A night in Alexandria Part Two- A mid summer night dream

It has been quite some time since I wrote first part of this write up…

One of the methods that I have started using for last few months- is taking a lot of photographs of the place I visit… to such an extent, that I can build a story with these photographs… and then with their help, I remember and relish everything that occurred during the journey.

This works wonders, especially when I am traveling continuously for long periods… Photographs are a wonderful way of remembering the experiences.

I took a plethora of pictures during the Alexandria visit and stored them in a file… and one day I realized that the file had, somehow got, deleted. My guess is that my son, who is fond of randomly punching the keyboard, was the culprit behind it. (Heck I can't even interrogate him, he is less than 2 year old and whenever I do all he says is Baba, Mama, Baba)… Anyway once the photographs were gone… it was very difficult for me to remember events that ocurred in Alex… partly because I didn’t maintain a record of events and partly because… it was a dreamy visit… I just roamed through the streets of Alex in the night with sleepy eyes... doing whatever I felt like and forgetting whatever and whoever I was… and wouldn’t you agree that after waking up you forget the most cherishable dreams, only to relish the thought of had having it.

It took me some while to retrieve them back… in the process, I became more computer literate… not a bad deal at all, I will say.

The Indian music and dance programme was held in an open air theatre called Anfoushi Garden Open Air theatre. In contrast, we were allotted very performance friendly venues by the Egyptian authorities in other cities- in Cairo, in Ismailiya, in Al Fayuum… so I felt a bit disappointed…

However few moments later, upon strolling in the park… I realized that it was a beautiful place… with a artificial lake in the centre and a small but neatly landscaped garden all around… on one side of the lake was a spacious café… where I saw a lot of young Alex couples rendezvousing and on the other side there was a park for kids to play…. This place tucked away in amidst a residential colony… was not frequented by tourists… it was perhaps one of the best kept secrets of Alexandria…

The people who frequented the place were average middle class residents of Alexandria… The programme was not adequately advertised by the local sponsors and therefore we were not expecting a huge crowd, but instead what we got was the regular visitors to the place- who unsuspectingly came to the garden for a brief stroll and serendipitously discovered about the Indian dance and music programme and therefore chose to stay back to see it. The programme was, therefore, a success.

After returning back to our hotel, I stood for a while at the sea-facing balcony of my room and was mesmerized by the views of dazzling seafront that played hide and seek with the vastness of the darkness surrounding it. It beckoned me, it was time to go.

On one end of the Alexandria's seafront is the Quatbay citadel that stands at the same venue at which the wondrous Light House of yesteryears stood; and on the other end is the summer retreat of erstwhile kings of Egypt… the Montazah gardens. Our hotel was located near to the Quatbay citadel… Therefore I and Sudhir decided to take tram from a station near the hotel to the other end of the city, near Montazah Garden.

This was my first ride on a tram… in India, trams still run in Kolkata and though I stayed there for three months at a stretch… but never used it. In retrospect, I feel I missed a magical moment. Trams are a wonderful way of traveling. They are slow, yet meandering through the busy thoroughfares of the city; they give you a very candid glimpse of the city… and because they are not fast… you get ample time to absorb the essence… they are minimally endowed… without proper windows and doors… they are breezy, they smell like the city… they are the city.

However, instead of going all the way to Montazah… we alighted mid-way to check out the Miami Beach… Alexandria is full of small stretches of beach… some are private and some are free to use. The private beaches are less crowded but charge a hefty fee for entrance… where as the public beaches are definitely higher on life… with people all around even in the dead of the night. For a true experience of a Mid-Summer Night, don’t refrain yourself from going to one of the public beaches… howsoever pedestrian they may seem. And you will be rewarded by a most candid picture of Egyptian social life.

Unlike Indians, Egyptians strongly believe in holidaying… for them a summer vacation means a summer vacation, when they renew their family bonds… move out of Cairo… enjoy themselves. Alexandria and Marsa Matrouh are the most affordable destination for the Egyptians… the well to do Egyptians, however, go to Mediterranean resorts like Borg Al Arab and Soma Bay.

After spending an hour at the Miami Beach, we decided to stroll our way back to the hotel… a full 8 kms walk. It was one of the most memorable strolls, I ever took… sitting where ever we liked, having Shisha (the Egyptian water pipe) and Tea, watching the beautiful faces all around, pondering over the life, being a part of the revelry and yet being an observer… taking photos of each other… and relishing the fresh air that seems to be an amiss in Cairo.

By the time we came back to the hotel… we were rejuvenated… it was five in the morning… we covered 8 kms in 5 hours… and never even for a while the city slept… it kept awake and kept us awake.

Alexandria is magical… hope it remains that way… despite creeping change all around.