Cairo, No Problem
In Cairo, it is rare to see a driver with both hands on the steering wheel.
If they are not on the phone, they are sending messages. If not texting, they are smoking, or resting one arm lazily out the window. Some gesture wildly while talking about striking gold and getting rich, letting the wheel guide itself forward.
Paul Theroux once wrote that if a place has no jaywalkers, it probably has no artists. I have yet to visit Delhi or Mumbai, but I suspect few cities can match Cairo in this abundance of fearless improvisers.
Drivers and pedestrians in Cairo share a silent understanding. Traffic lights are suggestions. Lanes and distance are flexible. Passenger limits are optional. Tires may be half flat. The rules of modern, so-called civilised traffic barely apply. And yet life continues. Cars move smoothly. No one seems surprised.
Mo, the best taxi driver in Egypt, drives in a way that feels almost un-Egyptian. He does not like the word “rule.” In Egypt, there are no strict codes, only a guiding belief: “my friend, no problem.” Cutting in, no problem. Crossing a highway on foot, no problem. Reversing on a main road, no problem. Because we are family.
By the time the Nile reaches Cairo, it no longer feels wide and gentle as it does upstream. It carries a sense of urgency, as if eager to reach the sea. Walking between the pyramids and modern apartment blocks, I felt as though I were inside a spacecraft, moving between past and present without needing to compare them.
What draws me most is this city in decay, still alive with people who persist — stubborn, inventive, unbothered by rules, carrying on regardless.
在开罗，两只手都放在方向盘上的司机很少见。
它们若不在接电话、发信息，就在抽烟或者懒洋洋地搭窗上，更有甚者聊天时手舞足蹈，一边说起挖宝藏发家致富，一边任由方向盘自个儿主导前行。
保罗索鲁写过「要是某个地方没有乱穿马路的人，那八成说明此地没有艺术家」。想必没有一座城市像开罗（在我踏足德里和孟买前），艺术家含量之高，令人胆颤。
开罗的司机和行人，都有一种心照不宣的绝顶默契，无视红绿灯，无视车道与车距，无视限载人数，无视车胎气压过低，无视所有现代的、所谓文明的交通秩序，但日子照样过，小车依旧跑得溜。
全埃及最棒的的士司机Mo，驾驶风格很不埃及。他不喜欢「rule」这个词。在埃及人心中，没有什么规范，遵循的至高信条是「my friend, no problem」加塞no problem，横穿高速no problem，主干道倒车no problem，因为我们是一家人。
尼罗河流到开罗，不再如上游广阔温柔，倒有一种想赶快入海为安的气质。走过金字塔和现代埃及，我感觉自己好像在一架宇宙飞船里，在过去和现在间来回穿梭，但完全不用作出比较或评判。吸引我的是这朽败的城市里，仍旧生生不息、顽强、无视规则的群体。