Circumnavigating the Western Desert: Part Seven–Preparing for the Shangrila.

Twice, once in Mut at the El Nogoom Hotel and then at Al Qasr in Homda's Ahwa- I met and chatted with a couple… the husband was a Austrian, who worked in the Canary Island as a guide…and the wife a ethnic Chinese from Singapore, who now is a housewife. Apparently when the Austrian was visiting Singapore, he met her and then the rest…as they say…was history.

In Egypt, it is still considered a taboo to be a single woman and travel alone… more so with a male friend… often, therefore, a lot of single men and women pose as husband and wife… the most telling signal being their different nationalities… initially I thought them to be the same… but later I realized they were not the same…

When I alighted from the bus at Farafra, to my utter surprise…I saw them again…alighting from the same bus… we wished each other and were very happy to see each other… it is strange that in an alien land….some times two aliens to the land, feel closer than they really are… I have seen it in India…. When people of varied nationalities hang together and apparently, the only bonds they share is that both are alien to India… so I have seen an Israeli comfortably hanging out with a Thai… a German with Russian and then a French with an American… initially I thought it was something racial…that a white feels more comfortable hanging out with whites… but then in the last case I mentioned, the American I am talking about was a black American…. And then after spending two days with this couple, I realized it is natural for everybody. It is perhaps called a coalition of convenience… the thought of sharing unknown territories itself become a comfort zone.

I realized that this couple also wanted to visit White Desert and like me they are also on a shoestring budget… They started from Asyut came to Kharga- visited Baris on a day trip- came to Mut and then on a day trip to Al Qasr…. And now here they are in Farafra standing without any idea of what to do next.

As Farafra is not visited very often, there is a dearth of hotels in Farafra. We realized that there is only one budget option for us to stay… Al Waha Hotel, run by Homouda brothers. Some one told me that they also have a few four wheel drive vehicles for a White Desert trip. So we walked towards the hotel.

Farafra is different from all other oasis we had seen. The people were fairer and one tends to see lesser number of women in public life… earlier both in Kharga and Mut, I saw that all the shops in the market place were managed by women… and the men usually worked in fields… but here the women were totally absent from the public life. The residents of Farafra were true Bedouins…who came from Libya and then settled down in Farafra… as against people in Dakhla and Kharga, who are Egyptians- ethnically speaking. Perhaps there lies the difference… the first impression one gets about women in a Muslim country is that of a burqa clad women confined to the four walls of the house; but Egypt proves you wrong- roads of Cairo are full of giggling, happy girls- beautiful and attractive in their own way, coquettish in their own way, being eve-teased and yet carrying themselves with a dignity… they adorn a hijab or a religious head-scarf but take their own decisions in life, work and take up the social responsibilities with the male of the family, equally. Seeing Cairo, changes both your perception and attitude. It just washes away a lot of prejudices.

We settled in our hotel and then met Ahmed the manager of the Hotel; and then what followed was an excellent example of bargaining by the Austrian man….by this time we had agreed that we will do the White Desert together, even if it meant just walking there as daredevils. I have seen that Western tourists are always more informed and very good at bargaining a good price… they absorb this art of haggling, while traveling in different places and settings… they know that the bargaining in the streets of Bangkok will be different from New Delhi or Marrakech and therefore have varied experience in such dealings… the Austrian himself being a guide knew the trick of the trade. So the initial price of 750 Egyptian Pound was brought down to 400, meaning that I would have to shell out less that 150 including the inevitable Baksheesh.

We decided that we will see the Nasser desert (nothing but a precursor to the grander White Desert), White Desert, Beit Al Abyad (the White House), New White Desert…spend a night over there…then see the crystal mountain, the Naqb Al Sillim (literally the Passes of the Stairs), the Black Desert and have a lunch and then will be dropped at Bahariya. It was the best we could have bargained… later we realized that this year the business of White Desert has not been brisk for many reasons… one being that lot of desert buffs are heading towards Libya for a real desert experience. With time, Libya has opened itself up for foreigners; the security condition over there is as good as Egypt; and finally because of years of isolation Libyan Desert and oasis are still off beat, uncommercialized and therefore unspoilt. Therefore to keep the business running, Ahmed agreed to the prices we quoted.

We had an entire evening for site-seeing, we visited the Qasr Al Farafra… the old mud brick town of Farafra… shaped in the form of a fort… in older days the oasis were raided by Bedouins dacoits, who looted food and money….therefore the oasis town were made like forts… the best example being the Old Shali town in Siwa; I also saw the fields of Farafra, the water works… where water is pumped out of the ground and used for irrigation. Interestingly, most of the walls in Farafra have an image of the White Desert's Mushroom Rock painted on them…. White desert has become a part of their day to day life it seems…

Then we went to the museum of a local artist Al Badr… a wonderful museum. It is a single handed pursuit to preserve and develop the Ethnic art of the region… it is a must visit… Al Badr is a wonderful man who not only welcomes you whole heartedly to his museum, but also tells you a lot of things about the region and chats over a cup of Shai. However, with time he has become a sales person too… I believe he has to become one, if he needs to survive. I also met Mr. Socks (a man whose entire family survives by selling clothing made up of camel wool, to the tourists)... he is a funny character.

The night before the final journey…. I went to a hot spring… which is a tank full of hot water….replenished by a tube well… under a sky lit by stars, I soaked my body and existence for two hours in hot water…. The place is isolated… without a soul for kilometers, one can try skinny dip too..