For Arab tourists, Cairo can be sin city
Worried by violence in popular Lebanon, Arab tourists are heading to Egypt instead, and causing waves as they ignore Islamic customs adhered to at home.
from the July 12, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 4
Prostitution an issue
The expansive garden area in the Marriott Hotel in Cairo's Zamalek neighborhood is a popular hangout for visiting Arabs. It's also know to be a place where many come looking for prostitution.
On the night this reporter visited, two women wearing heavy makeup and enveloping black robes sat at a table. A man wearing the dishdasheh robe, typical in Gulf countries, and a baseball cap walked by and dropped a piece of paper on the women's table.
What it said only the women know. But it's a common tactic to write down a room number and a dollar amount and discreetly toss the slip in the vicinity of a subtly apparent prostitute.
Mr. Shariff says that because Egypt is just a short trip from Saudi Arabia, it's an easy spot for vacation. "I like to visit the tourist places and visit the cafes here, and it has an Arab flavor … we like to come and join these parties that have Arab singers," he says.
As Shariff spoke to this reporter in the Marriott garden, a waiter approached and said he and a foreign journalist could not conduct an interview there.
"Don't worry. I'm not telling them about the hashish and [a drug called] bangao and Leil [nightclub]," he laughs, and waves him away.
Leil is a particularly famous club on Cairo's Pyramids Street, an area well known among Arab tourists for the good times to be had.
The Arab tourists "increase every year because we are very loving to them and we give them very good service and high quality. So they prefer to come here," says club manager Sami Nasherti, crowing that Leil is the only club to have received five stars from Egypt's Tourism Ministry. Leil provides "everything they like," he adds. "They eat and drink and see the belly dancers."
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