Egypt Again 2023.... A Frustrated Visit On My Fourth Trip - eVisas Explained and The Arrival Late At Night and Giza

 Of course there was always going to be a fourth trip because the Grand Egyptian Museum was not open last year, and so one year on almost I am on the trip I planned last August because there were rumours that the GEM would be open by ealry 2023.

Of course it isn't, but am I going to let that spoil my trip? No, of course not!

Unusually for me I arrive at 1.00am in the morning at Cairo airport on a full flight from Athens. Indeed so full they were offering people money NOT to get on it, and at the same time checking the weight of cabin bags. Fortunately I avoided this because mine weighed in at 14kgs and you are only allowed 6kgs. One of the advantages of having ''Special Assistance'' through airports is that you manage to avoid the queues...

Arriving at Cairo was no different from usual, with about 200 people queuing to get a visa, but I of course have already got mine because I did it on line so I was through immigration and waiting for my bags, very fast as usual, while others were still waiting to get their visa label! This is one of the advantages of the eVisa, and also it means you have paid in advance so don't have to budget for it out of your valuable cash balance, if you have one.

Outside are the usual number of people offering you taxis, but I already have a pre-arranged transfer via my hotel. This is 20USD for the ride through the deserted streets of Cairo to my hotel in Giza. Taxis now have to pay for parking at Cairo airport so when I get out I give the man a tip equivalent to the parking fee.

And now before your very eyes I will explain a bit about eVisas and how to get one as some people seem to have real problems getting the web site to work, this is more than likely because they have not followed the instructions, others have noted that the site uses 'old' software but nonetheless it does work! And it does save time at the airport. Others have claimed that they have been charged the money but not got a visa and cannot get a refund but like any country visas are sometimes refused but if you applied you still have to pay for it! And imagine how you would feel if you were queuing at the airport and then were refused entry, and it does happen!

Firstly, there IS ONLY ONE OFFICIAL eVISA WEB SITE ...

And it is this one here.... EGYPT eVISA ...It will open in a new window. You will find other sites that appear to be the right site and indeed most/many of them will get you a visa, but they are third party sites who just fill in the forms for you and the charge exorbitant sums for doing it!!

The first thing you have to do is read the terms and conditions for getting a visa which you will find under the FAQ link. Note that you need a passport with at least 6 months validity, the other things they note there, is a ''travel itinerary'' I have never produced one of these at immigration and indeed, have never been asked for one, I have however been asked where I am staying so I carry my initial hotel booking with me just in case. If you try to get a visa with less than 6 months validity your application will fall over at the first stage.

You will also need to create an account before you start.

The first part of the form are self explanatory, I have deliberately left the 'info' box open on the departure date field, because if you are over 65 and you are not going to get a job, you can stay longer than 30 days if you want to!! But you cannot put more than 30 days in this field

Remember to 'SAVE' each page as you complete it so that if you have to leave the form it will still be there as a draft when you go back to the site

  

The next sections are easy enough too.... Just remember to put in your correct name as it is in your passport, and get the dates right, it's surprising the number of people who forget this simple fact, and also cannot read the dates either!

Where it asks for your address, it tells you what characters are permitted, and carriage return is not one of them!! Put the address all on one line... If you get the message about inallowed characters look closely at what you have done becuase it mean you have made a mistake somewhere!Make sure your phone number is valid with the country code and no spaces in it!

And then the picture of your passport... TWO IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE, AND IT DOES TELL YOU, FIRST THE PICTURE MUST BE LESS THAN A CERTAIN SIZE, AND SECOND IT CAN ONLY CONTAIN ALPHANUMERIC CHARACTERS IN THE FILE NAME.

If you have used your phone to take the picture then the chances are the file will be far too large!! Read the instruction under the photo!! Most phones have a built in editor so you can resize the photo, on my phone I have to take it down to 20% of the original.. And while you are editing rename the file to something logical like ''passport''. When you click on ATTACH a window opens with helpful suggestions as to how your photo should look,

Here's a nice clean image, above that works just fine, I know because it is the one I have used more than once..

The one above is never going to wrok because the software has to read the passport.

There is often a delay before anything happens because internet upload speeds are not that good in many places, and indeed a slow connection means the system 'times out' on occasions too.

When your photo has uploaded you will see this....

When the photo has uploaded you will see the name/DOB/Passport number fields have been populated automatically.... Which is why you cannot fill them in yourself, and people have actually tried to do so!

Saving the information will keep it as a draft and you can come back to it later and amend anything.... Or you can move directly on to the next step which is payment. Make sure your card is valid and can be used for foreign transactions and actually has credit available on it...

See it's easy, and most people already have a copy of their passport on their phone already don't they??

Quite soon after you have filed the application you will get an email confirming so, and a couple of days later, sometimes more quickly, you get the actual visa which you have to print off to present to immigration.

You will also need a landing card which some airlines will give you on the flight but many no longer do so, you can find these in the airports just before the immigration desk.

Egypt Part The Third 2022 - Special Assistance, More COVID Bureacracy, Unecessary Expense, And The Journey Home

Many years ago I used to travel behind the Iron Curtain for work

All I had to do was send my passport along with my 'work order' to the relevant embassy in London and about a week later I would get my passport back with the necessary visa stamp in it.

That was in the days before somebody decided to put explosives in their shoes and carry bottles of inflammable liquid with them... Back in the days when suddenly our bags were searched and if you had a Sinclair calculator with you you had to turn it on to prove that it was not a small bomb...

Now coronavirus has produced its own form of hysteria and the number of pieces of paper needed to even enter the airport has become ridiculous....

Indeed in Greece you cannot even go and buy a light bulb without wearing a face mask, carrying a copy of your vaccination certificate and your official ID to confirm the person on the vax certificate is actually you etc., etc., etc.,.....

In order to get back in to Greece I must either produce a pcr test valid for 72 hours or a rapid antigen test valid for 24 hours.... I have to have the expensive one because my journey is going to take more than 24 hours because I am flying to Cairo and staying overnight there before taking an onward flight to Athens the following day. 

Somebody did suggest, quite sensibly, that I didn't need to get a rapid test until the evening before my departure and I could go into Cairo centre to do this. 

This sounds fine until you look at how much the taxi fares are going to be and so I might as well pay the extra and get fully tested in Luxor on the Sunday morning and this would be valid until well after my arrival in Athens on Tuesday.... 

This is going to cost me of course.. And somebody told me that it would cost me 2,000 EGP or about 100 GBP, except when I went and asked at the private clinic it turns out it is only 1,000EGP, or about 50 quid... I didn't bother to tell the boy who has come up with a price of 1,700 EGP.... He has obviously found out that it is only 1,000 EGP and is going to collect 1,700 from me and then keep 700 EGP. He thinks I am stupid...

And I would get the results in 24 hours time, i.e. 9.30am on Monday morning.

But I am getting ahead of myself because you don't know how I am getting to Cairo yet, because if you have been paying attention then you will remember that my flight was in and out of Cairo..... 

As I changed my outbound flight after finding that I didn't need another visa and could stay as long as I liked because I am over 60, I also took the chance to change the flight time as my original flight was at 4.40am, so that became 10.30am... So I have choices, I can go on the day train costing 145 EGP, for nearly 13 hours and stay overnight, or I can take the overnight sleeper train and arrive early in Cairo for 126US$, or I can fly which means getting up really early to get the morning flight from Luxor, or taking the afternoon flight from Luxor and stay overnight at Cairo airport.... In the end flying the previous afternoon won out because it only cost €55 and the hotel at Cairo airport was only US$30 with a free transfer bus,

The man on the free transfer bus seemed to think he was worth a huge tip in US dollars although why he though I might even have dollars I don't know, he got 2 EGP instead...

My trip to Luxor airport was more like a charabanc ride for the boy and his cousins of which there seemed to be two in the back seat....

Family is everything in Egypt, you don't just get one you get the whole family, but give him  his due he didn't charge me too much. Here is his FB Page Ahmed-Your-Driver-in-Luxor-Egypt

But arriving at Luxor airport far too early I had to wait before I could go and check in... With the usual Egyptian security which is get all the bags X rayed before you even get to check in.... Luxor airport is only small so you don't really need much in the way of assistance here..

Tomorrow is ''leaving Egypt day'', and I checked with the local Egyptair office in Luxor about my special assistance because I didn't get it on the way in, so arriving 3 hours before my flight is due to depart I have to go to to the 'service desk' window number 3... The man in window number 3 says ''Window number 4'', the man in window number 4 says ''Window number 5'', the man in window number 5 says ''Window number 3''... it turns out it is really number 4 because the man there didn't realise he was the one with the blue wheelchair sign in the window. Apart from that the special assistance is so well organised that I am through emigration, without a visa remember, with the only comment from the young lady on the desk, ''Pull the mask down please, if it wasn't written in your passport I would not have thought you were over 60''......

An uneventful flight after having all my papers checked at check in and all the plfs and certificates checked and I am at the gate 2 hours before my flight is due to leave.

Arriving in Athens it is considerably cooler and inclined to rain... On landing the have got the flash new hoist out for me even though I am quite capable of walking down the steps but it is in a wheelchair from now on through immigration... Where.... Wait for it they scan the code on my PLF, (Passenger Location Form if you don't know by now), don't even bother to ask for my vaccination certificate or for the pcr test results, which you will notice is just an image of the paper turned into a pdf..

 

And wheel me straight into the testing department at Athens airport for a rapid test, which they text me the results of later... This has happened before.. All the expense of a test and they don't even bother to look at it...

With some hours to wait for my connecting flight and my bags not on transfer because the two legs were booked separately, I am at a loss as to what to do with my luggage in Athens airport for the next 5 hours, but Aegean to the rescue and speaking to the man on the check in, they take my bag check me in and give me a voucher to the Business Lounge, not only that when I go to board the flight they have upgraded me to Business Class!!

A highly successful end to the journey....