Ming Qing Street, a brash tourist bazaar just inside the entrance of Yellow Crane Tower, siphons cash from the swelling crowds dismounting from tour buses.

They were kitschy and omnipresent in the tourist bazaars.

Stroll around and mingle with Egyptians doing their own shopping - Khan El Khalili is not just a tourist bazaar - to find handicrafts and artifacts from around the country.

A16 Bomb Explodes in Cairo Market A small bomb exploded near the heart of Cairo's main tourist bazaar, killing two people, including a French woman as well as one unidentified man, and wounding 18 others, according to the Egyptian interior ministry and senior police officials.

A small bomb apparently stuffed with nails exploded Thursday near the heart of the main tourist bazaar here, killing 2 people including a French woman and an unidentified man and wounding 18 others, according to the Egyptian Interior Ministry and senior police officials.

Starting from the southern end, Sharia as-Souq appears very much like the tourist bazaars all over Egypt, with persistent traders trying to lure passers-by into their shops to buy T-shirts, perfume, spices, beaded galabiyyas (robes) and roughly carved copies of Pharaonic statues.

D Map The colourful tourist bazaar, along with various souvenir and 'antique' shops, mostly sells tacky rubbish, though the old Soviet-era badges are cheap and fun.

It is hard to say whether it was the cable car the government proposed building to the monastery, or the plaza that was to be bulldozed at the monastery's base, or the "tourist bazaar" of shops and restaurants planned to connect the cable car and the plaza.

The monastery could even move elsewhere if the mountaintop's tranquillity is too disrupted, other monks say - a step that would turn the whole cable-car system and tourist bazaar into a complete failure.