Nader Habib experienced déjà vu on arriving in the charming coastal cityof Port Said Some of my happiest memories of childhood are in Port Said, a city that I somehow neglected to visit for nearly 14 years. So finally I make plans to spend a weekend there with my family. We set out from Cairo at 10am on a breezy and cool day and arrived at our halfway point, Ismailia, an hour and a half later. Another hour and a bit later, the miniature of the Suez Canal Company greeted us at the gates of Port Said, and suddenly, I discovered that I don't know the way. All I remember from years back was a cafeteria my grandfather and I used to sit at as soon as we arrived. The other thing I recall was having to line up for nearly an hour to leave the city, as you had to go through an interminable customs arrangement back then. I stopped several times to ask for directions to the hotel friends kindly recommended and surprisingly got there in just under 10 minutes. As I pulled into the hotel's parking lot, the talkative parking attendant asked me if I wanted to stay in the hotel. I assured him that this was precisely my intention. "Why don't you take a look at the rooms first? The hotel is undergoing renovation," the attendant says helpfully. He also advises me to tell the receptionist that I am a friend of his, so as to get the special treatment. As it turns out, the receptionist gives me a huge chalet, although all I want is a regular room. The VIP treatment isn't just because of my close ties with the parking attendant, but because I am the hotel's only guest, as it turns out. With the mid-term vacations just over, everyone has left town. The receptionist tells me to wait till my room is ready. So I ask him for a map of the city. This generates giggles all round, with hotel staff exchanging meaningful looks. What have I done wrong? No, they reassure me. "It is just that we're not used to Egyptians wanting maps; usually only the foreigners do." We put our luggage in the chalet and decide to go exploring on foot. Perhaps a mistake, as it turns out, for my wife takes an intense interest in the shops lining the promenade and their displays of imported garments from England, India, Spain and France. Being the only customer, she gets special service too. I recall the days when these shops were filled with customers elbowing each other, back in the heyday of import restrictions. Two hours later, my wife deigns to come with me to the cafeteria of my younger days. So, we head to Al-Gomhuriya Street, walking amid houses with colonial designs and shaded colonnades. Suddenly, it is there. The Gianola, the coffeehouse in which I used to sit with my grandfather until the rest of the family finished shopping, which meant an unlimited supply of drinks and pastries for my younger self, is right around the corner, under the colonnades. It looks different, I explain to my wife, who doesn't know what the excitement is all about. It is more modern than I remember it to be. The last time I was here I was just a teenager with a head of fluffy hair. Now I am a balding married man, with a child slung over my shoulder. A waiter notices my excitement and offers to show me the elegant top floor the establishment has just added. Two hours later, we decided to explore the Arab Quarter. Like most colonial cities, and this is one par excellence, Port Said has two main quarters, one for the Europeans and one for the natives. The café of my childhood is in what used to be the European Quarter, which is closer to the canal. The folksy part of town is in the Arab Quarter, which has closer access to the nearby lake. As we walk, I notice how the city is still changing. Many of the wooden buildings have been replaced with cement structures with no particular design. And many more stand almost derelict, waiting for the demolition ball and the subsequent windfall on land sale. Its once shabby elegance is now merely shabby. Older city inhabitants tell me how these houses survived, though gutted by the shelling of 1956. Some of them had to access their homes via makeshift rope ladders during the Sinai campaigns of the last century. However, the Arab Quarter retains all the charm of Ataba or Moski in Cairo. Small shops huddle for space behind street peddlers hawking mostly Chinese wares. It is 8pm now and quite chilly. A crowd has gathered around a man cooking a type of food unfamiliar to me. It is a dough cut into cubes and fried in clarified butter, or samna. "This is Samnia," Abu Yasser, the vendor, answers my question. "It will keep you warm." It does. At a million calories a butter-dripping bite, it certainly does. Abbas, the chocolate vendor, tries to sell me the best "Belgian" chocolate, which is actually made in China. Saber, the T-shirt maker, wants to show me his latest designs. A candy floss merchant hovers around hopefully as I buy popcorn at a stall that looks like a four-by-four vehicle. Tomorrow, we'll take it easy, I promise myself as we stumble back, exhausted, into our fancy bungalow. ï Port Said, 224km northeast of Cairo, is one of Egypt's busiest ports. Founded in 1859 at the northern tip of the Suez Canal, the city is made up of two quarters, one that was inhabited mostly by Europeans or well- off Egyptians, and the other for locals. ï The European Quarter stretches across the few streets just west of the canal, also known as Barr Al-Ingliz and Barr Al-Raswa. It also includes an east bank section once known as Al-Barr Al-Sharqi or Port Fouad, which is where most of the workshops used to be. ï The Arab Quarter, in the far west, was traditionally dissected into smaller neighbourhoods, or haras, in line with mediaeval urban planning. From their quarter, the natives had easy access to Al-Manzala Lake and Damietta.
