I went to the Aswan Souk for a simple galabeya. The market had other ideas.

It began, as these things often do, with an innocent plan.

I had boarded my Nile cruise with every intention of participating in the ship’s Galabeya Night, a time-honored tradition where tourists don flowy robes, dance awkwardly to Nubian drum beats, and pretend to be part of an ancient civilization while sipping cocktails with little umbrellas.

Most people sensibly purchase their costumes from the ship’s boutique—clean, pressed, and conveniently overpriced.

But no. That would be too easy.

Instead, I had the brilliant idea to head into the Aswan Souk, a tangle of fabric stalls, spice merchants, and watchful traders whose salesmanship is not just a skill but a high-stakes performance art.

Here, the vendors do not simply sell you things. They convince you, enchant you, and, on occasion, rearrange your appearance with an efficiency that suggests fate, not choice.

I had set out with the singular purpose of finding a simple galabeya. Light cotton, maybe a modest embroidery, something to blend in with the ship crowd.

But, of course, the souk had other ideas.

Galabeya Night

The Encounter: One Seller, One Tourist, and a Fabric Takeover

The moment I stepped into the tiny clothing stall, a man in a perfectly pressed blue galabeya and the confident smile of a seasoned negotiator sensed opportunity.

He had locked onto his next project, and I was about to be redesigned.

"Madame! You don’t want that one," he said, waving away my hand as I reached for a neatly folded galabeya.

"This one is too simple! Too boring! You need something worthy of an Egyptian queen...like Nefertiti"

Before I could so much as murmur a half-hearted protest, things escalated rapidly.

First came the shawl—a deep blue scarf elegantly draped around my shoulders. Then a loose, flowing tunic, far from the galabeya I had planned, was pulled over my head with the efficiency of a tailor fitting a mannequin. 

Within seconds, I had been transformed from a Nile cruise passenger into a market-goer’s idea of a sophisticated local woman.

The seller stepped back to admire his work, arms crossed, grinning with unmistakable pride.

"There!" he declared. "Now you are Egyptian!"

I examined myself in the dusty mirror propped against a stack of robes.

I did not look Egyptian. I looked like someone who had been hastily wrapped in a desert survival kit, but the enthusiasm in his eyes was so infectious that I found myself nodding along as if this had been my plan all along.

The Art of the Sale: When You Lose, You Win

Now, any sensible tourist would recognize this as a classic souq maneuver—one of those well-rehearsed performances where you are both audience and participant, trapped in an elaborate sales pitch disguised as hospitality.

But here’s the thing. By this point, I was having too much fun to stop it.

The shopkeeper, now radiating victory, launched into an enthusiastic sales pitch that I’m fairly certain included the phrase "royal Pharaonic linen, crafted using ancient techniques lost to time," despite the tag that said "Made in China."

I haggled, as one does, poorly—an experience that resembled trying to negotiate with a man who had already decided what you were going to pay before you walked in.

He gasped in mock horror at my first offer, clutching his chest as if I had personally set him on a path toward financial ruin, before swiftly countering with a number that was only slightly below the cost of a private felucca with a five-star dinner

He assumed I was a first timer to Egypt.

He didn’t know that I had been coming to Egypt countless times, led tour groups through its temples, negotiated with its officials, unraveled the logistics of travel in a place where time and schedules were more of a suggestion than a rule.

I knew the Nile like an old friend—its rhythms, its tricks, its people.

I had arranged trips for others, stood at the helm of carefully designed itineraries, steered wide-eyed travelers through the pandemonium of Cairo’s streets, the dust-blown edges of the Western Desert, the cool stone corridors of Karnak.

Years of navigating Egypt’s chaos had made me confident. The souk, however, didn’t care.

Here, experience did not grant immunity. Choices were more illusion than reality.

Back and forth we went, a dance as old as the pyramids, until we settled on a price that left us both feeling as though we had won and lost at the same time—which, I suspect, is precisely how it is meant to be.

The Walk of Victory (Or Defeat?)

I stepped out of the souk, now the proud owner of a garment I had never intended to buy, looking somewhat bewildered yet strangely triumphant.

Somewhere in the back of the shop, I imagine the seller toasting himself with sweet hibiscus tea, having successfully dressed another clueless tourist.

I never did wear that outfit to Galabeya Night.

Years later, that piece of cloth still sits in my wardrobe, carrying the scent of spice markets and the memory of a perfectly executed sales pitch.

But more than that, it reminds me why I keep coming back—because Egypt is never just a place you visit. It’s a place that happens to you, whether you planned it or not.

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Janne Salo has a background in the travel trade and has been designing and coordinating special interest tours to Egypt since 1996. www.jestraveldesigns.com