The night I left Cairo for the train trip to Aswan is one to remember. Two other backpackers from my hostel were on the same train so we planned to share the ride to the station. Unfortunately, Andre decided to sink back a litre of vodka before the journey. Andre, a 20-something, tattooed, goateed, long-haired guy was often mistaken for an Egyptian because of his dark skin. Egyptian society is very conservative though and no locals have any tattoos, piercings, long hair, or goatees. His buddy, Fenna, was a 20-something girl from California. With all the liquor, the taxi ride started poorly. Andre was shouting at everyone in fake-pretend Arabic while the driver tried to drown him out with high volume American rap on the stereo.
At the station, things got decidely worse. Andre could not walk so Fenna and I had to hold him up and carry him along, while he continued to shout fake Arabic. This was sacrilege. The families on the platform were shocked at the site and we caused quite a stir. Some parents forced their children to look away - I could hear them saying "Kids, don't look at the drunk Western Imperialists". A women touching a man in public was also a very improper thing to do. Possibly worse was that it looked like two white folk had somehow taken an Egyptian, gotten him drunk, tattoed and ruined his proper ways. The shame was tremendous.
A crowd followed us down the platform and the local tourist police looked on in wonder, humor and shock. One local warned us that we could get arrested if Andre didn't calm down. He poured water on Andre's head to get him to shut up and then took over from me as the second crutch. I slinked back to the other end of the platform toward my carriage, my head bowed, avoiding all eyes. It was so humiliating.
As one fellow traveller said to me later, when I was telling the story, "you got Egypt back for all the hassle and torment that it's caused you." So true.
