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Part 1: Introduction
Overview
and
overall impression
After visits in 2001,
2003 and a brief
one in 2010
to the Sinai this has been our fourth trip to Egypt. This time we have
visited some places where we haven't been before such as Siwa,
Alexandria, the Mediterranean coast, Dendera and Abydos and again the
classical sights of the upper Nile river valley. We have limited our
time in Cairo to just a bit over a day, due to the current unrest
situation, to minimise the risk of running into problems should
anything have happened.
In Alexandria and Siwa the level of hassle was very
low, actually almost non-existent, while in the tourist hotspots of
Cairo and the upper Nile river valley the hassle was very bad.
We
only spent two days in Siwa, and noticed that it's a very scenic place
with plenty of things to see and do. The best time for visiting is
probably spring or autumn, when it is warm enough to swim in the lakes
but still not too hot.
Alexandria was a bit of a mixed bag. On the
one hand the setting on the Mediterranean is very cool and there is
practically no hassle because very few tourists get lost there. On the
other hand from an architectural point of view the city is a mess, with
that horrible wall of skyscrapers along the waterfront and that
impassable corniche road, always congested with traffic and difficult
to cross. Alexandria could be a pearl of a city, but right now it is
quite messy and dirty.
The Mediterranean coast surprised us with its
beautiful white sand beaches and clear turquoise waters. Again here
there is the problem that large stretches of this coast have been
developed with apartment complexes, hotels and marinas. This must be a
busy place in summer.
Concerning the upper Nile river valley, Luxor
and Aswan have breathtaking ancient Egypt sights and the Nile river is
very scenic, especially in Aswan. However the level of hassle is
very high, in some spots almost unbearable, with very persistent and
sticky people trying to sell you goods and services and refusing to
leave even after multiple 'No's. In Aswan the taxi drivers even started
fighting for us among themselves.
Perhaps the fact that we were visiting in a
phase of unrest, in which fewer tourists were coming to Egypt played a
role. The local people, faced with fewer tourists, were probably
fighting
more hard to earn some money.
We noticed that things become more
relaxed if you don't bargain everything down to the last piastre and
allow people to earn some money and give them some tips. It helps if
you
travel to Egypt on a not very tight budget.
Costs
Costs have risen compared to the trips of the last years. This was
partly due to us travelling more comfortably in chartered minivans, as
opposed to buses and taxis over the past years.
However the entry fees for the various sights have really
skyrocketed over the past years. The ticket for the Abu Simbel temple
has gone up from 36 EGP in 2003 to 95 EGP in 2011, while at the same
time the
exchange rate of the Euro to the EGP has stayed constant at around 7.8
EGP/Euro.
Either Egypt has a skyrocketing inflation or Egyptians have
take over the very bad habit of squeezing the largest amount of money
possible from the tourists.
Reminds me a bit of the situation at
the Taj Mahal in India, where local authorities had increased the
ticket prices for foreign tourists to astronomical levels before being
forced to backpedal in face of complaints.
There is a big
disparity on prices in Egypt. A restaurant meal in Egypt can be even
more expensive than in Germany, but on the other day you can buy a
pack of nuts from a streets seller for almost nothing. In Siwa we had a
delicious lunch for five in a restaurant for just 79 EGP, then paid 400
EGP for a dinner for two in a hotel restaurant the other day. You have
to compare prices and bargain.
Food
Travelling with two Asian ladies and the kids, we didn't experiment too
much, but then we could only find Chinese or Asian restaurants in
Cairo and Luxor.
Since
we were quite frequently on the move, getting from one place to the
next, we ended up eating in a number of Egyptian places, where we found
good food.
We enjoyed the Egyptian salads (which probably help if you suffer from
constipation - just joking) and these Egyptian soups.
The
hotel area in Luxor has a number of good international restaurants (the
best we tried was the pizza roma.it Italian restaurant). Aswan does not
have nearly as many international restaurants, but some Egyptian
restaurants along the Corniche are good.
Accommodation
Travelling
as a large group and sometimes arriving late in the evenng, we
prebooked all places to avoid having to look for accomodation after a
tiring travel day. Prices ranged from 30 to 60 Euro/day for a midrange
double room with breakfast, depending on location.
Accomodation in Abu Simbel was overpriced, and we found the best value
in Cairo.
Money
/ Exchange rate (December 2011)
1 Euro = 7.8 LE (Egyptian pounds)
1 Euro = 1.30 USD
For current
exchange rates
check
the Universal
Currency
Converter.
ATMs are everywhere, so that you can easily get cash with a
Cirrus/Maestro ATM card. You won't need traveller cheques.
We
had a problem with an ATM in Cairo airport, where everything went
smooth, even the receipt confirming the transaction (2000 EGP) came
out,
but no cash. Later the amount was charged to our bank account in
Germany. After calling our bank the amount was refunded to us. Somehow
our bank was able to detect that no money had come out of the ATM.
Mobile
phones and prepaid cards
This time we purchased Mobinil SIM cards when we arrived at Cairo
airport. The price was 15 EGP for the card + the airtime (we bought 100
EGP
of airtime which was more than enough for the entire trip). Local phone
calls cost less than 1 EGP/minute, international calls to Europe and
Asia were around 2-3 EGP/minute.
We used the SIM cards to access the Internet (see below).
Coverage with Mobinil was good in most places where we stayed. 3G was
available everywhere, except in the more remote places.
Internet
access
This time we used exclusively mobile networks to access the Internet. Smartphones
(Samsung Galaxy Ace and Galaxy S2) made Internet access easy and
uncomplicated. To access the Internet with the notebook computer we set
up the smartphones as mobile hotspots (tethering mode).
In
addition, due to the big screens of these smartphones (the S2 has a
4.3" screen) and good browsers, it was feasible to access the Internet
and read emails using the smartphones instead of having to use the
computer.
This made travelling easier, because now it was
possible to spread the Internet use (news reading, bookings, emails
etc.) over the day, instead of having to wait for the evening, as we
always did in the past, when we would be in the hotel.
We were
therefore able to save a lot of time, because we could spread
these 1-2 hours of evening Internet access over the entire day using
the idle time when we were travelling in the car to some place.
We
purchased data packages from Mobinil (60 EGP for 1 GB of data) which
were more than enough for these two weeks. It's also possible to
purchase just a 20 EGP package.
We didn't bother looking for WLAN hotspots in hotels this time.
Weather
It
rained the first day in Alexandria, then was sunny and dry with blue
skies all the time. A bit cold in northern Egypt (we had to wear
jackets all the time), warmer in the upper Nile valley (at noon you
could even walk around with a T-shirt in Luxor).
Definitely too cold to swim in an outdoor pool.
Health /
Vaccinations
None required for Egypt.
VISA
/ Entry
requirements
We bought a 15 USD visa stamp upon arrival in Cairo airport. Shirley,
having a Malaysian passport didn't need to buy
a visa stamp (commonwealth countries regulation).
Nationals of other, less developed countries, might perhaps need to
arrange a visa before arriving to Egypt.
Security
That was the key issue of this visit to Egypt, because there was some
uncertainty regarding the political situation and the level of unrest
we would experience. Given that I was travelling with my wife, her
sister and two small kids I could not afford to take big risks.
In
fact, in the office people were joking that I'm the one who likes to
travel to the problematic areas (with a reference to my trip to Iran last August).
Due to these security concerns we limited our time in Cairo to just
above one day.
In
practice we didn't experience any problems whatsoever in Egypt. We
never were in a critical or unsafe situation. Despite all the news in
the press, travelling across Egypt was as safe as ever.
I had a
feeling that I could trust the people I met in Egypt. We used to
charter taxis to do most of the overland travel and always used new
people in different locations. These people were always friendly and
professional, and were always trying to please us. Perhaps we were
lucky, but in all these randomly chosen taxi drivers we found no bad
apples.
The last day in Cairo we even left all our luggage to a taxi
driver to guard for us, while we were shopping in a big shopping mall.
Supposedly
after the revolution things in Egypt have become more chaotic and there
has been an increase in criminality. But we didn't notice anything
regarding this and felt safe all the time.
Recommended
things
- Siwa was the positive surprise of this trip. A
laid-back place with
almost no hassle, beautiful scenery, lots of things to see and do.
- The Mediterrean coast is amazing, with
beautiful white sand beaches and clear, turquoise seawater.
- Despite
all hassle and high ticket prices the tombs of the Valley of the Kings
are breathtaking. So is also the temple in Abu Simbel.
- We didn't do it, but the desert trip from the
Siwa to Bahariya oasis must be an amazing thing.
Things
to avoid
We don't have much negative to report, because we carefully planned
this trip and selected all places to visit. However here are some
things you should
be aware of:
- The
desert trip around Siwa was expensive. We only took the offer of the
Siwa Safari Gardens hotel because we
had no time to shop around in Siwa. In
addition, the owner of the Siwa Safari Gardens hotel did not inform us
before the trip of a socalled "military permit fee" of 55 EGP/person
which made the trip even more expensive. I'm still wondering if he
cheated us here.
- Alexandria was a bit of a mixed bag. Cool
setting along the Mediterranean, otherwise the city is pretty much
horrible with that endless jungle of ugly skyscrapers along the
waterfront. However friendly people and very little hassle, because few
tourists get lost there.
- The temple in Abydos is very interesting, but
it takes over three hours of driving to get there from Luxor.
- The hassle in Luxor and Aswan is very bad, but
there is no way to avoid it if you want to visit these places.
Getting
around
We
chartered minivans with driver for all the overland travelling within
Egypt.
Prices ranged from 350 EGP to 600 EGP for every 300 km, in a
comfortable minivan with a good driver.
We pondered in the planning phase whether to rent a car for the whole
trip or not, but gave up on the idea since renting
a car in Egypt is very expensive.
For the long transfers between Cairo/Alexandria and Luxor/Abu Simbel we
used Egyptair flights.
Egyptair is not a very reliable company. Both flights we took were
delayed by three hours.
Copyright
2012
Alfred
Molon
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