By Gus Browning, printed in 73 Magazines in 1965-12 reprint by PA0ABM Gus Browning story, Part 08 Greece and Egypt. In the last chapter I was in Athens, Greece staying with SV1AB, George. We talked about the possibilities of a trip to Mount Athos. Socrates SV1AE was also interested in a trip there and both of them and a number of other hams had tried but permission was never given to anyone, nor was anyone even encouraged to keep trying. First, there is problem No. 1— getting permission from the Greek government, and problem No, 2— getting permission from the high church officials in Mount Athos. Getting permission from either, even to this day, seems absolutely impossible. The same goes with the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta in Rome. This has been tried, I understand, by a number of people, and so far it's still there awaiting the right one to get the right key to open it to the DX World as virgin DX territory. I would give my right eyeballl to be the fellow who operates from these two spots, the only two spots in the whole world still left for a W1FH to work. T felt, as I departed from Athens, that I had known George a long time. He is a very sincere fellow, and of course I hope some day to visit him and Socrates again and get to know both of them better. The trip to Beirut, Lebanon was uneventful. No customs trouble at all there, since I was having my radio equipment shipped to Nairobi by I1AB of Milan, I was met at the airport in Beirut by Rundy and Fred-- 0D5CT and 0D5AF, Rundy took me to his very elegant air-conditioned apartment and was introduced to his refrigerator with all those Cokes in it. Rundy's wife is from North Carolina, and boy I sure had some very fine southern cooking while there! I even operated 0D5CT a number of times. I was getting the "feel" of DX now the ''W" boys were not loud like they were In Europe, The old bands were changing and so were the local QRM stations heard. The population of Beirut seemed to be about three fourths Arabic and the rest Western. Hotels can be had for any price that you want to pay. Beirut is a sort of free port, so things can be bought there a lot more reasonably than any other place in that area except Aden. For a ham, Beirut seems to me to be a very good spot, AH Africa is south of them Europe is not too far away for good QSO's all day long. The Middle East is their next door neighbor Asia proper is not too far away either. And of course the ..WK.. stations with their KW's and beams can be worked easily, I suppose their hard-towork area is the Pacific Islands, But, all considered 0D5 land seems to be situated in a good spot, although living there is very expensive, Rundy told me. This is true especially if you want to buy USA products. I understand if you are a good ''trader" that it's quite easy to make good money in Beirut. Everyone there looked quite prosperous, and business was like a beehive in every place that I visited. Even at the bazaars business was rushing like mad all day long and well into the night. After about 4 or 5 days there staying with Rundy we departed for Cairo, Egypt. The flight we went on arrived at about 10 o'clock at the Cairo Airport. When you get over Egypt you will know it by the desert down below you as far as the eye can see— it's one big mass of yellow sand from horizon to horizon. Then the plane landed and the door was opened; we knew we were in Egypt by the hot air. The airport at Cairo is out on the desert and the approach is sand in all directions. Rundy came with me to Cairo, to stay a few days for business. He insisted that I stay with him at the Nile Hilton, a real fancy hotel with real fancy prices; the whole thing is air-conditioned and there is no suffering there on account of the heat, as long as you are inside the hotel. We went out to some of those Egyptian cafes and had some of the oddest food I had ever eaten. Then one night we went to one of the night clubs. That was the thing! Arabic music, singing, and real "Belly dancing." After about 3 days or so, Rundy had to return to Beirut. After he departed I decided it was time to hunt up the fellow that Mahmud -SU1MS-had written that Arabic note to. I could not stand that rate staying at the Nile Hilton so I made a phone call to the number that Mahmud had written. Immediately Mahmud's friend, Mohammed Atef, was around to the hotel to see me. He had a chauffeur driven red Chevrolet convertible and the top was down. He insisted that I come around and stay with him (this was what I wanted all along). Mohammed owned a nice apartment building, I guess about 6 or 7 stories high. On top of the building was a penthouse consisting of three rooms. He went in with me and said, "Gus, this is yours as long as you stay in Cairo." Out of the bedroom window I could see the Pyramids of Giza in the distance, all three of them. I said to myself, "This is it." He told me if I wanted anything just to pull the tassel that was at the head of my bed. He departed and told me to lie down and take a rest. Immediately after he left I decided to try out that tassel, I pulled it and in a few moments a young servant appeared and said, "Yes, master?" I said, "Get me a cold Coca Cola." He bowed and departed and in about 5 minutes was back with a good cold one. Now this was living! About 12:30 my lunch was brought up to me by the same little servant. This boy was about 12 years old and, T understand, was one of the children from a farm family. After lunch I decided to try the tassel pull business again. When the servant said "Yes, master," I said, "Bring me a good cold Pepsi Cola"— pronto, it was on hand. I said, Gus, you are a lucky dog all this service, plenty of cold drinks, 3 private rooms, and a car left at your disposal also. Walking around Cairo, I saw lots of those veiled ladies and I was warned not to attempt to take a picture of them or my camera might get smashed and maybe I might even get smashed. I went to a number of those big mosques in Cairo. You see people praying on their prayer rugs, all facing the east— Mecca. This takes place 5 times each day, early in the morning, again about 10, then about 12 noon, again about 3, and again about 6. These mosques have gone modern with a bang— everyone of them seem to have a big P. A. system where the head man calls the people to prayer with his mournful singsong. To me it sounded very sad. The first morning at Atefs I went downstairs to the chauffeur and told him I wanted to go to the pyramids. Off we went. The pyramids of Giza (those are the 3 big ones, that you always see in movies) are about 15 miles away, a good road all the way. When I first arrived at their base I was impressed with their tremendous size, and then I looked at those large stones that they are made of and when I thought that they were made a few thousand years ago, I really wondered how they ever did this without any modem machinery—all done with just the simplest tools. It does look almost impossible, but there they are, I had a few meals with Mohammed in his apartment below he was living with his mother and family there. But one odd thing: I never did see any females there. It seems they are kept separate from the males. You soon get used to the fact that when you go to someone's home, you don't expect to see their wife or any of their sisters nothing but their father and brothers. This is their way of life. One night someone knocked on my door and when I opened it, there stood one of the prettiest young ladies I have ever seen. She was about 14 years old and a picture of real beauty, with the typical Egyptian face. I said .."Come in". She introduced herself as Atef's sister. I said, ."Where is your veil"' She said, ..I am a modern Egyptian and will never wear one of those old-fashioned veils." When I returned to Cairo 3 years later, I noticed there were a lot less veils on the ladies. This young lady spoke very good English and we had a long talk. She wanted to know all about America, and I told her what I could. To this day, I don't think Atef knows that his sister visited me when I was there. While in Cairo I met SU1IC — Abrihim Charmy, a very nice fellow who is not on the air anymore. It seems that he received a notice from the licensing authorities to bring in his license. It was cancelled on the spot with no explanation whatsoever. They also came to his home and cut all the cables between his power pack and rig and it was all sealed up with sealing wax and an official seal placed on it, I asked him why. He said he had no idea why this was done, I guess in this sort of dictatorial country, they don't have to explain anything to you. When it's done, it's done— Amen I You fellows in real free countries don't know how lucky you are. In lots of countries they don't have to explain anything to anyone. If you do too much complaining you might even end up in prison. You just keep your mouth shut and take what they dish out. Boy, how lucky we Americans are— and many people don't know it. We take everything for granted and seldom think of how things are in the rest of the world. After staying in my little penthouse in Cairo for 14 days, time arrived for me to depart for Nairobi. Atef was very disappointed that I had to leave, lie invited me to return and spend a few months with him upon my return trip. I can truthfully say my stay in Egypt was most enjoyable. I really was "living" there: plenty of good food, auto trips, private rooms, and ALL FREE! What else could I have had? The first place the plane stopped on the way to Nairobi was Khartoum, in the Sudan. I wanted to stay there for 3 or 4 days to take some pictures. The plane landed about 10 at night, and brother, when they opened the door, the hot-air blast scorched me. It was HOT and how! You know me; the way I travel is— never make any reservations at any time. Well, this is one time I should have made advance hotel reservations for an air-conditioned room I Since I had not, I ended up hunting all over Khartoum for one; none could be found so I had to accept a regular hotel room, one with two of those large, slow-turning ceiling fans in it. I took a shower, had dinner, took a shower, wrote some in my diary, took a shower, read a newspaper and took a shower, and without bothering to put on any clothes at all, lay down on just the bed sheets, both ceiling fans in high gear, and tried my very best to go to sleep. Sweat poured off me like a dog, I just lay there sweating it out until about 2:30, when it finally cooled down to about 100 degrees and I went to sleep. I was up at 7 the next day, and it was already hot I could not see anything at all in Khartoum to take any pictures of; there just was not anything that looked interesting enough for me to use my film on. My plans were to stay there for 3 or 4 days, but with the weather so doggoned hot and nothing of interest to look at or visit, I decided Khartoum was not for me. Immediately I departed from there for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Between Khartoum and Addis Ababa I saw some of the roughest country I have ever seen anywhere plenty of big mountains and lakes. At one place during this flight I saw three lakes, each one a different color. one was blue, one green and one yellow. I took a color picture of this from the air, and as usual it did not turn out so good. The airport at Addis Ababa was practically brand new, very beautiful and large. I spent one night in Addis Ababa, walking and taking a few pictures around the Palace and a few street scenes. The weather there was very nice, the elevation being something over 1 mile. Away I went on to Nairobi, Kenya— lion country I call it. The first night there I spent in a downtown hotel. I called up Leny VQ4AQ (now 5Z4CT) and he came by and took me to his home where I met his niece XYL Lillette and his daughter Gertie. We had a wonderful eye-ball QSO. I operated VQ4GT for a number of QSO's. George VQ4AQ and Robbie VQ4ERR came out to visit us and a very fine time was had by all After spending one night with Leny, I found out that I had slept in Gertie's room and she had slept on the couch in the living room. I decided that I did not want to impose on them, and after talking to George, I was invited to come and stay at his house a few nights while we were QRX for the W0 boys to show up from Kansas City, I found that George was a real down-to-earth fellow and would do anything for a fellow ham; the same went for his FB XYL, They really made me feel welcome in their home. George drove me all around Nairobi, even a few trips out to the Game preserve that is just outside the city limits of Nairobi. There were plenty of lions, elephants, rhinos, zebras and antelopes roaming around. They would even walk up to the car to look us over. Of course up went the windows when they approached! The Kansas City boys arrived a few days after I did. Lee W0AIW stayed with Robbie, and the others (Mike W0MAF, and Mac W0UQV) stayed at a downtown hotel Now, these fellows really came prepared for a DXpedition with nearly a ton of radio equipment, power plant, antennas, spare parts etc. My equipment that was supposed to have been air freighted to me from Milan by I1AB some 20 days before my arrival had never arrived, so I was lucky that Lee and the boys had brought plenty of gear with them. After spending a few days in Nairobi checking over everything and doing a little sightseeing it was time to depart for Mombassa. Away we went down to the railway station with all that radio gear. Lee and Mike shared one compartment and Mac and I the other. Those compartments were crammed to the brim with boxes, and I for one could understand why the ticket clerk said we had by far too much luggage to be taken "Free." We could hardly move around in our compartments. Upon arriving in Mombassa, we checked into a hotel Mombassa is right smack on the seacoast so you get the benefit of all the loss of altitude by the temperature rise. If you want to sleep when you are in Mombassa, you get an air-conditioned hotel room or you suffer. Mombassa is a typical seaport city, with all the big warehouses and docks. You see people there from all parts of the world. You see Arabian ships from Aden, Saudi Arabia, Muscat and the Persian Gulf ports. There are many Indian bazaar type of shops that sell everything under the sun. Then there are the native open air markets all over the town, selling many different things carvings, bamboo products, carved ivory objects. There is meat hanging up on hooks covered with flies, dried fish, fresh fish-boy what a smell! We were to board our ship for the Seychelles the next day. After lunch we all went up to our rooms and took a short nap in the nice cool air from the air-conditioner. After the nap, Mike decided to take a walk. He was back in about an hour and I asked him what he saw of interest while out looking around. He told me about seeing all those pretty wood carvings the natives were selling. This interested me and I went out to take a look-see. myself. Every place I slowed down, they jumped me trying to sell me something. At one place they started showing me their wares and just for the heck of it I started haggling over the prices. They would offer me something for. let's say 30 shillings, then I would say I will give you 3 shillings, then they would say how about 20 shillings. I would say, 5 is my top price and then they would say they cannot sell for less than 15 shillings as that was the cost price, I would then say my top price is 7 shillings. They would say that they were going to lose money but I could have it for 12 shillings. I would say no, no, no. Here's 10 shillings. I would have the money in my hand while saying this and if they hesitated I would start walking off. They would let me walk about 25 feet then would say OK, we will sell it to you, then would wrap up the item in a piece of newspaper and hand it to me. Well those carvings were beautiful, the prices were cheap (after haggling for a while), and I ended up with a good sized box of carvings before I got back to the hotel. I had spent a total of about $10,00. When I arrived back at the hotel with the box full of carvings, I dumped them on my bed, and when Mike saw them he asked me how much they cost. When I told hira $10 he said, "Gus, when we get back from the Seychelles, I want you to buy me a whole big batch of them at the same price yon paid for these." That little story will be told later on. We got up early the next morning and away to the docks and boarding the ship— The Kampala— a nice sized boat and spotless. After everything was placed in our cabin, we strolled around the boat and after a short while anchor was lifted, the big 77 cycle whistle was tooted, and away we were! Now remember this was the very first time in my entire life that I had ever been on a boat, except one little row boat in the Edisto River near Orangeburg, S.C., and the little 10 foot sail boat I used to sail around Lake Fairview when I lived down in Florida many years ago. To me every minute of the trip to the Seychelles was real adventure. Once or twice I felt the first signs of a little butterfly in my stomach- then I would say to myself, ."Look here, Gus, you just can t be seasick, you are here for a DXpedition. This is the one and only trip to the Seychelles you will ever have, you cannot afford to get sick now." Then I suppose I would talk myself out of getting seasick. This system has always seemed to work for me. After the ship was at sea, out of sight of land, we decided to see what the chances of a little /MM was. The ship was pretty fair sized, about long enough for a full wave 160 meter antenna and broad enough for at least a 1/2 wave 160 meter antenna. I knew that the antennas they used for their wireless would certainly be long enough for us to use. Lee had made this trip to the Seychelles before and had become acquainted with the wireless operator and had approached him previously regarding some /MM work. Up we went to the wireless room and after drinking a cup of tea and some talk it was decided that /MM was all OK. We brought up our gear, had to make up a makeshift antenna tuner to match the long wire antenna they had on the ship --good old Lee had brought along a little junk box full of condensers, coils etc. We were on the air as W0AIW/MM. All the world seemed to be QRX for us and we had a ball all the way over to the Seychelles operating /MM. I remember I was at the key when the Seychelles were first sighted— about 5 am— and I gave the boys a running account of its appearance to me. When you first see the island, Mahé, all you see is a mountain top sticking out of the sea, with a few hazy clouds floating above it. I guess a good description of Mahé is to just say it's a ridge of mountains about 33 miles long that sprung up out of the sea ages ago with beaches on each side of it. People live all over the island but it's more thickly settled around Port Victoria, the only port in the island. There are a number of much smaller islands around Mahé, The ship could not pull up to the docks on account of the shallow water so it anchored out in the bay about one mile from the landing docks and many of the small island boats met the ship. One of these took us ashore. I landed and walked right into their customs. They asked, "Do you have anything to declare," and I said, "No." They thanked me and I was at the Seychelles --VQ9 land. When you land at the Seychelles you notice that there seems to be lots more females on the island than there are males. Someone told me the population is something like 7 to 1, or maybe it's 9 to 1. Now this does make life there a little bit more interesting. Young men who are tired of a drab unromantic life in the USA (or any other country), you go to the Seychelles. I was once telling ole Bill W7PHO about things there and he said if he ever went there he would take a 5 gallon bottle of Geritol with him! Well, I told him that sounded like a very good idea. In case any of you are interested (as near as I can remember, at least) it costs about $80.00 for a one way trip, by boat from Mombassa, Kenya to the YL's- I mean Seychelles. But make your reservations early because there are a lot of VU2's going on a one way trip from Africa, so the boat is usually sold out well in advance. My second trip there I had to fly to Bombay and go there by the long path, because of this "hold out" business. There is a ship about once every month from Mombassa and from Bombay. Hotel rates are FB, it cost me $22.00 per week, room and board and any other service I wanted. More about this when I come to my second trip there a few years later. We were met at the docks by Anton Schwartz who runs a small exclusive sort of hotel on the island he had his station wagon and we loaded everything up. We met Harvey Brain, VQ9HB and gave his boat the once over-and Mike said "OH No" when he saw the boat, I said. "Well it looks good to me." I don't remember if Mac and Lee had anything to say— but I could see they were thinking! Upon arriving at Tony's place, the first thing was up with the antenna— a vertical in the very top of an 80 foot coconut tree. I cannot say that conditions were good or bad during our stay there, I suppose they were just average. I do know that four people are too many to operate ONE transmitter. My rig never had arrived from Milan, so we were stuck with ONE rig and had to make the best out of it. Next Issue-away for Agalega Island, Who got sea-sick, and lots more! Gus