Save Cairo Houseboats : And the Kitkat’s houseboats replaced by nightclubs boats

Do you remember what happened to the famous Cairo Houseboats last summer!?

When Egypt’s Ministry of irrigation sent an eviction notice to 32 houseboat owners mostly in Imbaba’s KitKat area e allegedly for encroachment despite being there for decades and paying their bills like model citizens!?

During then the only thing those owners were able to do for real was to make noise through a social media campaign called “Save_Cairo_houseboat” led by Egyptian renowned author Dr Ahdaf Soueif focusing on the old residents of the houseboats above them Mrs Ikhlas Helmy.

Following the media campaign and acting upon presidential directives as usual Mrs Helmy was given a rented apartment with a Nile view in some building in Zamalek island owned by Misr Insurance properties. 

Ironically, the old lady spoke about how she left a similar house decades ago to live in a blue houseboat that would be a trade mark for the KitKat houseboats.

From a year ago, Mrs Ikhlas' blue houseboat was there

The houseboats owners were given also two choices: Either to pay for commercial licenses aka turn their houseboats into commercial areas like hotels or restaurants or nightclubs or to move their houseboats elsewhere and pay the Ministry of irrigation for parking.

The houseboats of Ahdaf Soueif and Helmy, as well as others, were moved to the Ministry’s pier in Agouza standing there for months as their owners are trying to find a solution.

The famous houseboat 65 moved to Zamalek but I think its owners now pay a commercial license and so they are on the safe side.

Well in less than a year, I found out that this row of beautiful old houseboats in KitKat have been replaced by gigantic restaurant and nightclub boats or to be precise nightclubs boats.

What is that gigantic ugly thing for real !? 

I mean that big ugly block replaced Mrs Ikhales Helmy’s little blue houseboat covering what was once her flourishing garden.

It is so ugly 

I do not know if that huge thing was a restaurant or nightclub, but it is more of a shady nightclub that began to multiply in Cairo and Giza’s Nile banks, unfortunately.

Right beside it, there is that big night club boat with gulf singers.

more restaurant and nightclub boats invading the Nile Banks 

I took the photos while I was in a car on Tuesday, I zoomed the view to find out that there is a houseboat that sunk in the Nile and that area looked like a mess.

A mess in the Nile for real

Ironically, the Ministry of irrigation claimed that the old houseboats were blocking the Nile view for the citizens!!

Living beside a nightclub boat I can tell you that it is like hell when you can’t sleep from the noise and music till the early hours of the morning.

Personally, I believe that the Houseboats war has not been lost because one day hopefully soon inshallah those noisy ugly nightclub boats covering the Nile will be gone and replaced by the original Cairo Houseboats.