tomb decoration at Saqqara
I have a dilemma. As dilemmas go, it’s not huge, but it’s my excuse for being a slacker on the blog front these last two weeks. I want to tell you about my week in Egypt over Easter, but every time I think about Egypt, I feel kind of sick. Maybe I’m allergic to Egypt now. I feel bad saying that, but I swear it’s true. Suffice it to say, I’ve definitely had nicer vacations.
My travel philosophy is to arrange things yourself — the flights, hotels, train tickets, restaurants, sight seeing — the whole shebang. Yeah, it’s a lot of time and hassle even with a superb guidebook or two or three, but I think you learn a lot about a country when you figure this stuff out on your own. Traveling independently doesn’t mean you have to travel low-budget (i.e., feel free to book expensive hotels or restaurants), but it makes it more likely that you’ll have serendipitous interactions with locals and learn new ways to get things done.
That said, based on my week in Cairo, Luxor and Aswan, if I were to return to Egypt, I’d take back everything I just wrote in the above paragraph and go on a packaged tour. Really. I’d get shuttled around like a sheep and I’d love it. I’d even accept all those breakfasts, lunches and dinners of bland, carb-heavy “international” buffets (or whatever it is those tours serve you). Because overall, I didn’t think the Egyptian restaurants and street stalls we tried were so super fantastic, and the frustration and exhaustion we felt every day outweighed the usual benefits of traveling independently.
For the record, because I’m feeling defensive, I’ve traveled in China, India and Thailand and had a marvelous time in all three countries, so I don’t think my dislike of Egypt stems from being unused to travel in the developing world.
So, without further ado — CAIRO, the things Jon and I learned:
- Always count your change. Even at gleaming places at the airport. Our first taste of Egypt was when the guy at the Cairo Airport Hudson News ‘accidentally’ gave us 84 LE change instead of 94 LE.
- Take taxis. With minimal negotiating, it costs just 10-15 LE (£1.17-1.75) to get from Point A to Point B anywhere in Cairo. The trick, though, is that once you get in the taxi, the driver usually has no idea where he just agreed to take you. When this happens, just tell him to stop and pull over. There will always be another taxi honking and pulling over to ask where you want to go. Rinse and repeat until you arrive at your destination.
- No matter what your guidebook says, forget about taxi meters. The one time we had a guy use the meter, he’d clearly messed with it because the fare zoomed up to 10 LE after just 2 minutes in the taxi.
- Don’t negotiate a second time. In our experience, 75% of the time, after agreeing a price, a vendor or taxi driver would ask for more, as if we hadn’t already agreed on a price. We didn’t get angry and we smiled a lot, but we never backed down. That said, you can see how this gets exhausting when you do it 20 times a day.
- Keep lots of small bills so you don’t end up with sellers claiming they can’t give you any change (which will happen 100% of the time if you don’t give them exact change for whatever you just negotiated). Small bills are also important for baksheesh, which really is paid everywhere from bathrooms in even nice restaurants to the temples you’ve already paid admission to get into.
felucca ride on the Nile just after sundown
- Rent a felucca at the dock across the street from the Cairo Four Seasons hotel. For 60 LE (£7), we took an hour-long cruise on the Nile at sunset. It was just us and the two felucca sailors. Peace and quiet, the ultimate luxury in Cairo.
- Hire any regular taxi to do a full day of sightseeing to see the Pyramids. For 150 LE (£17), our taxi driver agreed to take us all over the place from 8 am to 3:30 pm, so we were able to reach relatively-distant spots like the tombs and pyramids at Saqqara and Dahshur, in addition to Giza. Our driver spoke no English and had no idea how to get to Saqqara (he ended up asking about five different people for directions), but we were so grateful he didn’t take us to his cousin’s carpet/alabaster/perfume factory that we were glad to add a 50 LE tip at the end of our day together.
- While we’re on the topic of the Giza Pyramids – don’t pay the extra 100LE per person to go inside the Great Pyramid. Not only do the guards hassle you about having a camera (time for more baksheesh), but also there’s nothing to see inside. Just a cramped, dark box. If you’re really eager to see the inside of a pyramid, try the Red Pyramid in Dahshur, which is free with a little baksheesh to the random dude squatting in the entrance. Be warned that in all pyramids, the climb is pretty stuffy and strenuous
Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo
Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo
- Visit some of the mosques in Arabic Cairo. I thought Ibn Tulun mosque and Al-Azhar mosque were highlights and well worth a visit (though we did get dropped off at random mosques by taxi drivers who would claim we had arrived at Ibn Tulun mosque – maybe we were pronouncing the name wrong, but it took three different taxi rides for us to finally arrive at the right mosque). Although Ibn Tulun is quite empty and Al-Azhar quite busy, both served as quiet refuges where we could sit and relax undisturbed.
- And lastly re: Islamic Cairo, I didn’t really enjoy the much-hyped Khan El Khalili market. Give me the Istanbul or Marrakech souks any day over all the aggressively-peddled tat we saw in Khan El Khalili. I wasn’t tempted at all to buy anything.
the "deluxe" sleeper train from Cairo to Luxor
TRAINS, the things we learned:
- We’d heard from several friends and read in several guidebooks that trains were *the* way to travel from Cairo to Luxor and Aswan and back. But while the overnight trains weren’t horrendously dirty, they were chilly, very dated and not exactly clean. And don’t get me started on the food. If I could turn back time, I’d look more seriously into flights, especially from Aswan back to Cairo (which was a 14-hour train ride). Train tickets were flat-priced at $60 each way, whether you were stopping in Luxor or going straight through to Aswan. And you had to pay in USD.
- Don’t bother trying to reserve your overnight train tickets in advance. The on-line schedules are inaccurate; the office with which you communicate is awful at responding to your questions (as indicated on Seat61); and last but not least, once we arrived in Cairo and tried to pick up our tickets at Ramses Station, we learned that through some cock-up by the reservations office, we’d have to return the next day for one half of the tickets we’d reserved. The ticket window wouldn’t let us just cancel that reservation and order new ones on the spot, which made me feel like we were penalized for having tried to book in advance. INSTEAD, get your hotel (stay at the nicest hotel you can afford, no joke) to handle the tickets for you. You’ll pay a small extra fee (50 LE baksheesh to the courier and concierge), but it’ll be worth it.
- Try the best you can to avoid uniformed “officials” like the police and train agents. When we were waiting on the platform for the train from Aswan to Cairo, a policeman insisted on taking our ticket and refused to give it back until we’d given him baksheesh. It was pretty awesome. We watched him do it to every foreign-looking person on the platform. And then at 3:30 the next morning (it’s an overnight train), the train porter in our car woke us all up and practically shoved us off the train, claiming we had arrived at Cairo Ramses station. You can see what’s coming, right? It wasn’t Cairo at all. It was Giza, a solid 30 minutes away from Ramses station. We had to bum rush him to get back on, at which point he shrugged, changed out of his uniform anyway and called it a day. Seriously, the guy just kicked out all the passengers so he could end his shift early. Nice.
In summary, if you want to come home happy and relaxed, don’t travel independently to Egypt. See the sights, which are generally amazing, but see them with a package tour or some other insulating agent. This advice goes against everything I believe in, but I guess it’s true that you should never say never.
We did Cairo and the night train and LUxor in Nov 2007. We hired a private tour for the 4 of us from New Star Egypt
http://www.newstaregypt.com/ before we left and I can honestly say it was the most incredible experience ever!The company handled everything that we wanted to do fantastically. The handovers were amazing, our guide in Aswan even took us to a friend’s wedding! Our guide in Cairo, George, who we fell in love with, took us to his “local” coffee shop. It didn’t cost a fortuen and it was sooo much fun!
Thank you for this post. I get contacted by all sorts of people wanting to travel independently in Egypt and I usually tell them not to. I live here, speak fluent Arabic and sometimes getting stuff done here can drive me nuts. If you are visiting friends here, it’s a whole other story, but Egypt isn’t a plug and play country. One of my most amazing stories from a visitor was them meeting a couple in the airport who’d arranged a rental car for Cairo…fresh meat, straight off the plane. Long time residents in possession of all their faculties don’t drive in Cairo!
Sorry that the trip got you down, but the trick to enjoying Egypt is really not to try to do too much. The destinations are great, but getting to them can kill you.
Oh good god…. so all those packaged tours for a reasonable price to Egypt that my Egyptian friend recommended to me really were a good deal?! Damn. Have to keep my eyes out for them again…
Yes, Egypt is not for everyone. You either love it or hate it. I love it, mainly because I know what to expect now. The chaos, noise, dust, harrasement, pollution.
But for me the pros out way the cons. The people make it for me, but I think I have a little Egyptian inside of me wanting to get out.
Next time, goto the Sinai and relax on the beach, it’s great.
PS Taxi drivers the world over are evil. They all try and rip you off. I think it’s in their initial training.
Oh no sounds like it was not a great trip. All your tips are pretty spot on from my memory of Egypt although we visited Egypt on a five star package tour which I have NEVER done before but it was perfect for Egypt. Because it is such a cheap country 5 star is pretty reasonable and you get no hassle and luxury such as having your own personal Egyptologist to show you around. I did wonder what we were missing out on and the fact that I didn’t have any good restaurant recommendations to give you Alice probably shows that we did miss out a bit – but it was super easy.
such a great post. so now i’m thinking maybe i’m not so bummed i didn’t lug the whole family (with the kids at 5 and 2) around egypt last year for our big trip. i had looked into getting a guide take us around and do all the bookings, so that is definitely the way to go. bummer about the food though. i’m sure if there were good food to be had you would have found it. i still can’t wait to go but maybe when the youngest one is at least 7 or 8!!!
What a depressing, yet informative post. It sounds very similar to my experience in Tangier. I just wanted to yell at every dude who tried to take advantage of us that they were ruining their own tourism industry. I, too, would only go back to Morocco on a packaged tour.
Jackie – You’re not the first person who’s recommended New Star Egypt. Hopefully other readers can benefit from your tip.
Maryanne – I wish I’d found your site before I left for Egypt. Of course, before I’d gone there, I would have scoffed if anyone told me it’s not worth traveling independently there. I’ve always taken great pride in being a resourceful and patient traveler, but it seems Egypt defeated me.
Su-Lin – Yup, I’d seriously consider those package offers you’re seeing.
Dave – We’re going to agree to disagree there. For me the cons outweighed the pros, and it really came down to most of the people we met and dealt with while visiting. Also, re: taxi drivers – I *love* London black cab drivers. So I wouldn’t tar all taxi drivers with the same brush. Also, in my opinion. Cairene taxi drivers were hands-down the most frustrating bunch when compared to, say, tuk tuk drivers in Delhi and Bangkok (who are no picnic, either).
Gourmet Chick – I envy your 5-star package. We stayed in expensive hotels in both Cairo and Aswan (partly at the recommendation of a friend whose family is Cairene), but it still wasn’t enough. A 5-star guide and logistics handler would have been money well spent.
laura – The sights in Egypt are really amazing (and I should probably, in fairness to Egypt, do a post on all the gorgeous and amazing things to see), so don’t rule out Egypt entirely. If you find someone trustworthy to take you around and handle bookings, that is *an excellent* option.
Julie – Interesting you mention Morocco. We’ve been only to Marrakech and had a fine time there, but we were there for only two days, so it’s hard to remember a high incidence of bad interactions with locals. While we were in Egypt, we met up with other London friends who were taking a fancy Nile cruise and they were *super* relaxed and happy. We were envious. They then mentioned that they’d had a disastrous trip through Morocco, so that was why they chose the Nile cruise option for visiting Egypt. In any case, I agree with you 100% on the realization that all these people who collectively make up the Egypt tourism industry were ruining their own business in the long run. Not to mention representing their country really really poorly.
I have just returned from Egypt after a week travelling from cairo to luxor and back. I wholeheartedly agree with you about the taxi meter. I had one taxi with a meter from downtown to khan el khalili bazaar and the price jumped up every 5kms and ended up paying 42le…i reckon i was charged for air-con instead of having the window open. One taxi driver took 100le out of my foreign currency wallet for confusion from Ramesses station to my hostel and any advice i would give to lone females especially would be to get out of the car and pay thru the window rather than just handing the money over.
I didnt have any trouble getting a sleeping reservation to Luxor I went the night before. Dont take the first answer you are given because i was told at a reputable hostel that my sleeping train wasnt running at that time and got to giza station an hour and half early to find out that it was going,even online the train didnt exist.
The one thing i couldnt get my head round is bringing a camera into the egyptian museum in cairo and valley of the kings in luxor and told you were not allowed to use them and had to hand them in but then they had a cheek to ask for baksheesh. The hassling, taxi drivers and touts made egypt a bit hard to deal with at times but the people I met and travelled with I wouldnt have changed it and for 3 of us to the pyramids at giza, saqquara, dashur we paid 154LE which worked out to 53le each was so much better than being on a schedule and put on air con buses en mass. It was defo an interesting week with the highs and lows and im glad I went but as for the taxi’s, I just put it down to experience.
[...] The food alright, with the highlight being the grill at El Refay in Cairo. But on the whole, our week in Egypt left me ambivalent about independent travel there. In terms of dining in London, I had my first lunch at Pizza East and it’s earned a regular [...]
Good to know that Egypt is harder travel than India. India was pretty tough at first, but OK once you got in the swing of things.
I’ve heard pretty much the same thing about Egypt from other people too. I’m not sure I can handle a tour bus, so I’ll just keep it off the current list of places I’d like to visit until I have a friend from there who wants to show me around local style.