Page 48 - WDT Magazine Egypt

At first, we thought he was scamming to get us to a
cousin’s shop, so we chose the Chinese souk where
we had seen lots of people coming and going. That
was, in hindsight, not a wise course of action.
We quickly found ourselves in a narrow pedestrian
street lined with shops. The brown and ochre build-
ings that lined the alleys were in various states of
repair – from grand to uninhabitable ruins. The hot,
crowded passageways were full of litter, dust and
small colorful shops with table after table of assorted
stuff, not the exotic souvenirs we expected. Push-
ing through the crowds was exhausting and at times
scary.
As it turned out, we had spent our first hour in the
home goods section of the market – stocked to the
rafters with everything for Egyptian household, from

Scenes from the colorful and bustling
streets of the Khan Al-Khalili.

48 WDT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018