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Published: January 30th 2009
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It's Big, It's Crowded, It's Dirty; It's Cairo
Get in, see the pyramids and get out. That's our advice for Cairo. We now have a new title holder for the dirtiest city and worst traffic and it's Cairo. This is not a city most people would enjoy strolling around. The Cairo Museum is worth a few hours, with most items having a description in English. There are no audio guides, but you can always hire a "real" one at the ticket area. We chose to go it on our own, but a gentlemen staying at our hotel hired one and was very pleased with his guide. Near the museum are two Hilton hotels that have Bank ATM's that will take most cards, located just inside the lobbies. Word of advice about ATM's. Some of them don't work as they don't have a great quantity of money. Always find one attached to a bank.
We stayed at the Hotel Osiris which was highly recommended in Trip Advisor. It was as described, clean and the owners helpful with any questions, definitely in the budget hotel range. Not too far from the Cairo Museum. The hotel owner arranged a day tour of
the pyramids with a private guide and driver which is the best way to go. Having a guide with us prevented any of the tout harrasment. It was nice to be out of Iraq, even though Egypt had the same feel to it. The upside was a short, 4 hour flight from Dubai.
Leaving Iraq
Our company has chartered a different hotel for us to use while we are in transit through Dubai. It's pretty nice. Very clean and in a good location. The food is also good and the best part is that we have share a room now. In the past the company had rule of no people of the opposite sex in the same room, married or not. Then Dubai received a new manager and she changed that policy. Thank you Yvette. We spent one night in the hotel then took the 6am shuttle to the airport. We flew business so were able to kill our time waiting in the business class lounge. Not up to the level of the Emirates airline business lounge but still nice. We flew from Dubai to Bahrain, changed planes and on again to Cairo. The flight to Cairo was
a little fuller in business, to include a family of 3 small children sitting accross from us. At first we were thinking the mother doesn't care much about her kids. She ignored them for most of the flight, as the smallest one climbed on the chair-backs and fell twice, then we realized she was most likely the nanny. Most of the looking after was done by the oldest girl who may have been 8 or 9 years old and the flight attendants helped out as well. The nanny slept most of the way. No sleep for us; no peace and quiet this trip.
Once we were off the plane we had a short walk though the terminal to the immigration gate. One thing you need to get used to immediately in Egypt is the lack of signs. We waiting in line to show our passports and were turned away because we didn't have a visa. The agent gestured vaguely behind us and said visa. We looked around and nothing was obvious to us so I asked one of the security guards. He pointed at a bank that had a visa credit card logo on the sign (Bank of Cairo).
Sure enough we walked over and bought our visas from a guy standing in front of the bank with a little book. We then made it through customs and our driver was waiting for us with our name on the clipboard on the other side of baggage claim.
The Pyramids of Giza
It was pretty much a full day, with seeing the pyramids at Giza, Saqqara and Dashon. Don't be surprised when your guide gives you the basic information on the monument and then leaves you on your own. Guides are not allowed inside most of the monuments and tombs. Can you imagine how noisy and distracting it would be inside if everyone had their guide with them inside? One of the options available is to buy an extra ticket to go inside the main Giza pyramid. They only sell a limited number of tickets in the morning and around 1pm so if you are interested in going inside this specific pyramid be sure you get there before the tickets are sold out. We didn't do this because we knew were already going inside the Saqqara pyramid and some tombs. That was enough for us.
The first
pyramid we entered was Saqqara. Once again, not many tourists around. We climbed up the side and entered though a shaft which extended in. We had to crouch down as the shaft was only about 4 feet high. Good thing we aren't claustrophic. We went through 3 chambers with the sarcophagus (stone coffin) located in the last one. We took some photos inside and after Mike downloaded them were excited to find orbs in the photos. Does this indicate the present of spirit energies? We only had orbs show up in photos taken in one specific chamber only; no orbs or strange lights in any other tomb / chamber all day.
A Much Needed Rest on the Red Sea
El Gouna is very much a man made tourist community. We stayed at the Sheraton which was great. Comfortable beds, LCD tv and nice view of the Red Sea. In retrospect I would not recommend El Gouna. It was way too artificial for us. Of course, that also means you don't have to worry about being hassled by touts as it's not allowed. Highlights of El Gouna: There is a Thai lady who has a hut on the
beach next to Moods in the marina. She gives a great Thai massage. She is listed in the discount coupon book for El Gouna. Second highlight is the White Elephant Thai restaurant. Food is pretty good. Unfortunately, we had delayed our vacation for a couple of months and ended up at the sea in January.
Too cold for the snorkeling and diving we had hoped for. There is a dive center at the Sheraton and we had booked with them for a snorkel trip and a dive trip. We rented a full wetsuit for the snorkel on the advice of the dive center. We had a boat to take us out about 30 minutes away from shore. The sun was out but we had scattered clouds. The water was very cold and not much light seemed to be penetrating the underwater gloom. We saw some interesting fish and our first sea turtle but on the whole it was way below our Thailand dive experiences. And the water so cold we only lasted about 30 minutes or so, even with the wet suit so we canceled our scuba plans as soon as we made it back to shore. No use
diving if we were going to be freezing the whole time. So, we spent the rest of the week relaxing and just taking it easy. It was then time to hit the road to Luxor for some more sight-seeing.
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