THE TRIP: Absolutely wonderful! No regrets! Came back refreshed and relaxed.
CAIRO: A city of 16 million, alive every minute of the day and most of the night! Traffic is a nightmare! The only road rule here is that there are NO road rules! Traffic lanes were drawn only to keep the painters employed and use up an overstock of white paint! Pedestrians NEVER have the right of way! If you see a car with fewer than 5 dents, you can be sure that its been off the assembly line less than 3 hours! Very similar to Bombay, the city that I grew up in, but more crowded. The buildings are packed together. I dont recall seeing parks or playgrounds where children can play. Not sure what the kids do here.
WALKING: Walking around along that streets is fine as long as you dont have to cross the road. God help you if you do have to cross the road!!! You gingerly thread your way through live traffic! I had to take care of some personal stuff the first day in Cairo and I hired a cab outside the hotel to take me to several places. At one point, the cab dropped me off on one side of the street then parked and waited across the road. When I was done, I had to cross the road to get to the cab. I waited for about 5 minutes before I gathered enough courage to step out into traffic! When I finally did make it across, I found the taxi driver waiting for me, doubled over with laughter!! But towards the end of the trip I was darting in and out of traffic like a local ..........well, almost!
FOOD: The food was a bit disappointing. I am a big fan of Middle Eastern and Mediterrenean food and I expected Egypt to be culinary heaven! But the food was generally bland, and the quality of the meat was average, at best. The Nubian dinner was my best meal on the trip, followed by the dinner that some of us had at the Thai Restaurant in Cairo at the end of the tour.
PEOPLE: Generally friendly and easy to get along with. But everybody wants to sell you something! ......from a camel ride around the pyramids, to a trinket in the local souqs They call out to you from their little shops as you walk down the street. That was tolerable for the most part, but towards the end I was scared to death that I would belt the next guy that yelled "hey Indian!!" or "hey mustache!!".
BARGAINING: Great fun if you have the time and patience, and even better if you dont really need what you're bargaining for!! Its all done in good humor, and as long as you keep your patience and sense of humor, its entertaining!
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TRIP: The Pyramids.....our tour group........the Nubian Dinner........the Cruise.....train journey to Aswan.....Yasser, our impromptu guide in Coptic Cairo who true to his word, did not hassle or even ask us for the infamous baksheesh!!! I think I gave him the largest tip on the entire trip!
THINGS I MISSED THE MOST: Fresh milk......sleeping in my own bed at home........a good steak
ORGANIZATION: The tour was organized very well. There are a lot of things that can go wrong when travelling in countries such as Egypt or India, to name a few. But I really cant recall major glitches that we ran into. You could tell that Andrew had done this before and planned the trip in great detail.
THE GROUP: I must confess that I was a bit apprehensive about agreeing to spend 13 days with a group of people that I had never ever met or spoken to or known to exist before! But fortunately, my doubts were completely unfounded and we had an excellent group! I thought we got along quite well, and there weren't too many that had to walk the plank as we cruised up the Nile!
SAFETY & SECURITY: I don't think I felt particularly unsafe during my stay in Egypt. Even in the wee hours of the morning (1 or 2 am) there seem to be people milling about and a few shops were still open, etc. However, the presence of a resonably armed police force is unmistakeable. In 1997, Islamic fundamentalists killed a few tourists at the Egyptian Museum and then killed nearly 60 more at the Temple of Hatshepsut near Luxor. During our trip, we saw armed military police everywhere.....with automatic weapons and flak jackets. The Egyptian Museum has two sets of metal detectors and xray machines that all visitors must pass through. Most hotels have metal detectors. There were two armed guards aboard our cruise ship. The presence of these security forces is supposed to reassure tourists, although I am sure it could just as easily unnerve others! Personally, I guess I was more or less indifferent to them.
