Alexandria, Egypt: Leave the Bikini at Home!

Alexandria, Egypt is often referred to as the "Pearl of the Mediterranean." Alexandria was a real hotspot for Cleopatra and Marc Anthony back in the day. And Alexander the Great had his share of fun within the city walls after conquering it as well. I'm sure a lot of tourists find it intriguing what with its deep-rooted history. But if you're from Western Europe maybe it can be a bit jarring. At least it was for me. Only about 225 kilometers from Cairo (and about 4 hours by bus), it might as well have been in another country altogether as far as I was concerned.

After a fun-filled cruise along the Nile, and with still a few days left in our itinerary, my wife and I took the advice of our travel agent/guide and booked a quick jaunt to nearby Alexandria. "You'll love it there!" exclaimed our agent Hasim.

I noticed right off the bat that in terms of the local culture, my wife and I were definitely (as an old friend of mine used to say) "Deep into it." Our hotel in Alessandria may have been 5 stars but that's 5 stars based on the local area. Cairo may have welcomed foreigners (and their money) with open arms. But here I felt like I was being watched.

But like I said, after the pomp and circumstance of the Pyramids, a few days in Alexandria would be like an after-dinner mint. In short order we checked in, grabbed a bite to eat and hit the sack.

The next morning my wife and I decided to go to the beach. I told my wife I would go first so I could scout things out. You know the drill: find a nice place right near the water, get set up in advance. My wife thought this was great. "You go and I'll be down shortly and just wait until you see the surprise I have for you!" Cool! I like surprises. So off I went. Now, you need to picture this: the path from the hotel to the beach cut through some sand dunes. You walk up and over a small dune and you're hit by an awesome view of the coastline.

The evening of our arrival the beach was empty save for a few seagulls and the sunset was spectacular. That morning I paused on top of the dune, gazed out at the sandy expanse before me and saw... a whole lot of women dressed from head to toe. Well, from head to ankle, and dipping their toes in the water. Seated behind these women were their husbands - also completely dressed. Ridiculously so in my opinion because they're all wearing ugly black suits and ties and white shirts while reading newspapers and smoking cigars or cigarettes. My internal alarm system started to ring. This was not my idea of a beach. Saint Tropez is more my style. Ibiza is more my style. Places where there is a lot of sun and even more skin and nobody cares. I casually walked down to the shoreline while taking this all in. As I was wearing beach pants and a t-shirt no one gave me much notice.

Just as I'm thinking to myself "This is not good" I hear my wife merrily calling out "Ready or not here I come....!" She coasted over the sand dune like a 4-wheel drive topping a hill in Bahia, California and that's when I noticed my wife was wearing the tiniest of tiny bikinis. Her surprise to me was a swim suit the size of two band-aides held together by a piece of thread. And in that moment, I kid you not, EVERYTHING stopped: the waves froze, birds flying over head just dropped dead out of the sky. Somewhere a record needle lost its place on vinyl and scratched itself a new groove. All these veiled women started yelling in that weird, shrill, tongue-flapping scream so typical of Middle Eastern countries, while their husbands threw down their newspapers and covered up the eyes of their small children. It got REAL quiet. My wife was oblivious to all this. "How do I look?" she asked. I threw a towel over her, spun her around and got out of there as quickly as possible. How the heck she even got from the hotel to the beach is beyond me. But I guess she still had her beach robe on. I'm trying to explain to my wife how she oh-so-innocently overstepped social etiquette. "But I want to go to the beach!" she screamed. "Not like THAT you're not!" was the only reply I could muster.

No sooner than we got back to our room than we I had a phone call from the front desk. Sure enough we had offended many of the guests and were being asked to kindly leave the hotel. We're talking late 1980's and western culture was no where near a prevalent as it is now. So this blatant display of skin (which, by the way, I really enjoyed just not THERE) was in total disregard to the local culture. Checking out was no problem as long as I got a refund. Which, after a phone call to my buddy Hasim, was brokered in no time.

Several hours later we were back in Cairo at the Hilton: me scratching my head over what had transpired and my wife eye-balling her new bikini and wondering if maybe it was the wrong color.

I'm pretty sure if there's a "next" trip to Alexandria we'll skip the beach and stay inland!