Cairo Citadel (copyright Petra Cross)I haven't been writing for a while. The blame goes to the married life. Brad had been busy studying math at Berkeley, with his shiny a new startup, and I've been all over the place, shooting, socializing, and getting fat. I don't need to fit into my wedding dress anymore, so what the heck. We did not even have a time to go to a honeymoon. And here we are, settling into a different home in downtown San Francisco, in a year 2011, and heading towards a very exciting future of having babies and startups (in whichever order they arrive).
We did, however, travel to EU for our traditional Christmas holidays. It was not a warm place, not a place a Californian wants to be in December, but we decided to ease the pain with a little detour to Cairo and Alexandria. We spent total eight days in Egypt, from Dec 26 to January 3rd. We arrived in Alexandria few hours after the terrorist attack at the local church. It was a sad time, and our Egyptian Muslim friends were very saddened by this.
Why go to Egypt?
Khan El Khalili Bazaar (copyright Petra Cross)
Most visitors visit Egypt probably for its rich history and various ancient sites. I had a more selfish reasons to visit the country. In fact, I had few reasons why I picked Cairo.
- Because I found this photo on Flick. It depicts a store at the Khan El Khalili bazaar in Cairo and I immediately fell in love with it. Cairo is one of the best places for photographers to visit.
- The second reason is more practical. Egypt was the closest warm place to frozen Slovakia (where we were spending our winter holidays). It's also less expensive than going to Tunisia or other popular winter destinations for Europeans.
- And lastly, we wanted to get out of my parents house. I am sure many of you understand. :)
People also like to visit Egypt because the exchange rate is very favorable to foreigners. You can get a delicious dinner for $2 or $3 (if you stay away from hotel restaurants).
What to expect when you arrive
In the next paragraphs, I will get into some nitty-gritty details. Feel free to skip it if you are not planning to visit Cairo in the near future, and revisit it for a reference later.
Right after you land at the Cairo International Airport, you need to obtain a $15 entry visa. You need to purchase them BEFORE you go through immigration. There are about four banks/kiosks that sell these. There is even an ATM (Visa only) you can use to withdraw some cash.
More on money
$1 will buy you about EP 5.8 (Egyptian Pounds, also known as LE). Please note, that torn or damaged Egyptian banknotes are invalid. Examine the change you get at the stores, and ask for replacement banknote if you see a defect. The local merchants LOVE offloading the damaged banknotes onto clueless tourists.
Always keep the exact change. The Egyptian taxi drivers pretend to never have the right amount change for your large bills. Make sure to carry around the exact change -- especially for situations when you know the market price of something, and the merchant/taxi driver is asking for a double. You will NEVER get them give you a change for a larger bill. They do not understand that idea of charging the same price to everyone.
Take white taxis, or be ready to walk away
Five people on a bike (copyright Petra Cross)If you take the white taxi (with black/white checkered stripe), you have a 90% chance that the driver will not pretend that the meter is broken. Make sure to watch the number on the meter, especially during the last 2 minutes of the ride. Some taxi drivers like to turn off the meter right before they arrive at your destination. You are then stuck arguing about the fair cost of the ride.
If you take the black taxis (usually very old car models), be prepared to either negotiate the price ahead of time, or deal with a very uncomfortable negotiation at the end of the ride. Brad and I researched that the cost of black taxi ride from Tahrir to Khan El Khalili Bazaar goes for 6 to 8 Egyptian Pounds. We even had our own point of reference. We took a white (newer and more expensive) taxi with a meter that cost 8 pounds on the way to the bazaar. Knowing all this, we took the black taxi back from Khan to Tahrir. The ride was much shorter (less traffic), and we gave the driver 7 pounds and started walking away from the car. The driver kept screaming: "Twenty, twenty!" and later showed us his middle finger. If you do not like this kind of treatment, do yourself a favor and use only white taxis whose meters are working. Towards the end of the trip, we thought we had this all figured out, we always asked "Meter working?" before we entered the white taxis, and always had the right amount of change. Little did we know that the driver of the white taxi will screw us over on our way to the airport. He turned off the meter as we were entering the airport area. He knew we need to get rid of our last cash, because one can not exchange Egyptian pounds outside of Egypt.
Note: the yellow taxis are usually reserved for those who pre-order them
Honking, haggling, and the traffic
River Nile from our 25th floor balcony at Ramses Hilton (copyright Petra Cross)These three words pretty much describe the Cairo experience. The drivers do not respect street signs, they drive wherever they can fit in. It's like watching grain of sand in an hour-glass. They keep moving tightly side-by-side, filling up every possible space. The cars are all beaten up, scratched up, many do not have rear view mirrors, or have them duct-taped on. It's the charm of Cairo. If you are a safety freak, you should not travel to Egypt.
The honking is constant, and drivers use it to let each other know of their position to one another. It's like saying "hey, I'm on your left". The drivers also honk on people on the sidewalks -- potential customers. You might feel like you are being harassed, but this is how they roll in Cairo. They simply honk and honk and honk.
The largest mob of hagglers we met was at the exit from the airport hall. These were various taxi drivers trying to offer you a "cheap" ride to your hotel. We learned that ignoring them does not work. They will try to talk to you, ask you random questions, until you respond. Therefore, it's best to politely decline with "no, thank you". That works most of the time.
Hire a driver and a tour guide for a day or two
Brad, me, and our guide enjoying a tea at Khan El Khalili (copyright Petra Cross)You can see a lot of things if you are chauffeured between the tourist sights. They are not very close to one another, and the driver knows exactly what shortcuts to take. I recommend you hire the guide and driver the first day of your trip. They will cost you about $110 to $150 per day (including entry fees) and will get you familiar with the city, answer your curious questions and help to get you acclimated. You are then good to go to explore the city on your own.
We hired Mariam, who spent two days with us. We visited the pyramids of Saqqara and Giza on the first day and the Citadel, Khan El Khalili, and the Egyptian Museum on the second day.
Do not expect the tour guides to speak perfect English. You will be able to communicate the most important things though. Most of the tour guides never left Egypt, never travelled anywhere, and they learned English at the various tourism schools.
We tried to divert Mariam's monologues about various historical stats and dates into a more moder discussion about her life, her experience growing up, the lifestyle she lives, etc. You learn a lot more about the modern Egypt this say. Read up on the history ahead of time, do not waste your precious time in Egypt learning who Ramses II was.
Hiring a guide is often a gamble. We were not happy with our guide in Beirut, and our Cairo guide was mostly focusing on history and all the things she memorized at the tourism school she attended. We had to make an effort to divert the discussions into modern topics.
I wish we could have interviewed few guides prior to hiring one. You know, it would be nice to hang out with someone with similar interests and vibe.
The photo on the right is a reflection of us in Fishawi Coffeehouse at Khan El Khalili. Our guide was very helpful at getting us familiar with ordering drinks and food, and informing us about proper tipping. We also ate at Naguib Mahfouz Cafe that is listed in almost every tourist guide. The place was filled with foreigners and did not have a good local vibe. It used to be a very popular hangout spot for local artists, but it turned into an expensive tourist trap.
Hungry?
One of our favorite meals was the traditional Kushari. It is a simple pasta bowl topped with lentils, garbanzo beans, tomato sauce, and friend onion. You can get Kushari and two glasses of fresh squeezed mango juice for about EP 10. You can get fresh squeezed orange or mango juice almost everywhere. We could not get enough.
My personal favorite was the Egyptian pancake ("Fateer") with cream and honey. It topped the European crepes or American pancakes. You can't compete with four layers of flaky buttery dough. My husband had fateer with chicken and mozzarella, and we paid about EP 60 for both cakes and soft drinks in a place on Lebnan Street in Mohandesseen. The place did not have a sign in English, but you can find it easily since it is located immediately left of the Adidas store. Bring a photo of an egyptian pancake, because they do not speak any English at this place. In fact, we were not even sure if we arrived the right place, since this restaurant looks more like a simple bar. It a long narrow room with tiled floor and loud TV. But the food was heaven.
I suggest you ask your tour guide to take you to a place where they would eat themselves. Politely decline their offer to take you to KFC (which seems to be hugely popular among Egyptians), and ask them to take you to a local Egyptian joint.
You can get falafel and other Mediterranean meals at almost every restaurant. If you like tahini chickpea hummus and salt-less pita bread, you will enjoy yourself.
If you visit Alexandria, make sure to have some fish. Alexandria is famous for its fresh seafood, and Brad and I both agreed with this statement when in Alexandria.
What to see
Cairo Citadel (copyright Petra Cross)You need at least two full days to see the most important things in Cairo. They are:
- Pyramids of Giza -- warning: your experience might be ruined by tourist hagglers
- Cairo Citadel -- a must see for everyone who takes photography seriously
- Tutankhamun at the Egyptian Museum at the Tahrir Square -- no photography allowed
- Khan El Khalili Bazaar -- especially the Al Moez street at the back of the bazaar
Once you see the "must sees", you might want to explore on your own. We checked out the following places:
- Mohandessin -- a neighborhood in Giza, with some nice local restaurants
- Zamalek -- an island in the middle of Nile, with lots of trendy restaurants
- City Stars mall -- the largest mall I've ever been to
- Downtown (Tahrir area) -- with its many shoe and clothing stores
View photos from this trip on Flickr.
View photos from this trip on Picasaweb.
Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 7:09PM 
Iphone doubles as a mirror: 
