LONDON: Egypt is hot. It has been coming to the boil over the past 10 years and following a week in London it is easy to see the planets aligning, for the gods have spoken: “Egypt is hot”.
Egypt is the hot tourist destination. It is the hot overseas property market and all things Egyptian are high profile and on sale in London.
My discoveries started at the British Museum where I went to investigate that Mona Lisa of antiquity, The Rosetta Stone. Discovered by Napoleon’s troops in 1799, the 762 kg grey granitoid stone guided scholars towards the decipherment of hieroglyphs and is now one of the key attractions at the British Museums, which houses some 100,000 Egyptian artefacts.
Europeans have long been fascinated with the ancient Egyptians, but it is now the Egyptians who are learning from the occidentals. In partnership with the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, the British Museum offers an internship annually to three professionals from Egypt for eight weeks, on a program that will last for five years leading up to the opening of the Grand Museum in Cairo, scheduled for 2009.
At the British Museum visitors, old and young, crowd into the Egyptian gallery, snap up souvenirs from the book shop and are pre-booking tickets for the blockbuster, “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs , opening November 15, 2007 in London’s o2 Dome. The last time King Tut visited swingin’ London in 1972, 1.8 million people visited the exhibition.
The Tutankhamun exhibition in London will be the trigger that brings Egypt to the boil. It has for so long been in people’s consciousness, brewing up all types of fantasies from Pyramid power to alien architects, coupled now with an aggressive tourism marketing campaign on British television, the package holiday price matches the interest factor.
Seven and fourteen day luxury packages to the Red Sea or a Nile Cruise are discounted by fifty and thirty per cent, bringing holidays under $50 per day that include meals and flights.
London’s large expatriate community may be responsible for the proliferation of water pipes and smoking dens in north London, but more likely it is a greater consciousness of the Orient brought on by politics and war.
Every cloud has a silver lining, but every closet holds a skeleton. In London it is the “Egyptian Escalator in Harrods’ Department Store. Known as the place you can get everything and anything, this ostentatious display is one step too far.
The French have also had a long association with Egypt. Not least the scholar Jean-Francois Champollion, who cracked the Rosetta Stone’s code. Not to be confused with the Da Vinci Code, even if the Stone is the Mona Lisa of antiquity. As esoteric as that idea may be, it pales in comparison to a recent French discovery.
A French forensic scientist at the Raymond Poincare Hospital in Paris has discovered that the remains of St. Joan of Arc, housed in a Normandy church, are in fact the remains of an Egyptian mummy.
As I said, there is a skeleton in every closet.
Unfortunately for Cairo, I believe the City Victorious will miss out on the coming tourist and real estate boom. Ranked a mere 129th out of 215 cities in a global quality of life survey by Mercer Consultancy, based on 39 factors, including transport, education and political stability, it shows few signs of competing with the likes of Vancouver, Sydney or Amsterdam. Though I should note not one American city was in the top 20 and Baghdad, once the jewel of the Islamic Empire, was ranked 215th.
The rise and fall of empires can keep you up at night. But one positive from my research about Cairo was the morning prayer, which was ranked in the Top 10 ways to wake up in the world. A travel writer in The Guardian newspaper said, “Cairo left an incredible impression on me. Each morning I would awake to a haunting melody ringing out across the rooftops, letting me know that I was staying in a city rich with another culture and making me feel excited at the thought of getting under the skin of this fascinating and ancient place.
The impartial guide, Scuba Travel, ranks 3 sites in the Red Sea amongst the world’s Top 10. Thistlegorm, Shark and Yolanda Reef and Big Brother.
Egypt consistently ranks in the Top 20 for travel destinations, though its airport didn’t make the Top 50 in a recent survey by the Australian Airports Association – Seoul, South Korea was number one.
The weather in London, like Egypt, was hot over the Easter weekend. But like all trends, weather and a good wave, the ride only lasts so long before you are buried in the sand.
