Islamic Weddings and Boat Cruises

We've done all the usual Cairo/Egypt stuff. Pyramids, museums, statues, camels etc... You've probably already done all that yourself so I'll cut to the more interesting stuff!

We took a riverboat on the Nile the other day, to see some belly-dancing and have a good meal in the evening. Cost us about 12 quid each, buffet and entertainment included. When we arrived, the place immediately didn't look like our kind of place. A load of chinese tourists and us, it was almost empty! But, turns out there was a huge Islamic wedding on the boat! Now, I've had the pleasure of attending a few weddings, and they're good fun, but mixing with all your family members can be pretty taxing. Islamic weddings are seriously lacking in Vitamin Booze, and those long rants by the boring uncle/stepmother/whatever are clearly even worse, and long-standing familial grievances even harder to bear! People looked miserable.

To make matters worse, in this culture public displays of affection are a real no-no. There is a tale going around of wife kissing her husband on the cheek as she left the car, when another woman driving past spat on her. This means the bride and groom pretty much can have a very sedate dance but nothing more, mostly they ignored each other. Looked to me like the worst possible wedding and a very tedious evening.

Then an Egyptian singer came to the floor as entertainment. He tried really hard to whip up the crowd, to no avail. There was one Chinese guy who had drunk a bottle of beer. He was absolutely smashed and started dancing on stage. No one followed him. You know that cringing feeling you get while watching The Office for the first time? It was like that.

The rest of the entertainment was ok, with a Japanese guy taking some seriously zoomed-in videos of the belly-dancers enormous breasts. Plural, he had a video camera, and a mobile for some on-the-move personal administration (he later went on stage, went for the grope, when the dancer prompty left). Another dancer did some really cool spinning stuff, but otherwise a it was a waste of money. Food was the same as you could get for maybe 2 or 3 quid in town.

Overall 3/5.

PS. Everyone in Cairo who talks to foreigners is either trying to rip them off directly, or trying to get business for friends or family members. Bunch of crooks, you have been warned!!