Egypt

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Tourism in Egypt has fallen off a cliff since the revolution in January 2011. We thought we would grab the opportunity to avoid the crowds and maybe bag some bargains.



There is a dearth of cheap flights from London to Egypt. The best value option was a charter flight to Sharm El Sheik, the package holiday centre on the Red Sea.



We never actually went into Sharm, but spent a few days in Sharks Bay, about 20 km further north. Here we had a wooden cabin on top of the cliffs looking out over the sea (the cliffs that is, not the cabin). The bathroom was about 50 metres away, but the breakfast was fantastic.



Straight away we were troubled by my major misjudgement, which was to persist for the next couple of months –Egypt is cold in January. We only had our get-through-Gatwick clothes to wear in the chilly evenings and I didn’t want to buy any more as it was bound to warm up soon.Egypt is a hot country, right? (Wrong – well in Jan/Feb/March anyway).



One day we took the local minibus into Nama Bay, which is about halfway betweenSharks Bayand Sharm El Sheik. This is a touristic enclave with prices to match, though at least there is a bit of sand for the holidaymakers to lie on.



We went on the public bus to Dahab, further north along the coast. I had booked online into the Dahab Plaza Hotel, which, at £17 a night was a bit pricey but it had excellent reviews (justified) and a high value breakfast, discounts and freebies thrown in which made it a decent value proposition. After a couple of weeks there we felt that the owner’s family and all the staff were our personal friends – you can’t get a better recommendation than that. The owner’s daughter was a vivacious 20 year old who was used to winning on the pool table. After I beat her fairly comprehensively she was always looking for a rematch, and I was happy to oblige.



Dahab is known as the travellers hang out along the Red Sea. The waters edge is surrounded by restaurants that offer big cushions to those that like to sit on the floor. I guess the idea is that you hang out all day in the restaurant of choice with the occasional excursion into the sea which, apparently, has decent snorkelling right on the doorstep. The coldness and sparcity of tourists rendered that a minority activity for the time being.



We found that if we walked out of town, past a number of abandoned building projects, we would come to a large lagoon popular with windsurfers and kite boarders (did I mention that it was mostly blowing a gale as well?). This provided a pleasant backdrop for us to sit on the shingle beach and eat our homemade sandwiches, and was the template for the first two weeks of the trip.



For an interlude we took a trip to the monastery of St. Katherine which is situated at the base ofMount Sinai, which we ascended. The route through the Sinai desert is quite interesting with lots of rock formations which look like huge walls of solidifying lava and various coloured mineralisation’s whose strata could be followed across the terrain.



At the monastery there was a car park full of buses, so there must have been quite a number of tourists in the area after all.



The monastery was founded around AD330 as the location where God spoke to Moses through the burning bush. It is quite large, though only one chapel is open to the public which we were processed through shoulder to shoulder with the other groups. There is a small tree that is supposed to occupy the site of the burning bush, though, sadly, no attempts at any incendiary effects.



We then started the walk up the trail to the mountain. I was surprised to note that out of all the people visiting the monastery, our small group were the only people venturing any further. The fact that it was cold and raining might have had something to do with it. We had been assigned a youth as a guide but he didn’t know anything about the monastery, didn’t know anything about the biblical story and didn’t know anything about the landscape he was taking us through. He only knew the way to the top which was basically, er, follow the path. I thought he might know something about camels, as he had one at home.

‘How many stomachs does a camel have?’ I asked.

He looked at me strangely. ‘One stomach, of course.’

I thought that unlikely, given their hard wearing diet, so I taxed him no more.



(OK, I later learned that, as a ruminant a camel has ONE stomach with FOUR compartments as do cattle, sheep and goats (the rumen, the reticulum, the omasum and the abomasum), so actually he was right but maybe just lucky. Horses are non- ruminant and have a one chamber stomach. Hippos are non ruminants and but have one stomach with 3, 4 or 6 chambers, depending on which web site you believe).





It was clear that we would have to head south to find some warmer weather.



Aswan is the southern most city in Egypt. To get there we had to go around the Gulf of Suez to Cairo by bus and then take an overnight train following the route of the Nile. En route, the towns are full of brown jerry-built high rise apartments and dusty streets but mostly the land looks agricultural and bucolic.



We wound up at the Hathor Hotel where we had a 4^th floor room overlooking the Nile for £12 a night. The included breakfast was the regular affair of bread, jam, triangular processed cheese and a hard boiled egg. I often get egg-bound when I am travelling but I have never had so many cheese triangles in my life.



The lengthy Corniche is an attractive promenade along the side of the river. The city is situated solely on the eastern bank of the river. Across the water, on the other side, sandy hills denote the start of the desert. A number of historical tombs exist near the high points - an excursion for the energetic.



Luxurious river cruise boats were moored along the length of the Corniche, bereft of passengers. One can imagine a nice stroll along this path but in reality you are continually assailed by boat men and horse & carriage drivers who demand that you transact business with them. Times are tough and there is not enough business to go around so we could understand their frustration. However, aggressive and in-your-face sales ranting is not likely to persuade us into their felucca or caleche. It seems strange that so many have not worked that out for themselves. Being well travelled we are able to cope with this fairly easily, but we met several tourists who were deeply upset by the way they were treated on the streets.



It was also fairly hard work walking through the souk. The shopkeepers will try every ruse to get you into their place, and once inside it is almost impossible to get out again. There is no chance to relax and look at the stuff so in the end we didn’t bother. Some advertise themselves as ‘hassle-free’ but they are still calling you ‘Look here, look here, no hassle, no hassle’. Er what?



There were probably some nice things to buy, but it just too much trouble. Even in the smaller supermarkets nothing is priced up. Once you have asked ‘How much is this?’ about twenty times you begin to lose interest. We began to look for shops with electronic tills to get the proper prices, but even then sometimes they just gave you a price off the top of their head.



Apart from the constant barrage of salesmanship,Aswanis a pleasant town. There are a couple of places along the Corniche where you can escape the attention, relax with a coffee and watch all the coming and goings on the feluccas. We did take a felucca trip with a Nubian gentleman called Abdullah, arranged by his brother Abdul (Were they really brothers? I wondered). The standard route circumnavigated a couple of islands in the river.Elephantine Island, big enough for a couple of villages and a posh hotel; and Kitchener’sIsland, where there are some nice gardens.



The first highlight of the trip was a visit to Abu Simbel. Here stands the Great Temple of Ramses III, carved into a mountainside between 1274 and 1244 BC. This is a 3 to 4 hour minibus ride through the desert, which sets off in a high speed convoy from Aswan at 4am to enable the visitor to appreciate the full magnificence of the monument in the direct morning sunshine.



Four huge statues of Ramses guard the entrance to the rock hewn temple in which large tableaux of his exploits were carved into the walls, some with ancient paint still surviving. I could touch antiquity and it was good.



Adding to the amazement of the structure was the fact that it had been moved in its entirety to save it from engulfment in the waters to be held behind the new dam, built in the late 1960’s. It was precision cut into manageable blocks and moved to higher ground before being reassembled. This was a quality operation, as the signs of this mighty jigsaw are almost imperceptible to the untrained eye.



There are many other sights of interest in the Aswan area. We visited the island-bound temples of Philaeand Kalabsha, both of which had been relocated due to dam waters, and also had a look at the Unfinished Obelisk that was mostly hewn out of a rock face before the Ancients found a fault and gave up the job.



We had to go to the main police station to extend our visas. As we climbed the steps a young recruit with a sub-machine gun blocked our way with a ‘what on earth do you want?’ type of expression. After some consultation and passport waving, we were escorted to busy office on the third floor full of locals trying to get official attention.



I was beginning to wonder how to approach this when I was called over to the Foreigners window and dealt with by an English speaking lady. It cost less than £2 and took only 20 minutes to get a 5 month extension. That is by far most painless visa extension I have ever received.



There were a variety of possible ways of moving downriver to Luxor. Boats, trains, minibuses and taxis were all available. Usually I would look for the best value option. At the moment there is an unusual opportunity to take a Nile cruise at a cheap price as, due to the lack of tourists, the boats that are running are half empty. It didn’t take long to strike a deal with a local tour operator.



So, for £50 each we took a 2 night cruise down the Nile from Aswan to Luxor. The accommodation was very comfortable and the buffet meals were simply fantastic. Unfortunately, it was too cold to sit outside on the deck, so we occupied the picture windows at the front and watched the scenery trundle by. There were about 50 other guests on package trips, but they only seemed to appear at mealtimes.



There were 2 stops en-route. The first was the temple of Komombo at dusk which was quite impressive and included a display of crocodiles the Ancients had mummified for posterity. The second was the Temple of Horus at Edfu, though nobody had told me that we were supposed to visit it before breakfast and by the time we had got up the boat was ready to depart. I had a brief moan to the man at reception; ‘Make sure you don’t miss the belly dancing tonight’ was his response. I made sure I didn’t.



We found the Little Garden Hotel in the side streets of Luxor. This was the cheapest room of the trip at under £10 with breakfast and it also had a good restaurant on the open roof so we ate in quite a lot.



There is another corniche along the riverside and, of course, we were again a target for all the felucca captains and caleche drivers. One felucca captain seemed a bit more laid back than the others and we went out with him a couple of times over the next few weeks.



There is a vast wealth of ancient sites around Luxor as this was the location of Thebes, the main capital of the Pharaohs. It should be remembered that the Pharaonic period lasted for 3000 years, but the remaining architecture all seems pretty similar to the casual visitor. You might visit a 2000 year old temple in the morning and a 4000 year old temple in the afternoon and not notice any particular difference. I failed to get my head around the Pharaohs, the Gods and, in particular, the chronology.



Luxor is on the east bank of the River Nile. The town grew up around Luxor Temple which can mostly be seen without the bother of paying to get in.Karnakis a splendid temple complex a couple of kilometres further north, well worth the entrance fee.



Other famous sites are inland from the west bank of the river. The Valley of the Kings was interesting insofar as it actually is a smallish valley with lots of royal tomb chambers tunnelled into the surrounding rock. The entry ticket allows you to enter any three of the tombs which happen to be open on the day. We went into the tombs of Merenptah, Tawosret and Ramses III. For each tomb a large square tunnel had been cut into the rock with a chamber for the sarcophagus towards the end. One of these tunnels was over 100 metres long. The walls are painted with stunning images with each tomb having a character of its own. It is incredible how well they have survived over the millennia, particularly as some of them were entered and robbed in the early days.



There are 63 tombs in the Valley of the Kings, the most recently discovered in 2006. The next most recent one was that of Tutankhamun found in 1922 by Howard Carter after 5 years of searching. It’s only a small valley and this one is slap bang in the middle, so that must have been annoying.



With few other tourists around, it could have been a special day. Unfortunately, while we had paid a decent sum to get in, some local vendors appeared to be there as of right and these were of the ‘won’t take no for an answer’ brigade. There was no chance to relax and enjoy the uniqueness of the place and I eventually lost my cool with one of them, a rare event.



In Luxor the west bank of the Nile is a world away from the bustling town on the east bank. The public ferry across only costs about 10p, then it is a short walk to a serene riverside area with a handful of laid back restaurants where you can watch the activities of the lizards and kingfishers. This became my favourite haunt as I whiled away some days.



In Cairo we first stayed at Pension Roma, the top budget pick in the Lonely Planet guidebook at £14 with shared bathroom. I could see the attraction of ‘elegance at a budget price’, but I found it rather snooty with hard beds and a disappointing breakfast, served by waiters in tunics. Not far away was the Jasmine Hostel, where I got an en-suite room with comfy bed for a tenner. In this case en-suite meant a tiled cubicle in the corner of the room, but it did the job.



There is quite a lot to see in Cairo, but the city is very hardwearing on your ears and lungs. As throughout Egypt, the traffic is incessant and the drivers honk their horns for fun at any time of day or night.



From my base Downtown, we could walk to most of the places of interest.



The Egyptian Museum houses many of the antiquities from around the country. Here are the treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun, which caused such a sensation last century. The iconic death mask takes pride of place.



We wandered around the mosques and souks of Old Cairo, took the metro to see the Coptic Christian churches and walked through Tahrir square to access the bridge to Gezira and the Museum of Modern Art (very good). The hostel provided a free taxi to take guests to Giza, location of the Pyramids and the Sphinx. It was another highlight of the trip to experience in real life somewhere that I have seen on countless screens and pages over the years.



In Alexandria we stayed in the friendly Crillon Hotel on the seafront. Here the Corniche was a heady mix of sea air and diesel fumes, stretching for 20 km along the undulating Mediterranean coast.



One of the most famous cities of the ancient world, most of the history of Alexandria is either under the sea or under one of the innumerable tenement blocks of which the city is composed.

The wear and tear throughout the city just screams out for a lick of paint. Here, the Egyptian love of litter reaches a new high, and they like to make sure that it is liberally strewn around the streets and beaches.



The few old bits that remain date from the period of Roman occupation around the time of Cleopatra, at the turn of the previous millennium. There is an amphitheatre, a 30 metre high column and some catacombs, a large underground burial site discovered when a donkey fell into the abyss.



Fort Qaitbey stands on the western tip of the bay. This is a new build, having been completed in 1480.



Alexandria strides into the modern age at the new library, next to the city’s university. This impressive piece of architecture houses on of the worlds biggest libraries. It costs a quid to go in a have a look, where the part filled shelves make you realise that they do not have a book collection to match. There is a variety of art and culture displays which renders that quid well spent.



Finally, We returned to Dahab to be handy for Sharm airport.

It was hot! I celebrated with a dip in theRed Sea.



Reading back through this report I feel that I generally fail to ‘accentuate the positive’aboutEgypt.

Actually, I liked Egypt a lot, for two main reasons:



The people are generally very kind and friendly, as long as they are not trying to sell you something. Every day passers-by would exclaim ‘Welcome to Egypt’, no doubt pleased to see visitors in spite of the current troubles.



Egypt is not famous for it's food, but everywhere we went the food was tasty, of high quality and good value. We ate well and had no stomach problems for the entire trip.

They have an unhealthy obsession with triangular processed cheese.



I was conscious of the political uncertainty and followed advice not to go toSuez and Port Said. There is quite a high military and police presence, although you don’t get the feeling that the people are bothered by it.





There was an extremely serious incident at a football match in Port Said and a subsequent demonstration in Tahrir Square during the early part of our trip. Things calmed down after that, though I remained vigilant, especially on Fridays. I saw a peaceful demonstration in Cairo concerning the official reaction to the incident and kept my distance until it was over.

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Photos

Aswan
Corniche from hotel roof

Aswan
View from hotel roof

Abu Simbel
Great Temple of Ramses III

Abu Simbel
Great Temple of Ramses III

Abu Simbel
Great Temple of Ramses III

Aswan
Corniche from hotel roof