of time it would be, and however much I would rather sleep and go to the pyramids the next day, I knew that one responsibility on the part of a claimant in a contracts lawsuit in the U.S. is to mitigate one’s losses, and I did not want to take any step (or refuse to take any step) that might jeopardize my position. I did not want to risk being in a situation where I (or Derek) could not claim against McDonald’s because I didn’t go to the hospital when it was suggested. So I went. (Fortunately, Derek was able to have the doctor clarify that having my stomach pumped was not, strictly speaking, recommended.)

Egypt photo

Islamic Cairo

At the most basic level, Egyptian history can be divided into three different periods: Pharaonic Egypt (3100-331 BC), the Egypt of the Pyramids, Sphinx and hieroglyphics; Greco-Roman Egypt (331 BC-AD 640), when Egypt was a part of greater Mediterranean Empires; and Arab/Islamic Egypt (AD 640-), after the Arab conquest and the introduction of Islam. Each of these periods has a geographical focal point in the Cairo of today. For the pharaohs, it is Giza, now suburb of Cairo in which the most famous of the Pyramids and the Sphinx reside, not far from the ancient capital of Memphis. The most concentrated reminders of the Roman and Christian eras are in so-called “Old Cairo,” or Coptic Cairo, where numerous churches (and one synagogue) are crammed into a district that was once the site of a Roman fortification called Babylon, with parts of its towers still standing.

But Giza is just a necropolis and Babylon just a fort and cluster of religious sites. Neither was necessarily destined to grow into the great metropolis and center of culture that Cairo is today. However ancient and lasting the pharaonic and Christian legacies are to modern Egypt as a whole, Cairo as Umm ad-Dunya, or Mother of the World, was a creation of the Arab era. This Cairo is best represented by Islamic Cairo, the name given to the medieval eastern half of the modern city.

To give you a sense of the scope of Islamic Cairo, Lonely Planet, not a guidebook known for its erudition or the depth of its recommended sightseeing, suggests three full days of walks in Islamic Cairo alone. Islamic Cairo stretches from the Citadel of Saladin in the south to the northern city walls, a walk of hours. I assumed the architectural legacy that must remain from being an Islamic capital for hundreds of years to be superb, but Cairo has even surpassed my expectations. The sights, sounds and feel of Islamic Cairo rival and in some ways surpass those of Damascus, a city I hold in the highest regard (see post of 4.7).

The chronologically first, and southernmost, site of Islamic Cairo is fittingly close to the Old Cairo of the Copts. The Mosque of Amr ibn al-As, first built in AD 642 just two years after the Arab conquest, began as an encampment, or “Fustat”, of the Arab generals who took Egypt from the Byzantine Empire.

Mosque of Amr ibn al-As. As in Syria, mosques in Egypt are not necessarily grim, austere places but public spaces for even mundane activities, such as napping. The numerous nappers at the Amr ibn al-As Mosque reminded me of the time I saw a movie at a Midtown New York theater during office hours, with what seemed to be a bunch of white collar workers playing hooky.

Mosque of ibn Tulun, founded AD 879. The spiral minaret is intended to resemble the minaret of the nearly contemporary Samarra mosque in now Iraq, whence ibn Tulun came to Egypt as a governor of the Abbasid caliphate. Well into the first several hundred years of Arab rule, much of Egypt remained Egyptian (as opposed to Arab) and Christian. Over time, Arabic linguistic and ethnic identity, along with the Islamic faith, filtered through into the masses. Today, almost everyone in Egypt identifies as an Arab and around 90% are Muslim.

Cairo’s true greatness, however, was sealed in AD 969, when the Ismaili Fatimids founded al-Qahira (“The Conquerer”) as its capital. The Fatimid dynasty (see post of 7.13) did not last long, being crushed by Saladin in the twelfth century, but its foundations form the core of modern Cairo.

The Al Azhar Mosque and University, founded in AD 971, is the oldest and most famous center of Islamic Studies in the world, spreading what is a moderate version of the religion.

Malay student, Al Azhar. While we were at Al Azhar we met students from all over the Islamic world, from Malaysia to Iran to Bosnia.

Saladin’s Citadel, rising above Islamic Cairo

Building on the Fatimid accomplishments was the slave warrior ruling class of the Mamelukes, who founded an empire based in Cairo that ruled much of Egypt and the Levant. The Mamelukes earned their place in history not least for turning back the Mongols and thereby helping to prevent the spread of the Mongol Empire further west. The Mamelukes were overwhelmed by the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, but not before building a series of mosques that rival any place of worship in the world for beauty and majesty.

Interiors of Mameluke-era mosques

Although not quite as dazzling as the most beautiful of Damascus’s old houses, several old houses in Islamic Cairo have been refurbished, including Beit al-Khatoun, a house dating to Ottoman times.

The Pyramids are great, yes, but it is Islamic Cairo that drew us back to appreciate its countless monuments, its medieval atmosphere and the friendliness of its residents. In a country infamous for the harassment of tourists [some posts to come], Islamic Cairo offers travelers opportunities to experience a semblance of authentic Egyptian life and genuine hospitality–friendly curiosity and conversation not always motivated by profit. So come for the Pyramids–most people do. Even feel free to “hate Cairo,” as more than one traveler we met exclaimed–but don’t do it before spending at least a day wandering Islamic Cairo.

Outside the walls of the Al Azhar

Along Al-Muizz Li-Din Allah Street, Islamic Cairo

Market Street, Islamic Cairo

Malaysia

Bad Malaysia

Malaysia is a big tourist destination, yes. “Malaysia, Truly Asia” has been constantly advertised on CNN International for years, Penang and Langkawi are resort hotspots and Kuching and Kota Kinabalu are big culture/adventure travel destinations. But, compared to its neighbors, Indonesia with Borobudur and Bali, Cambodia with Angkor Wat, the international hub city of Singapore and of course Thailand, Malaysia pales as a tourist destination. This sort of seems like a fact of life, but why? What about Malaysia makes it relatively unappealing, so lame-seeming? It can certainly be good value, with many services at first world levels for discount prices. The food is excellent. Melaka and Penang have intriguing history and there is natural beauty galore on Borneo. Is Malaysia’s poor reputation unmerited? Admittedly we’ve spent little time in Malaysia, just a couple weeks in Borneo and about a week in Peninsular Malaysia, but our answer would be no. Malaysia just isn’t in the same league.

The first problem with Malaysia is, apparently, violence. I do not know the statistics on this, but Malaysia is the only country in Asia (other than the Philippines) where I have heard repeated safety concerns from other travelers. Yes, you may be conned in Bangkok and there are certainly some government-related issues in Burma and China, but East/Southeast Asia as a whole (other than the Philippines) is extraordinarily safe, one of the region’s many strengths for travelers. Even Jakarta, which I had at one point ignorantly feared, feels astonishingly safe on the ground. In sharp contrast, in the short time that we were in Kuala Lumpur (KL), we heard two separate stories about muggings, and I was physically attacked in the main bus station (more on this below).

The second problem with Malaysia is racism and racial tension. While Malaysia has a history dating from the 15th century or so as a Malay-ethnic sultantate, Malaysia as a modern country is largely the product of colonial powers (first Portuguese and Dutch and then British) and labor brought in by those powers (the Chinese for manual labor and commerce, the Indians for administration and the service sector). Well into the twentieth century, the principal cities of Malaysia were largely built, owned and populated by Chinese, who made up nearly half of the country’s population. The smaller Indian population is augmented by the presence of overseas workers from the subcontinent. Yes, Malaysia is a multicultural society, but Malaysia’s vision of itself as a country where all three of the major ethnic groups live together in complete harmony sometimes seems to be more dream than reality.

The biggest problem, in my view, is discriminatory Malaysian laws. I do not deny that it is unfortunate for your “homeland” to be taken over by an outside ethnic group that has been brought in by a colonial power (the Palestinians certainly can identify with that)–the Chinese minority is still disproportionately economically powerful–but the policies put in by the majority Malay (now some 60% of the population) amount to little other than discrimination against and theft from the Chinese and Indians. Public companies are required to be at least 30% owned by Bumiputras (i.e., “sons of the earth,” or Malays and certain other “native” groups), new housing construction is required to be sold to Bumiputras at a discount, Bumiputras are allowed affirmative access in higher education and many government contracts and permits are given to Bumiputras on a preferential basis. This racist system is enshrined in the Malaysian constitution, and although the provision was supposed to be temporary, and there is occasionally talk of trimming back on its application, it remains in place.

The laws are no doubt both an effect of and a cause of racial sentiment that seems prevalent throughout the country. Malaysia is certainly not the only country with racial tension (Indonesia in particular is infamous for racial riots that have occurred in its history), but, currently, Malaysia is, outside of the U.S., the country in which I’ve felt the greatest amount of animosity among different ethnic groups. Our conflict at the bus station was with Malay-ethnic Malaysians, and Chinese-ethnic Malaysians who were present immediately came to our defense, telling us that as Americans in a position of relative influence we had to report what had happened to us. One middle-aged Chinese woman said that “they” (meaning Malays) commit all kinds of crimes, especially against defenseless South Asians, and get away with it. She was also mistrustful of the police, and told me that I should make sure to keep copies of all reports that we make, to ensure that they are not subsequently doctored. An Indian police officer who handled our matter said that such violence was a “national epidemic,” with the subtle implication that it was a Malay-ethnic problem. A Chinese taxi driver told us not to take Indian taxis, because they would rip us off (perhaps in this case a justified prejudice, judging from our limited sample). Surveys have shown that racial stereotypes are widely held in Malaysia, with people believing Malays to be lazy, Chinese greedy and Indians dishonest.

Third, Islam is manifesting itself in Malaysia in strange ways. People may think of Malaysia as the more modern and cosmopolitan of the two Muslim Southeast Asian nations, but, it seems to me, Malaysia, far more than Indonesia, is turning to a sort of fundamentalist version of Islam that is bizarrely conservative and reactionary. (I have read that the rise of fundamentalist Islam in Indonesia was at one time called “the Malaysian problem” because Malaysia was the Asian source of the movement.) All Malays are subject to sharia (or Islamic law) courts, which have ruled apostasy a crime. Malaysia is famous for having pursued, essentially as a political crime, a sodomy charge against a former prime minister. Our bus station altercation involved an argument with a woman, whom I had to shake off of me at one point because she was forcefully grabbing my arm and not letting go–a person standing by told me that I should have my hand cut off for fighting with a woman (“chop chop chop,” she cheerfully said, making a chopping gesture with her hand), a demented vision of Islamic punishment. Ideas which are out of date seem even more backward when placed in a foreign cultural setting–it may make sense for some Arab countries to wish to revert back to a more glorious Arab past, but in Malaysia the adoption of the foreign code of behavior feels not only anachronistic (shifted in time) but misplaced (shifted in space and culture).

Finally, however Malaysia may try to sell itself as a developed country, the primitive state of some of its public transport culture shows that it is in some ways still very much a third world country. First, the taxis. I remember, not too long ago, when taxis in Korea used to rip customers off–overcharging foreigners, refusing to use the meter, refusing to go to certain parts of town, etc. At some point, some combination of the government, drivers and customers recognized that developed countries do not behave this way, and taxis are now, for the most part, totally clean. Vietnam is clearly still on the developing end of the scale, according to this metric, while Thailand with its combination of meters and crooked drivers falls somewhere in between. The taxis in KL are some of the absolute worst for ripping travelers off–perhaps the only place we’ve seen worse is Delhi, and that’s saying an awful lot. Drivers in central KL routinely refuse to use their meters and instead quote astronomical rates that are multiples of the proper fare. Rather than turn their meter on or accept a reasonable fare, they will simply tell you to get out of their car. The government apparently lacks the will or the means to clean this up, despite the extremely poor impression it makes on travelers to Malaysia, while the lack of dignity on the part of the drivers reveals a grave deficiency in the le
vels of civics and ethics.

But even worse than the taxis (after all, a common problem, even if not to the level of KL) is the situation at Puduraya Bus Station. Puduraya is the country’s largest bus station and is located right in the heart of KL. If you’ve been in Korea or Turkey or Mexico or any other country with well-developed bussing, you know that bus lines can be extremely comfortable and professional. I recall that the main bus terminal in Mexico City is pretty much like an airport in terms of modernity and efficiency, Turkish busses famously have attendants that give you cologne and Korean busses leave precisely on time, almost to a fault, with many offering 2-1 seating (two seats on one side of the aisle, one on the other). Even Indian bus stations, for all their chaos, are pretty well run, with reliable schedules and fares by state-owned companies.

Puduraya is, simply put, the worst bus station we’ve ever seen. The place is in congested central KL (has no-one thought to move this thing a bit out of town?) and, in steamy Malaysia, not air conditioned. All of the guidebooks refer to it as a den of pickpockets. There are some fifty or so ticket counters–competition run amok with no sense of regulation–and no centralized way to figure out when what busses are going where. Worst of all are the many scams. We fell prey on the one ride we tried to take out of Puduraya and met another tourist who was also an angry victim. Reports online suggest that the scams are extremely common, not only but especially for tourists. It goes something like this: You buy a ticket, and at some point someone pretends to be a ticket agent and tears off your stub. Given the chaos of the station, with literally dozens of companies, almost no-one in uniform and multiple companies operating in each bay, this does not happen only to the naive. Then, when it comes time for you to get on your bus, you are told that your ticket is invalid and your assigned seat has been sold to another passenger.

What happened to us was a slight variation on this. We showed up for our bus exactly seven minutes early, but didn’t find a bus. Bus station employees who were standing at our bay told us to wait, and then tore off our ticket stub. After waiting for twenty minutes, we realized that our bus must have left without us (as we learned later, after filling our seats with other passengers who were charged an on-the-spot premium for getting on an earlier bus), and so went angrily to ask for a refund. At the counter, we were told that our tickets could not be refunded because the stubs had been torn off, despite the fact that we were not the only passengers who had been waiting, promptly and in the right place, and never even saw the bus. Basically, this ploy allows the companies to sell more tickets than there are seats on the bus. In our case, with a typically Malaysian twist it turns out, this dispute led to the crook running up behind me and hitting my head with a heavy walkie-talkie.

When Derek defended me with a quick punch to my attacker, an angry crowd of Malays converged, all siding with the attacker (later we learned that they were likely other resident con-artists who were part of the same gang). But many others knew exactly what was going on. A taxi driver (figuring it best to get out quickly, we opted for an expensive long-distance taxi instead of trying another bus) told us that there’s a “mafia” of ticket sellers and con artists operating at the station, selling tickets to buses that don’t exist and otherwise getting people to pay for tickets that they cannot use. It is equally well known among well-seasoned travelers. To quote Lonely Planet’s Thorntree message board:

“Having been traveling for over 16 months through Northern Asia, Latin America, Australasia and now South East Asia we have seen a lot of bus stations (at the moment we have used over 115 intercity buses on this trip) but we agreed that Puduraya was the worst we had seen so far in terms of ease of use, safety and reliability. “

“Agreed, Kuala Lumpur’s Puduraya Bus Terminal is a hellhole. Those of us who know Puduraya would love to avoid it, but when going through KL [by] bus, there are few options. For a country that pretends to be on the treshold of joining the First World league of nations, it has some of the worst bus terminals anywhere; even India’s are better; Malaysia’s bus terminals are not even Third World, but more like Fourth World. ”

Given these safety concerns, the institutionalized racism and racial tension and “fourth world” transportation hassles, is it any wonder that so many travelers prefer to go to friendly Thailand, rustic Laos or service-focused Bali?

Indonesia Malaysia photo

Strait of Malacca

As I’ve written before (see post of 5.3), there are some places that you’ve heard of so often that you’re curious just to see them in the flesh. The Strait of Malacca, between the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, is one of the world’s most important shipping lanes, with about a quarter of the world’s trade, including a quarter of the world’s traded oil, passing through. It is also one of the most famous areas of modern piracy, although only smaller ships generally fall prey (50 incidents in 2006).

faces Indonesia photo