By Neil Sutherland* The best way for a tourist to learn the general thoughts and opinions of a country, is probably from taxi drivers, who are as conversant with a broad section of the population about a diverse number of topics, as barbers or hairdressers, but also come from a wider range of social classes, and are freer to voice their personal opinions. Taxi drivers in Egypt can be said to have a few idiosyncratic habits. One (as do restaurants) is to say “Khali” (keep your money). Another (as do government tourist attractions) is to charge locals and foreigners different rates. The tradition is for the seller/host to refuse your money three times, and the buyer/guest to insist on paying three times. Problems arise when foreigners take the offer of “keep your money” seriously, and walk away without paying. Really, the shop-owner usually acts like they don’t know what to say. How can they tell the tourist that it’s a tradition, and that they ‘didn’t mean’ what they said? In one case, the local taxi fare was increasing at an exponential rate, from a long tradition of two Egyptian pounds…
