Hawkers in Egypt are pretty tough to shake off. It is not like other countries, where you can say 'no' or put your hand up in a stop gesture and they move away. In Egypt, they get right in front of you, block your path, grab you, and generally give you such a hard time, you can't escape.
When we were round the Pyramids, a 'sales person' came up and started trying really hard to sell a plastic pyramid. I shook my head and kept walking, then put up a hand and said 'No' once again moving round the seller. He then tried to get some interest from Ian, who also stepped round him. The seller was rabbering on in broken English and had changed the price about 15 times.
All our polite Kiwi actions were having no success and I was feeling quite intimidated and a little trapped. Suddenly, I channeled my inner French person, figuring that the hawker had been harrassing us for long enough and because it was all in English, I thought possibly he didn't speak French..I burst out with an angry "Collants ne sont pas pantalons" and a flat hand 'stop' gesture, to which the hawker, a little startled, completely melted away. French people clearly kick arse (and blow up boats in other peoples harbours) but it worked and I was happy.
Ian caught up with my furious French stomping and asked in a rather bemused way 'what was that?' to which I replied " its the only French I know and it means.......... tights are not pants" (because that makes sense????) He's use to me, he just nodded and moved on........probably also really happy they had backed off!
Thanks Jan for the translation- and reader, you are going to have to go back through this blog to find the time last year in Europe, where 'tights are not pants' was used to ward off scammers.
I love a universal statement! Just never thought it would relate to a rather bad fashion statement!
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