Sep 09 2009

To Cairo, Egypt

Took the tube from Faringdon station at 5.50am in the morning to Heathrow airport (4 pounds, approx 1 hour 15 mins). It’s very easy fly out of London, no one really look at my passport, I just scanned it on a terminal and got my boarding pass. I remembered it’s the same in US when I fly out of the country. But when I arrived in London few days ago, the immigration officer asked so many questions.

Took the 9.15am flight to Cairo and arrived at 2pm (5 hours flight).
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Cairo is hot and dusty. It’s one of the biggest city in North Africa (geographically), Middle East (politically), with 11 millions people. Everything is in Arabic, even numbers. I tried to be adventurous and decided to take a public bus to my hostel instead of a taxi (I did manage to haggle the price of a cab from 80 pounds down to 45 pounds which is around 8 dollars but I didn’t take it). I met some friendly Egyptians on the bus and they showed me the way to the hostel.

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The bus ride was a blessing in disguise because one Egyptian friend invited me to his house in Masala for a celebration of a 7 day old baby.

Egyptians are friendly people. Everyone tried to talk with me. An old man invited me for food on the street. It’s Ramadan, so after 6pm there are free food on the street. At first I was worried about the cleanliness of street food since I read a lot about unhygienic water and street food in egypt in the guide book. But I ate it anyway..
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Was walking around, then another guy asked me to drink with him and then we went for a workout in a gym.
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Then some random guys asked me to drink with them while I was waiting
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Then Mahmod which I met on the bus earlier brought me to his relatives house. There is a celebration for a 7 days old baby.

SIM card is cheap here (15LP), got a SIM card for my cell phone.

One Response to “To Cairo, Egypt”

  1. Joan says:

    “At first I was worried about the cleanliness of street food since I read a lot about unhygienic water and street food in egypt in the guide book. But I ate it anyway..” — I think being Malaysian and growing up eating at hawker stalls has something to do with it 🙂 Thanks for the journal, it’s fun to read on your travels. Where to next?

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