Advertisement
Published: August 6th 2007
Edit Blog Post
*Additions missed from my last blog.
- According to the Australian Girl I pissed off Dave and myself 'are both spunks'.
+Daves GAllery Number 2
What to say. Firstly Thieving Arab on the bus from Hurghada to Alexandria nicked Daves Ipod....and more importantly my Ipod charger. Not the best start to Alexandria, getting off the bus at 3am, angry at the theft of $(again substitute for Britsih pound)230 worth of music equipment; to make matter worse our hotel, the Acropole, smelled like sewage...or at least our room did, and no I know what everyones thinking and it wasn't me lol
So the next day, or at least 3 hours of it, for me were spent sitting inside the Alexandria Tourist Police Headquarter (a little room above the Tourist Information) waiting for Dave to finish reporting the theft of his Ipod (AND MY CHARGER) and get an insurance claim number. Thankfully I had the entire tourist police force to keep me entertained, or was it vise versa; anyway we had a great time, as they brought me numerous cups of tea whilst I watched them chatting up all the secretaries as they left work for the day...then when that
dried up, much to my amusement, made fun out of the officer with massive ears; poor guy. Well that was a wasted day, but we consoled ourselves with a KFC dinner (finger licking good) and a shop around my a new Ipod Charger. Amazingly every shop in Alexandria either sells...fake watches and jewellery, fake clothes and shoes, or fake mobiles and mp3 players; there was absolutely no variance that we could see walking around the main streets....and theres no excuse the city isn't even particularily touristy. We did a bit of sightseeing, mainly the KFC, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut; but also Quaitbey Fortress...built in the 15th century, by Sultan Quaitbey, and then added on to by Mohammed Ali in the 19th in order to make it look absolutley useless....ironically which it was when the British bombarded Alexandria in 186..something..1867 perhaps. The Bibliotecha Alexandria was probably not as impressive as it ancient predessors, but it was interesting all the same; we met a trainee tour guide who took and instant liking to us, and gave us a free tour and bought us free food....then started touching Daves leg, thats when we hopped on a tram and ran away. An interesting note...everyone
aged between 15-28 in Alexandria literally points at Dave and laughs...a little bit rude, but almost as amsuing as shopkeeper from Aswan mocking his height. More importantly than anything else, I have bought myself a real (well fake) working Pocket Watch...now all I need is a good dinner suit, and possibly to be transported back to the 18th century for it to look cool.
Dave was keen to leave, but getting out of Alexandria was fairly hard, all the trains were booked up (they are so good though, I am really not suprised) so we had to travel 10km by taxi to get to the bus station..and get another smelly bus. Thankfully the journey was utterly uneventful, the most interesting thing to do count down the distance to Cairo (in Arabic....my knowledge of numerals is amazing now lol...pity I can't speak a word). We had decided to stay at the Dahab Hotel, and we did; and from my pictures you can see it's on the roof of a 7 storey building. Unfortunetly, much to Daves disgust, we have been stuck in the pokeyist little room imaginable, with a 100m walk to the bathroom and shower....oh and the floors caked in
dirt....to be honest I quite like it, mainly because you can't hear the 24 hour traffic of Cairo.
What have we done in Cairo....search, and after much arguing, bought me a new Ipod charger; it's not a battery one like before though so I am subject to the horrors of Africa electrical supplies when I need an Ipod. Our first day here we did the obvious and visited the Egyptian Museum, which is absolutely huged and crammed with 12,000 knick knacks from the entire Pharonic Era....it really is quite impressive, especially old Tutankamuns treasure, that guy liked his solid gold play thing. Unfortunetly being the layman to Egyptology that I am, most of the meaning nd history behind this massive collection was absolutley lost on me. Sadly for my own intelligence, the best bit of the day for me was watching the fitties in tour groups go by..and there was some fitties...what a History student I'm going to make lol Islamic Cairo, well the Citadel and Mosque of Mohammed Ali was amazing; I'd personally say on the scale of St Pauls Basillica in Rome/Vatican, and the Sisteen Chapel, but Dave disagreed...it was large though and as I knew nothing about
them before I have learnt something..yay! Whilst the history behind Al-Azhar (oldest university in the world), and the other sights of Islamic Cairo, is very interesting it all became a bit samey; so off we went to Khan el Khalli Bazaar to get ripped off. And get ripped of I imagine we did; I came out with some real leather sandals for $18 and Dave got some Cotton (Pyjamas?) for $15...I like my sandals, they chave a bit though, Daves cotton wear looks...how can I say this nicely...extremely gay lol And finally our tour of Sakkara, Memphis, and Giza; condcted by the very amiable (probably because he was ripping us off) taxi driver Farouk Hassan...whos only English phrase was 'Driver No.1, top driver, very good driver, you understand. Farouk Coptic, good man, No. 1'...he was a nice man though. Sakkara was fairly interesting, the highight being Zoser's stepped pyramid...it was ruined for Dave who got conned into getting on a camel for a picture then being charged. We also acquired a guide, from nowhere he just grabbed us and started talking, and ended up paying him in 20ps from England. Memphis was incredibly sparse, in fact it was patheticly sparse...there
was virtually nothing left of the once massive Pharonic Capital of ancient Egypt....bar a large statue of Ramses II on his back. Giza was a little better, well a lot better. Dave decided walking was to hard and hired a camel for $10, which in fairness was a good shout as he got a good tour and some awesome tours. I on the other hand decided to walk, paid $2.5 entry and then after deciding I was tired hired a horse for $1.....my balls were soon shot into my throat when I forgot to lift myself with the horses gallop, I hurt...but it was good; and the guide took my 20p coins from England as a tip (Hahahhahaha). I did wander the Pyramids (and suprisngly small Sphinx) on foot, and instantly rued that decision as I was constantly hassled by touts on camels, selling souvenairs, selling stamps...it goes on...the most annoying thing was after being hassled in English I pretended to be German, only to find that they all spoke far better German than my GSCE B had taught me...bastards. There were some incredible fitties at Giza though, I saw probably the best looking girl I have ever seen in
my life...the I tripped over a rock as I was perving on her and not looking where I was going.
Hopefully going to sample the Cairo nightlife now, so I am going to leave you..hopefully I won't be adding till Ethiopia.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.097s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 7; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0486s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
TBM
non-member comment
Funny
Loved reading your entries. Made me miss Egypt very very much. Wish i could be there right now. Ah well... Can't wait to read the ones you add from Ethiopia.