Monkeys on Wires

[Kep, 1/6/25]

I am not a sightseer. In Giza, I had a great time until I made that perfunctory visit to the pyramids. There, I was scammed by a guard who showed me a “secret tomb.” Had I refused to tip him generously, nothing would have happened, probably, but the dude did perform an elaborate skit. Pointing to a gap in the stone, he cracked, “Ancient air conditioning.” Before the shake down, he served me tea in his tent and talked about his family. There was another guy who kept following me on his camel. A third gave me a worthless hat, “a gift, my friend,” then looked heartbroken until he was paid. Though the sphinx was smaller than expected, I’m glad I saw it.

In Pakse, Laos, I was drugged and robbed by an Indian pretending to be a Turk. When another super friendly Indian approached me in Phnom Penh, “You look like a professor!” I did manage to walk away. My stupidity does have limits.

The most horrific travel story has to be Paul Bowles’ “A Distant Episode.” After a decade, a linguist returned to a Moroccan town. Though he had spent just three days there, he had managed to “establish a fairly firm friendship with a café-keeper.” Arriving at the same hotel, this white man showed he knew his way around:

As they drove through the town gate, the usual swarm of urchins rose up out of the dust and ran screaming beside the bus. The Professor folded his dark glasses, put them in his pocket; and as soon as the vehicle had come to a standstill he jumped out, pushing his way through the indignant boys who clutched at his luggage in vain, and walked quickly into the Grand Hotel Saharien.

He was similarly assured at his familiar café:

After dinner the Professor walked slowly through the streets to Hassan Ramani’s café, whose back room hung hazardously out above the river. The entrance was very low, and he had to bend down slightly to get in. A man was tending the fire. There was one guest sipping tea. The qaouaji tried to make him take a seat at the other table in the front room, but the Professor walked airily ahead into the back room and sat down […]

“Does this café still belong to Hassan Ramani?” he asked him in the Moghrebi he had taken four years to learn.