Aaron Around The World >> Africa >> Egypt
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Luxor Station (with people getting between platforms by simply crossing the tracks hehe). From here we were catching a train for the 500km trip north to Cairo. Something else that catches a lot of tourists out: only locals are permitted to purchase train tickets from the station ticket office (at least in Luxor, I don't know if this is the case everywhere). Instead, tourists can simply board the train and buy tickets from the conductor while onboard. I think the idea behind this is so that locals are guaranteed a reserved seat whereas tourists are expected to simply sit wherever they can (if at all). I had already read about this in travel forums, but I'd say a lot of tourists get turned away thoroughly confused!
Cairo is the capital of Egypt, the largest city in Africa and the Arab world, and one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The city's population is seven million, and the greater urban population adds a further ten million to that making it the 11th largest urban area in the world. Again it has a bloody long history that I could regurgitate here, or you could just click the link :) The panorama above is Midan Tahrir just along from our hotel - a major public square and the centre of modern Cairo. We grabbed a bite to eat here and headed for the metro (the only metro system in Africa incidentally).
Our taxi driver was waiting right outside Giza Station for any tourists heading to the pyramids. We negotiated E£30, and set off. The Pyramids of Giza are about a 4km drive from Giza Station along a straight main road to a ticket office in a small town immediately in front of the pyramids, so when we started going down back roads and villages away from their general direction, both Kristina and I started to get suspicious. We eventually stopped along a dirt road in the middle of a small village leading to the desert, which clearly wasn't where we had asked to be taken. Some dude then approached the cab and started to explain to us that this was the only way to the pyramids - a 60-minute camel ride which would cost us E£180 hehe. Bullshit! Ignoring for a minute that we knew we weren't anywhere near the pyramids, they are one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world and yet for what was supposedly the only entrance to them we were the only tourists around! There were no tour buses, no other taxis, no nothing - how stupid do you think we are?!
Many taxi drivers in Cairo will pull stunts like this. They drive you to their mate's business or to a different hotel from the one you asked for, claiming your hotel is closed or full or whatever, and earn a commission for doing so. Again I already knew of this (I had done a lot of research for this trip). I told Mr Asshole Cabbie to stay where he was, and told Mr Asshole Camel Man to show me where the pyramids are and why we couldn't just simply walk there. What I was actually trying to do without letting it on was to find out where the hell we were. As always I had my GPS but it doesn't have detailed maps for Egypt (I didn't bother to buy any for just a one-week trip) and so the best it could do in Egypt was to show me where I was in relation to main roads and the Nile and central Cairo etc. rather than tell me where I was in relation to more specific things like the pyramids. Mr Asshole Camel Man walked us 50 metres along a dirt road to where it becomes desert, and pointed towards the pyramids some two kilometres north of us. "Too far to walk in the desert my friend, camel is the only way, E£180 - special price for you." Always a special price for me.
Now that I knew where we were, I pulled out my guide book, pulled out my GPS, showed Mr Asshole Camel Man that I'm not a thicko and I knew what was going on, and went to abuse the cabbie. However, the message wasn't getting through (he didn't speak much English), and the pair of them were both still claiming this was the only entrance into the damn pyramids. Unfortunately, we were quite a walk from the nearest main road, and so telling them both to shove it and finding another taxi would have to be plan B. Plan A was simply to get the taxi we already had to take us to where we wanted to go but they weren't letting up. When we checked in to our hotel the night before I had picked up one of their business cards with their name, address, and phone number, and kept it in my wallet (just in case). When in need, call your hotel. They speak English, they know the score, and they can help. I called our hotel and explained the situation, and then handed them to Mr Asshole Cabbie. A minute later Mr Asshole Cabbie got off the phone, and without a word I simply pointed to the ticket office on my guidebook map and we were back on the road.
Better late than never, we arrived at the ticket office in front of the Pyramids of Giza. Unfortunately they close at 4pm, and after all that pissing around it was now 3:30pm so we'd lost a lot of time and I was highly pissed off. I found a security fella at the ticket office and asked him to translate to Mr Asshole Cabbie that we had asked to come here and he had instead taken us to his mate's camel business. In doing so, he had wasted my time, he had wasted my girlfriend's time, and I therefore am going to waste his time and pay him nothing. The message was translated, our tickets were purchased, and we raced in to make the most of what time we had left. Again, they'll try whatever they think they can get away with, and I'd say an unfortunate number of tourists do fall for this.
So that was Egypt in a little over a week! Absolutely amazing trip: the snorkelling, the ballooning, the Nile cruising, the ancient tombs, the pyramids, the people and the culture and all the rest of it, but at the same time the trip was hard work too. Normally I plan a trip, research it, book it, and then go through the motions of doing it without too much hassle, and while Egypt was no different in terms of the upfront planning we still found ourselves having to constantly reassess options on the fly. For example, I'd booked the snorkelling trip to Ras Mohammed, but when I mentioned this to the owner of our hotel in Sharm he recommended against it and said we should go to Tiran instead as the coral was much more impressive and yada yada yada, and he could take care of the booking. I'd never heard of it and hence never looked into it, so do we abandon our original booking and rebook with this guy based on his word, is he just full of shit and trying to get money out of us like I was aware some of them make every attempt to do, should we play it safe and just stick to our original plan, etc. etc.? In the end the Tiran excursion was fully booked anyway, so that decision was made for us. When I was discussing the ballooning with Mia in Luxor, she too recommended against the outfit I had booked with and instead suggested we go with this other company for slightly cheaper. Our guide book says you can climb the mountain in the Valley of Kings, but the sign says you can't and the Egyptian fella who had a phobia of having his photo taken says the only way up is with him. We ask Mr Asshole Cabbie to take us to the pyramids, but he instead takes us to his mate, Mr Asshole Camel Man, who is adamant that his E£180 camel ride is the only way in. Pretty much every day we came up against at least one thing that put us in an awkward position, and there was ample opportunity to allow ourselves to be screwed over. Be all that as it may, it did make for a bloody interesting trip also and I'm happy say that, in hindsight, I think we did everything right (aside from not asking the weirdo up the mountain to produce his change first before allowing him to snatch my money out of my hand). However, I can definitely see why a lot of folk prefer the packaged-tour route where everything is taken care of for you and, aside from getting ripped off because you don't know how to haggle, you're unlikely to run into too much trouble.
Of the three places we went, Luxor was definitely my pick. It's the best of all worlds: you've got city-life Egypt and village-life Egypt within spitting distance of each other, the local temple ruins and the dozens of tombs and whatnot in the mountains on the West Bank, not to mention the Nile River and all the good stuff that surrounds it. Sharm is nothing but a tourist mecca, and that's all it will ever be given that was the whole point of the place - for me it just wasn't the 'real' Egypt. Cairo is about as real as it gets hehe, but it's complete chaos and I think we made the right decision leaving it until last and giving ourselves the best part of a week to build up to and prepare for it. Something I should mention is that crime in Egypt (at least the type of crime that affects tourists) is virtually nonexistent. Egypt lives off the tourist dollar - take that away and its economy would plummet, and they all know it. As with anywhere though, you still need to be wary of pickpockets etc and the scam artists etc.
Aaron's haggling tips! When it comes to taxis, horse and carts, souvenirs - they are everywhere. If someone offers you a price, and you know you can just walk 60 seconds down the road and find the same thing, threaten to walk away. Almost every time, the cabbie or shop owner or whoever will chase after you and offer a more realistic price. If on the other hand you can't just walk 60 seconds down the road, try the walk-out tactic anyway. If it doesn't work then so be it, return later and either get your haggle on again or if the price wasn't really that bad then just pay it, but it's always worth trying. Try to find out in advance what the going rate is for various things - your accommodation are the best people to ask. For example, cabs to almost anywhere should be between E£20 to E£50 at most depending on the distance. Horse and carriage (caleche) to simply take you from A to B, E£5 at most, and so on. If you know you're being stiffed, be assertive about your counter offers and don't back down. For example, we had one caleche driver demand E£50 - I laughed my ass off at him and walked 20 metres down the road to the next caleche. As I walked away towards the competition, Mr Horse And Carriage Prick chased me and immediately dropped the price to E£5. However, I told him to piss off and said I don't trust you anymore, and accepted the next caleche driver's offer of E£5, which pissed Mr Horse And Carriage Prick off immensely! Kristina wanted to buy three awesome paintings done on papaya paper for herself and for gifts. Mr Asshole Shopkeeper tried to charge us bloody E£1,375! We'd already looked at papaya paintings elsewhere and I knew that was a complete joke. However, as always, special price for us, so he whips out the calculator, subtracts 50%, and shows us the new price - E£685. I took his calculator, typed in 150, and handed it back. He gave me a funny look, so I gave him one back - he knew what I was doing. He talked some more tripe about how these are real paintings (as opposed to prints) and this is real papaya paper and blah blah blah, and typed another ridiculous figure into his calculator. I'm not sure what it was but I ignored it and typed 150 in again hahaha! After a bit of this and me threatening to walk out I think we settled on E£200 (€25) which is probably still too much but Kristina really wanted them as gifts and so whatever. Shopkeepers are very good at befriending you, offering you cups of tea and all the rest of it. Whilst some are genuinely just being friendly, I dare say some are only doing so to earn your trust in the hope you won't question their outrageous prices. Moral of the story: don't allow them to fool you. Be aggressive and stern and don't back down. They need your money in a big way but fair's fair at the end of the day.
Aaron's scam-spotting tips! This one is harder. You're dealing with folk who do this shit day after day after day to thousands upon thousands of tourists. They know what works and what doesn't, and they've had all the time in the world to perfect their pitch. You on the other hand have no such experience by comparison, but what you should have though is common sense. The cabbie who offered to wait for me while I leave my £350 camera with him, Mr Asshole Camel Man who proclaimed the only way to the pyramids was his E£180 camel ride - if you get caught out by such things then you're probably the sort of idiot who gives their online banking details to bogus websites because you received some email about your account be compromised or whatever. People like you are better off staying in bed. However, even common sense isn't enough sometimes, and hindsight is always 20/20. I got stiffed by some Egyptian guy up a mountain because I believed him when he said the only way up was with a guide. Unfortunately, the only reason I believed him was because of the sign behind a security guard clearly stating you're not allowed up - still confused about that. As I mentioned earlier, I found the Egyptians to be very warm, friendly, and welcoming. However, the ones trying to scam you are too and they're good at earning your trust (unless you're like me and are just naturally cautious, which is both a good thing and a bad thing but in a country like Egypt I think you simply have to be). As I also mentioned before, trying to discern who you can and can't trust is draining, and the fact you constantly have to judge people and put them in one box or the other is depressing. Some general tips though: Book excursions though local travel agents - they'll give you the best prices, and take care of all the formalities such as hotel collection etc. Don't accept offers from the friendly random on the street offering you a ride in their felucca to such-and-such a place - you could haggle till the cows come home and in most cases (not all but most) you'll still be getting ripped off. In some cases you can get good deals by booking things through your accommodation, however some of them will take a commission for doing so which can be no cheaper than accepting a deal from the random on the street. One thing I noticed is everybody seemed to ask the same two questions: "Where are you from?" and "Is this your first time in Egypt?". At first you would palm that off as just small talk, but I now think they're actually sizing you up. Where you're from gives them an indication of how good your English is (non-English speakers are harder to scam in English). Whether this is your first time gives them an idea how well you know the score, i.e. how likely you are to fall for their bullshit because you're inexperienced. I didn't get a chance to try this myself, but I bet if you made out this was like your third visit to Egypt you'd get a different reaction come haggle time. I mentioned this already but another trick Cairo cabbies are renowned for doing is saying the hotel you asked for is closed or fully-booked or whatever, and instead they recommend some other hotel which in fact is run by their mate and they get a commission for sending you there (very similar to what Mr Asshole Cabbie did to us when we asked to be taken to the pyramids). Be savvy, be vigilant, and be smart. If something doesn't sound right or you have a gut-feeling that something is awry, you're probably better to just walk away. Oh and remember what I said earlier about carrying the details of your accommodation with you always - if you really get in a bind, call them.
At the end of the day, Egypt is a poor and developing nation, and everyone is out for a buck any way they can. However, this can be used to your advantage both in terms of haggling but also paying people off to bend the rules for you. Classic example is the security guard I slipped a fiver to so I could get a couple photos in the Valley of Kings hehe. With regards to Egyptian men and female tourists, well let's just say I'm a lucky man to have Kristina and if there was ever any doubt then all I needed to do was spend a week in Egypt. If I had a dollar for every time I got called a "lucky man" by randoms we passed by on the street or shopkeepers or people in passing cars or even security and police officers, then I'd be a rich and lucky man! In the Luxor market however, Kristina got told she was a lucky woman by some random guy walking with his mates hahaha! While the dress code for Egyptian women is quite strictly adhered to, tourists can get away with pretty much anything. However, if you walk around with exposed shoulders and/or knees (particularly if you're tall and tan and gorgeous), be prepared for a lot of attention. It will be dumbed down significantly if you're with a guy however, but on your own the local men have a reputation for taking things slightly further than a mere catcall.
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