Same Shit, Different City

Fitness fanatics! Take heed of my words!

Do away with your stomach crunches, your sit ups, your planks!

If you really want to work your lower abdomen then I recommend sitting on an overnight bus from Dahab to Cairo with a case of the shits.

My god. You will never clench like it again.

The shifting-in-seat, the utter churning fear that you might let slip a little ‘parp’ that could splatter everywhere - including over the neighbourly young French guy you’d been pleasantly conversing with in an odd mixture of Arabic, French and English.

I’d managed not to shit myself as we pulled into Cairo - just - but I was off that bus, grabbing for my suitcase, running for the nearest door to the main building as fast as my limpy legs would carry me.

‘Feyn il-twalet?! Minfadlak?’

‘No inglizi.’ I was in too much of a desperate clench-and-trot to point out that I’d spoken in some vague (albeit poorly-pronounced) form of Arabic, not English.

‘Feyn… il- aahhhh- twalet? Please?! Toilet??’

I was directed ‘that way’.

God bless that ancient and noble art of point and nod.

I found the toilet. Correction, I found the toilets. Shit, which one was the Ladies’?! Of all the damn Arabic phrases to learn by sight that was probably one of the more vital.

There was a bloke washing his feet in a sink visible from the entrance to one of the two rooms.

His presence, of course, shouldn’t be taken with any real sense of authority on the matter, but I knew this was going to be a venture which required some privacy.

My stomach churned, and throwing caution to the wind, I dashed into the adjacent set of toilets and looked for the nearest open door.

To my utter horror, I saw no toilet. Or, no Western toilet.

Rather, a dirty pit into which I was about unload the sloppy contents of my bowels.

This, I thought, required me to leave my dignity at the door, and take the alcohol gel in hand.

I rammed my suitcase against the door in place of a lock.

Imagine if you will - but you needn’t - a 20-something girl, squatting over a large pit that was once white, but now was covered in a thick layer of…various substances. Only she’s not squatting, so much as bent down hitching her trousers away from the floor, clutching at the walls for support.

Someone walked in, shuffling around, as the most hideous noise escaped my person. I will not pretend it was oral.

Finally, it was over.

Sweating, I left the toilet. For now, it was over and I started to calculate its rough half life as I was rubbing alcohol gel into my hands looking for the taxi rank.

I got into the first taxi that had the squashiest, most comfy looking seats.

‘Al’an faan da… funduk Bella Luna?’ And to my great surprise he understood me, driving off to my hotel with the chaotic speed of any good Cairene driver.

Eartha Kitts visits The Fayoum

21 years, 11 months and a few days. Today, I shit myself.

Full on, stomach-lurching, sodden-french-knickers, shit myself.

We have returned from The Fayoum, and I will not romanticise the details. Unbeknownst to me, The Fayoum (and, within, Fayoum City) is not a tourist-orientated region, in nor out of season.

So you can imagine my disgust - indicated only with a particularly arched eyebrow - when I was told that we couldn’t leave our hotel without a police escort.

Our hotel, Honey Day Hotel, was dank, fly-ridden and uncomfortable, and our Rough Guide informed us it was frequented by prostitutes - I’m not sure if there’s a direct correlation, but I wouldn’t like to presume that its clientele is influenced by the hotel’s uncommon license to sell liquor.

We spent the evening hot, bored and tired (I have resolved to buy a pack of cards in Khan El Khalili today). The food need no space for description.

Naturally I was taken aback when our 5-strong police escort was ready outside Honey Day for 6am the next morning. However, despite their heavy presence, it wasn’t peak season. They were bored.

I could understand that.

We travelled south to Wadi Rayan, through the Egyptian side of the Sahara. It made for spectacular viewing. Light beige sand stretched out, the landscape punctuated by rocks and clumps of sand.

It took a while for me to realise why I was finding it difficult to make my eyes focus on any particular point. Like on the moon, it is difficult to get depth perception; the vastness all-consuming and the colours melted into one another under the blazing heat of 7.30am.

I do not know the name of the village through which we drove, but it was a humbling experience.

Like most Egyptian roadsides, it was densely littered with remains of old plastic, and the poverty was abundant.

Old Coca-Cola signs were over many street stalls, which sold refreshments. And in front of one particularly derelict building a fight was breaking out between locals; spectators didn’t seem to take much notice of us, nor our armoured police vehicle that drove ahead.

Some of the children waved and smiled. Many didn’t.

I was very quiet as we bumped and ground our through these streets, as large eyes stared at our air-conditioned minibus.

We stopped at several Ptolemaic temples and tombs throughout the trip, and it was at one of these sites where I saw guns, in real life, for the first time. The guides, or the guards, of the sites all carried them.

The man-made lakes and waterfalls Wadi Rayan were lush and surrounded by plenty of young boys and men wading around, enjoying the coolness of the water. Several cried out for me to take their photographs as they jumped off the waterfalls.

Many children wanted their photographs taken.

The women did not come into the water. They remained fully dressed, many in burkas, in the shade - well away from the water.

But finally, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant, and it was all I could to do to stagger from our table in the midday heat to the toilet.

Our bodyguard-a-day, who never left our side and carried a gun stuffed into his belt, had not tried to stifle his laugh when he realised what was going on.

In short, I have spent the last few days between toilets and air-conditioned spaces, assured that it’s merely a case of the bacteria in my stomach ‘adjusting’.

I would proffer that anything (flora or otherwise) that was once in my stomach is now in one of the toilets in the Egyptian Sahara - probably one of the three without running water, and piss all over the floor.

My father, I think, has the final word on the matter. On his return from India many years ago, he announced to my dear mother, ‘Happiness is a dry fart’.