Originally posted by fiestaWe plan on a week taking in the sights, and a week chilling on the beach, diving and snorkelling and what not. Marsa Alam looks great, but I've two questions... is it difficult to get to? and is it a Malarial region?
try some less popular laces to visit like marsa alam or hughada,sharm el sheikh is ok but losing its identity by being a victim of its own success...enjoy your holidays
Cheers,
D
Originally posted by RagnorakOne thing, when we went, (working in Israel so we got a package deal to Egypt), we got into a very nice hotel in Cairo but found out something wierd. They have this mosquito fogging machine about the size of a roadway vacuum cleaner going up and down the sidewalks very near the rooms and we all got sick, three kids, me and my wife. We had to change rooms but we saw that infernal machine fogging the heck out of the whole area. It was a very nice hotel, olympic sized beautiful swimming pool and all but watch out for the foggers!
What can't I miss? What should I watch out for?
Cheers,
D
Don't forget to catch the Cairo museum. It is utterly awesome! There was stuff there I never would have imagined. Like a carved wooden bird-like thing that had horizontal wings, tail and aileron, and a bird-lke head, looked like a 20th century dude carving a toy for his kid. The closest thing I ever saw to what a modern airplane might look like except this thing was three thousand years old! I also wanted to check out what they had in the way of board games and I found one, forget the name, but it used pieces that moved, I think more parcheesi like than chess like but it was on a board 3X8 squares, 24 squares total and you moved and tried to block the opponent I think. Carved into rock, illustration from a tomb, about 4,000 years old. There was carvings on rocks that depicted the 7 day genesis story, except it was also about 4,000 years old, including the 'on the 7th day, he rested' bit.
Traffic in Cairo must be experienced to be believed. Goat carts, donkey's, cars, carts, vespa's, motorcycles, busses with chickens and goats and people, all going in what seemed to be a random distribution but they all seemed to get where they were aiming.
It was amazing to me how close the Giza Pyramids are from the hotel we stayed at, you could see them quite clearly over the hotel boundry fence! We went to an open air restaurant and had a nice lunch on our way to the Pyramids and I saw this huge hookah the locals were taking puffs on. They said, take a puff, and I am thinking maybe a big hash pipe, right? Wrong. It turns out to be tobacco mixed with molasses and so I gave it a huge hit. Big mistake. I got sick as a dog and nearly fainted. Never smoked tobacco before. When we got to the pyramids, it was about 110 in the shade and the entrance is a bit over a meter in height so its quite a stoop and down about a 30 degree slope. So my wife and kids go merrily down the shaft and I tried but go sick again halfway down and it was half sick and half claustriphobia and I had to get out of there as fast as I could, startling some tourists in the process. Spent the next half hour in the heat which didn't help and was as sick as a dog, when I recovered, I found my son Kevin (17 yo ATT) being chased by the Egyptian police because he was doing one of those, King of the World trips near the top in a small opening.
All in all it was very memorable, highly recommended. BTW, coming from Israel, the bus we took was flanked by four egyptian police cars in an armed escort because there had been a bombing of a tour bus earlier in the week.
Originally posted by shavixmirShav, you forgot 'don't cause a major disturbance of the peace at the airport...'😛
Don't drink the water!
And I mean: Don't shower with your mouth open either.
Brush your teeth with mineral water.
Go to the Western Sahara and look at the mushroom rocks.
Go to Karnak.
Float down the Nile on one of their little boats with a sack full of marijuana...