[caultron]

Interesting experience yesterday morning!

 We were entering the airport to leave Egypt after a Christmas/New Year break, and put the cases, bags, coats, keys, shoes, etc, on the baggage scanner belt and went through the body scanner, my wife first.
On the other side were a couple of officers doing routine quick pat-downs, one male and one female. I put my arms up and the guy started patting me but then  stopped, stepped back and said something in Arabic to his colleague. At this point my wife tried to call me over because the guy operating the luggage scanner wanted her case opened and I had the key, but the two in front of me wouldn't let me pass. I still didn't know what was going on, but eventually the scanner guy came over as well. All this time, most of my stuff was still on the scanner belt so that had stopped and the queue was gettting longer....!

Then the 2 male officers said something to the female and she looked at me and jabbered in Arabic, but I thought I caught one English word, "woman" and a lightbulb started to go on in my head!I gave her a puzzled look and she said slowly "woomen?" , paused, "men?" so I said "man" and her face cleared at once and the male officer stepped forward and gave me a very perfunctory frisk, carefully avoiding the 'danger area' and quickly waved me through!

I wasn't wearing anything even androgenous, just trainers, beige coloured cargo trousers, and a long sleeve open neck shirt, but he must have realised what he had touched through my shirt and, given their paranoia about unrelated men and women touching each other, he must have feared that the Wrath of Allah and the revenge of all my male relatives was about to descend on him!!

Interestingly we had to go through another security check  and frisk, an hour later, to get to the departure gate, and no problems at all this time.

How did you present yourself generally in Egypt, and what was the response?