Egypt - I expect that the name conjures up romantic images of camels, deserts and ancient monuments, as they to us, have gone before us.
Unfortunately, although the Pyramids, Sphinx, Karnak, Egypt etc. interesting were we felt was the pits. We had been warned that Cairo was very dirty and that's certainly been the case, but the rest of the country was so bad. It was the dirtiest country I ever visited and is not one of the ubiquitous dust that is expected to relatecan be found in a largely desert country.
Garbage was everywhere, built into the banks of canals and some are pushing the banks of the Nile. The attitude to litter seemed to be when you use a packet of food or cigarettes in the car empty, just chuck the garbage out the window. If you household waste in a bag, leave it in an empty allotment nearby, or they turn down an embankment. If you have a tissue on the street, just dump it in the gutter or on the sidewalk. People inthe tourist areas were greedy, grasping pests, service was bad and the food was pretty ordinary - not a patch on Thailand or Turkey (see my earlier article).
It was very apparent that fighting graft path of life, with those at the top of the food chain, still the biggest piece of the action, so everyone was trying their way onto the ladder.
Tourists have been targeted at the lower end of the food chain and offensively.
The star system of grading & hotelsTourist boats reflect either a very low standard for the rest of the world compared, or that the stars could be acquired, probably both. We stayed in a 5 star hotel, which would probably Rate 3.5 stars elsewhere & 2 only for the service. The Nile cruise boat was graded 5 star and even though it likely to vote again 3,5 Stars, I'd grade it a little more for the fact that the toilet was, thank God, next to the bed! The 3-day cruise from Luxor to Aswan itself was okay, but nothing to write homeabove.
The name of the game was in RIPOFF, such as the Egyptian Museum which pays you enter, one had to pay extra to get into the section with the mummies of kings. A sign at the Museum of Alexandria, it said: "Foreigners LE35, LE 20 foreign students, Egyptians LE2, LE1 Egyptian students. In other tours we have in India and Turkey, the guide was to be doubled, as well as a tour guide. It appears, that in Egypt, the system was set up to ensure extractionTips on the maximum number of people with a guide and leader then visited anywhere.
General comments on the tour was organized by a company, I have not bothered to call:
- The Al Kalili market / bazaar was not nearly as good as we had in Istanbul have just visited, or that in Tehran, which I visited in 1968 and we were harassed, put us off completely. Egyptians are simply not the most pleasant way to lure tourists to separate them that their moneyThe Thais have.
- The Citadel Museum was closed a joke with most of the interesting bits.
- The tour did not extend to the Step Pyramid and Museum, which I have on my own and which later I found very interesting. But avoid the Memphis is usually a part of this option all the time, the only interesting thing on the great statue of Ramses II (rip was not was certainly worth LE35 off entry fee).
- We have turned a night train journey from Cairo to Luxor (& the same way)on which we made dinner and breakfast would be served as part of the so-called first-class service. Do not use the train! If you have to do it, take enough food with you, that is unpalatable served on the train (which our tour guide admitted, when we caught him, my own rations at a nearby stall!)
- The optional tour of the Nubian dinner suddenly increased from the advertised le40, because we had the driver to take us out of the way hotel, we weredumped into the river, then ride, then a visit to the village, and then tips on top. Also, we were visiting too far from the city to the Nubian Museum, without paying for a taxi. Another rip off!
- Because my partner was sick, we visited the Gayer-Anderson Museum in Cairo on our own after the tour, which has as one of the highlights of the trip for us. It contained some beautiful products & has been a time capsule of a bygone era in an old style no longer exists in any houseAreas that we saw in Cairo, damage to this city.
- One of the things I look forward to a trip abroad experiencing the food of the country. In Egypt, the food was pretty terrible, especially after Turkey. The bread was often outdated, selection and taste were poor. One of the best meals we had was at the Nubian village with freshly baked bread and home-made servings of vegetables and meat.
- Of course, the guide has not reimbursed us the cost of entry toPlaces that are included in the price of the tour, but we had missed because of illness.
We were both sick on the trip, my partner is pretty bad, although they caution. This was the first time one had been sick of us at one of our travels in Europe, India and the Far East, and we were not alone - all of our tour group were either sick or feel at one time or another.
My advice to all considering a trip to Egypt to be seen the ancient monuments to visit, toYour local library, borrow a book and DVD & they enjoy the comforts of home.
If you need to visit the country, you should be a lot more money for the trickery of meeting you sure you have a lot of medications with you in the stomach, and make sure that your travel insurance has a good accident and health insurance!
The research, where you proceed to thoroughly plan the shortest and fastest route between the points and be very careful what you eat, so you are in & outof the country in the shortest possible time. In this way, which annoyed too much, and always avoid getting sick too, (although I do not bet on the past).
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