We were woken at 5am after a broken and somewhat uncomfortable sleep by the announcement that breakfast would be served shortly. Pastries and bread rolls were served with tea, coffee or juice. The rising sun rays floated along the soft clouds were beautiful to see through the frosted glass plane windows.
We had a smooth landing but the confusing sounds of cheers and clapping as we landed made us feel we had been spared by a worse fate. Stepping off the plane in Cairo we could feel the heat through the corridor. The plane got in at 6:45am. It was confusing because the plane clock said 5:45am but the pilot said it was 6:45am. Dan’s iPhone showed 6:45am and so did the terminal. We bought visas from the bank inside the terminal for $15USD each and went through customs which was very quick but our bags took about 30mins to arrive on the carousel. We went through the airport and withdrew 1000 EGP = $180AUD and looked for an electricity plug and magnet, but couldn’t find any.
In the airport we were harassed every two seconds with taxi offers. We went to the information desk and asked for a taxi and the Tourist Officer, Hassan, tried to sell us a couple of day tours. Admittedly they looked pretty good but we just landed and wanted to rest. We took his number and said we’d call if we wanted to arrange something. He was very nice and helpful. He arranged a taxi which cost $20USD, a very good price as the hotel was about 25km from the airport. A porter took our bags and hailed a cab. He spoke very broken English and we paid him the $20 and he gave me a receipt. We forgot that we are supposed to tip for basically everything in Egypt (including toilet paper... More on that later) and the porter was asking “Something for me?” Dan apologised and gave him and $1USD. He looked at it and said “Change?” and we had no idea what he was talking about. We thought he was asking us to pay for the cab again until the guy next to him said “The note is ripped. He wants to change for a new one”. Fair enough. Dan took it back off him and gave him a clean bill.
The cabbie sped off (quite literally). We tried to initiate conversation but he spoke no English at all, but seemed nice. We got our first taste of Egyptian traffic. The roads weren’t jammed packed but there was still enough to dodge and weave through. Not many people use indicators to turn or merge, instead they use horns...all the time. He was like a rally driver doing 120 in a 60 zone. The lines on the road seem to be purely just a guide only because we’re sure at one stage we saw 4 cars across in just 2 lanes. Welcome to chaotic Cairo! They honk to tell other drivers they’re overtaking, to tell pedestrians to get off the road and to tell other drivers off. Cairo is a pretty dirty and heavily polluted city with litters of rubbish on the road and in some backstreets it looked like garbage trucks had just emptied loads on top of other rubbish, but it’s actually build-up from residences chucking garbage on the ground. Cairo is home to 22 million people and just as many stray cats. Seriously, we saw at least 5 in one little street while we ate breakfast.
King Hotel and quick Cairo tour
After surviving the drive and getting into the city we were at our hotel. It looked quite nice from the outside. It was still only 8am and we were lucky enough to check in early at around 11am but the receptionist said to come back after 9:30am as the room might be ready. They offered for us to have a buffet style breakfast in the meantime with breads, egg, meat etc. While we were eating, Hoda, our tour guide, introduced herself and invited us to meet with some of the other group members at 9am and discuss optional activities before the tour started tomorrow, so after breakfast we went down to the lounge and asked Hoda to talk more about Egypt. Soon after, Carla from Brisbane, and Graham and Helen from New Zealand came down and we decided to do the ‘Alexandria City Tour’ tomorrow. Hoda took us for a quick walk around our immediate area to show us where the supermarket and ATM’s are. We eventually found an electricity adapter and also bought some water. We passed a KFC that is participating in a ‘Community Care’ project which employed only deaf people. Hoda assured us that if we wanted KFC that this was the one to go to because the staff are very fast because they weren’t distracted with chatting. We didn’t go in this time but she said that you go in and point at what you want and the order gets completed very quickly.
We got back to the hotel at around 10:45am and Dan noticed a really cool Egypt magnet with Tutankhamun and Nefertiti on it and bought it for 15 EGP. We are only a couple of blocks away from the Nile River so will certainly make time to see the sights, but not today as we are exhausted and need sleep. We didn’t sleep too well on the plane. The tour will start in two days so we have some free time to ourselves to sleep and rest from our South Africa tour.
Once in our room we had a shower immediately and Housekeeping knocked on the door to clean the room which we were confused about. It was already clean but Dan stuck his wet head out from behind the door and the girl was horrified (don’t blame her) and she apologised profusely. After our shower we turned off all the lights and were fast asleep on the bed for a couple of hours then we heard another knock at the door. We ignored it and suddenly our lights were on. Dan got up and checked outside but no one was there. Not sure if room service was giving us new towels or quickly left once they realised someone was in the room but we were too tired to worry and went straight back to sleep for a couple of hours. So tired in fact that we both thought we'd dreamed the whole scene.
Ev was still asleep as Dan woke around 1pm and updated the journal until about 4pm and fell asleep as soon as he lay down again. We had plans to go for a walk along the Nile in the city before dark and perhaps have dinner somewhere but we were both very tired.
Muslim Ramadan
We were awoken at around 8pm by what sounded like someone talking on a megaphone. Totally out of it, we went back to sleep and again woke to the sound of children playing with firecrackers in the streets at 9pm. We thought they were gunfire as there were armed men outside our hotel and all along the street.
The megaphone was one of the priests saying the prayers. On the plane we read that the Muslim community is celebrating Ramadan this year from the 11th August to 11th September. Ramadan follows the Lunar calendar and is a ritual held every year for one month where the people fast from food and water between 4:20am (the morning prayer) to 6:40pm (evening prayer) to feel compassion for those less fortunate and also to display self discipline and control to their God. 70% of the Egyptian population are Muslim and 30% are Christian. Most shops and restaurants aren’t open until 10:30am during this period and some close at 3pm. At 6:40pm they break their fast and have ‘breakfast’. Dinner is eaten with family at around 2am and children are still up at around midnight and the city is packed with people until about 2-3am.
We however enjoyed our sleep and basically slept though until 4am except for our minor interruptions by housekeeping.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dan-ev/collections/
We had a smooth landing but the confusing sounds of cheers and clapping as we landed made us feel we had been spared by a worse fate. Stepping off the plane in Cairo we could feel the heat through the corridor. The plane got in at 6:45am. It was confusing because the plane clock said 5:45am but the pilot said it was 6:45am. Dan’s iPhone showed 6:45am and so did the terminal. We bought visas from the bank inside the terminal for $15USD each and went through customs which was very quick but our bags took about 30mins to arrive on the carousel. We went through the airport and withdrew 1000 EGP = $180AUD and looked for an electricity plug and magnet, but couldn’t find any.
In the airport we were harassed every two seconds with taxi offers. We went to the information desk and asked for a taxi and the Tourist Officer, Hassan, tried to sell us a couple of day tours. Admittedly they looked pretty good but we just landed and wanted to rest. We took his number and said we’d call if we wanted to arrange something. He was very nice and helpful. He arranged a taxi which cost $20USD, a very good price as the hotel was about 25km from the airport. A porter took our bags and hailed a cab. He spoke very broken English and we paid him the $20 and he gave me a receipt. We forgot that we are supposed to tip for basically everything in Egypt (including toilet paper... More on that later) and the porter was asking “Something for me?” Dan apologised and gave him and $1USD. He looked at it and said “Change?” and we had no idea what he was talking about. We thought he was asking us to pay for the cab again until the guy next to him said “The note is ripped. He wants to change for a new one”. Fair enough. Dan took it back off him and gave him a clean bill.
The cabbie sped off (quite literally). We tried to initiate conversation but he spoke no English at all, but seemed nice. We got our first taste of Egyptian traffic. The roads weren’t jammed packed but there was still enough to dodge and weave through. Not many people use indicators to turn or merge, instead they use horns...all the time. He was like a rally driver doing 120 in a 60 zone. The lines on the road seem to be purely just a guide only because we’re sure at one stage we saw 4 cars across in just 2 lanes. Welcome to chaotic Cairo! They honk to tell other drivers they’re overtaking, to tell pedestrians to get off the road and to tell other drivers off. Cairo is a pretty dirty and heavily polluted city with litters of rubbish on the road and in some backstreets it looked like garbage trucks had just emptied loads on top of other rubbish, but it’s actually build-up from residences chucking garbage on the ground. Cairo is home to 22 million people and just as many stray cats. Seriously, we saw at least 5 in one little street while we ate breakfast.
King Hotel and quick Cairo tour
After surviving the drive and getting into the city we were at our hotel. It looked quite nice from the outside. It was still only 8am and we were lucky enough to check in early at around 11am but the receptionist said to come back after 9:30am as the room might be ready. They offered for us to have a buffet style breakfast in the meantime with breads, egg, meat etc. While we were eating, Hoda, our tour guide, introduced herself and invited us to meet with some of the other group members at 9am and discuss optional activities before the tour started tomorrow, so after breakfast we went down to the lounge and asked Hoda to talk more about Egypt. Soon after, Carla from Brisbane, and Graham and Helen from New Zealand came down and we decided to do the ‘Alexandria City Tour’ tomorrow. Hoda took us for a quick walk around our immediate area to show us where the supermarket and ATM’s are. We eventually found an electricity adapter and also bought some water. We passed a KFC that is participating in a ‘Community Care’ project which employed only deaf people. Hoda assured us that if we wanted KFC that this was the one to go to because the staff are very fast because they weren’t distracted with chatting. We didn’t go in this time but she said that you go in and point at what you want and the order gets completed very quickly.
We got back to the hotel at around 10:45am and Dan noticed a really cool Egypt magnet with Tutankhamun and Nefertiti on it and bought it for 15 EGP. We are only a couple of blocks away from the Nile River so will certainly make time to see the sights, but not today as we are exhausted and need sleep. We didn’t sleep too well on the plane. The tour will start in two days so we have some free time to ourselves to sleep and rest from our South Africa tour.
Once in our room we had a shower immediately and Housekeeping knocked on the door to clean the room which we were confused about. It was already clean but Dan stuck his wet head out from behind the door and the girl was horrified (don’t blame her) and she apologised profusely. After our shower we turned off all the lights and were fast asleep on the bed for a couple of hours then we heard another knock at the door. We ignored it and suddenly our lights were on. Dan got up and checked outside but no one was there. Not sure if room service was giving us new towels or quickly left once they realised someone was in the room but we were too tired to worry and went straight back to sleep for a couple of hours. So tired in fact that we both thought we'd dreamed the whole scene.
Ev was still asleep as Dan woke around 1pm and updated the journal until about 4pm and fell asleep as soon as he lay down again. We had plans to go for a walk along the Nile in the city before dark and perhaps have dinner somewhere but we were both very tired.
Muslim Ramadan
We were awoken at around 8pm by what sounded like someone talking on a megaphone. Totally out of it, we went back to sleep and again woke to the sound of children playing with firecrackers in the streets at 9pm. We thought they were gunfire as there were armed men outside our hotel and all along the street.
The megaphone was one of the priests saying the prayers. On the plane we read that the Muslim community is celebrating Ramadan this year from the 11th August to 11th September. Ramadan follows the Lunar calendar and is a ritual held every year for one month where the people fast from food and water between 4:20am (the morning prayer) to 6:40pm (evening prayer) to feel compassion for those less fortunate and also to display self discipline and control to their God. 70% of the Egyptian population are Muslim and 30% are Christian. Most shops and restaurants aren’t open until 10:30am during this period and some close at 3pm. At 6:40pm they break their fast and have ‘breakfast’. Dinner is eaten with family at around 2am and children are still up at around midnight and the city is packed with people until about 2-3am.
We however enjoyed our sleep and basically slept though until 4am except for our minor interruptions by housekeeping.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dan-ev/collections/
1 comment:
yay for sleep! looking forward to seeing photos of the city! oh and hearing about the toilet paper thing of course ;) hehe.
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