The Baladi Bar-hop: VAT And Stella Win The Race

Cairo / Go Night
en by Nile-Living /  Sarah A. Topol, 4. Mar 2010


Photo: Miriam.Mollerus

Alcohol consumption is forbidden by Islam, but like most things, just because it’s prohibited doesn’t mean it never happens. In fact, Cairo’s local drinking scene is alive and well and the 'baladi bar' is an Egyptian institution.

Small, crack in the wall, watering holes are plentiful, filled with middle aged Egyptian men drinking Stella beer and whiskey, shelling tirmis, white, watery beans. Often run by the Coptic Christian minority, the options for baladi bar hopping are abundant; the trick is knowing where to look.

Shady joints, up darkened stairs with belly dancers or inconspicuous doors off the street opening into small smoky rooms crammed with tables-- whatever kind of night you are in the mood for, moving between these bars in a small group is only complicated when someone in the party doesn’t feel like leaving one cheap joint for the next.

Stella came out with a map of all the Downtown bars. If you can get your hands on one, they are the best way to plan your night.

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The Townhouse Gallery: Something New In An Ancient City

Cairo / Go See
en by Nile-Living /  Sarah A. Topol, 8. Dec 2009


Photo: P Medved

Sometimes Cairo can seem like a quixotic nightmare—a city feeding on nostalgia. Crumbling, remnants of colonial-European architecture, a centuries-old bazaar now touting tourist trinkets, 4000-year old pyramids and feluccas skimming the Nile, sails opened as if they were going all the way to Aswan instead of for an hour-long tourist ride.

Cairo tries to entice by presenting the ancient wonders of the world, but what about offering something new? Has Egypt been on the cutting-edge of anything these days?

Townhouse Gallery



If wandering the piles of stones under glass at the Egyptian museum is depressing enough and you’re itching to see something a little more modern from the ancient-capital make haste to the Townhouse Gallery,  a contemporary art gallery of Egyptian and foreign artists often working together to create novel and interesting pieces.

The three-story building and adjoining converted factory space offer a breathe of innovative air. The gallery does more than just art—it incorporates the surrounding locals in its projects. I once saw an exhibit in which the artists made a model-sized replica of the surrounding city-blocks. They displayed it and asked members of the community contribute ideas for changes to the neighborhood. The suggestions were rebuilt into the model over a period of weeks. The result: a lot more fast-food restaurants ...

The exhibit on offer when I last went was called “Where Are You?,” a group exhibit in cooperation with the Swiss Arts Council of foreign and local artists-in-residence premised on intercultural exchange. At times puzzling, but always interesting, artists of different nationalities and mediums were shown side-by-side using a variety of mediums.

Ahwa time

After taking in the refreshing works, join the neighbors in the ahwa (coffee shop) right outside the gallery. Watch out for shoe-shiners and fire-eaters, as well as the artists relaxing after a long day’s creation.

TOWNHOUSE GALLERY; 10 Nabrawy Street; Downtown Cairo

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Tracking Change: Coffee In Cairo

Cairo / Go Eat
en by Nile-Living /  Sarah A. Topol, 1. Sep 2009


Photo: Neebeday

According to coffee legend and lore, the bean we so cherish would be nothing without a series of events which unfolded long ago in the Middle East. The liquid now synonymous with mornings is thought to have been cultivated first in Ethiopia, where it caught the eye of mystics and then Arabian traders who exported it around the world. So it goes without saying that Egypt, one of the region’s main trade hubs through the centuries is coffee-central.

But times in the ‘Oriental’ city are changing and coffee in Cairo is not immune to the sweeping pressure of globalization. From local brew to the imported stuff, Cairo has something to offer everyone who wants to watch the evolution of a centuries old tradition.

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Searching For Freezing: Finding The Mall

Cairo / Go Shop
en by Nile-Living /  Sarah A. Topol, 29. Jul 2009


Photo: Razvan Marescu

Summer in Cairo is a sticky affair. The temperature rises with the sun, leaving a scorched city in its wake. I find it impossible to spend much time outside. Open taxi windows let in only the blistering 'breeze' rising off the Nile, and the only solace is found standing in front of your next destinations air conditioner. That’s when I know it’s time to escape.


Photo: Sarah Topol

Hopping a metered taxi (yellow cab – they are cheaper for long distances and air-conditioned!), floor it across the city to City Stars Mall, the largest mall in the region after Dubai’s monstrosities, a journey of about 45 minutes. The mega complex is everything that’s wrong and right in Egypt. The 5 floors boast a Starbucks, an H&M, a Virgin Megastore and hijabi (the Islamic women’s headscarf) shops, all in a gloriously freezing row. (And I’m not ashamed to say Starbucks has its appeal.)


Photo: Sarah Topol

Egypt is not unlike many developing countries, wrestling to absorb global culture while retaining its values. All over the city, McDonald’s serves up McFalafel, wrapped in the infamous golden arches. But City Stars is the most obvious meeting point of the two extremes: shops for veils next to Miss Sixty, no smoking signs hang above smoky ashtrays in the hallways, covered women with their families scarf down french fries at TGIFriday’s. If you squint your eyes, you could be anywhere in the world, even a mall in America, but the picture is slightly off.


Photo: Sarah Topol

The best part about City Stars (aside from the temperature) is the people watching. Cairenes wander the floors in groups or pairs. Teenage girls wearing short-shorts saunter past, batting their eyelashes at prepubescent boys, filled with the thrill of cross-gender communication. Haram (forbidden)! (But their parents are nowhere in sight...) Women whose faces are covered behind niqabs recline with friends over coffee, and Starbucks has a section for chain-smoking men, reclined with their families, exhaling next to baby strollers.


Photo: Sarah Topol

Wandering the shops, I quickly discover almost everything is out of my price range, but I’m not really there for the shopping. The mall is pristine, the fluorescent lights reflect the marble floors, (the mall is built to resemble a pyramid), and indeed it’s easy to get lost amongst the escalators, half floors, and 300+ shops.


Photo: Tark Siala

The crowd is different than the one you’ll find elsewhere in Cairo. This is the crème-de-crème of Cairo, or rather the ones with money to spend. The people you won’t see on the street because they spend their lives being ferried around by drivers from one 'exclusive' venture to another. Here you can observe them in their natural habitat, uncomfortably trying to balance Egyptian customs with Western fashion, and the tension is palpable.


Photo: Sarah Topol

The mall attracts a variety of shoppers, but since it’s not connected to the metro, most people are those with money to spend. The growing Egyptian middle-class and the spoiled rich children of the highest class can be seen loitering, taking their time to examine the maze of stores. Everyone held at least one shopping bag, and why wouldn’t you? No one is immune to gleaming consumerism, including yours truly, who eventually found meaning in the sale wrack of H&M.

CITY STARS MALL; Heliopolis, Cairo

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The Sweet Sound Of Silence

Cairo / Go See
en by Nile-Living /  Sarah A. Topol, 3. May 2009


Photo: Seb_Belacqua

There is no such thing as quiet in Cairo. This is not a city relax in, the buzz, energy and boisterous culture demands all of your attention all the time. Noise is endemic to the metropolis. Turn signals are nonexistent, giving way to road communication in which each signal involves the blaring of a horn. As you walk down the streets of Downtown, men yell from stalls, demanding your attention, buy this, buy that. Bicycle bells ding as walking men with trays of pita balanced on their heads make kissing noises to warn others they are coming through

Noise Awareness Day should be mandatory in this city. To celebrate on my own, I escaped to my bastion of serenity: the American University in Cairo’s (AUC) Downtown campus bookstore. In the heart of Downtown, right off Midan Tahrir, the noisiest part of the city, behind a grimy beige gate, the red and white arches of AUC provide relief from the sun and cacophony of Cairo’s myriad of sounds.



Walking into the campus, you have to leave an ID at the gate. The guards will ask where you are going, “bookstore” will get you through. Follow the path and turn right, the first doorway into the building called the Hill House will get you into the bookstore.

The cool breeze of the air-conditioning in the medium sized room of books on most subjects under the sun is calming. Books in English line the walls, bright and crisp with un-cracked spines and provide refuge in a city of shouted Arabic. Meandering the aisles, you can find anything, books are priced for international sale (i.e. not cheap), but I never go to buy.



The beauty of the bookshop is I have frequently removed a book, sat down on the floor, and perused at length without ever being asked to leave. I have never seen anyone else do this, but perhaps my presumptive actions and its’ infrequency has prompted the salesmen to leave me to my solitary page flipping.

Otherwise, you can always purchase the book and walk out to read on one of the chairs outside on the campus’s lush green grounds or simply cross the street and sit in any of the air-conditioned cafes dotting the road.


Photo: Qujecit

Like a good power nap, after 20 minutes inside the shop, I stepped out into the street. Bracing my ears the obligatory horn honk, sure enough there it was.

“#%^$!!!!!!!!!!” I thought to myself, but if there’s one thing you can always rely on in Cairo, it's noise.

THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY TAHRIR SQUARE CAMPUS; 113 Kasr El Aini St; Cairo.

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