Namrin in Egypt: Cairo 20-23-28-29 Dec 2007

I'm back.

Where are we now? It's the present capital city of Egypt, Cairo! The best highlight of Cairo is well you know, The Great Pyramids of Giza, the ancient World 7 Wonders that has still existed. What can I say?? This is like my dream comes true. And the Pyramids were the first world 7 wonder that I visited. There are still 6-7 places to go, woo! :-D

My first day of this trip started in Cairo. From the pictures, you can see there are 3 grand Pyramids. I mentioned their names on the photos. Let me skip the historical part. Not only the Great Pyramids of Giza and Sphinx did we go, we also had extra time so we visited the Step Pyramids of Zoser in Saqqara, the town near Cairo. Some of you may not know it but it's great and it's even older than the Great Pyramids in Cairo.

On the 1st day, Sayuri and I had a special guest or in the another way, we were Sayuri's friend's guests. He is Hidemasa. He was our brother today. He was very kind (much kinder than I could imagine) and took care of us very nicely. It would be good if he could be my real brother, haha. Hide speaks Arabic fluently so he helped us a lot when we needed some information.

My first day was nearly perfect. We went to the Pyramids in the early morning right after I arrived at the airport. When we walked around Sphinx, there were only about 5 people including 3 of us!!! So we got loads of photos without bothering other people. We had a luxurious lunch at a 5 star hotel that Hide knew. It was next to the Pyramids!!! Isn't it fantastic!! Before we went to the airport again to fly to Sharm El Sheikh (the city located on the Sinai's peninsula of Red Sea), it rained and there were RAINBOWs on the sky. Not 1 but 2, primary and secondary rainbows "What a perfect day!" I told Sayuri and Hide.

Fom Cairo we stopped at Luxor (central of Egypt) to have a connecting flight to Sharm El Sheikh (SES) (East of Egypt) because of high season, we couldn't find a direct flight for today. The flight attendant told us to pick up our luggage in Luxor by ourselves and then, get it on board to SES. Before we followed his advice, Sayuri asked the flight attendant to confirm again that it was going to be okay because we had only 1 hour gap (this schedule was offered from the Egypt Air website). He said 'Yes, no problem'.

Then, our WORST day happened on the same day of my "Perfect day". We missed the connecting flight because our luggage delayed. The ticket counter just closed 5 minutes before we showed up!!! Can you believe it? The officers didn't try to help us at all and that was 20 minutes to 8PM. It's dark and late! I told him we didn't have a place to stay in Luxor. The plane hasn't gone yet. I asked him to let us be on board but he ignored and siad it was our fault. Hey! Hang on! The luggage came out so slowly. Isn't it your company operations? Why don't you put our luggage through the next flight since the first place? (Answer? I think they can't manage it!!) Many passengers were still waiting for their suitcases I told the officer. We explained neither nicely nor aggressively, he (and they) didn't seem to give us a hand. The manager came and told us he'd find next flight but you know what, we had to pay for any single pound that it costs more than our ticket value from Luxor to SES. We almost begged them but EGYPT AIR didn't take any responsibility for the delay that caused us missing the flight. Even the taxi cost to go downtown of Luxor to buy the new tickets, we had to pay ourselves.

In conclusion, we flew back to Cairo that night at 11.30 PM and then, we got the flight at 4AM from Cairo to SES. We had some sleeps at the airport. The reason that we had to fly to SES that night was because we had already made an appointment with a diving club and the hotel. The manager at the airport in Cairo was lame as well. He couldn't manage to save his customer service. And I have to say this was the worst impression that National Airline treated the customers like this. I and Sayuri never miss the flight before so we didn't know what we should get from this situation but for sure, it shouldn't be NONE plus extra expense. I realised I'd go beyond my budget since the 1st day. Damn iT!! (excuse me but damn Egypt Air!!)

We were in SES during 21-22. On 23rd, we came back to Cairo. This time another Sayuri's friend, Atsusa, was our guide. She speaks Arabic quite well too. She was pretty and somehow, looked like Thai more than Japanese, hahaha

We had quite a lazy day. We started the day with lunch at a franchise restaurant where Atsusa showed us that yummy and cheap foods are existed in Egypt. Atsusa showed us that if you could speak Arabic you can get a cheaper price ( i.e. taxi---there is no taxi metre here.) THen, we went to the Citadel and Ibn Tulun where a few Mosques are located. I can say today was our Mosque day. I never been to any Mosque before and the places we visited were quite interesting especially Mosque of Mohammed Ali. It's truly stunning! After we had Eyptian style sandwitches as our dinner and went to bed before woke up extremely early to ....yeah to fly to Abu Simbel at 3.30AM!!

....trip to other cities, Abu Simbel, Aswan, Kom Ombo, Edfu, Luxor

Our last 2 days after Luxor, of course, we didn't miss Egyptian Museum [NO CAMERA]. How could we? This museum is huge and stored thousnads of priceless Egyptian stuff. I told Sayuri that we'd better call it Pharoahnic Museum instead of Egyptian Musuem because 99% of things are related to Pharoah including mummies, royal coffins, utensils, men and women accessories and on top of all, Tutankhamun coffin. Seriously, you can spend a day here if you like. But we stayed for a half day before we brought ourselves to do last day shopping (Thanks Thailand for polishing my negotiation skill). We went to the popular Khan El Khilili market. This is a grand bazaar in downtown Cairo and it's very colourful. Even though you don't wnat to buy anything, it's good to walk around and taste some foods :-q

In Cairo, there are several small shops of fresh & cheap fruit juice. Only a few Egyptian pounds per glass. If you have fairly good immunity like me, try it and try as many as flavours you can ..you'll love it!

Next station is Kom Ombo, Edfu, and Esna.
Blog again soon.

Nam(rin)

Pls click to the photos

http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/dd191/namrinb/Photo%202007/Egypt%20Trip%2020-29%20Dec07/Cairo%2020-23-28-29%20Dec/

Namrin in Egypt: Abu Simble-Aswan 24 Dec

Hi, everyone.

At the end of 2007, I gave myself a special reward by going to Egypt. The trip was awesome. I and my friend, Sayuri, experienced a lot of good things...including some bad things. Anyway, we survived and came back. Now I will show you some of fantastic places and activities we have done in Pharoah land.

First of all, I have to explain that the albums sent to you were arranged by the places alphabetically and by time, not by date because we went there for 10 days so I think 10 photo albums are too many! Secondly, following to albums, the story I'm telling you in each email would be run by places as well. Anyway, I'll show you our schedule which was quite busy because it was high season so we couldn't manage it more easily as we wanted to get around to many places. (It's the most often flying within 10 days in my life EVER!)

Day 1-20 Dec: Cairo and Saqqara
Day 2-21 Dec: Sharm El Sheikh (Red Sea)
Day 3-22 Dec: Sharm El Sheikh
Day 4-23 Dec: Cairo
Day 5-24 Dec: Abu Simbel and Aswan
Day 6-25 Dec: Kom Ombo, Edfu, (passing Esna)
Day 7-26 Dec: Luxor
Day 8-27 Dec: Luxor
Day 9-28 Dec: Cairo
Day 10-29 Dec: Cairo

For this album, Abu Simbel-Aswan, Sayuri and I were in the middle of our trip. And from this Abu Simbel until first day in Luxor, we joined the Thai group tour (but all guides are Egyptians). If you wonder why? It's simply because I couldn't find the tickets to Abu Simbel during this high season and Thai agency offered much cheaper package to cruise the Nile for 3 nights than I could find on the internet!!! Apart from these 3 days, we traveled on our own.

Abu Simbel (south of Egypt) is one of the highlights that you shouldn't miss it. It's actually a small town in my opinion but Pharoah Ramses(es) built the great 2 temples over there and they were rescued from flooding by Unesco before Egyptian government built Aswan Dam. It took about 40 MILLION US dollars to disassemble and re-assemble the temples. Let's appreciate it!

Oh, I have to tell you that the flight to Abu Simbel from Cairo starts at very early morning (i.e. 3.30 AM or 4.30 AM) and the return flight to Aswan or Cairo finish at noon or before that only. This means you can appreciate the temples for little less than a half day. I and Sayuri hardly slept (yet this was not the first time during this trip).

After enjoying Abu Simbel, we flew up north to Aswan. Then, we stopped by Aswan Dam which was not quite special for me but this dam means a lot for all Egyptians. Then, we visited the Unfinished Obelisk where is like a granite stone mountain which there were evidences that ancient Egyptian dig granite stone to make an Obelisk here. Don't worry... you will see the FINISHED Obelisk in later album.

What else? We checked in the hotel cruise. Sayuri was very happy because this was the best accommodation of the trip. After taking a nap, we were out for a fellucca trip, an Egyptian boat that is controlled by wind and hands (no engine). It was nice but little cold--dont' forget it's winter in Egypt.

This was Christmas' Eve so the hotel treated us with a special course which was fairly good. We went to see the show a bit before we accepted we were too tired as we woke at 1 or 2AM this morning. Bed time...zzzzz

See ya

Namrin

http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/dd191/namrinb/Photo%202007/Egypt%20Trip%2020-29%20Dec07/Abu%20Simbel-Aswan%2024%20Dec/