Prelude
29/04/19
I am not due in Egypt until the 9th May, but already I am coming under its spell. If visiting the pyramids is half as interesting as booking a transfer from the airport to the hotel it is going to be wonderful.
After requesting the hotel via Booking.com for a transfer I received a one word email: ‘Ok’, which, the more I thought about it, the less it really answered my request. I tried again – and got the same result. But then I suddenly started getting slightly odd WhatsApp messages from a foreign phone number. On checking my booking it was the hotel!
I have copied the full text of the exchange for your enlightenment, only missing out the numerous images of my friendly host and his Majedfayedpyramidview hotel sign. [I have added a few explanatory (?) comments]
27/04/2019, 13:38 – Welcome to Majid Baramz View Hotel
[That is not my hotel!]
27/04/2019, 13:40 – +20 114 082 2217: We have an airport transfer service in Palatil if you are a college student
[Palatil? Where is that? And no, I have not been at college for a while now]
27/04/2019, 13:41 – +20 114 082 2217: Arabic price of the delegate $ 30
27/04/2019, 13:41 – +20 114 082 2217:
27/04/2019, 13:42 – +20 114 082 2217:
27/04/2019, 14:03 – Rob Smith: Maijid Baramz View Hotel? I am booked into the Majedfayedpyramidview hotel. Regards, Robert Smith
27/04/2019, 14:16 – +20 114 082 2217: We have an airport transfer service you would like
27/04/2019, 14:17 – +20 114 082 2217: Professor Roopt, you are asking for airport transfers. You want to transfer the airport to the hotel
[Well, actually I was more inclined to leave the airport where it was, but hey ho – and who the devil is Professor Roopt?!
27/04/2019, 14:17 – +20 114 082 2217:
27/04/2019, 14:20 – +20 114 082 2217: We are the Majid Pyramids View Hotel
[Ah, now we are getting somewhere]
27/04/2019, 14:20 – +20 114 082 2217:
27/04/2019, 14:21 – +20 114 082 2217: Would you like an airport shuttle service to the hotel
27/04/2019, 14:21 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:09 – Rob Smith: What does it cost?
28/04/2019, 19:10 – +20 114 082 2217: The cost is equal to $ 30
28/04/2019, 19:10 – +20 114 082 2217: If you are riding a taxi from the airport, it will laugh at you and ask you
28/04/2019, 19:10 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:11 – Rob Smith: …ask me what?
[Not to mention the laughing…]
28/04/2019, 19:11 – +20 114 082 2217: I am all the customers who are very satisfied with their flight from the airport
[You are?]
28/04/2019, 19:12 – +20 114 082 2217: The cost is $ 30 if you love my owl
[Now it is getting really weird. How much would it be if I didn’t love his owl?]
28/04/2019, 19:12 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:13 – +20 114 082 2217: If you have installed the airport taxi, you will receive a high sum
28/04/2019, 19:13 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:14 – +20 114 082 2217: I am satisfied with you
[I do try to give satisfaction]
28/04/2019, 19:14 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:23 – Rob Smith: Well, I am glad you are satisfied, and I have not yet met your owl (although I am sure it is very lovable), but yes I would like a transfer from the airport please.
28/04/2019, 19:24 – +20 114 082 2217: Of course I am all the customers who are proud of me, they do not like me very much because I am afraid of them
[Eh, right, sorry to hear that]
28/04/2019, 19:25 – +20 114 082 2217: All the customers who are proud I have two words Beshkroa Majid Pyramid in Greece Majid Regal very respectable and friendly with them fearing them
[I was starting to lose the plot at this point]
28/04/2019, 19:25 – +20 114 082 2217: Make sure that you will be happy happy, God willing
28/04/2019, 19:26 – +20 114 082 2217: But I want to ask you request I want the number of the trip to sell how much
28/04/2019, 19:26 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:28 – +20 114 082 2217: Could you send me the flight number
28/04/2019, 19:28 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:30 – Rob Smith: MS 702 arriving 20.30 from Amman on Thursday 9th May.
28/04/2019, 19:31 – +20 114 082 2217: The representative will be waiting for you and the plaque
28/04/2019, 19:31 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:32 – Rob Smith: Great, thanks. Do I pay the driver or pay you at the hotel?
[You might think, like I foolishly did, that this would be a straightforward question…]
28/04/2019, 19:33 – +20 114 082 2217: They rushed me into the hotel
28/04/2019, 19:33 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:33 – +20 114 082 2217: Delegate Haikon mask plate on which written Majid Fayed program View
28/04/2019, 19:33 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:34 – Rob Smith: Sorry to hear that they rushed you, but who do I pay?
28/04/2019, 19:34 – +20 114 082 2217: Okay
28/04/2019, 19:35 – +20 114 082 2217: Pay Hikun in the
28/04/2019, 19:35 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:35 – Rob Smith: Do I pay you at the hotel for the transfer?
28/04/2019, 19:36 – +20 114 082 2217: Yes at the hotel
28/04/2019, 19:36 – +20 114 082 2217:
28/04/2019, 19:37 – Rob Smith: Thanks. All is clear. I hope.
28/04/2019, 19:37 – +20 114 082 2217: I wish you a happy holiday and you will be happy with the gift
[Gift? I thought I was paying $30?]
28/04/2019, 19:38 – +20 114 082 2217:
This certainly promises to be an interesting hotel stay. All I have to do is get there from the airport…
First impressions
Arrived in the evening on 9/05/19 minus a pair of small nail scissors confiscated by security at Amman airport. Three flights, three different sets of rules, four items down; at this rate my backpack will soon be much lighter.
The airport security people are the only ones I have ever seen sitting around waiting for passengers. They were very interested in my camera and binoculars, checking both carefully with a small piece of mysterious paper on two occasions. My gear evidently passed the paper test, whatever it was, because I was fortunate enough to be allowed to keep it.
Arriving in Cairo I went to find my owl taxi. The drivers are not permitted inside the terminal building (they probably make too much of a nuisance of themselves); instead they line up behind a barrier in the dark outside, which does not make finding the right man, let alone the right bird, easy. I narrowly escaped being forced into several other taxis before finding my driver, who appeared to be completely flightless.
And then we drove through the Cairo night to the hotel. I sat in the front, joking with the driver that I felt brave. Little did I know what was to come! Wow, what a drive! I expected a slow journey on congested roads carrying Cairo’s 19.5 million people. Instead I got a sort of science fiction expressway known as the autostrad, an almost motorway standard road, streaming past countless huge illuminated billboards, the cars constantly weaving in and out at high speed with inches to spare as if they were radar controlled. Lane discipline is a concept that does not seem to have caught on here. I guess the drivers are quite skillful. Just a pity they are totally mad as well. At one point someone actually ran across the three lane road. Nobody bothered to slow down; I think he made it – I didn’t notice a bump.
After 45 minutes of gritting my teeth and closing my eyes we turned off the motorway at Giza and went straight from a futuristic madhouse to something from the past. Still a madhouse, but a version 100 years earlier. The road surface, if it ever had one, was disintegrated; tuc-tucs and horse drawn carts vied for space with dilapidated jalopies. Vehicles drove and stopped wherever they liked, often on the wrong side of the road. My driver was no exception, and if anyone was in his way he blasted the horn. Not that that made any difference; with so many horns sounding at once no-one took any notice.
When we finally stopped I checked carefully and found to my surprise that I was still in one piece. I said a silent thank you to the Egyptian gods and prayed that my hotel would not be a tip.
Isis and Osiris must have been paying attention because the hotel exceeded expectations. It is really a room in a very large house, filled with massive, ornate and obviously expensive pieces of furniture. Not only is it comfortable, but my host goes out of his way to please his guests. And I seem to be the only one.
I was welcomed with a glass of fresh orange juice. In the morning a knock on the door informed me breakfast was ready, and it was good: hot falafels, the best I have ever tasted, and a plate of something that looked like chocolate mush but was apparently another type of falafel and also tasted good. Flatbread, honey and dried dates completed the meal.
The pyramids
I had a quiet morning catching up on my blog and then took some time out from writing to do some sight seeing. After all, I thought, while I am here I might as well go and see the pyramids. They are only a 10 minute walk away after all.
It was an interesting experience on a number of levels.
First of all the pyramids were even more impressive up close than I had imagined. When you stand at a corner and look up at the massive blocks reaching up to the sky you cannot imagine how anyone could have built them. Or, for that matter, why they would want to. They are awe inspiring.
It is a shame that the experience of this world heritage site, one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world, is marred by four things: the total lack of information, the unhelpful staff, the general state of maintenance and the touts.
When you buy your ticket you do not receive an information leaflet, there are no signs at the entrance and no information boards or signposts anywhere that I saw on the entire site.
The staff tell you the minimum they can in response to a question, leaving out things you don’t know about but really need to. So they told me that if I wanted to go inside the Great Pyramid I would need to buy an additional ticket, but did not tell me I had to get it from the other ticket office on the far side of the site. (Why not sell it at both ticket offices?)
The whole place, with the possible exception of the road through it, cannot be said to be well maintained. Footpaths are poor, broken kerbs left unrepaired.
Worst of all are the touts; they pester tourists constantly, trying to sell horse, buggy and camel rides or trying scams and demanding money for services you did not ask for and do not want.
I had been warned about them and was on my guard when someone tried to sell me a buggy ride to get the additional ticket, telling me it was a long way and they closed in an hour. I had been caught like that in Thailand and was not going to be caught again. As it turned out I was not as clever as I thought i was.
I took my time strolling around the site, admiring the Sphinx and Great Pyramid until I eventually came to the steps leading up to the entrance. Only here I was officially informed that the ticket had to be obtained from the other ticket office. And that they were closing in 20 minutes! I did manage to get a ticket and just got inside the pyramid as the last people were coming out, swearing I would be very quick. It is a steep climb up the narrow passages, one of them so low you have to bend double. The air is poor and I was running with sweat and out of breath when I reached the inner chamber.
It was worth it. There is not much to see inside other than the passages and chamber themselves, but to be inside that massive construction under thousands of tons of building blocks, and to ponder the purpose of it was more than enough. Thank you Pharaohs. Assuming of course, that you, and not space aliens, built the pyramids.
lost in giza
Finally leaving the pyramid site nearly an hour after the official closing (the officials were kind of relaxed about that once I was out of the Great Pyramid), I went for a stroll in the local area. The streets were busy with people preparing to eat at the end of their daily Ramadan fast. They do not eat or drink, not even water, from dawn to dusk for 30 days. I don’t think I could do that; in the heat I was drinking water all day. I had a glass of juice from oranges squeezed in front of me; just the best orange juice ever.
I stopped to look at men working in a bakery, churning out flatbreads that were selling like hot, eh, bread. Two young girls with a bag of bread smilingly pressed one on me; giving is especially encouraged during Ramadan.
All life is on the streets here: people, horses, camels, tuc-tucs, cars, buses, even ducks:
I have always been fairly confident at finding my way around and I had not walked very far, so I would have no trouble finding my way to the hotel. Or so I thought. However, before long I was in streets that did not look quite as familiar as they ought to have done. And then I was in narrow, dusty lanes that I definitely had not seen before. Still, I was heading in the right direction. Wasn’t I? Well, apparently not, because no matter which way I turned in the maze of back alleys I could find nothing familiar. And then, just when I was resigning myself to a life forever wandering Giza, a saviour appeared! Yes, my offline Google map came to the rescue, and with the trusty GPS now turned on I knew where I was! Hooray!
Whatever did we do before we had smart phones?!
I want my mummy
Another must do when in Cairo, the Egyptian Museum is home to a vast horde of items recovered from ancient tombs. I tend to find museums interesting but hard work, and this one was true to form. Given such a vast array of statues and funeral paraphernalia, many if not most without labelling or information, it is easy to get the local ailment, coffin fatigue.
I had paid extra to see the royal mummies and I’m glad I did, even though they were rather underwhelming: body shaped cloth wrappings with blackened skin stretched over the skulls. Still, for 3500 years old they are in pretty good nick. Certainly better than I expect to be a lot sooner than that.
The highlight was definitely and unsurprisingly King Tut. His anthropomorphic golden coffins are beautiful and his 11 kg exquisitely decorated golden face mask is mesmerising. I could not take my eyes off it; indeed I gazed at him for several minutes; he just looked straight through me like he was some kind of a god-king: it seriously felt like that, testament to the skill of the artisans who made it all those years ago.
Photos of Tut and the royal mummies are not allowed. I did try to sneak one when I thought no one was looking but an eagle eyed guard spotted me and made me delete it.
Before the discovery of King Tut’s tomb the most valuable finds were at the tomb of Yuya and Thuya, which, although it had been robbed, still contained fine furniture.
Despite the discovery of scores of tombs of ancient notables, King Tut’s remains the only one found unplundered. Many were robbed relatively soon after they were sealed up; at one point the tombs and mummies were officially cleared of valuables to replenish the royal coffers. If King Tut’s tomb is anything to go by, just imagine what treasures they must have contained.
and the taxi driver came too
Have you ever bought dinner for your taxi driver? I think I just did. It is a little hard to tell for sure because the taxi driver’s English is extremely limited and my host, who arranged my dinner cruise on the Nile, speaks slightly less limited but quite idiosyncratic English. He says things like “I come back eight o’clock” when he means “You go at eight o’clock.” At least I think that is what he means. Sometimes. When he doesn’t mean he comes back at eight o’clock. Which he occasionally might. “I come back” is his most frequent expression and seems to be used for a wide variety of purposes. Not that I wish to disparage him; after all, I speak no Arabic at all, and he has genuinely been very helpful and friendly. Just a little confusing at times.
I paid my host for the dinner cruise and he arranged both that and the taxi to the Nile and back. Apparently the taxi driver had the ticket. I was a little surprised when he accompanied me onto the boat, but clearly he was going to get off after ensuring that all was in order with the ticket, which I never saw. I was more surprised when he in fact remained on the boat even when it left the mooring. I was even more surprised when he escorted me to the restaurant and nonplussed when he joined me in selecting food at the (very good) buffet.
My price must have included the services of the taxi driver throughout the evening. He was a pleasant enough fellow and did deal with the ship staff and make sure we got a good table, so I suppose he earned his dinner. Conversation at the meal table was pretty limited, but that did not matter since there was good entertainment, first from a singer, then a dance group and finally a lady who whirled around and around non-stop for 15 minutes without falling over, all the while performing different antics with an enormous set of flying skirts. Quite extraordinary.
All in all a good evening, even if not quite what I expected. I hope the taxi driver enjoyed it.
driving rules in egypt
Every country has slightly different driving rules and it is important that visitors take the time to acquaint themselves with said rules if they wish to remain safe and within the law. It is to that end that I give you the benefit of my experience.
After two or three days of concentrated study, during which I have observed Egyptian driving from the the viewpoints of taxis, buses, minibuses and pedestrians, I can confidently state that I now understand the local rules of the road. There is only one: sound your horn as loudly and as frequently as possible. This is used to warn others that you are swerving violently from one lane to another and are about to hit them; it is used to express annoyance that someone else is using the same road as you and happens to be in your way; and it is clearly enjoyable to make a lot of noise.
Drivers who fail to observe this rule face a substantial fine and points on their licence if they happen to have one. Alternatively, first offenders may attend a one day horn blowing course which clearly explains the many virtues of using the horn as often as you can, and involves extended group horn blowing sessions after which participants rarely if ever recover their full hearing.
The Luxor Express or Journey up the Nile (where is that river?!)
Imagine a land 10 miles wide and 600 miles long. This is essentially Egypt south of Cairo and the Nile delta, a narrrow belt of densely populated and intensively cultivated land either side of the life giving Nile, surrounded by endless desert. Seen from the train the land is evidently fertile with little wasted space, but strips of land mostly less than 100m by 15m give little opportunity for mechanisation. From my first class seat on the 400 mile, 10 hour journey from Cairo to Luxor (cost £10) I saw plenty of farmers working the fields by hand but only a few small and very old tractors, mostly linked to machines winnowing grain.
The scenery, although constantly changing, repeats the same patterns over and over: strips of green crops; strips of yellow harvested wheat in sheaves; mud coloured towns of densely packed houses, and, in the distance, block like plateaus a few miles long rising in cliff faces from the flat valley.
Despite the heat outside, the highly effective air conditioning maintained a constant temperature inside of 2.7 C. I know this for a fact because it was displayed on a very useful dot matrix information screen. It also told me that it was 2.28 am on 22 April, but I am not convinced that particular information was entirely accurate.
All the way I was looking for the river. After all, it could not be far away. I had to wait 7 hours to get my only view of the Nile on the whole trip when we crossed from the west bank to the east bank on one of the rare bridges.
I expected settlements to thin out as we got further south but they did not; in fact the train stopped more frequently. Finally, at 6.15 pm, we arrived at my destination. Even at that hour the heat was a shock – so much hotter than Cairo, and it had been as hot there as a summer heatwave in England.
Ancient Egyptian Building Secrets Revealed
My west bank Luxor hotel, which had looked comfortable and rather oriental in the pictures, did not disappoint and, thank Amun, the room is air conditioned.
I arranged breakfast for 7.30 and settled down for what was to be my first night on this trip when I was not awakened at 4.00 am by the call to prayer from a local mosque. The lack of barking dogs at intervals through the night was a bit unsettling at first, but I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes manfully.
Going down for breakfast at the scheduled time I found the restaurant and kitchen deserted. The chef was on the sofa, clearly busy planning the dream meal, and I did not have the heart to disturb him – he probably ate at 3 or 4.00 am Ramadan style and then decided to catch up on a bit of shut eye. He finally stirred 30 minutes later and I enjoyed a breakfast of omelette, cheese and bread. No falafals, though.
I walked the 10 minutes to the packed ferry and crossed to the east bank before fighting off the taxi drivers and walking along the Nile the 3 km to the Temples of Karnak. I was pondering tales of crocodiles when there was a muddy swirling of some large creature in the water 20 yards ahead. I quickly prepared my camera and moved closer, with some caution – crocodiles are known to be somewhat dangerous, after all. Suddenly the waters cleared and I could see the creature: my ‘crocodile’ was in fact a concrete ramp just below the surface. I later discovered that there are no longer any crocodiles in the Nile north of the Aswan High Dam; above it, in Lake Nasser, one of the largest man made lakes in the world, there are, I am assured, 60,000 of the beauties. Useful information, I am sure, for any keen swimmer.
I arrived at the temple complex unscathed by crocodiles and concrete ramps and engaged the official guide services for an hour of Mohamed Nuby. He turned out to be extremely well informed and even spoke good English. Thank you Mohamed; you gave me a lot of information; it is just a pity that I have forgotten a lot of it already.
One thing I do remember is that before the Aswan High Dam was built the Nile would flood for 3 months each year. To protect the temples in ancient times a wall 20 m high was built. As recently as 1899 a flood caused several columns to collapse; they were later restored.
Observing with awe the scale and grandeur of Karnak, I could not help but compare it to Stonehenge, which is thought to have been erected around the time that construction at Karnak was getting under way about 4000 years ago. Now we British are proud of Stonehenge and rightly so; it was an amazing feat to get those 25 ton rocks up onto Salisbury Plain, and the builders did not have the Nile handy to float them up there. All the same, when you consider what the Egyptians built, our little ring of rocks starts to seem, well, rather primitive.
Many people have contributed over the ages to our now extensive knowledge of ancient Egypt, but there is, of course, much still be be discovered. One question that still attracts discussion is, how on earth did they build these huge monuments? Well, I am pleased and proud to say that as a result of my exhaustive 2 hour research at Karnak this is a mystery no longer. I have photographic proof of the tools they used:
The heat was exhausting so I took a horse and buggy ride back into the town to visit Luxor Temple. Not as extensive a site as the Karnak Temples, it is nevertheless another awe inspiring monument, connected to the other temples by a road lined with hundreds of sphinxes.
By this time I was not feeling great at all, and headed back to the hotel by 2.30 pm to collapse on the bed after my third watery visit of the day to the loo. I did try to go out for dinner later, but the bowels were having none of it, causing a swift about turn.
Episodes continued through the night but, having only one more day here I was determined to see the Valley of the Kings in the morning. I dosed myself up at breakfast with an anti-diarrhoea tablet and rehydration granules and set off with my driver to see the next round of marvels.
The medicine did the trick and I got through the morning without ‘incident’, but what with my stomach still feeling uncomfortable and the stifling heat I must confess I almost felt a little sorry for myself for a while.
The entrance ticket gets you into three tombs. The man in the ticket office recommended tombs 2, 8 and 11 before demanding a tip. Everybody here is on the make. Men lurk in corners of monuments, insisting you look at something or other; if you do look they of course demand a tip. Even getting to the ticket office you have to run the gauntlet of souvenir and guide sellers, who practically thrust the goods on you. The best tactic seems to be to ignore them completely, walking on as if you can neither see nor hear them. I am sure the shops would sell more if, instead of hassling people, they just allowed you to look quietly in your own time.
So, what of the tombs? I guess they were neither more nor less than I expected; just like you see on television really: impressive tunnels, some covered with hieroglyphics and pictures, some almost bare; one or two massive sarcophaguses, and that is it. Given my somewhat limited understanding of hieroglyphics (I opted for French at school), it was all a little meaningless. I did not get the same sense of awe that the temples and pyramids gave me.
The next stop on my little tour was the temple built by the royal regent/usurper Hatshepsut. Now that is grand, and walking up the ramps in the heat it felt even bigger than it looks. I marvelled at the endurance of the hordes of sweating labourers who had toiled to build this and the other Egyptian marvels. I would not have lasted long.
A quick stop on the way back to take photos of the colossi of Memnon and my sight seeing was done. Although it was only 12.00 I was not sorry to get back into the air conditioned hotel room and rest.
I had imagined when planning this trip that Egypt would be hard work, and so it has proved. It is difficult to have a peaceful time here; the hawkers, taxi drivers and touts make sure of that. The only time you are left alone is when you are with a guide, but that can work out expensive. Perhaps the best way is to come with a small group and share the cost of guides and drivers. And come in the winter when the weather is more comfortable, although that will mean bigger crowds of tourists. Take your pick, but do come sometime.
Rob's Roads 