Pharoh Land

Saalam malekum



This blog is dedicated to my not so recent trip to the land of the Pharaoh's.It all started with my friend doing PhD mentioning about it .I had just got a new job so some more VISA power went over to see him for the weekend.


When the discussion about where to spend the 06 Christmas and new yr came up .I suggested some where Europe like France,Italy Spain etc . He said what about Africa anyway flights to Europe during Christmas are expensive.

We quickly did some calculations on a small piece of paper as to how much it would cost and in about 15 mins came to an unamious decision that we were up for Egypt.

NO plans nothing booked not even looking into the visa restrictions and travel warnings I said YES

bOYS WILL BE BOYS Always

Sometimes these random decisions lead u to discover things that u never knew existed and a part of that self realisation happened in this tour as well.

Moving ON 2 weeks after that we booked the flight tickets , Considering it was Christmas we where did get a bargain.On tickets i should tell u this funny episode i should tell u this incident which i hold my hand to my heart and swear it happened.

Since we decided responsibilities of planning the logistics .Abhi was in charge of hunting for dirt cheap ticket and I had to arrange all the accomo and look at the available trains for in country travel.

I gave Abhi a comical travel agents number ( i knew this fellow as some of my friends had booked tickets with him to go bak home according to them he gave them a good deal ) .Apparently he turns out to be a Mallu ( No offence guys) but more so just knows places in UK .And the mallu kolony Dubai

Abhi called him to ask how much a ticket to Cairo cost to which Mr. Travel agent answered Cairo Is it in US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course Abhi was on the floor laughing and never called him again

Flight booked .I started hunting for accomo most of them where to booked calling them which i did using my magical French and English combo.

The Visa process turned out to be very simple go to the embassy based in London just with ur return tickets application and fotos .Visa would be stamped and ur PP returned the same day !!!!

Wah wht an efficient embassy .If only all the embassies where like this :)

I had a last moment scare as my PP didn't arrive until 5 days before departure ( it was in the home office so had to go to the embassy with my heart hopping that they should not ask any more docs . Got the visa no problem .

Now my friend was reading tons and tons of lonely planet guides and all the travel scams that would take place when we were there. Me becs of my Visa scare and graduation business had not done much .Well i will see it was my approach

22 dec left from Midlands and an overnight stay at airport lounge in Zurich .I was happily asleep on the chair but my friend was not able to the same , as myself and another person were snoring hehehehhe

Anyway i wont bore you with all the details but give a fast run of the places and funny incidents that we saw in this land .I would suggest this place to any person who would like to see a different place.

Airport - Cairo

Landed in was a very surprising change Chaos surrounded us We being from the land of a billion people we were no aliens to it

INcident 1: Our Egyptian expert aka my friend, had printout of arabic numbers so that we could take bus no xxx downtown.But the time we deciphered the bus number the bus was gone.!!! then we had to take a taxi and my hardcore bargaining came in handy

Incident 2: we where searching for tickets in the station as all the trains to Aswan were full there was only one option left .To take a first class cabin which was costing $80 .In Egypt that kind of money last longer .A tourist police guy saw all this drama of us running around and took us to a shady alley way .Some under hand dealing where carried out and £80 per head the whole of southern Egypt's tickets,accommodation and food was booked (this price after negotiation)

Incident 3: We were on the train almost ready to sleep when we overheard this conversation between a vegetarian north Indian family and the Caterers

Indian : Do you have food on this train
Waiter: yes , Veg or non Veg
Indian : Relived that they have vegetarian food . Yes what to u give vegetarian
Waiter: Chicken and rice !!!!!
Indian : Puzzled hah then non veg wht to u serve
Waiter: Beef and Rice

Incident 4: Apparently bollywood film Sholay is terribly popular in Egypt virtually everyone knows Dharmender or Big B bollywood in general has a big fan following here

We had shady food , Shaddy Lada taxis and wht not but by in large locals we spoke to were wonderful and country was fascinating .

Top sights in my view
Taxi's i caught right in the middle of the road and started negotiating the fare with cars zipping past .My friend was almost pissing in his pants.
Abu simble
Pyramids
The cruise down the river Nile
Belle dance by some big b~~bs girls

What better way to start New yr than belle dancing and drink in Nile !!!

Let downs
Far too many touts and naggers(it even bothered me in spite of being used to it)
Cant take photographs were ever u want .Broke this rule quiet a few times much to the annoyance of my friend.

One more thing i almost forgot to mention Mostly people mistook me to an egyptian or taught i was a muslim from india.I went to a point were the security guy at the Cruise was talking to me in Arabic and asking me if i was muslim (becs if i was,i am not suppose to be on the cruise where u can Booze) some body had to translate this for me before i understood the whole incident


Well that's it this time

More later