Egypt Travelogue-8: Sight seeing trips: Day 8 & 9-Sharm-el-Shiekh: Mt Sinai

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Day 8-Trek to Mt Sinai

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Our next destination was St Catherine's City. The St Catherine’s monastery situated in the foothills of Mt St Catherine and Mt Sinai were the places of interest in this region. St Catherine's monastery is one of the oldest monasteries where among others the burning bush is located. Mt Sinai also holds religious significance were Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. A trek to Mt Sinai and watching the sunrise from the summit is also supposed to be a memorable experience which was in our itinerary.

Someone from the tour agency was supposed to escort us from the resort to the bus which would go to St Catherine's. We were eagerly waiting at the resort reception with our bags. We read in various articles that it would be very cold early in the morning when we reach St Catherine's. So we packed gloves, scarves, jackets etc along with some biscuits and water bottle. The person came at 10 PM. In a flash of a second we were following him and within few minutes we boarded the bus that was waiting in the main road. The bus was already filled with tourists of different nationals. The bus journey was comfortable except for a couple of times in the midnight when we were asked to show our passports/visa to few Egyptian authorities. They were just doing their duty, so no complaints there..

We reached St Catherine's at around 2 in the morning. When we got down the bus, it was extremely chill that I covered myself with all possible things to keep warm. In case you forgot to take jackets, no worry, there were many renting out blankets.

At St Catherine's, the plan was to trek to the summit of Mt Sinai, watch sunrise, visit St Catherine's monastery and finally get into the bus. Our tour operator left us with a guide and told us to return back to the bus by 8 AM. It was pitching dark and the torch we carried came in handy. There were around 20 tourists in our group. We started our trek to Mt Sinai at around 2:30 AM following our guide.

There are two principal routes to the summit. One , the longer and shallower route the other steeper and shorter. During the ascent, we took the longer route. The climb up the cliff was a bit tiresome, but the thought that I would be seeing sunrise from the top of Mt Sinai kept me going. As morning broke, we could see a lot of people making a beeline to the summit. As Mt Sinai also holds religious importance, there were lots of elderly people walking with sticks and riding in the camel to reach the top. After some point, the path becomes so steep and narrow that the camels can no more walk. At this point, you can opt to be carried in a chair by a couple of men, of course for some Egyptian pounds.

It took around 2 1/2 hours for us to reach the summit. The view was amazing from the summit. Sun hadn't showed its face yet. We managed to sit on a rock facing east to behold the spectacular sunrise on Mt Sinai. Nature had different plans. The clouds played a spoil sport and as the time passed by, the day light broke, but no trace of sun. Now everyone waiting for the sunrise realized that the clouds had hid the sun. So we got down the rock and walked here and there (mostly following people with sophisticated cameras..They would definitely be more desperate to see the sun than us :))to at least see the sun once. How can you come back without seeing the sun (rise) at Mt Sinai. Somehow we managed to see it. There was nothing great about it, it was the usual sun. :-), but I felt happy..

After the sun drama was over, we took time to enjoy the array of huge reddish-orange granite mountains surrounding Mt Sinai. The sight was just spectacular. After 1 year and 2 months of our visit, the sight is still crystal clear in my mind.

We took the shorter, steeper route for the descent. As there were so many tourists flocked, finding the way down was not difficult. We had to just follow the people ahead of us. The descent, as with any other was easy and smooth except for few places where the steps were really huge. There were people on the way selling so many different kinds of stones, especially alabaster. We felt them to be costly, so did not buy anything. I remembered reading somewhere that alabaster is cheaper in Luxor. So we reserved buying those stuff for our Luxor visit. We had karkady in one of the shops for 5 EGP each.

The descent directly led us to St Catherine's monastery. The monastery is surrounded by a huge wall.
We entered inside, saw the burning bush, took some photos, went inside the monastery, saw some amazing paintings and came out.

We then boarded the bus and had buffet breakfast(cost included in the package) in one of the hotels on the way. I, being a strict vegetarian confined myself to eating just bread and jam. We reached the resort in the afternoon, physically tired by the trek but the whole experience was still lingering in our minds.

We just watched TV the rest of the day and went for a walk in the night to have a glimpse of the night life in Naama Bay, full of life, vigor and color.

As a side note, within few minutes of getting down the bus, we were feeling hungry, more because we got up so early. The biscuits that we carried helped us quenching our hunger. If you are also like us, its advisable to carry something light to munch on.

We stayed back at the resort the rest of the day watching TV. We were supposed to checkout the next day morning. Our bus to Cairo was only at 10 in the night.

Day 9

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We did not have any planned activity either. There was this quad runner which I wanted to give a try. But dropped the idea for no particular reason. We enquired at the reception if we can checkout later in the evening. The manager said we can, by paying 100 EGP. We accepted. We went for snorkelling. My husband read in the "rough guide" that somewhere at the end of the beach, you can find lot of lovely corals. We walked from one beach to the other in search of that "spot", but in vain. My husband did snorkelling on the way in every private beach(he could not end his quest for seeing beautiful corals and hundreds of varieties of fish), calling me occasionally if he spotted a really nice coral surrounded by a school of fish. We came back to the resort in the afternoon, packed our stuff, paid 100 EGP to the manager and checked out in the night. We took the taxi to the bus station and boarded the bus to Cairo. Our 7 days stay in the "heaven on earth" came to an end. If these 7 days were nothing but pure fun, the rest of the days in Egypt took us back in time, to the time of pharoahs and their splendid temples, which was also a fun in different way.

Egypt Travelogue-7: Sight seeing trips: Day 4, 5, 6 and 7-Sharm-el-Shiekh: Snorkelling and Scuba Diving

Sharm-el-Sheikh is at the southern most tip of Sinai peninsula where, in a few square kilometers all natural wonders come togther-sand, sea, corals, mountains. Its also one of the best places for holidaying with exotic locales, quaint resorts and fashion hot spot. The main attractions in and around Sharm are beaches, snorkelling, scuba diving, trip to Ras Mohammed, glass boat trip, early morning trek to Mt Sinai, desert driving and so on...

Day 4-Booking for scuba diving and Mt Sinai trek
While planning the trip, we had put scuba diving and trek to Mt SInai in our must do list(these were the main reasons why we left our then 1 1/2 years old kid at home) ..We have read a lot about red sea and its magnificient under water life with rich flora and fauna.. Its a diver's paradise with crystal clear water and good visibility under water.Trek to Mt SInai and watching the sun rise is also supposed to be an equally splendid experience. 

There are lot of diving centres through out Sharm..We enquired in 3 to 4 centres. Camel driving centre offered us diving in Ras Mohammad one of the best places in the world for suba diving. Generally beginners and people without any prior experience like us are not taken to Ras Mohammad.. When Camel offered us that, we readily accepted and paid the advance. We also chose our diving suit and shoes that fitted us. We had to wait one more day for the trip. 

Next we had to book for Mt Sinai trip. As our resort has been converted to a disco club, we did not get any help wrt sight seeing trips..But there were so many other resorts having their stalls for various tour packages..Trip to Mt Sinai is generally available only on fridays.. We booked in one of the resort's stall(forgot the name of the resort) We had to wait 3 more days for the trekking trip..

We then had a stroll in the main road of Sharm to experience the night life. It has starbucks, lots of ice cream shops, many restaurants offering variety of cusines and of course night clubs...We just had coffee in starbucks and we felt we are spending a fortune on a cup of coffee. 

Day 5-Just snorkelling
We did not have any planned activity for the day..So we just went to the beach to do some snorkelling. Snorkelling equipment was available for rent for the whole day for 20 EGP per equipment. My husband did a quick calculation and felt that buying the equipment would be cost effective(we had already enquired the price) than renting for another 5 days at 40 EGP per day for both of us. So we bought the equipment for around 120 EGP per piece.(of course after bargaining). We did a lot of snorkelling in the beach..It was a very nice experience. I was so happy to spot the same fish which was animated in Finding Nemo as the lost kid. Once we go a bit away from the shore, we could see colorful live corals being habitated by different varities of fish. 

Back at the resort, we packed for the next day's suba diving trip.

Day 6-Scuba Diving
Camel driving school's van picked us up at the resort at around 7:30 AM. We met a Russian scuba diver who saw a shark the previuos day he went for scuba diving..The instructor in the van told us that we would not be able to do the diving in deep areas as we do not have any prior experience. We were a bit disappointed. In the next half an hour, the van was full of Russian divers and all of them were experts. They had dived more than once in the red sea. We realised how funny it was that we were disppointed that we would not get to dive in deep sea. We also felt we did a big mistake by choosing ras mohammed as there was no beginner for our comapny. 
Once we reached the quay, we boarded our boat. Within few minutes, I felt sea sick and had to take a pill. I was just lying down for the most of the journey cursing myself for choosing ras mohammed. Then came the first deep sea destination for diving. All the russian divers changed to diving suit, tanks and dived into the sea. The guide offered us to go for snorkelling till the time the divers come back. My husband accepted immediately and I backed off at the same pace. I was really scared that my husband was going to snorkel in the deep waters of red sea. I know he has never done anything like this before though he had always wanted to. He is a good swimmer too, but he is not going to swim in a swimming pool or pond...its the RED SEA. I just kept my fingers crossed. The boat was always following him while he circled the sea reefs. Finally he signalled for the rope by raising his hands in the sea. The boat went towards the shore and threw the rope so that he can be guided. He reached the boat safely and was just elated to have seen so many fishes,corals. it was indeed a happy event for him though the memorable one was yet to come. 
After few more diving by the Russian experts in deeper areas, we headed back towards the port. I thought may we might not dive today and I was really happy about it..But the boat stopped at some place and my husband was supposed to dive first ofcourse with the guide who would handle all the operations. The guide explained to us some of the sign languages with which we need to communicate when underwater. 
My husband dived, and I started worrying. Atleast during snorkelling I could see him, but diving is entirely different. He was below the water for what looked like a very long time to me. He came up safely after fifteen minutes or so and he had loved every minute of it. Then it was my turn. I don't even want to say anything about it except that after going 1 foot under water, my ears started paining like anything(due to pressure difference), I got panicky and I just remebered one sign language that is to tell the guide to bring me to the surface. I felt terrible and ashamed of myself...But I was really happy for my husband that he could do it. We came back to the resort in the evening. For lunch, we had brought some noodles. The too provided lunch on boat for 20 US $ per person.

Cost per person for scuba diving: 100 US $ for one dive

Day 7-Just snorkelling again
We spent our time in the beach snorkelling. I forgot to mention that we did buy an underwater camera in one of the shops in SHarm to take snaps while scuba diving. as if diving was a child's play. We did not even take out the camera there. We used it to take snaps of the fish in the beach while snorkelling. .We developed the photos in a studio in Sharm, half of the photos were good..Back at the room, we got ready for the Mt Sinai trekking for which we were supposed to catch the tourist bus at 10 in the night.

To be continued...

Egypt Travelogue-6: Sight seeing trips: Day 3-Sharm-el-Shiekh: Naama Bay

Sharm-el-Shiekh is our destination for the next seven days

We arrived at the bus stop in Sharm-el-Shiekh at around 7:00 AM in the morning. We took a taxi for 30 EGP(we knew it was a bit expensive) to reach our resort, situated in Naama Bay. After some inital hitch, we checked in at 8 AM. We had reservation for 7 days stay in the resort. The resort was quite nice with all amenities.. TV, telephone, air conditioner, kitchenette to name a few. The room was clean and house keeping personnel cleaned the room almost daily and changed the beds every alternate days. It was situated in a very posh area of Sharm-el-Shiekh called the naama bay where some of the famous diving schools are located. The whole area is nested with a lot of resorts and clubs.
Each resort has it own private beach(around 200 to 300 metres stretch for each resort or sometimes more than one resort shares the small stretch of the beach)Our resort was around 200 metres from the beach. We had to take a pass for the beach from the manager at the resort(thankfully, entry to the beach was free of cost) and provide the pass to an attendant at the entrance to the beach. Once you enter the beach, you can just walk/swim/snorkel the whole stretch. There are some man made partitions, but you are free to go wherever you want.
In the evening we went to the ticket office to get the tickets back to Cairo. The gentleman at the counter was very friendly and helpful. We emquired him about services to Mt Catherines, but came to know that we need to arrange for the trip through tour operators only, especially the tourists
To be continued...

Egypt Travelogue-6: Sight seeing trips: Day 2-Giza, Saqqara, Dashur and Memphis

PYRAMIDS TOUR
We booked the pyramids tour for 120EGP per person in a private taxi.We covered giza, saqqara, dashur and memphis city. Needless to say, it was a wonderful and memorable trip, the biggest pyramid in giza being the highlight.
Our first destination was Giza, in the outskirts of Cairo where the biggest pyramid is located. There are totally three main pyramids and many other small ones scattered here and there. We were very excited and happy beyond words to see the huge pyramid that we were seeing all these days in TV or photos. We went inside the big pyramid. There was nothing much inside the pyramid, just empty rooms. But the walk/crawl through the steep passage makes us realize how the pre historic people would have entered the pyramid to keep the mummy and the treasures. The area is very fast and we need to walk a lot to go from one pyramid to other. After seeing the other 2 pyramids and other monuments(following the rough guide book), we finally saw the sphinx. This ended our tour of giza.
We then visited the step pyramid in Saqqara. This is considered to be one of the oldest pyramids built by the famous archotect Imhotep for Djoser, a ruler of Egypt's 3rd dynasty. We had around 45 minutes to go around this place.
Our next destination was Dashur, the village where Red Pyramid and bent pyramid are located. The drive through the village reminded me of Indian villages.
Our cab stopped near the Red pyramid. We went inside the pyramid. It was same as the big pyramid in Giza, but there was a very bad smell inside the chamber. We were literally breathing through our mouth to avoid inhaling the smell. We could only see the bent pyramid from a distance as it was a bit far from the red pyramid and we did not have enough time.
On the was back to the hotel, we visited the city of memphis which is now more like a museum. There was a huge structure of I think Ramses lying flat inside a big room. Other than that there were some more statues. Memphis is supposed to be the city from where the pharoahs ruled.
We were quite content with the day's trip and it was a memorable experience to have relived history.
In the night we boarded a bus at around 10:30 PM to sharm-el-shiekh, a coastal city in the Sinai peninsula.
To be continued...

Egypt Travelogue-6: Sight seeing trips: Day 1

We arrived at Cairo airport at around 11 in the morning. After immigration checks, we boarded the cab that we had pre booked through Nubian hostel in which we stayed in Cairo. It costed us 70 EGP for airport pickup. On the first day, we just went to the most famous market in Cairo, Khan-el-Khalili in the evening. We went by taxi by paying around 15 EGP.(ofcourse after bargaining)We just roamed about the market to the shouts "Hey India", "Amitabh Bacchan", "Sonia gandhi is inside my shop, come see her" etc, by the local shop keepers. I did not buy anything on that day and just took stock of the items available that is worth buying. We had anyway planned to visit the market once again for the actual purchase. I should say that most of the items that are available in those markets are available in India too except for few things that are unique to Egypt which I will cover in Shopping section.

We were back at the hotel in the night. We booked for the pyramids trip for the next day through our hotel manager. Our first day ended with an anxiuos wait to visit the Great Pyramids the next day.

Egypt Travelogue-5: Inter city travel

The colored circles that I have shown in the map are the cities that we visited, in the order in which they are numbered.We travelled once by bus, twice by train and once by cab.Booking bus and train tickets is not very difficult, atleast, it was not for us. From the day we landed people of Egypt were very kind enough to help us in every possible way which made it easy for us to do our travelling independently. They especially treat Indians as their friends.

Intercity booking details

Cairo to Sharm

The hotel manager at Nubian Hostel booked us the bus tickets for a commission of 10EGP for each.The bus was at 10:30 in the night. He was also kind enough to arrange a taxi for us to reach the bus stand..The bus was very comfortable. It had a very good push back.If you are used to travelling overnight by volvo bus in India, you should not have any problem.The journey was 11 odd hours. We boarded the bus from turgoman garrage.
The cost of the ticket for two of us one way was around 160EGP.

Sharm to Cairo

We booked the tickets ourselves by going to the booking office in Sharm at Super jet office. There are service taxis in Sharm that run for 2 EGP per person. We took that taxi, reached the booking office and booked our tickets.Don't forget to take your passports while booking the tickets or for that matter, its better to carry the passports always with you. We boarded the bus from Super jet office where we booked our tickets.

Cairo to Luxor

We tried to book the train tickets through the hotel manager once again. But he was ready to book the tickets only if we took the luxor-aswan package from him. We decided to book the tickets by ourselves. When we came back from Sharm, the bus stopped near ramses station in the morning. We decided to book the tickets by ourselves.We were wandering to locate the station when one gentleman was kind enough to accompany us till the railway station.(eventhough he did not have any work in the station)The booking counter was not crowded. The person sitting at the booking counter was kind enough to clarify all our doubts regarding tourists travelling in trains. He gave us the tickets in second class AC as first class was completely booked. He also assured that tourists are allowed to travel in 2nd class AC. We boarded the train from Ramses station.

Luxor to aswan

We did this travel by booking a cab in luxor. The original price that the driver quoted was 500EGP. After bargaining, the price came to 250EGP + 24EGP tip to the driver. En route to aswan, we stopped in kom ombo and edufu and visited the monument. The local mobile connection that we took as soon as we landed in Egypt was very useful in contacting the tour operators, taxi drivers, hotel managers. More on getting the mobile phone connection on Communicating within and outside Egypt

Aswan to Cairo

We booked the train tickets to Cairo on the same day when we booked our tickets to luxor from Cairo. One important thing that has to be noted is, train tickets can be booked only 7 days ahead of the date of journey. There is a website for Egypt rail. But it does not allow non Egyptians to book the tickets.

We were somewhat worried about the intercity travel while planning. But everthing from booking the tickets to travelling went on very smoothly.

To be continued...

Egypt Travelogue-5: Accomodation and food

Our motto was "Enjoy Egypt economically". We stayed in budget hotels in all the three cities(Cairo, luxor and aswan) that we visited. We chose the hotels that were near the city centre. We covered most of the sites by walk that way. Only exception was Sharm, where we stayed in a resort that we booked through our club membership. (RCI through club mahindra)

Hotel and resort details

We booked the hotels through hostelworld, one of the best sites to search budget hotels in a city. As soon as you book the hotel, you would recieve an e-mail from the hotel welcoming you and giving you the tour details that they offer.In all the three hotels we booked a room with double bed and a private bathhroom.

In Cairo we stayed in Nubian hostel located very near to Cairo museum. The rooms were quite decent and spacious. The manager was very friendly and helpful. More about the hotel on day wise trip.

In luxor, we stayed in Hotel Nefertiti, one of the hotels reccomended by lot of travel guides. Its a bit expensive when compared to other budget hotels in luxor, but again it was at a walkable distance from Luxor museum and corniche and if you have strong legs, you can even walk to the world famous Karnak temple from the hotel, which we did. Again the hotel was decent, though the room was a bit small.The manager was very friendly and helpful. These managers know how to handle the tourists. Egypt being a tourist nation, its in their blood to be friendly and polite. More about the hotel on day wise trip.

In aswan, we stayed in Hotel Keylany, the best hotel of our trip. It was like a 3 star hotel at the price of a budget hotel. Moreabout the hotel on day wise trip.

Accomodation in the resort was a different story. We were shocked to hear from the receptionist that his computer does not show any booking and the resort has been converted into a pub sometime back. My husband handled the situation so efficiently that after a couple of phone calls to the resort manager by the receptionist, he was able to locate our booking details and finally handed over the room key to us. Though the resort was clean with all facilities and very close by to the beach, we would not recommend this resort because it becomes very noisy because of the disco that continues till early morning. More about the resort on day wise trip.We stayed in a resort called Sanafir Vacation Club now renamed to Pacha.


Food

This is one section that I would not be able to give much information on. I being a strict vegetarian, stuck to the MTR ready to eat stuff that I carried with me. My husband did not have any other option but to give me company, though he tried I think pita. I did have karkady(hibiscus tea) once and that was the only time in our entire trip that we were conned. More on it on Shopping. I think the hotel manager would be able to guide you if you give your preferences with respect to cost etc.

To be continued...

Egypt Travelogue-4:Visa and Travel

Indian citizens need to get an Egyptian tourist VISA to travel to Egypt. You don't get a visa until you book your tickets and attach a copy of it with the visa form. But it is not necessary that you will definitely get the VISA which means you will have to cancel the ticket and and bear the cancellation charges., if you don't get the visa. We have to just take our chances and be ready to loose some money if the unfortunate thing happens.

Non Indian citizens can checkout this site for details on Visa.

Tickets

As of now (March 2009) Oman Air is the only airline that has direct flights from bangalore to Cairo, capital of Egypt.There are also other airlines like Egypt Air and Air India that fly from Mumbai. Oman airways worked out to be the cheapest for us and we went ahead with it. There is a change over in muscat, but overall it is quite comfortable.

We planned to book the tickets through oman airways site in the internet. But we came to know from my brother-in-law that an agent in Delhi was quoting a much lesser price than the internet. We booked the tickets through the agent about two months ahead of our travel date.

Flight Details

Airline: Oman Air
Destination: Bangalore to Cairo and back(stop over at muscat)
Cost of the flight tickets(to and fro for 2 of us): Rs  56000(almost half of our entire trip cost)
This is November 2008 prices.

Visa

Indian citizens residing in India can get Egyptian visa from the Egyptian consulate in Mumbai or Egyptian Embassy in Delhi.One good thing about getting Egyptian Visa is, we need not go in person to get the visa. So we submitted all the relevant documents to a travel agent and got the visa through him.

We got our VISA through Charter Travels and Tours. The only reason I chose them was because their office was very near to mine. Their service was quite OK.

Its better to call them (or any other agent) first and find out the documents that have to be submitted to them to get the visa. We applied for visa around two weeks before our travel. I think its better to get the visa a month ahead to avoid uncertainity.

The following are the documents that we gave them

1.  Filled VISA form(I downloaded it from here, the agent will help you in filling the form)
2.  Passport
3.  1 passport size photo with light background
4.  Confirmed air tickets
5.  Hotel booking
6.  Cover letter
7.  Salary slip for the past 3 months
8.  Leave letter from the company
9.  Last year's filed IT return
10. Credit card copy
11. Brief Itinerary

The agent gave us a call after 3 days to collect our passports stamped with Egyptian toursit visa valid for 3 months. I was overjoyed to collect the passports that officially stated that we are elligible to travel to the land of pharoahs.

To be continued...

Egypt Travelogue-3: Introduction and brief Itinerary

Egypt is a gifted country. Its rich unparalleled history, world famous live corals and colorful fishes, mesmerising beaches, long trekkable deserts, sites of religious importance and most important of them all, warmth of the people makes it a perfect destination for vacation. These are reasons enough for us to plan a trip to visit.

We chose November to start our enthralling vacation as it fulfilled most of our expectations with respect to weather, crowd and availablity of sites for seeing. According to rough guide

"Deciding on the best time for a visit involves striking a balance between climatic and tourist factors. Egypt's tradional season runs from late November to late February, when the Nile valley is balmy, although Cairo can be overcast and chilly. However, at these times, particularly during the peak months of December and January, the major Nile resorts of luxor and aswan get unpleasantly crowded. This winter season is also the busiest period for the Sinai resorts, while Hurghada is active year round.

With this in mind, March or April are good compromise options, offering decent climate and fewer visitors. In May and June the heat is still tolerable but, after that, Egyptians rich enough to do so migrate to Alex and the coastal resorts. From July to September the south and desert are ferociously hot and sightseeing is best limited to early morning or evening-though August still sees droves of backpackers. October into early November is perhaps the best time of all, with esily manageable climateandcrowds."

November suited us the best.

After exploring a lot using rough guide and other internet materials, we came up with the following itinerary.We could almost stick to the itinerary except for few misses which we would definitely cover in our next trip.

Brief Itinerary

Day 1
On the day of arrival, overnight stay in Cairo

Day 2 Cairo sight seeing
Overnight bus to Sharm-el-shiekh

Day 3 to day 10
Stay at Sharm for 7 days(We booked a week's stay in a resort through our club membership.)
On day 10, overnight bus to Cairo

Day 11 
Cairo sight seeing
Overnight train to Luxor

Day 12 
Luxor sight seeing
Overnight stay in Luxor

Day 13 Luxor sight seeing
Overnight stay in Luxor

Day 14 
Edufu,komombo and esna sight seeing
Aswan sight seeing
Overnight stay in Aswan

Day 15 
Aswan sight seeing
Overnight stay in Aswan

Day 16 
Aswan sight seeing
Overnight train to Cairo

Day 17 
Sight seeing in Cairo
Overnight stay in Cairo

Day 18 
Morning flight to Bangalore

To be continued...

Egypt Travelogue-2

I have divided this travelogue into 11 sections..

Introduction: I have given a brief about why we decided Egypt as our destination and our brief itinerary.

Visa and Travel: I have given details about Egyptian Visa for Indian citizens and information about flight tickets from Bangalore(India) to Cairo(Egypt) and back.

Accommodation and food: This section covers details about accommodation available in Egypt and a brief review about the hotels where we stayed and how we booked those hotels.

Inter-city travel: I have given information about traveling between different cities within Egypt. This has information about getting bus and train tickets within Egypt.

Sight seeing trips: Here I have covered in detail about our daily sight seeing trips.

Pack list: A detailed list of things to be packed is covered here. Since we traveled in the month of November, the climate was quite conducive for sight seeing. The pack list here pertains to things that are needed irrespective of the weather and things that are specific to the month that we traveled.

Shopping: No trip is complete without shopping. Information about the places best for shopping and the things that are worth shopping are covered here.

Photos: I would upload some good photos that we clicked touring Egypt.

Research Materials: Information about the internet matrials and books that we referred for making this trip a successful one.

Others: This section covers information about things that are not covered in any of the above sections and also some info about some more places that one can visit in Egypt that are not covered in this travelogue.

Conclusion: Our feeling about the overall travel to Egypt.

To be continued...

Egypt Travelogue-1

My husband and me had been to Egypt last Novemeber(2008) as tourists.We did a lot of research and planning for the trip as we were travelling independently. I used internet extensively while planning for the trip. I was amazed by the amount of information available in the internet. Even the minute details were not missed. All credit goes to the huge amount of publishers who have taken time to put the information in the net for the sole purpose of helping/guiding others...(Ofcourse, no information gets the status of information unless google searches it and gives for you..So hats off to google..)

Thats when I decided that, as soon as I return from my Egypt trip, I should also write travelogues and publish it in the net. Its been 4 months since we returned from our memorable trip to Egypt and I have not done anything to that end. Better late than never..So here I am with my Egypt travelogue, to start with.

Hope the readers would benefit from this travelogue. Feel free to put forth any question that you have in your mind which you think I have not covered. I will be more than happy to answer.

To be continued...