Nomad Nevadan: Khan el-Khalili Market

The Amazing Race - It is on!

Our first trip to the world famous Khan el-Khalili market in Cairo was quite the adventure. First we ordered a few taxis. Whenever we had to take taxis we had to take a few of them because there were 10 of us on this trip. Every time I jumped in a taxi I felt like I was on “The Amazing Race” TV show. It was like a competitive button was pushed and the race was on. So we jumped in our taxi and raced to the Khan.

During the taxi ride we drove by some military vehicles and heavily armed men on the side of the road. We asked our cab driver if it was safe. He said to stay away from it but it was safe and that they had had a few issues with protesters because elections were in a few days, but he said we should be okay in the market.

So the cab driver dropped us off near the market. As soon as we stepped out of the taxi a guy on the side of the street started talking to us, I’m pretty sure the cab driver tipped him off that we were coming or they had some kind of arrangement. The cab driver seemed to have a place in mind to drop us off and what a coincidence this guy was there waiting to greet us. He was dressed in a red sweater that said FUBU (yes the American brand FUBU), and he had on desert tan military boots. He was an Arab gentleman probably early to mid-thirties and he spoke English very well. He said he had been to Michigan in the United States because he had relatives there. Dearborn Michigan has a large Muslim population so I figured that was the area he was speaking about. (Tip – If you haven’t seen “All-American Muslim” on TLC you should watch it, it is a great show that takes place in Dearborn, MI).

Our new friend, FUBU guy, kept telling us he loved America, which cracked me up. I would have been concerned that a stranger was talking to us so much but I read about this sales technique in my tour guide book so I wasn’t worried. The tourist books discussed how people will try to greet you on the street as you arrive at the market and try to take you to their shop first. So when he told us about his papyrus shop, and how we had to go there I wasn’t nervous, although I should have been because it is kind of strange that someone greets you when you get out of the cab and wants you to follow him through alleys in a foreign land.

Andy & Bridget at the Papyrus Shop

FUBU guy got us all together really quick and said “follow me to my shop”. So we followed. I wasn’t worried until he took us into this dark grimy building. He said his shop was on the third floor. It felt like we were climbing those stairs forever, it didn’t feel like we were in the world famous market we read about and it felt like this guy may have just made a big score by kidnapping 10 Americans. I was getting really nervous that I may have made a bad decision. As we approached the second floor I was getting extremely nervous that he wasn’t taking us to a shop, then on the next flight of stairs there was the sign for his papyrus shop, I exhaled a sigh of relief.

The papyrus shop was really cool. They had many beautiful pieces including pictures of zodiac signs, ancient Egyptians, and gods & goddesses. The FUBU guy welcomed us to the shop and gave us a quick tour, then let us look around while his sidekick brought us tea. I would never take a drink from a stranger in America, but in the Egypt tour guide books it said this was the custom and that they will give us a cup of tea to drink while we bargain and negotiate, so I wasn’t surprised when he offered us tea.

I drank my cup of hot tea and I picked out a piece of artwork. I picked a small picture of Isis the goddess of magic. The FUBU guy started out really high on his asking price, so I countered with something similar to $1 American which was ridiculously low. We were negotiating in Egyptian pounds. The exchange rate was something like 5.84 Egyptian Pounds to 1 American Dollar. So as soon as we agreed to a price FUBU guy said okay you’ve got a deal “70 American Dollars”. I smiled and said “I was born at night, but not last night, we are negotiating in Egyptian Pounds”. He smiled then pinched my cheek and said “you are so cute…and smart.” Then he made the deal. I was bummed at first because I didn’t think I negotiated enough but then I looked at the exchanged rate again and I did better than I thought I did. I ended up buying my art for about $12. My goal was to buy it for around $15, so I felt pretty good about my negotiating.

Isis from the Papyrus Shop - Framed when I got home by Aaron Brothers

After we all bought something at the Papyrus shop we left to explore more of the market. We were on the side of the market with a more local flavor. We saw meat, spices, fruits, veggies, and lots of flies.

While walking through the market this local guy started talking to us and trying to guide us. We thought at first he was like the FUBU guy, but he didn’t seem to have a shop he was trying to entice us to see. He kept guiding us and talking to us as we walked through the market. After a while we came upon a Mosque. All the sudden he went into hard sell mode and tried to get us to go into the mosque. At first we said no, then we said yes, then they tried to charge us and we said no again. Then they kept tryinig to negotiate with us. The mosques in Islamic Cairo district are historical sites. They are beautiful and fascinating but we decided something didn’t feel right and we decided to pass on this experience. After all that our volunteer tour guide disappeared, he probably went back to the taxi line to find the next tourists.

We kept walking through the market and we got a little lost. We ended up walking by the armored vehicles and the heavily armed men mentioned at the beginning of this blog. I was worried but my friends assured me we were okay and they wouldn’t shoot us. So we used the circling in technique and after a long walk ended up back at the spot where the taxi dropped us off. We took the pedestrian overpass over Al-Azhar road and then we were back in a more touristy part of the market.

As we walked through the tourist side of the market the merchants would come out of their shops and try to charm us by giving us their best sales pitches as we would walk by. At this point I was exhausted and suffering from sensory overload, plus I have never been a fan of the hard sell, so I walked by and pretended I didn’t speak English or hear their sales pitches. One merchant cracked me up though as I walked by, and I will never forget his pitch. As we walked by and I ignored him he said, “Hey you speak English? You Russian? You Italian? You Chinese?” After he asked if we were Chinese I laughed because it was funny. I was busted! He smiled at me and said “oh you speak English”. He knew he busted me, so it was a funny moment. He didn’t have anything I wanted in his shop, but he left me with a humorous memory of shopping at the Khan el-Khalili.

This is one of my favorite pictures that Bridget took.
The kids were holding the flag and excited about the election.
It would be Mubarak's last election as President of Egypt.
The revolution started about 6 weeks later.