Original subtitles

Out of the endless desert rode a man with a mission.

The stranger bestrode his steed with the ease of a warrior chieftain.

THEME FROM "LAWRENCE OF ARABIA"

Some said he was Omar Sharif

until he paused to reveal his hawklike features.

Yes, here was a man in search of something - an attention-getting title sequence.

Two weeks before, I had arrived in Cairo, capital city of the Arab world's most liberal country.

But the liberal country has a nervous government which a fundamentalist movement

hopes to overthrow by letting off bombs to discourage tourists, thereby wrecking the economy.

No tourist is more easily discouraged by that than I,

but the only danger I saw in the streets came from wheeled vehicles. BUS HORN

They're always on the point of hitting each other, and will hit you if you stand bewildered,

a state easy to achieve, because you can't tell what century you're in.

A lot of Cairo is modern looking but you can get that anywhere.

What you get only here is the turmoil of alleys and arcades

that have been like this since the pyramids were just a set of plans.

In old Cairo everything's on sale, for a price, but if you pay it you're crazy.

What you have to do is bargain, even for a camel.

I needed a camel for my attention-getting title sequence.

I thought of renting one.

But if I bargained hard enough, I could buy one and perfect the riding technique

which had gone rusty since the old days on the set of "Lawrence of Arabia" when I taught Omar Sharif

how to shoot his rifle without blowing the camel's head off.

SPEAKING ARABIC

Bargaining consisted of holding on to each other's wrists. The last one to let go got the camel.

I didn't see how I could lose. All I had to do was hang in there

while they gave way to the panic which always seemed to ensue when the pressure was on.

MEN SHOUTING, CAMEL ROARING

Welcome. Good morning. Glad to be here.

I was thinking of renting one of these.

But I'm told I may as well buy one and sell it back later. How much do they cost? Those two...

er...3,000 Egyptian dollars.

That's six hundred quid. Quite a lot. You want? Well, I... Some of them are very handsome.

We were sizing each other up. I'd spotted the camel I wanted,

and I knew how much I could afford to bid under the tight system of BBC accounting.

Now all I had to do was stay cool.

ARGUING IN ARABIC

Half an hour went by without anyone relaxing his grip.

But at the end, I'd beaten the locals out of a camel they'd have given their right hands for.

A couple had already done so since my purchase had turned carnivorous owing to mental instability.

But the price included garaging and advance riding lessons after dark, so I was satisfied.

Leaving my camel at the psychiatrist's, I plunged deep into the bazaar.

Most Cairenes are far from rich.

More and more people share in poverty.

But the despair that breeds fundamentalism happens elsewhere in Egypt.

In Cairo, the less well-off lead a stylish life in cafes which house the city's most exciting sport.

Here, Cairo's leading dominoes players, men who dominate dominoes, gather to share the special thrill

known only to the players of top level dominoes on a fast surface.

In the west, a place like this would be called a bar and serve alcohol.

But even in liberal Cairo, Islam frowns on alcohol, so there's nothing stronger than weak tea.

There's a water pipe available for every customer. They don't yield much in the way of nicotine.

All they offer is a mildly spiced puff of smoke, like sucking dust out of a vacuum cleaner.

But I wasn't going to let it lick me, although I was uneasily aware that other customers had licked it.

The locals were clearly impressed.

They paid me the supreme honour of inviting me to join them at dominoes.

In the interests of research, I went along.

I wanted to know how they were having such a good time on just weak tea and thin smoke.

But I didn't want them to know that when young I was a dominoes prodigy, so I pretended incompetence.

CHORUS OF "NO, NO !"

He wins? Yes.

Let's play again.

When all the bets were in, I started playing up to my real form.

It was cruel dominoes,

ruthless dominoes, but true dominoes.

They had seen Omar Sharif play bridge like this.

But they had never seen anyone play dominoes like this. They had to admit they'd met their master.

And I had to admit I was meeting a warm welcome. Where was Islam's disdain for the west? Not in Cairo.

A whole day had gone by with no bombs going off. Not even a cross word.

The only thing that stunned me was the charm of the people.

A new day, and once more Cairo's pre-market economy engulfed me.

I was beginning to understand the principle on which it worked.

A lot of people with not very much money sold not very valuable goods to each other, some edible,

thereby sustaining life so that the whole process could begin again with undiminished verve.

Every imaginable living creature is for sale.

So is every imaginable part of every living creature.

One living creature used to be the calf,

whose chances of growing up to be a cow are rendered slim

because Arab bridegrooms believe that calves' knees are a sure-fire aphrodisiac.

Arab men place a lot of emphasis on their personal appeal.

Every block has a barber who offers the full treatment.

I could see one wielding a cut-throat razor, so I hesitated.

But only the brave deserve the beautiful.

The process starts with a shave calculated to leave the cheeks smooth for high-speed camel riding.

But I had been promised that the treatment would climax with something uniquely Cairene:

a special technique to tone the skin.

I couldn't see anything unique about the baby oil.

I couldn't see anything unique about the talcum powder.

But the next bit really was unique.

At first, I couldn't see why he had to floss his teeth.

Then I found out that he was going to floss my face.

It wasn't as painful as it looked.

It was MORE painful. But I had to admit, it left my skin tingling,

although 20 lashes with a stock-whip would have done the same.

I thanked him by trying to say "That feels very good" in Arabic.

Unfortunately, I had learned the phrase for "I find you very attractive".

I felt refreshed and ready for a new challenge.

So I melted into the desert after adopting a new identity - Indiana James.

There was a sand-storm on the way,

so I headed for shelter in one of the large pointed buildings nearby.

We archaeologists call it the Great Pyramid.

The pyramid presents us with an insoluble mystery.

So we always come back to probe its secrets.

Some say the pyramid is a navigational instrument left behind by Martian spacemen.

Others say it's the work of a team

of ancient architects too dumb to invent a roof. But this much is certain: it's dangerous in there.

The passageways are worn smooth by thousands of TV crews.

A less experienced explorer might slip, fracture a hip,

and not be found until five minutes later by a vacation group from Minnesota.

And I was going in further than tourists from America, Britain, Australia, France,

Germany, and the back of Brazil.

I was going to where the Japanese tourists were.

Beyond the danger of being crushed by tourists there was the further danger of being driven mad

by the puzzle that haunts all adventurers in the pyramid's miles of passageways.

There are no rolling boulders, suddenly descending portcullises, or poisoned spikes to perforate you.

There's just nothing in there.

The whole place has been picked clean by two millennia of tomb robbers.

Along a secret passage last used by a 3-coach party from Thailand the previous Saturday,

I wormed through into the chamber devoted to the embalmed corpse of the designer of the security system.

He had installed every protective device including air-conditioning and indirect lighting.

But still no answer to the eternal question: why, if they were hiding their bodies from thieves,

did the Pharaohs erect a whacking great building

to tell everyone in 1,000 square miles where they were buried?

Why not stick up a neon sign saying, "Secretly buried here"?

When I got outside, the sand-storm had come up, blotting all vision,

but I had an old Arab method of finding my path.

"Which way is Cairo? Is it that way? That way?"

Yes, ask an old Arab.

Back in town, the sand-storm had moved on.

Endless opportunities beckoned to buy an exotic gift for that special person at home.

I was heading for a famous shop that a strict interpretation of Islamic law might frown on,

dealing in essences whose secrets were old when slave-girl chorus lines danced for the first Pharaoh.

Or so the perfume man said, and he could say anything.

I will give you explanation about how we make the essence. It will be interesting for you to know.

After that, you can smell whatever you like, and any quantity you want.

He spoke English with stunning eloquence.

His stratagem was to list all the western perfumes his perfumes could outperform.

Sophia Loren, Sauvage, Chanel 5, Chanel 19, Drakkar, Cartier, Azzarro, Lacoste, Vichy, Paco Rabanne,

Christian Dior... I was already battered into submission, but he must have detected resistance.

Estee Lauder, Cacharel, Anais Anais, Givenchy, Ysatis, Samsara,

Eternity, Paloma Picasso, Salvador Dali... Now that he had softened me up, he moved in for the hard sell.

Now, you'd like to smell something French or something Egyptian? Egyptian, I think.

I'll let you try the best for man, called King Tutankamun. He used this kind. Forbidden to find it outside.

Give me your hand. This hand? No, the other one. A delicate touch,

and rub. Try it and smell it.

He actually used this? Mm-hm. How could they tell he actually used this?

How do you know Tutankamun used this? From the story, you know.

And also from the history. Uh-huh? You must read history very well.

I'll let you try also something that's too famous in Egypt, for lady, called Queen Cleopatra.

Queen Cleopatra was using this kind.

This is Cleopatra's perfume? Yes, that's right.

She had this on when she met Richard Burton, right? Yes. Which kind you like?

I think maybe the Cleopatra, a little bottle of Cleopatra. I'll let you see the small size.

That size.

That's not too small ! How much does that cost?

Could be a thousand pounds. 1,000 pounds ?! Yes, it's a pure essence. You could mix it with others.

1,000 pounds is a lot of money.

Just a little one. Haven't you got a special little one?

All right. For that, I'll let you see the student size. It's called teeny-weeny.

Teeny-weeny? Yeah.

That size. This is the student size.

Ah! You be student again. That's more like it. How much is one of those? Could be 100 Egyptian pounds.

It's still a lot, but yeah, yeah. Can I have one of those full of Cleopatra? Cleopatra.

Actually, 100 Egyptian pounds is only about £20 sterling, and you get a lot of Cleopatra for it,

probably a lifetime's supply, because the stuff lingers like concentrated orange juice.

It was kind of a pity to see such a gifted flim-flam man wasting his eloquence.

He could have made it as a disc jockey, if his English had been worse. Any something else?

Uh...that's enough, it's all the money I've got.

Good luck for 1,000 years. Good luck for 1,000 years!

In the old days, English was the language of government,

the British ruled, King Farouk pretended to rule,

and these Art Deco buildings were the town houses of a smart set.

Now they have little to boast on the outside, except a couple of government-supplied armed guards

without whom no private residence is complete. Among the people they protect from the encroaching dust

is one of the last shining lights of the beau monde that was, Victor Samaika.

While his Nubian servant waited to dart forward with a Gin Sling,

I asked what Cairo used to be like.

It was gay, it was elegant. Very elegant.

There was a royal family.

And...

A class of people who lived graciously, and who had lovely homes.

And there was the fishing fleet, you know what that was? No, tell me.

The young debutantes that came in winter to catch a husband. It was heaven!

Where did they do their fishing? Mostly at the Gezira Sporting Club.

Oh? It was, without exaggeration, the most beautiful club in the world.

You had three polo grounds, two playing in the afternoon, 16 chukkas on every ground, 3 times a week.

No such thing as "weather permitting", because it was always lovely weather.

And then all the other games as well.

But you could go and spend the whole day, have lunch, have dinner. Lovely changing rooms.

Pool... It was... Everything you needed.

Bits of the genteel world that Victor once adorned are still there,

although nowadays you take the rough with the smooth.

The Gezira Club's race track still exists, but now anyone can get in,

even the Egyptians who were once lucky to clean up after the horses.

The refined European ladies are gone, probably never to be replaced.

Among the men, there are no diamond tie-pins because there are no ties.

But a horse is still a horse, with something a camel hasn't got - big money-making potential.

The Cairenes back the gee-gees with almost fundamentalist fervour.

I was a bit confused at the betting stand because all the horses' names were in Arabic,

and there was an accumulator system in a version of ancient Egyptian.

I stuck on a bundle at random without being quite certain whether I was backing a horse or buying it.

A man who seemed to be a student of form was interested in what I'd just done.

Up in the stand, he started explaining it to me.

I had bet my roll on the same horse he had gone for himself. It was a sure-fire winner,

and in return for a percentage, he would show me how to bet my enormous winnings on further horses

so that the final total would exceed the national debt.

A third man eavesdropped surreptitiously.

Going backward? They're all going backward. Yeah, right. So what are these?

Dream. Dream? Yes, Dream. Dream. Dream. I like the sound of that.

The third man was hitching a free ride, but I held no grudge. There would be plenty for everybody.

Before long I'd be joining the high-rollers in their private boxes.

SHOUTING HORSE'S NAME

It won! It did! My horse had come in, and I was about to be buried under a pyramid of piastres.

There was nothing left to do except saunter down and collect the take.

I feared they wouldn't let me bet the whole fortune on the next race,

but I could pay off my camel's fuel bills and take the rest to the bank in a van.

He's counting it out in huge heaps.

Is that it? Is that it?

Is that it? Yes. That's it. COUNTS IN ARABIC

That's OK.

MUEZZIN CALLS TO PRAYER

Next morning, after a long night of camel training, I woke late and hungry.

Luckily, back-street Cairo is well equipped to provide breakfast.

I passed a man who looked as if he was trying to attract my attention.

He was engaged in the manufacture of Cairo's favourite fast food which is called futir.

Before the fully qualified futir manufacturer can get the thing looking like a parachute,

he must first conquer fear. A man frightened when forming a futir ends up wrapped like a mummy.

Can I have one? One? One. Wahed. One.

The price of the ingredients eats the profits at the same rate as the consumer eats the product.

As with almost the whole Egyptian economy except tourism, there's hardly anything to put in the bank.

It was just oiled pastry dusted with sugar, but it had a flavour hard to define,

a sort of oily, dusty, sugary, pastry sort of quality.

Long after I had finished it, I could still taste it, so I suppose it was value for money.

In Cairo, a little foreign cash can get you a long way.

Amidst the faded glories of the railway station I caught the train for Ismailia,

where Omar Sharif had gone to escape the heat.

Like the Art Deco buildings, the race track, even the pyramids,

the station is an eloquent leftover from before Nasser's revolution. Most trains show signs of wear,

but they still run fast enough so that you have to run after them if you're late.

Once everybody is on the train, it goes only slightly quicker than a camel,

but at least you don't have to hustle.

The Cairenes enjoy their leisure, and Ismailia is a favourite resort area.

It's Cairo's equivalent of Brighton or Bondi or Coney Island, but it's not bathed by ocean breakers,

it's lulled by the less glamorous waters of the Suez Canal.

When I first came through the canal on my way from Australia to Britain more than 30 years ago,

they'd only just cleared the mines and wrecked ships

left after Britain and France, who had both run Egypt before, teamed up to run it again,

on the patronising assumption that the Egyptians could never operate the canal by themselves.

Now confident young Egyptians are in possession of the beach club

and only their parents can remember when the Israelis were camped on the other bank.

But we westerners have still got the know-how.

It takes a long tradition of sailing the world's oceans

to have the sixth sense that men call seamanship.

SHIP'S HOOTER

Lucky I had training, or I'd have been heading for the Persian Gulf,

where a strange westerner clinging to a tanker's bows might be jailed.

Back in Cairo, the strange westerner faces no such threat. Egyptian Islam welcomes the infidel.

Some of the mosques are architectural masterpieces, miracles of spacious poise.

The carpets are threadbare and the colours on the walls have been eaten pale by the dust,

but that only adds to the beauty,

making the buildings feel like giant bubbles blown from biscuit mixture.

No Christian cathedral feels so uncluttered, and no oriental shrine gives such a sense of shelter.

Unfortunately, the stairs to the minarets are a killer.

Once, a man used to climb up and call the faithful to prayer.

Now it's through a loudspeaker, and only foreign tourists go up in search of a vision.

I had my first vision halfway up, a vision of myself on life-support.

But when I arrived wheezing at the top, there really was a vision.

It was Cairo.

MUEZZIN CALLS

From that Allah-like altitude,

you can see the origins of the city's strange air of eternity and evaporation.

It's because the concrete and the dust are made from the same stuff,

so eventually the dust has to win, because there's more of it.

But the dust will always be there and so will Islam. The only question is, which version.

So far, Cairo has the mild version.

SINGING A PRAYER

The men pray at required times but won't preach at you if you don't.

Christianity used to be less tolerant.

Despite the fundamentalists' efforts to make invisibility compulsory,

women still have a choice about whether or not to wear the veil. Some women don't.

Some women do.

And some women really do!

In the 1960s in London, freedom from convention was my religion.

Now London is a city where a woman can't walk home alone.

Cairo's women are safe. Does that make them less free? What kind of cover-up is the veil ?

I asked a teacher of English at the American University in Cairo, Sanaa Maklouf.

I think the root of it in Islam is to cover what is very attractive in a woman's body.

And I think it has to be done in a whole community, a whole society.

Because when it's done, when women follow this system,

without any implications that women are dependent and repressed and so on, just their appearance,

the society may become a healthier society in terms of less crime, less violence, less women abuse.

Doesn't wearing the veil imply submission, lessen women's independence?

When you live here, you see how we live, you see that wearing the veil

has nothing to do with our individuality and our independence.

I remember my mother in the 60s.

It was short skirts, sleeveless dresses - not my mother necessarily, but our older generation -

but they were more conservative in many ways. Socially they were. Lots of them were not working.

They didn't drive or have jobs.

I am veiled, I'm a university professor in an American university,

There's no problem whatsoever. I socialise, I go out with anyone, friends, family...

There's no control whatsoever, no relationship between being veiled and being dependent.

Will you be able to travel abroad without your husband's permission?

Well, according to Islamic law, a woman, a wife, should not travel without her husband's approval.

Er, but...I'm married to a very broadminded husband who's a good Muslim.

He would give me approval, and I would travel, and I have done it.

But within the wide limits set by the Koran, Cairo still has a soft spot for western ways.

The rich keep their money in the west, bringing only enough home

to pay for the odd modest little shindig behind closed doors.

Tipped off that Omar Sharif would be among the revellers,

I gatecrashed a high society wedding.

The bride's dress was ordered directly from the catwalk of a Paris couture collection.

WOMEN ULULATING

If the bridegroom had eaten calves' knees, he was discreet about it.

The formidable mothers of the betrothed do the organising.

Lost somewhere in the background, all the fathers do is fork out from their Swiss bank accounts.

The bill is colossal.

PIERCING TRUMPET TUNE

The whole deal is like a multi-media production.

There's a video unit present to create an instant TV programme

transmitted to the revellers on giant screens.

ULULATING

The revellers generate their high spirits unaided by alcohol, at any rate in theory.

Some of the boys seemed to be doing very well on iced tea (!)

Fifi Abdou is the belly dancer for A-list weddings. Her overheads are immense.

Her back-up band costs a fortune to hire.

For most of her routines, Fifi was diaphanously clad, but would allow filming only when wearing her shirt,

just in case western male audiences were driven mad with desire and bit pieces out of the TV set.

Then another orchestra took over while a major production number raised the question

of whether the challenge of Islam to the west was really as serious

as the challenge of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical to the east.

If the marriage lasted as long as the wedding, those two would be all right. But I was short of time.

On my last day in town, I plunged once again into the bazaar where the word was already out

that the westerner who had been training at midnight on a mad camel might be in search of a galabiyah,

the Arab one-piece nightshirt for day wear.

Aware that I knew how to bargain, two renowned galabiyah salesmen coaxed me to their boutique.

No? I'll go in here.

Something you've never seen before. Oh, right.

This is my brother. Hi. Hi. What's your name? My name's Clive. Nice to meet you. Abdu, and Sama.

Something extra large. I have. For you or somebody else? For me. OK. My brother show you. Dress?

With sleeves. Sleeves? Long arm? But now it's summer, we have short sleeves.

Where I'm going I need it with long arms. Right.

That's it? Something like this? Plain design, long arms. Extra large. Elephant size.

That isn't the way I'd have put it myself, but that's extra large? OK. Looks great.

How much is that? I'll give it to you 200 Egyptian pounds.

I've been here a while now, I've learnt a bit about bargaining. I'd say...30 ? Oh, my goodness!

You want to break my heart, my neck, my legs? 200 is too much.

I'll give it to you little bit discount, but not this price. How much? 160 Egyptian pounds.

Leave out the 100, say 60. 60.

Huh? Uh...I lose my brother! Can my brother give it to you more discount. How much you say?

I say 160 Egyptian pounds. How much you want? 60. English pounds, US dollars? No, Egyptian pounds.

We lose if we give it for this price. But I want to help you. Not 160 and not 60. OK ?

What about 145 ? What about... what about 90 ? What about 143 ?

What about...91 ? Oh...! 140, OK ? 100.

135. 100. I'm sorry. 100...110.

130. 130 ? Yes. 125.

Good luck! Make a deal. Deal ? All right, my friend.

Well, I've learned to hold my own.

I had beaten them up to less than five times my starting price!

Later I heard that they sold their business that same week and went into retirement.

Thanks, fellas. See you! Goodbye. Have a nice time. You're welcome. Goodbye, my friend.

Having stashed my galabiyah at the camel garage, I headed for my last appointment.

Omar Sharif's agent had told me that this time he would definitely be there

at his favourite secret restaurant beside the Nile, best reachable by ferry. He said not to tell anyone.

It looked as if there was no-one left to tell.

LOUD POP MUSIC

Once on board, the Cairenes were soon drumming up their usual good time out of next to nothing.

They did it with a surplus of enthusiasm and a total absence of violence.

A group of young British football supporters would have reduced the boat to matchwood in minutes.

But all the Cairenes did was to spontaneously combine in a belly-dancing competition.

Some of the best young male belly dancers vibrated with an abandon

that left Fifi Abdou looking low on batteries.

But the word must have got out that the infidel happened to be

one of the great belly dancers of the western world. I was reluctant to humiliate them.

But belly dancing is one of those talents it's death to hide.

Hiding it becomes impossible, so you might as well flaunt it.

One man who never needed to flaunt it, but has certainly got it, was the man I'd tried to pin down -

film star, bridge player, the most famous Egyptian since Tutankamun,

the Nemesis from the Oasis himself, Omar Sharif.

Does the man in the street envy you your international life? No. You know, they identify with me.

In other words, all these leading ladies I've held in my arms, THEY held in their arms.

They... On screen, I'm saying! They feel very proud, as if it happened to them.

Would a young person starting off now, to do what you've done, stand a chance?

I think the young generation have a much harder time than we had, or the intermediate generation had.

It's very tough to be a young person today. Some of those young people are really worrying, in a sense.

Is that where fundamentalism is coming from, from frustration? Um...I don't believe that Egyptians

are in danger of fundamentalism, really, because I know these people. I can't imagine them being...

I think there are probably... I don't know, maybe 5,000 people.

All this is about 5,000 people who are very poor - despair has something to do with it -

and who are being paid to do that. This is not something from within the country,

it's something that's happening from outside the country towards the inside, I'm pretty certain.

You mean, the more extreme Arab states? Yes. Because Egypt is...

If Egypt goes fundamentalist, that's the end of the Middle East. A big victory for fundamentalists.

How about the increased number of women taking the veil, is that part of it? Well, it's economical also.

I daren't pronounce myself on that. These are very treacherous grounds for me to tread but, you know,

I find that in our business, the theatre business, a lot of actresses are starting to wear the veil.

Except that they're usually... over 45, you know, they're getting a little bit fat,

they're a little past their... let's say their star prime,

and so it's a good time to start covering up all this.

It's treacherous! Some people are really religious, also! You sound like a dominant Arab male.

No! No, no, no, not at all ! You know that the Arab females are the strongest,

and they are the ones who are most...have most influence of any women I met in the world.

All the males, the Arab males, are completely dominated by their women, completely, I can assure you!

They have a way of doing it in an underhand manner that people don't realise they are.

They're very strong! I know. My wife was my boss when I was married.

It gets to you, this place. Anything beautiful's got dust on it, but the dust is beautiful.

It's wonderful, it's slow, it's a kind of life that...

the kind of rhythm that is disappearing slowly,

and you only find it in this part of the world. Even this river inspires you with slowness.

It's not a fast river. It's slow. It's kind of eternal, and it makes you want to take your time.

You sit for a long time before you do something active. I left Omar to be lynched

by older Egyptian actresses. It was time to say my goodbyes to Cairo.

In the City of the Dead, more than a million people live among the tombs.

Most of the people in Egypt are in Cairo, and too many of the people in Cairo live in the cemetery.

But in Rio de Janeiro they'd be living on garbage tips, in New York they'd be panhandling,

in London and Tokyo they'd be sleeping in cardboard boxes.

Few Cairenes believe fundamentalism knows how to make things better, so they take what comes.

People have always lived among the tombs.

Around here, 1,000 years is just the time it takes for the sand in an hour-glass to swap ends.

Yes, there are moments when at least one jaded westerner longs for the purity of the desert.

So he dons his flowing robes, springs to his ivory saddle,

and speaks to his camel in a secret language, saying,

"Take me to my destiny in the everlasting sands, for it is written."

And the camel says, "I will take you to the airport, for it is getting late."