Shooting the Nile | Taking some time to chill
CAIRO, EGYPT - 
Fishawy's Coffeehouse has been my #1 favorite chill-out spot in the entire country, and being here is something I'll never ever forget. Here's a couple highlights from a typical trip in.
Fishawy's: "One
of the finest ahwas, and certainly the most famous, Fishawi's is still a great place to watch an exotic world go by. Despite frequently being swamped by foreign tourists and equally wide-eyed out-of-town Egyptians, it is a regular ahwa, serving up shai, coffee, and sheesha to all-comers." - Lonely Planet: Egypt
Sheesha:
In a nutshell, the Arabic sheesha is a water pipe connected to tube where tobacco is passed through water before going into the person... or in plain English, a tobacco-bong. Although smoking a sheesha is equivalent to smoking 18 cigarrettes, it's still the quintessential thing for elderly/middle-aged Egyptian men to do in Cairo ahwas; burgers and Coca-Cola to the West is Turkish coffee and sheesha is the Middle Eastern.
Going into the nostrils, it's not as stuffy and smoky as the smell of normal nicotine. The maassel used in a sheesha is mostly flavoring -- "mixed with dried fruit, natural extracts and artificial flavorings to produce a varying assortment of tobacco flavors, such as apple, strawberry, mango, cappuccino, vanilla, coconut" (Wikipedia: Hookah). The aroma is simply amazing.
Ahwas: "The coffeehouse or ahwa (the Arabic word means both the coffee and the place in which it's drunk) is one of the great Egypt social institutions. Typically just a collection
of cheap tin-plate-topped tables and wooden chairs in a sawdust-strewnmroom open to the street, the ahwa is a relaxed and unfussy place where the average Joe, or Ahmed, will hang out for part of the day reading the papers, meeting friends, sipping tea and whiling away the hours. The hubbub of conversation is usually accompanied by the incessant clacking of slammed domina (dominoes) and towla (backgammon) pieces, and the burbling of smokers drawing heavily on their sheeshas, the cumbersome water pipes. Traditionally ahwa-going has been something of an all-male preserve, and older men at that, but in recent years sheesha smoking has become almost fashionable. It's now common to see young, mixed-sex groups of Egyptians in ahwas, especially in Cairo and Alexandria." (Lonely Planet: Egypt)
Ok, so that's about it. Ahwas like Fishawy's are definately the place to be here, and especially being located in Khan el-Khalili, it makes the entire experience that much more amazing.
Fishawy's Coffeehouse has been my #1 favorite chill-out spot in the entire country, and being here is something I'll never ever forget. Here's a couple highlights from a typical trip in.===
Fishawy's: "One
of the finest ahwas, and certainly the most famous, Fishawi's is still a great place to watch an exotic world go by. Despite frequently being swamped by foreign tourists and equally wide-eyed out-of-town Egyptians, it is a regular ahwa, serving up shai, coffee, and sheesha to all-comers." - Lonely Planet: EgyptSheesha:
In a nutshell, the Arabic sheesha is a water pipe connected to tube where tobacco is passed through water before going into the person... or in plain English, a tobacco-bong. Although smoking a sheesha is equivalent to smoking 18 cigarrettes, it's still the quintessential thing for elderly/middle-aged Egyptian men to do in Cairo ahwas; burgers and Coca-Cola to the West is Turkish coffee and sheesha is the Middle Eastern.Going into the nostrils, it's not as stuffy and smoky as the smell of normal nicotine. The maassel used in a sheesha is mostly flavoring -- "mixed with dried fruit, natural extracts and artificial flavorings to produce a varying assortment of tobacco flavors, such as apple, strawberry, mango, cappuccino, vanilla, coconut" (Wikipedia: Hookah). The aroma is simply amazing.
Ahwas: "The coffeehouse or ahwa (the Arabic word means both the coffee and the place in which it's drunk) is one of the great Egypt social institutions. Typically just a collection
of cheap tin-plate-topped tables and wooden chairs in a sawdust-strewnmroom open to the street, the ahwa is a relaxed and unfussy place where the average Joe, or Ahmed, will hang out for part of the day reading the papers, meeting friends, sipping tea and whiling away the hours. The hubbub of conversation is usually accompanied by the incessant clacking of slammed domina (dominoes) and towla (backgammon) pieces, and the burbling of smokers drawing heavily on their sheeshas, the cumbersome water pipes. Traditionally ahwa-going has been something of an all-male preserve, and older men at that, but in recent years sheesha smoking has become almost fashionable. It's now common to see young, mixed-sex groups of Egyptians in ahwas, especially in Cairo and Alexandria." (Lonely Planet: Egypt)===
Ok, so that's about it. Ahwas like Fishawy's are definately the place to be here, and especially being located in Khan el-Khalili, it makes the entire experience that much more amazing.
-cw, (or in Arabic, 
)
posted by Unknown at
10:20 PM
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