Today I rode a bicycle 40 kilometers up and around the ancient
cemetery of Thebes. It was perhaps the most overwhelming tourist experience I've ever had, with literally 70,000 of us stumbling around the tombs and monuments to the dead. I felt a bit awkward paying 20-30$ to gawk at the walls and stare
dumbfounded at the colorful hieroglyphics and graphic
adornment. The whole experience felt like a bit of a trespass, with an air of voyerism and necrophilia. In an hour, I'm off to Cairo on the night train. I think this'll be a good move for deepening my perspective and appreciation for the country. Tune out the tourism and hopefully begin to blend in a bit.
3 comments:
i think it's ok to be a tourist sometimes. sometimes you travel to a place and lots of other people travel to the same place and they may be very different from you but you all want to see the same amazing ancient tombs. although stumbling around such tombs on a bike with thousands of other people does seem a bit overwhelming. i am going to go stumble/run along the charles river now in the rain/snow most likely with very few others around.
love and miss you,
irene
Sam, I am trying to imagine this tourist experience- relating 70,000 people to what I know to be the population of the city of Wilmington, Delaware (where we live) and its surrounding suburbs. I am totally captivated by your writing and photographs. Thank you. You must be in Cairo by now!!
Dede Johnston
it's ok to be anything, but just a being a tourist is akin to being a ball of jelley. you jiggle a lot but in the end you don't make too many of your own choices. don't get me wrong irene, i'm not complaining about the privilege of seeing egypt, but life is more than a 10 dollar ticket, and unless you make a concerted (mental or physical) effort to do something intentionally different, you will always be lead down the same old prepackaged path, especially here in egypt...
Post a Comment