Lost in Cairo

My friend Allan and I are drinking tea at Fishawi, the medieval tea room at the edge of Khan El Khalili market. This covered bazaar has been active since the fourteenth century. The tea room is alongside Sayyidna Al-Hussein Mosque and, peeking through the unglassed windows, you can see the green 'praying-square' carpet inside. Leaning further forward, you can glimpse the odd shoeless worshipper, leaning against a pillar, reciting, pondering. There is a density to the place, a deep sense of calm.

The call to prayer seems to sound almost constantly here in the market, amplified by the narrow streets and proximity of the mosques. Shop owners kneel amongst leather bags and metalware and then stand up to serve tourists. Interestingly some pray and some choose not to, often the preference varies amongst those working in the same shop.

This is my fifth trip to Cairo and I know this market better now, i've figured out the landmarks - right at the perfume bottles, left at the incense seller - to find the stalls i want. I'm fully covered, except for a headscarf, but the market sellers still call out "hola" when i walk past - I'm deceptively dark for an Englishwoman - then "hello -only looking" as they spot my paler friend Allan.

This time we decide to push on past the souvenirs into plastic bowl and holdall territory, which is virtually exclusive to the locals. One holdall has "superstar" emblazoned across it in neon yellow and after one glance from me the seller picks it up and follows us. "Yes, only 45, OK, OK, 40 very cheap.." we keep walking and he follows, bargaining himself down. As we pass the nylon socks and fluffy pink underwear sets the price has hit 25 (£2.50). We turn a sharp right and lose him. I feel a bit guilty, but the souk is no place for softies my friend assures me.

This alley is quieter, older, more crumbling. Its aspect provides complete shade. Here the shop owners are calm and disinterested and so we linger and approach the windows more closely. At the end of the alley we reach the almost deserted gold jewellery section. A man is dipping a filligree piece into a steamy cauldron. Another is banging a tool on a silver inlay box. A glass-fronted stall contains an iron pedal-operated printing press, the size of a loom. We press our noses against the window and gape at this, the photocopier's predecessor, so tactile, so accessible, so toylike.

Round the next corner we hit the crowds again and I feel panic rising as we are swept into the current of shoppers. A smiling man strikes up a conversation, then grab's Allan's wrist hard to pull him into his shop. Something incongruent is in the air, poverty, desperation, fixated on the stream of affluent tourists. I ask a shopwner for the only refuge I know - Fishawi, first left then second right he tells me with an affirming nod.

We stalk quickly through the labyrinth, heads down, and there it is. The benches and tables outside hold foreign groups smugly clutching the guide books that got them there. Inside I am relieved to see the familiar dust encrusted chandeliers and spanning the walls the mirrors, cracked and darkened with time, their elaborately carved wooden frames almost growing out of the wall. The ceiling arches have painted on brick work, red, white, red, white, reminiscent of Seville and Morocco. The tea arrives in a blackened pot, the glasses briefly rinsed. I breathe a sign of relief as, I imagine, many a merchant has here in this 24 hour tea room over hundreds of years.