Egypt, And Further Thoughts and Notes For The Future......

A couple of weeks have passed since my return from Egypt and I have ''post holiday blues'', particularly as the weather is disgusting and I hoped I would have missed all the rain on Crete....

Looking back at my notes again, it was nice to see quite a few British people travelling in Egypt again. They all seemed to be ''independent'' travellers who elected to fly in through Hurghada and then after a week of 'beach' holiday were travelling inland by private vehicle or coach to the Nile Valley to see the important sites and spend a few days around the area rather than some Hurghada tourists who come inland by coach to see the Valley Of The King's and then leave again.

The general plan after Luxor and Aswan included a few days in Cairo before flying back to the UK. While these plans sound expensive Egypt really is still remarkably cheap, and Luxor has a lot of accommodation for about 5 euros a night if you are staying a while.

As an example in Luxor, West Bank you can find many properties to rent like this one Mahmoud Haseeb Nubian House at very reasonable rates 

This one in Al Bairat has some lovely traditional features like domed ceilings!

This trip was supposed to be my last and was supposed to included Alexandria where I have a 'family' connection and initially I was planning on 6 weeks until I read on Trip Advisor that it was currently impossible, because of COVID, to get a visa extension unless you were in Cairo and wanted to brave the one and only police station that was issuing them....

Of course I later found out that I didn't even need a visa extension because I was over 60.... And the Passport Office in Luxor was open so don't believe everything you read on TA, unless I wrote it

And of course the new museum in Cairo has not yet opened and I still need to visit that so another visit is already in the planning stage to do that and also visit Alexandria....

I still don't know what it is about Egypt that I love so much.....

One thing is sure this time I will do some reviews of hotels and eateries for Trip Advisor this time as looking at my past reviews I didn't do very many!!

So you can expect some updates to the blog again sometime early next year...

Inshallah..

Egypt Part The Third 2022 - About Food and Bob Marley

 Have I mentioned food already? Of course I have but since then I have had a lot more to eat, indeed I am almost certain that I have put on a bit of weight, either that or my clothes have shrunk in the wash...

Egyptians, like Greeks, do like to eat..... 

Lunch is often a take away from the nearest shop where they have not quite succeeded with the technology yet, the plastic bag you can see contains soup. Yep. it's soup in a bag, they only seem to have the smaller liquid containers like the one that you can see, which contains tahini.

The full spread, the foil package contains half a BBQ chicken... And yes that is beans on the left, they cam in aplastic bag too, the foil container contain the soup that came in a bag. The Greeks claim that a lot of their food is traditional Greek, but that soup contains 'kritharaki' the small pasta about the size of rice grains, the Egyptians claim it is their invention!

I mentioned before the 'pickled' pink turnip they use as salad, where here it is in bulk.... This lot had just been delivered to a market stall...

An Egytpian sandwich which is a split pitta turned in on itself and the filling shoved in....

Another area where the Greeks claim to have invented everything is sweets...

These you can buy in a pack at the corner shop, or in bulk at the baker's, and they are exactly the same as you would expect to get in Greece... So what they claim is Greek actually turns out to be common throughout the eastern Mediterranean region.

Popular in the morning is falafel, this hellish looking pan contains falafel being freshly cooked... I am very fond of falafel and there is a place just down the road from my hotel that makes them on the side of the road...

Egyptians like their breakfast and if you are in a big hotel they very often have a huge buffet with all sorts of stuff on it, but below is a more normal breakfast which includes a traditional dish of beans!

By now you are wondering where Bob Marley comes into the story.....

Although the Egyptian diet supposedly uses a lot of pulses, most of the people eat a lot of meat, they are especially fond of liver but there is a vegetarian restaurant nearby which also has an art gallery attached..

So on the right... Cauliflower curry, brown lentil salad, which was absolutely delish, and obviously there was rice, plus on the lower left a dish of tahini with dill...

And it was all very nice... There appears to be a slight absence of fish in Egypt but if you search you can find places that specialise in fish, indeed in the main street on the West Bank in Luxor there is a very unassuming shop which only does fish, and only at lunchtime.. The best you will get in one of the 'tourist' places is a grilled piece of fish with chips. I suspect the fish is frozen but it ate well enough...       

Don't ask me what sort of fish it was, but it could have been perch as it was a very 'meaty' solid type of fish, a bit like sea perch.

Having had this one evening I got told off by 'the boy' for going to the wrong place and he told me he would take me for lunch at a proper fish place. This means he is taking me but I am paying....

I must admit I was impressed although somewhat wary as it is a bit off-putting when the people at the table next to you are sporting pistols and you realise that there is a Kalashnikov lying on the bench seat behind them.... The explanation was that the President of the local farmer's union was being elected in the building next door.... I never realised that being the President of a farmer's union required such security....

Back to the food and Bob Marley.... 

While we are waiting we have tie to appreciate the Christmas decoration which are still up although looking a bit jaded, and also study the classic poster of Bob Marley, you know the one, it is the one made up of lots of small photographs of Bob Marley....

They have a 'thing' about Bob Marley, and I really don't know why...

I did ask the boy as on another wall they have the portrait that was popular after his death in 1980. And yes it really is that long ago that he died. Indeed he has now been dead longer than he was alive...

Finally the food starts to arrive because they are serving the farmers first... And you know you are in trouble when this lot arrives before you have even seen the fish..... 

I told him not to order too much, instead we have enough rice to feed a family of 4, plus the salad, a dish of hot vegetable in tomato sauce, they do love peas here.....

And finally the fish..... I took the photo with my sunnies next to the plate so you can see how big the fish is.

And if you know me you know that I have an aversion to fish bones which goes back to being very young and getting a fish bone stuck in my throat, which is why I love fish fingers!!

Luckily this fish has huge bones in it, about the size of a good sized darning needle so there is no problem getting the flesh off it...

This is a freshwater fish from Lake Nasser and is called a Nile Tilapia although it is found further to the north east from Egypt as well, Ahmed actually called it a 'boulti' which threw me out a bit... Cooking wise they put it on the grill first and the put a sort of batter on it and fry it to finish it off. It sounds like they have overcooked it but the flesh flaked off very nicely.

Like fish anywhere these days it wasn't cheap cheap, the whole meal set me back 350 LE or about £17 for the two of us, and there really was too much food. We could have done without the rice...

I will leave you with a pudding... Fried bananas with honey which I made the mistake thinking that it would be a couple of bananas instead it was a plateful so I shared it with a British woman sitting behind me...

And lastly as so often happens abroad I leave you with the pudding menu which offers us something made of sand apparently.

                              

And I can't believe I actually managed to post two photos next to each other!

Egypt Part The Third 2022 - Things Are Not Quite The Same, And Word Gets Around...

 So after a day of not doing a lot my legs are now used to being back on solid ground and I no longer feel like I am still on the train.

My hotel is next door to the one I stayed in on my last visit and Abdullah the 'house boy' has already spotted me and told Mahmoud the cook on the top floor who leaned over the balcony on the top floor next door to talk to me, my hotel is one floor shorter you see.

Today I will venture a little further afield and take the public ferry across to the East Bank... I take a late breakfast in the hotel, (2 hard boiled eggs, pitta bread, tea, cheese and jam, English pounds GB£1.50), and walking out the gate I find the nuisance from my last stay sitting outside the gate. (Egyptians are not allowed in hotels where there are foreigners staying unless, a) They work there, or b) They are staying there themselves)

How the nuisance found me I do not know but all I can say is the 'bush telegraph' works extremely well.

So what's changed?

A lot less people selling boats trips, taxi rides, and whatever else they can sell for a start, Instead of crowds of them there are now only a few and yet the number of boats moored on both sides of the Nile is just the same.

And what few people there are are a lot less pushy, but I know how to get rid of them now anyway so they didn't really bother me a lot.

A little shopping never goes amiss and prices are still the same, a few essentials like some fruit... and toms and cucs..

The fruit set me back by 35 LE, or £1.60 if you prefer, and the tomatoes and cucumber were £5, or 25p if you like...

Meanwhile the public ferry no longer goes straight across to the other side of the river but now lands a lot further north near the museum which was a bit of surprise as it is no miles to get to the market and Luxor Temple. Well not really miles but quite a long way. 

I haven't got to the bottom of why it has been changed.... Yet.

                                                                                                              

One thing I did find out walking past the Temple was how people knew I was back, this is down to a tour guide that I have used twice in 2017 and 2019 and he saw me getting off the train the previous night. So that is one puzzle solved.

One thing about them moving the ferry is that there is now a couple of cafes nearby. The 'boy' making the coffee assures me that he is 'very beautiful', I will leave you to make your own decisions about that!

Meanwhile back at the hotel some Irish people have just arrived, they flew in via Hurghada which is how a lot of people seem to be doing it, probably because of the cheaper flights. They have just spent a week in Hurghada and are trying to do the rest of Egypt in a week. It's not going to work.. I try and help and give them a few tips of what is most important, but they have got one thing right and that is that they want to do a short cruise up the Nile to Aswan but have been put off by a TV program showing Joanna Lumley all dolled up and sipping cocktails. I assure them that a Nile cruise is not like that unless the TV company are paying a fortune for one of the 'select' cruise boats.

Wandering around my neck of the woods I take make morning exercise through the banana plantations along some very dusty tracks...

Passing just one of the many stables in the area. They make quite a thing of horse riding here and most of the Egyptians can ride it seems, if they can't ride a horse they can ride a donkey. With the amount of horses and donkeys here I am surprised that they don't all grow prize roses in their gardens. 

Indeed they don't seem to use the manure for anything just stack in bigger and bigger piles on the side of the road, although I suspect that in some areas they burn it as fuel judging by the smell at time.

Wandering about in the middle of nowhere I come across the shell of a new building which according to the sign is set to become a new hotel, the sign does not say when but looking at the state of the building it will not be in the near future.

Heading back in to 'town' via the main road to the desert and The Valley of The Kings takes a while because you have to keep stopping to talk to people many of whom do not speak much English but enough to ask where you are from

 ''England'',

 ''Ah, lovely people''.

 So you see we are not as bad as we think we are!

Arriving back in the ''village'' I find out what the best dressed bride will be wearing this year, and stop off at the bakery where I admire the pitta breads and get given one still warm from the oven.

The pittas are quite 'fluffy' when they come out of the oven... The man on the counter selling them has to give them a bit of a 'pat' to squash them down a bit, a skilled job if ever I saw one....

Meanwhile back at 'The Corniche' it is time for a picnic lunch on the ''Ahmed''

A variety of 'sandwiches' in pitta bread along with bit s and pieces cost a massive 100 LE, about £4. The delivery boy didn't get a tip he got a leftover sandwich instead, and a new taste was to be had,

pickled pink turnip, unbelievably salty!! I will not be eating those again a hurry!

Egypt Part The Third 2022, From Cairo To Luxor & The Joys of Egyptian Train Travel!

If you have been keeping up with my Egyptian Odyssey you will remember that twice before I have used the trains in Egypt, once from Luxor to Aswan, and the overnight sleeper from Aswan to Cairo in 2017 so I am at least a little prepared for the journey.

(Leaving the train at Luxor a man tried to tell me he was a ticket collector and wanted my ticket, he actually wanted my ticket to get out of the station because he didn't have one....)

What you have to remember is that this is Egypt...... While the British might have been responsible for the original construction they have not been responsible for the maintenance required. Neither, it would appear, have the Egyptians.

Forget the comfort of being whisked by Richard Branson from London Euston to Manchester, or indeed the speed with which Amtrak will take you from Boston to New York, for a start the rolling stock is considerably older, and they certainly have not got around to electrification!

The rolling stock has a variety of descriptions, the one I am on is described as ''Speed AC Spanish''. Now quite what this means I am not sure but I suspect that it means it was bought second hand from Spain.....

Having been heaved aboard by the man that checks the train is actually coupled together, and slipping him a fiver for heaving my 22kg suitcase up on to the overhead rack, I take my seat on upholstery that has certainly seen better days.....

 The train is airconditioned to the extent that it is freezing cold which required me putting on a second pair of socks, and the toilet arrangements leave something to be desired. No scrub that, they leave a LOT to be desired.

But I am getting ahead of myself, the train is due to depart at 10.00am and arrive in Luxor at 6.42pm. A total of 8 hours and 42 minutes..... 10.00am is when the train arrives at the platform, it leaves at 10.10am and after a saunter arrives at Giza half an hour later. A 15km journey....

There are supposedly a couple of other stops on the way but it is (supposed) to be a non stop to Luxor.

Shortly after departure we cross the Nile and are treated to the normal Egyptian urban landscape which like most others is not particularly exciting....

There are quite a few urban infrastructure projects underway in the outskirts of Cairo and these seem to mainly be the construction of elevated roads, like the one below which is a flyover over the railway and several buildings as well.

Sadly the same investment is not being made in the railways.....

AS ever in Egypt there are the remains of older buildings demolished and left as well as the proverbial piles of rubbish. Removing all this would be a project of such vast proportions that it will probably never be attempted!

But it is not long before we reach the rural landscape which prevails along the Nile valley, naturally the windows have had only a cursory wash on the outside, but then the inside is not that clean either...

After a while even I get less interested in the landscape rolling by and resort to a book unless something catches my attention...

You can try sleeping of course but will be woken often as the carriage makes violent lurches over the uneven tracks....

And if you are at the front the driver is almost continuously sounding the horn on the train, although I must admit the horn is quite musical although why it has to be sounded almost continuously is beyond me.

Passing through the fields is a little like a journey in time.... Donkeys and carts and the occasional camel are the commonest form of transport and the agriculture is all manual labour, rarely will you see a tractor. And here's a little video for you!

                          

                                   

                                                    

Egypt Part The Third, A Day In Cairo And Buying a Rail Ticket

 Sometimes things in Egypt do not quite go according to plan, and in this instance it was the non arrival of my transit car ordered through the hotel.

At first I thought this might be because of my early arrival at the airport and the lack of other passengers meant that it took only 40 minutes to get through the airport so the car would turn up in its own time.

But the Egyptians are ever helpful and an official, yes really, an official taxi rep kindly phoned the hotel for me and finally got hold of the owner who admitted that he had forgotten to order my transfer, so my new found taxi rep offered to take me into Cairo at the same price, at which point I lied and said the hotel had quoted me US$20 when they had actually said US$25.

The traffic in Cairo has not got any better and I am surprised to see that there are many new infrastructure projects being started, but it is a shame that they haven't finished the older ones yet.

Indeed, Cairo must be quite high up on the list of most un-finished cities in the world. Or perhaps I mean one of the least finished cities in the world.

Why I expected things to be finished after a space of 3 years, or indeed, after a space of 5 years from first visit I really do not know.....

The taxi drops me on Talaat Haab roundabout and points across the road and tells me my hotel is in that building.

It isn't of course. It is actually the building next to where he dropped me off but it take me 20 minutes to find that out after I have dragged my bags across the square and back again.

I am pleased to find that I have not lost the art of crossing a Cairo street without getting run over... It is all about timing you see and adjusting your pace so that you cross one lane of traffic without getting run over by the next lane.

The hotel boasts that it has a lift, except that it does not come down to street level....

After trying several banks to change some cash, I finally find a packed ''exchange shop'' which does the transaction for me at a rate of 21.15 LE to GB£1...

And I still don't have a train ticket for my onward journey to Luxor the following day....

Egyptian National Railways has a web site that 'promises' that you can buy tickets online to save time at the station.

To date I have not heard of anybody having been able to open an account and do this, not even an Egyptian.

The only effective way of doing it is to go to the station which does present a problem because nobody seems to know where Rameses Station actually is, not even the taxi drivers.

After 40 minutes in a taxi going around in circles in the general area of the station we finally manage to home in on it although you can no longer drive up to the front door, presumably to stop the chaos that normally reigns with legal and illegal taxis blocking up the entrance. (Remember that I have been her before when I arrived on the overnight sleeper from Aswan 5 years ago).

My driver, who has done the strangest thing and has actually put the meter on, asks me to get out of the taxi about 400 metres away and charges me the princely sum of 50 LE, about £2.50 for the trip...

I have already written out my preferred train time, destination, and the 'train number' on a piece of paper to give to the ticket office clerk, (the ticket machines are not working), but that doesn't stop him querying every piece of information that I have put on the paper.

Twice.

Finally I get my ticket, first class leaving at 10 am the following morning and it costs me 145LE.

I will not go into details of the taxi ride back to my hotel, nor of my journey from the hotel to Ramsis Station the following morning except to say that an official taxi wanted 200 LE to take me because I had a bag, but a completely illegal taxi only wanted 100 LE.....

Everybody needs to visit Rameses Station, or indeed Ramsis Station.. In the past I have seen some spectacular stations but I think that Rameses is surpassed only by some stations in Russia and I have only ever seen photos of those.

I am not certain to what period the interior is supposed to belong....

Somewhere between Art Deco/Nouveau and a bad dream would probably be appropriate....

The Egyptian rail network is one of two things that the British gave to Egypt, the second being the original Aswan (Low) Dam. 

With a certain amount of self  interest the British took on the project to shorten communications between Europe, notably England, and its largest colony, India!

To a certain extent the building of the Suez Canal rather took away the need for the railway link as the French decided to get in on the act.....

Of course as you would expect, there is little point in watching the destination board on the main concourse waiting for a platform number for your train, instead I found somebody in a uniform who told me that it would be going from Platform 11 and was kind enough to guide me and actually carry my bags to the right place, and what's more he didn't even want a tip!!

That is a world first in Egypt where tipping is the norm.

So Here We Go With Egypt Part The Third In January 2022! Getting There.....

 For the last two years there has been nothing in the news apart from the Sars2-COVID19 scamdemic which has made travel well nigh impossible, has frightened people, and indeed, has governments around the world panicking and running around like headless chickens. We have had lockdowns which have apparently done little good except annoy people and we now have more people with paranoia than we do with COVID...... 

The media hasn't helped by publishing poor researched articles and using the statistics to sell newspapers rather than using them to show just what little effect it has had, and indeed it now appears that there is no such thing as ordinary flu which killed millions each year instead of which COVID kills them instead.....

During the last two years I have ''collected'' a number of flight vouchers as a result of flights being cancelled and rescheduled and now the time has come to use them because they are worth more as flights than the cash refund I can get, so the route for travelling is a little bit devious as I am currently in the UK using a ticket that I bought in January 2020 which is return from Athens to London Gatwick with good old Easyjet.

The flight vouchers I have are only usable with Aegean Air so the logical route is from London via Athens to Cairo... Of course I could fly on a cheapie with Easyjet to Hurghada or Sharm El Sheikh but that would mean buying yet another ticket, and flying from London to Cairo is out because of the price....

Leaving London on a grey drizzly Saturday gets to me to a not much warmer Athens where I stay overnight at the Holiday Inn which is considerably cheaper than the Sofitel at Athens Airport.

An early start in the pouring Greek rain after an almost sleepless night because of a thunderstorm gets to me to the departure gate for Cairo before many of the airport staff have even arrived for work!

And the flight to Cairo is almost empty...

Less than two hours sees me landing in Cairo where my request for assistance through the airport seems not have been received but Cairo airport is not huge.

And straight away there is a difference.... On the way through to Immigration there is a check point where they check vaccination certificates, currently there is no need for a pcr test if you have one of these.

Next the banks at the airport no longer change money, I really do not know why, and they only take money for the tourist visa.

But I already have my visa because you can now get a visa on line!!

On the flight they give you a PLF/Public Health Form to fill in, but nobody at Cairo airport seems the least bit interested in it so I leave the airport still holding it!

Some things do not change, and my passport gets checked twice more after immigration, and my bags are X rayed before leaving the terminal building...... But I have things to do so more tomorrow!