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...