Port Said, Port Fuad

On Friday I decided on a whim to travel to Port Said for the weekend to see what it was like. I took the bus for 23LE at 1:00pm from Turgoman Station in Cairo, arriving in Port Said around 4:00pm. Port Said (in Arabic pronounced bur sai-eed) is a city of a half million people, located at the junction of the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea. After the construction of the modern canal in the 19th century, Port Said became one of the world's most significant ports. Although it's no longer as important as it once was, a large amount of intercontinental freighters and cruise liners pass through the harbor every week. For this reason, the whole city is a duty-free zone.

Along the road to Port Said.


I took a taxi from the bus station to the center of town. I had a lengthy and nearly fluid conversation in Arabic with the driver; it's always very gratifying to be able to talk for a long time in Arabic without any sort of awkward communication issues. I walked around for awhile before finding the hotel I had been searching for, the Mereland Hotel. I only stayed there because of the cheap price of 40 LE, or about $7 USD. It was pretty dirty and I wouldn't exactly recommend it as a place to stay.

Various shots from around Port Said.




View of the tiny alley from my hotel.



After walking around the city for awhile longer, I headed to the north of the city to check out the beach. The beach was disappointing. It was free, but therein lay the problem, as it was very dirty and uninviting. On the west side of the city was a popular restaurant called El Borg (The Tower). It was a nice sit-down place packed with Egyptians. I ordered shrimp soup and fried fish. They brought me the above, along with various side dishes and sauces. It was a real feast - I counted no less than twelve plates of various foods on my table at the same time. The food was delicious and I would highly recommend this restaurant.

Public beach.



El Borg Restaurant.


Strangely enough, there were at least a hundred balloon people lining the streets, promoting something.


I spend the rest of the evening wandering around the city. The city was bustling with shops of various types, especially electronics and clothes. The street that runs parallel to the canal, Sharia Palestine, consists almost entirely of cell phone shops, strangely enough. Most of the women here were dressed in conservative Islamic clothing, and a few of the men wore the galabeyya robe. However, it seemed as if most of the city-goers were wealthy or at least had a comfortable standard of living. Port Said serves as a popular tourist spot for Egyptians in the summer, but I went during the off season, so there weren't any to be seen. I did not see any Western tourists in the city either until the next day, when two big cruise liners docked into the harbor. I got the same question "are you from the ship?" numerous times that day from the locals.

Saturday I woke up early to try to find a place to enjoy breakfast, but I realized that none of the restaurants opened until after noon. I had to settle for coffee and cake at a hotel cafe. Afterward I walked to the west of the city to see the military museum, but the interior was closed for construction. I was able to see some of the exhibits on the museum lawn though, including equipment from the 1956 Suez Crisis and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. There was another museum of some sort in Port Said, but it too was closed.

Outside the military museum.



I had another enjoyable meal for lunch at a place called Abu Essam, not far from the beach. Nobody else was in the restaurant at the time, but it was a great place. They served a feast here too: seafood soup, shrimp kofta, and about a half dozen other plates of salads and sauces. About halfway through the meal I was served a bowl full of some ground leaves and oil to go with my meal. I was served the same thing the previous night at El Borg. This time I asked what it was, and my waiter told me it was "just for entertainment," whatever that was supposed to mean.

Various shots of the canal from Port Said.





Afterward I walked down to the ferry station a short distance along Sharia Palestine. Conveniently enough, the ferry is free, and it passes across the Suez Canal between Port Said and Port Fuad every five or ten minutes. Cars can cross via the ferry too. Port Fuad is a separate city which used to serve as a suburb for Europeans who worked at the port, and it still bears a certain resemblance to European architecture. Aside from some green residential areas and a good view of the canal, there wasn't anything to do in Port Fuad.

Shots of the canal from the ferry.



People getting off the ferry.


Port Fuad.


After I felt as if I had seen the whole downtown of the city several times, I took the bus back to Cairo at 7:00pm on Saturday. Overall, Port Said was a nice city, mostly clean with some good restaurants and shops. It was interesting to see the ships passing across the Mediterranean Sea and through the Canal. It wasn't stunningly impressive, but it does make for a good day trip out of Cairo.

They don't let you form your own opinions here...

Turkey: Istanbul and Bosphorous Strait

Spring Break Day Seven (continued from part six)

After waking up, I had breakfast at another one of the many restaurants in the district and made my way to the Ottoman palace complex, only a five minute walk from my hotel. Known as Topkapı Sarayı, it served as the seat of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th to 19th centuries. It sits at the north of Sultanahmet on a hill above the Bosphorous Strait, on the European side of Istanbul.

The palace itself is completely intact and the landscape on the property is well-groomed. The size of the palace campus is overwhelming. On the site are a number of different buildings, though I don't remember their names. Perhaps the most impressive displays are the Treasury buildings, which house enormous amounts of gold and jewels. The Sultans clearly loved their treasure.

There is a good view of the Bosphorous Strait and the Asian side of Istanbul from the palace.

The gate to the palace campus.



The lawn.



Various points from around the palace.








Overlooking the Bosphorous from the palace.



After visiting the palace, I took a walk out from Sultanahmet down to the docks where the ferry leaves. A man was selling tickets for a cruise along the Bosphorous for only 20 YTL, so I figured I'd see what it was like. It was a two hour trip along both sides of the Bosphorous, where I got to see nearly all of coastal Istanbul, so it was a good choice.

Views from the Bosphorous of Istanbul.





After the boat trip, I walked from the docks to Taxsim, which is considered "downtown" Istanbul. It's a very long walk; Istanbul is a huge city in terms of area. I enjoyed the area around Taxsim much more than Sultanahmet. There aren't any significant landmarks in Taxsim Square, but it is busy - busier than anywhere I've seen in New York City. Everything had a very Western feel to it, and I could hardly tell that I was in an Islamic city. I haven't visited any cities in Europe, but it seems like downtown Istanbul would not be too much different from its European counterparts. Veiled women in this part of the city were the exception rather than the rule, and everyone wore clothing that would look normal in a Western country. Despite this, it was still obvious that I was a foreigner, since no Turk or Kurd has the same skin and hair color as me.

From Taxsim, I walked a bit north to my destination, the National Military Museum. This one was well-labeled and didn't contain the obvious nationalistic bias like the corresponding museum in Egypt. It covered artifacts from the Byzantine Empire to modern day, though mostly from the early Ottoman Empire. I arrived too close to closing time to see the second floor, but I got to see most of it, and it was a worthwhile visit.

Exhibits from the museum.




There is a monument outside the museum to a soldier named Seyid Obasi, who reportedly lifted a projectile weighing 250 kilos by himself at a critical point in battle. It turns out he wasn't able to lift it again when he was asked to do it for a promotional photograph. I think the story is exaggerated, since the world record for lifting an object overhead is right around that weight.

Statue of Seyid Obasi.


I walked back to Taxsim after that and down Istiklal Street, a major road from the main square. The amount of people was incredible, many of them young adults just hanging out with their friends. I went to a restaurant called Haci Baba, which was somewhat fancy, though it was relatively inexpensive. Turkish cuisine has a reputation for being among the best in the world, and all of my dining experiences in Turkey supported this. After spending some time at an Internet cafe, I began the long walk back to Sultanahmet and back to my hotel.

After my first two days in Turkey, I was still unable to communicate anything meaningful in Turkish other than "thank you," but I began to notice some similarities between Arabic and Turkish. None of the basic words for communication bore any resemblance to Arabic, but some nouns were Arabic words that have been pronounced in Turkish. For example, merkezi corresponds to markaz, meaning "center." Camii (pronounced jamee) corresponds to jame'a, meaning "mosque." Askeri corresponds to 'askareya, meaning "military." I had learned the rules of how to pronounce the Turkish letters, so I was able to pick up a few words by reading signs and labels. The good thing about Turkish is that most of the letters are the same as in English, so reading is not a major barrier to communication like in Arabic.