Recollections and writings on four holidays in Egypt in 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023. Exploring the ancient sites, and a doing a bit of meeting the locals, with my views on a few things.
I had allowed myself 4 days in Cairo to visit the new Grand Egyptian Museum, that isn't open yet. I was looking at 2 days, possibly 3, in the GEM which is only a short walk from my hotel, and then a day deciding what to do next. A visit to Alexandria is still on the cards to explore an old family connection there, but the weather in Alex in February is not good...
In any case I have two days to fill which is easy enough because I have not been to Saqqara since 2017, and since my last visit things have changed.
And I have also been told I should visit the New Museum of Egyptian Civilisation.
Saqqara is a little bit of a journey out from Giza, the time varies with how fast the taxi driver can go... But about 45 minutes is average...
The boss in my hotel is only too happy to sell me a car and guide for the morning, except I don't want the guide, which is going be either him or his father. (The father has lived in the The States I believe so his English is very good, the son's not so good).
He looks a bit disappointed but to be honest I find that guides get in the way, and want to rush you from one place to another too quickly, which is what happened on my last visit. As it turned out my driver was quite a good guide anyway and in exchange I bought him lunch.
The trip cost 60 USD, (I could have used LE but he preferred USD), which included my lunch and the basic entry ticket to Saqqara, I opted to buy the 'extras' ticket which cost a further 180 LE on top of the 200LE I had already paid via the driver. If you have the time an the inclination I would recommend going the whole hog and buying the 440 LE ticket which cover just about everything as it works out cheaper.
Arriving outside the actual site there were the usual souvenir sellers, but of course you are not obliged to buy anything! And anyway they charge far too much, but you are allowed to haggle to your heart's content, but i wouldn't bother because they don't have a very good range of stuff, better to reserve a day and go to proper shops. One of them spoke with a strong West Midlands accent,mainly because he had lived in Wolverhampton for a lot of his life.
Inside Saqqara I was not disappointed as I could now see the Step Pyramid properly, last time I was here it was covered in scaffolding,and also there were fewer visitors so it was quite uncrowded, and I managed to tag on to a group that had an English speaking guide... Always a plus! Somewhere along the line I completely lost my sense of direction during the short video clip, that's not Cairo in the distance at all! Some of the nobles tombs are included in the extras ticket others are not even included in the full ticket.
The Museum of Imhotep is not open as they are giving it a makeover, but all around Saqqara there is more digging going on...
I didn't get a chance to see this on my last visit because the guide was in a hurry...
Just a few pictures but not enough to spoil your visit!
And now we come to a bit about the dreaded mobile phone syndrome.
I don't know how we coped before we had them, 50 years ago if you went on holiday you contacted your family and friends by sending them a picture postcard, depending on where you had gone, and for how long, it was quite usual for you to get back home before the cards did.
These days we seem to have to be in almost constant communication with the rest of the world all of the time, why this should be i really don't know, but I suppose I am as bad as everyone else!
Apart from the normal landlines which is how the internet is still done in most countries, not even fibre optic in many places, Egypt has a fully developed mobile phone system with generally excellent coverage, unless you are in the desert of course because the camels don't use the internet..... The technology of the system is such that you can bring your own mobile with you and it will work.... Generally the coverage is on the 4G network, during my recent trip, over 8 weeks, there was only one occasion when the signal was less than 4G, and that was in a taxi in an underpass in Cairo...
There are 4 main operators, Vodafone, EtiSalat, Orange, and We (Telecom Egypt), to date on various visits I have used 3 of them and found the service overall to be very good, reliable, and economic. You can look them up on the internet to see what deals they are doing for visitors and then buy a SIM card at the airport.
I don't do this because there are always queues at the airport desks, and also I have found that if you find a mobile shop near to where you are staying you will often get a better deal than the standard tourist ones!
This time around I used We where the shop in Giza gave me 4 SIM cards, ideal if you a family or group, for 156LE which included 22.5 Gb of data and 1000 minutes of local calls, (useful because I have friends there I like to chat to), but only 30 SMS, certainly enough for me. Unless you are going to be streaming movies 22.5 Gb is a lot. Each SIM had its own account and could be recharged separately. the basic credit lasted a month but could be topped up which some tourist cards cannot.
Contrary to what you might hear, you can get access to Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp. I don't know why some people have the idea they are banned in Egypt, but what I can tell you is that some of the packages sold by the companies might not include some features, for instance I have friends there who can use WhatsApp for pictures movies and general messaging, even audio messages, but they cannot make an audio or video call. for that they use Messenger or Skype.
What is difficult is if for some strange reason you try to use a VPN because these are not allowed and they are blocked although there are a couple that the government haven't found out about yet so I was able to use those if I needed to appear as though I was in my home country.
So in a small nutshell there is a bit about mobiles and the internet!
Many hotels have a data cap, as do a lot of people in their homes, so although you might apparently have an internet connection nothing seems to happen. What happens here usually is that the staff manage to consume all the data watching videos on YouTube and there is nothing left for the guests!! A bit unfair but life rarely is fair.
A little note about mobiles if you are over 60 and can stay longer than 30 days...
Theoretically your SIM card should be cut off as you cannot get one without a valid visa, and if you are over 60 and staying for a longer period then your visa has expired so you cannot still have an active SIM card.
In practice I have found this doesn't happen because it seems it has to be cut off manually!
As every Egyptian will be happy to tell you without being asked, Egypt is currently going through a bit of a crisis and the Egyptian Pound, LE, has been allowed to float, the follow on as a result of the Egyptian Govt using the import 'escrow' to pay for other things rather than the imports it was supposed to be used for.....
While prices have risen in the last few months because of the fall in the value of the LE it also means that visitors are now getting more LE for their USD/GBP/Euro.
The end result of this is that many prices for tourists have fallen because for instance the rate of exchange for LE to GBP has risen by almost 50%.
This makes Egypt an even cheaper place to go than it was before!
Many tourists are still taking wads of cash with them and it really is not necessary because there are ATMs available almost everywhere, so by all means take some cash with you, indeed you will have to because your hotel if you have not already paid for it in advance will need to be paid using foreign currency, it's the law.
Many hotels will now take a card of course, but for small amounts cash is still preferred! They will take USD, GBP, or Euros (as a last resort), but do keep an eye on the exchange rate bearing in mind that the Euro is now worth more than a USD.
And note that some places do not actually have access to an exchange facility so they will want LE!
If you have to round the bill up by a couple of dollars/pounds/euros because you only have larger foreign bills then don't be frightened to do so as the hotel owner probably will not have small bills or even coins to give you change, and in true Egyptian style you probably will not get any change anyway!
To be honest, as a Westerner, I feel their pain with the way prices are going at the moment, especially for energy and gasoline which in Egypt is now around 12 LE a litre, up from 6LE four years ago. (I will do the sums for you 12 LE is almost exactly 33 pence in UK money).
It is becoming increasingly difficult to change cash these days as none of the banks will now do it and there are fewer official licensed money shops that will give you the top rate, beware of people that will change money for you including your hotel as they are going to make a profit out of it. There are also illegal money dealers who will meet you in dark alleys and them give you only 20 or 25LE to the USD when it should be about 30!
So the first thing to do is get some local currency at the airport from one of the many ATMs available, there is a huge 'bank' of them in the baggage reclaim area.
Get yourself a card that allows you to make cash withdrawals without charge. For people in the UK this means something like the Halifax Clarity card, which makes no charge for using it to buy goods abroad or take cash from an ATM, and also gives you top whack exchange rates through the Mastercard system. Some people, of course, have a similar card that works through the Visa system. either way the exchange rates are good.
Avoid the use of ordinary ATM cards because they will charge you a commission and give you a crap exchange rate, unless you have one that does otherwise.
Use the ATMs that give you the choice of it exchanging the money for you or allowing you to let your home bank do it because they give you a rotten exchange rate and sometimes charge you commission for changing it as well.
Avoid Euronet ATMs at all costs because they either change the money up for you at a really bad exchange rate or if you choose to let your bank do it then they charge you 100LE for the pleasure of using their machine. 100LE/EGP at 36 LE to a GBP doesn't sound like much but it is 3 quid or two beers!
There are also 'cyberbanks', like Revolut, that give excellent exchange rate but you do have to pay for a physical card.
Don't forget that carrying a card is also more secure than carrying cash wherever you go, innocent and inexperienced tourists are a target for thieves. I personally have not carried a lot of cash on me for years because there is now no need! But for added security I do have two cards I can use leaving one in a safe place in my room just in case.
If you are looking for an ATM head to the nearest mobile phone shop as they normally have one if not two ATMs outside.
Back to the traffic... I am staying in Giza instead of central Cairo because I am 'hoping' to go to the GEM, I don't think I will stay in Giza again unless it is somewhere central becuase I am out on the Alex Desert Road and it just a tad too far to walk into Giza, but very convenient to walk to the GEM which isn't open. I did try walking but because of the road works I had to take a big detour, and taxis have to do the same, indeed throughout Cairo detours of 3/4 kilometres just to take a U turn and come back again, are not unusual.
In Giza near the Pyramids they are building a new Metro line which has closed Al Haram down to Giza Square.... No wonder that taxis try to avoid some areas!
And lastly on this post the sensitive subject of tipping....
Did you know that you are not obliged to tip anybody??
Personally, having lived in Australia, I don't tip anybody. Other nationalities seem to tip everybody for no particular reason! (You know who you are!)
My idea of a tip is to give a taxi driver a £5 note for a £4.90 fare and tell him to keep the change, because I have enough loose change already.
And I positively loathe the system, widely used in the USA and Canada, where you are paying by card and they have already added on a tip that you have to cancel off the card reader before you tap or insert your card to pay.
Why are you giving them a tip for doing their job?
In Trip Advisor recently I was reading a travel report from somebody visiting Egypt where the writer said keep a good stock of one dollar bills/coins to use as tips. (They also said they felt like a walking ATM machine but that is not surprising either)
Why? There is no earthly reason to tip somebody in Egypt, and indeed a one dollar coin or bill is no earthly use to them because they cannot change it! Similarly with a Pound or Euro coin. And even if the tip is bigger then they might not have any way of getting it changed so it will end up in the hands of an illegal currency dealer who will give them a crap rate for it.
If I feel that somebody has gone over and above the call of duty then maybe I will tip, like lugging a heavy suitcase for me, but they will get nothing for watching me lift it myself.
And the same goes for waiters and bartenders.
Even if you do tip there is a limit. Why give a toilet attendant 5 USD when all they normally get is 1LE, it used to be a lot less but all the small coins seem to have disappeared these days?
If you feel that somebody has done a particularly good job for some reason, then yes, like I did by buying my barman a drink at the end of my recent stay. He got a beer which cost 50 LE.
And wherever did the idea come from that you had to give the chambermaid something everyday just to do her job, but fine if she has gone over the top and give her something at the end of your stay if you wish, much like in days of old when you were staying at an English country house when you tipped the butler, but those days have gone, and so has the tip!
If you do have a stock of foreign coinage give it to the children who ask for baksheesh, they will be delighted they have got something even though it is worthless to them, although it would be cheaper to give them 1 LE coins!
And beware of people asking you for baksheesh too, don't give them anything because some of them actually have businesses. I came across one on the East Bank in Luxor who was asking for baksheesh and the Egyptian sitting next to me shooed him away and then informed me that he owned a tuk tuk but was too idle to go out and drive it!
English people will feel quite at home with the new Egyptian 10LE note..Although this one is not looking good since it went through the wash on a hot wash.
Vaguely familiar perhaps? To start with I thought I had been given a dud note.
Somehow i just knew I was going to come back to Egypt again..... But first, I have taken the liberty of re-dating the original posts so that they start earliest first, this will give new readers a chance to start at the beginning instead of the end of the 2017 trip!! A few weeks after my return from the January 2017 trip I was taken into hospital in Greece (where I was spending the winter), the doctors were surprised that I had been able to fly to Egypt so recently, and even more surprised to find that the previous January (2016) I had spent 13 hours on a flight to Singapore!! Anyway it is the end of March and I am due to fly back to the UK the following weekend in time to celebrate my 65th birthday in Brighton. Except I am not because they will not let me...... Two days after I returned from the 2017 trip I was already looking flights and doing a bit of planning towards returning in January 2018, but the (not unexpected), news that I had chest problems put the fear of God up me, and the plan was dropped as I had now become a nervous flyer!! Yes me, nervous. Me who over the period of many years has clocked up millions of miles at least!! But in the meantime something else came up that didn't need to much flying, well only one way across the Atlantic anyway, and in September 2018 I spent 6 weeks in the USA and Canada, but that is another story. The hankering to return to Egypt was still there and having clocked up a few more air miles I had free tickets to Egypt and back..... So........ The trip to the US and Canada having been a bit breathless (pun intended), a more relaxing holiday to Egypt is called for and time to fill in a few blanks as it were. The itinerary will be Cairo, and Luxor, and that is it. No desperate one day tours into the desert, no cruise to anywhere, and just a few visits that were an absolute must to fill in the gaps from before. Arriving in Cairo in the middle of the night, (that's air miles for you, they put you on a flight that nobody wants to be on), I have booked a transfer except that this time there is nobody to meet me before passport control, but that is OK because I have done this before... First change money, and get the visa, stick it in the passport, and go to immigration with the landing card.... Reclaim bags, but still nobody with a sign up with my name on it..... Something different, after reclaim you don't get your passport checked yet again, but they do X ray your bags on the way out. I get the usual approaches from taxi drivers and at this point many might think, ''Hell my transfer is not here. I'll get a cab''. But my driver is outside the terminal building, no sign up but a tablet instead!! How modern is that then? And Tim's Tip Of The Day.... Get WhatsApp on your mobile phone. Everybody in Egypt is on it and it is a really good way of getting in touch with transfer drivers and tour companies. You don't even need to use data because there are Wi-fis everywherem and if you do need to turn data on then WhatsApp is very frugal with it! I am staying at Mena House, yes I am still on the Agatha Christie trail, and remember I was a bit put out because my co-travellers on the Nile cruise in 2017 had stayed there and I hadn't. Not that I was jealous of course. So Day 1 is in Cairo.... Breakfast time at Mena House. And what a crap view that is to have to look at while you are having breakfast on the terrace at Mena House.
Slightly disappointed that the old part of Mena House is not currently open but never mind. I am in Cairo so what else matters. And the Great Pyramid of Cheops is just a short walk away. Walking up to the Pyramids is like, well I don't know what it is like, but it involves getting accosted by taxi drivers, (why do I need a taxi? It is only half a mile away), and people trying to sell you tours, and tour guides, and who needs one of those when you can read the guide book?? But I found the same tactic worked as with boatmen in Luxor, engage them in conversation and then walk off..... On the way up the hill you pass a yard where they keep lots of very dusty cars, carriages, and spare camels.
Getting a ticket into Giza means standing in a queue, but this gives you time to read the price list, (entry in Egyptian archaeological sites is still cheap compared with other countries), and the plethora of options that seem to be available is confusing in spite of the gentlemen that approach you and offer to sell you a ticket for US$50. When you finally get to the ticket office, be prepared to be ignored and get pushed out of the way by a local who is obviously in a lot more of a hurry than you. So when I finally get the man's attention I just ask for a ticket. ''Just one?'' ''Yes, just one.'' Five English Pounds later I have my ticket, (which apparently does most things depending on the time of day, and the day of the week, and whether it is an odd or even date, and whether there is an R in the month), and on the way up to the Great Pyramid I am accosted yet again by an ''official guide'' flashing a very official looking ''badge'' asking me what ticket I have. So I show him and he very helpfully tells me what it entitles me to see, except the man checking the tickets has already told me... I think he was expecting a tip for telling me but he didn't get one. The last trip was somewhat rushed and with long explanations from my guide there was no time for roaming. This time I am able to roam at my leisure and marvel at the people taking selfies with nothing but desert and blue sky behind them. Rather like people who take pictures of themselves on a beach with nothing but sea and sky behind them. They could be anywhere.....
My ticket does not let me go into everything, but I manage to get into the Boat Museum, and also I can visit the Temple of Khafre and The Sphinx..... And also the Tomb of Seshem Nefer Theti. Meanwhile I encounter Ali..... Ali has a camel.... Ali wants me to take a camel ride, and if you read the blog on the 2017 trip, I am never getting on a camel again. Ali will take a picture of me sitting on the camel, while it is on the ground, for a couple of English pounds... Ali is a rip off merchant.....
Ali takes a very nice selfie of himself using my camera, and a picture of me on the camel.... Which is fine but then he pockets my camera, whistles and the camel stands up and takes off across the desert, stopping next to a ruined wall which means I can get off the camel on to the wall......
He then thinks I am going to give him US$200 for the camel ride and to get my camera back. Ali doesn't know that I only have a few English Pounds on me and he can keep the camera...
Something of an argument ensues while I walk back up to the track leading to The Sphinx, but I do give him a fiver and he does give me back the camera while still shouting (presumably) abuse at me.......
I think Ali is saving up for some serious dental work.
On the way down to the Sphinx I pass two policemen who ask me what was going on up the hill, so I tell them and show them the picture of Ali. They are not happy and a few minutes later I see them up the hill talking to Ali.
I think Ali got into trouble. But never mind, I arrive down the hill at the Sphinx and a very nice official guide takes my photograph for me, doesn't even want a tip, and restores my faith in human nature. Before leaving Giza Plateau I take a look around and still marvel at how Giza has grown since I saw pictures of the Sphinx in the ''Children's Book Of Knowledge when I was about 7 or 8 years old, when it was in the middle of the desert.... They seem now to be pulling down some buildings nearby, and I am heading for the rather excellent restaurant where I had lunch the last time I was here, only to find it is closed, and has been for some some, as is the restaurant next door.
Indeed none of the restaurants in the area seems to be open. A sign of the times, or are they going to knock them down I wonder??
I cannot re-enter the Plateau it seems so I take a walk by the main road back to my hotel, this turns out to be the long route, and certainly not the prettiest. Egypt is not a place for those of limited physical capabilities. The pavement all seem to be at least a foot high and involve a big step up and down as you cross a side road. Which is why everyone walks along the side of the road I guess.
I don't think many tourists walk this way as I don't get accosted at all by any of the shop keepers. Disappointing in a way, but I do get something to eat and I let the man in the shop do the choosing for me, and end up with more food than I can eat for EG£75, say GB£3.50 roughly.
When I get back to my hotel I pause to take a picture of the very large light fitting in reception before getting an early night.
Tomorrow is flying to Luxor day, and as I didn't get to sleep until gone 3 am this morning and early night is called for.
The next day is a leisurely one with plenty of time for breakfast before my taxi to the airport.
You will read that the trip from Giza to Cairo Airport takes less than an hour via the ''ring road''. It doesn't because the traffic is at a complete standstill and it takes over an hour and a half. Luckily I have allowed plenty of time, and it was worth the extra time just to get a view of IKEA on the way.....
My original plan was to take the train from Cairo to Luxor where I am picking up my Nile cruise ship, but a friend was telling me about Dendera and Abydos, and when I looked at it I thought ''Yes. Why not''. But taking the train was going to take up too much time, and flying was cheaper anyway... Cairo airport departures is a seething mass of humanity, you and your baggage are X rayed and scanned before you even get to the check in desk, and add the fact that I have to go to the Egyptair desk to get my ticket it all makes for good fun. There are people that will walk up to you and tell you that they have special permission to take you the back way through to save you time. Don't believe them, they will take your money and your luggage but they will not take you as well. Just ask them where their official ID tag is and they disappear like a puff of smoke. I lost one trainer in the X ray machine... They proudly presented me with a trainer except it wasn't mine, so at some stage somebody had given up and continued on with only one trainer. I got mine eventually.... Beyond the security and check in the departure gates there is not a soul in sight. Where has everybody gone? The lavatory attendant will let you have a cigarette in the toilet for a small consideration, unnecessary in my case, but there is a smoking lounge anyway that costs nothing. Arriving at Luxor I don't seem to have any luggage but it finally appears and I walk outside looking for a taxi. My luggage is heaved up on to one shoulder of a total stranger who trots off into the car park with me following. (You get used to this after a while in Egypt, so far the only time I have had to deal with my own luggage is from the taxi into the departure hall at Cairo airport) and I am introduced to Ali my taxi driver who is one of the funniest men I have ever met, certainly the funniest taxi driver for sure. Ali is no youngster, speaks excellent English, laughs a lot, and has only one tooth that I can see, which is not difficult because he spends most of the time looking at me not the road. ''First time in Luxor?'' ''Yes'' ''I will take you on a tour'' I thought it was going to cost me a fortune but it was about the same amount of money that you have to pay just to get into a taxi in Brighton, without even going anywhere. You don't want his life history and neither did I but I got it anyway. Arriving at my hotel, The Winter Palace, we have to stop 300 metres away from the entrance because the entire front of the hotel and the road is full of motorbikes. The Egyptian Motorcycling Club are having there annual get together. Ali shouts and whistles, (how can you whistle with only one tooth?), and a ''bellboy'' appears to take my bags. Bags scanned and me too I approach the reception desk to be told that they have suspended the normal dress code, (smart casual), which is not a surprise with the amount of denim, T shirts, and leather floating around. They seem to know who I am and the necessary paperwork is done, my bags have disappeared already, I know not where, and I am guided to my room...... Time for a wander around the area before something to eat and then an early night because it is another early start.... And this is one trip that I think is essential if you are doing a Nile cruise then you must find time to do the trip to Dendera and Abydos. It is a shortish journey and the road is not too good in places, but my guide is entertaining, and the driver is excellent especially when we drove through the middle of what appreared to be the local rubbish tip! Again I am surprised that I am the only passenger but it seems this is normal unless you are actually travelling as part of a party. I never mind sharing transport especially doing things like this because it gives you somebody to discuss what you have seen. If you confine yourself to just going from your 5 star Cairo hotel to Giza and back again, and the sights that you see along the Nile, you are restricting yourself to a very narrow view of Egypt so I make no apologies for the length of this post, nor for the number of photos of the journey where you see things that have been happening for thousands of years such as the making of ''mud'' bricks.. Arriving at Abydos be prepared to see, and hear many things. Not least of all the story of Dorothy Eady, of which you can believe as much or as little as you like. The best part of this side trip is that although it is a popular place to visit, it is not so crowded as the sites along the Nile, so both at Abydos and Dendera you can see more because you are not being jostled by other groups of visitors..... The guides also have more time to explain what is going on.
Tim's Tip of The Day: You will only get as much from your guide as you put in. If you are interested in what you see and show it, you will get a lot more from your guide..... At Abydos is not only the Temple of Seti I, but also the Temple of Ramesses II, and you are going to hear those names again during your further adventures in Egypt. Here you can see the famous hieroglyph said to depict modern technology including the helicopter, a result of the original carving from the time of Set I being plastered over and re-carved in the time of Ramsses II, his son. And the carving depicting Seti I wearing the crown of Lower Egypt roping the sacred bull with his son, then only Prince Ramesses. Nearby is a cafe, typical of many in Egypt, where you can get a coffee after walking through the site, again my guide is fascinated by my desire for coffee at regular intervals!
Leaving Abydos we get a police escort through the lunchtime traffic on our way to Dendera.
Dendera is a large complex, parts of which do get crowded because they are not very large, but on the day I visited there were very few visitors.
Like many monuments worldwide it has suffered with the ravages of time, (don't we all?), but here something has happened over time that has given us the chance to see what it was really like. Hundreds of years of soot, presumably from oil lamps and fires within the temple, had been deposited
on the ceiling, preservingnwhat lay beneath, (although as it is a ceilling I suppose that should read ''What lay above''), this soot has been carefully removed to reveal the original painting giving us a view of what it was like when first built.
Some of the carving at Dendera is quite clearly not Pharoanic, and the columns are more Corinthian than Doric as at Abydos. There are excellent examples of Ptolemaic art including the carving of THE Cleopatra, (overheard in the background, ''You mean she really existed? I thought she was just a part played by Elizabeth Taylor), with her son one of the last Ptolemy's who was fathered by Julius Caesar! The Romans might have thought their occupation of Egypt was a good thing, whether the Egytpians did is a different
matter!
Also at Dendera you can see the famous Zodiac ceiling, well actually you can't because what you are looking at is a copy. Napoleon's army took it and it is now in The Louvre, as are many other
artifacts.
I will not dwell on the political side of this because I live in Greece and there are ongoing demands for the return of The Marbles....
Meanwhile in The Louvre the Venus de Milo,and the statue of Winged Victory are still to be found....
Enjoy the rest of the pictures because we are heading back to Luxor for something to eat!
Part of the revealed ceiling to the right. A wonderful shade of blue....
