Egypt Part 2

Alazhar mosque

The mosque and university are named in honor of Fatima Az-Zahraa, the daughter of Muhammad(pbuh),The one of the verse which is written on the Mihrab (the wall that directs the Qibla)

قَدْ أَفْلَحَ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ – الَّذِينَ هُمْ فِي صَلَاتِهِمْ خَاشِعُونَ – وَالَّذِينَ هُمْ عَنِ اللَّغْوِ مُعْرِضُونَ

Successful indeed are the believers – who are humble in their prayers – and who avoid vain talk,(Alquran Al-Anam 162-163)

The mosque is built somewhere around 971AD and school connected with it was founded in 988Ad which claims to be the oldest Islamic university in the world.Al-Azhar is considered by most Sunni Muslims to be the most prestigious school of Islamic law, and its scholars are seen as the highest scholars in the Muslim world. Its stated objectives remain the propagation of Islamic culture and the Arabic language.

The mosque has a beautiful marble floor, pillars of stones and a lot of supporting wood work.tourists may enter the prayer hall, which is warmly carpeted and supported by alabaster pillars. the washrooms(toilet and Wudu area) are not clean and water is all over the place and you get wood sleepers to perform ablution. The mosque area is quite big and can easily  accommodate  20,000 people. There are some lectures going on from religious scholars all the time in between prayers and anyone can sit and listen.

Khan-E-Khalili Bazaar

The mosque is surrounded by a huge bazaar and a lot o tourist and locals visit everyday. The place is ideal for shopping (If you bargain well)The rule of thumb for Egyptian shopping is say 40% of the offered price and if the shopkeeper becomes in negotiation mood then stick to your price, If he becomes rude and don't even want to talk then increase your offer price(good luck).

There a lot of shops and also street vendors, if they understand you are tourist then get ready to have a lot of vendors around you trying to sell necklace, jewelry and some monuments( their prices are not high but if you buy the other consider you as potential customer and makes it really irritating)

This is best place to buy Egyptian Papyrus ( famous from Egypt,its writing or designs on paper like material from the pith of papyrus plant) there are a lot of fake ones made from banana or bamboo stem (I don't know how to make difference but an experienced local may help). the bazaar in evening time is great way to spend time and heat at the corner of the bazaar street there are many options and BBQ is on top.

Foods

Don't eat the street food, Its not just the hygiene but foreigner are not use to the tap water and can cause stomach problem (stomach issues are worst for the tourist,isn't it).Drink  bottle water and always keep small bottle with you.
As compared to Europe, Turkey or Asia in Egypt there is very few variety of foods with just salt or slight spice. BBQ is the famous ordered food in restaurants specially mix grill. The Egyptian are crazy for morning beans, the dish is called FUL and made form Fava beans. For me It was little tasteless but I saw that people were making que in the night to buy it from popular shops for the morning breakfast.
some other foods which I see there were
Aish: bread baked in oven and normally hand size.( it was nice,I lied it)
Falafel and tamayyah: Fava beans and chickpeas meshed and deep fried. (nice crispy taste)
Humus bi tahina: a paste made from chickpeas and seasame,for spread on toast or bread (too thick and oily taste)
kofta: meatballs ( spicessssss, please add spices)
baba ghanoush: grilled egg plant,meshed and served with olive oil (good side dish)
Koshary:there was famous dish with rice,milk and pasta,(it wasnt that good, that milk,pasta and rice combination was unacceptable to my taste)
grill corn and sweet potatoes
Sugarcane juice is available almost in all street and taste good in hot weather.

Cairo traffic
worst in the world
You can literally walk faster at the peak times, small hitting of car is nationally acceptable and crossing road for pedestrian can be nightmare. If taxi people are choosy if they know that they will be stuck in traffic if they go to your destination then they will never pick you. So avoid peak times.

River Nile flows through the center of the city and you will pass through bridge many times. to have a more sightseeing trip of river then multiple options of small to big ships are available for 1 hour to 6 hours.
In short my experience of Egypt is excellent and with all issues of traffic and small cheats I still love the country and Its worth to visit again and again.

Egypt part 1

"Some memories never fade" its right but "People do". So decided to share my experience of Egypt trip. The trip was in December 2012. It was a good patch in between the revolution and again in 2013 and then conditions of Egypt became little scary again (at least for the tourist)

Before trip fears

From childhood I had that picture in my mind of Egypt next to Lebanon,Turkey and touching Saudia Arabia, but It actually is in North of Africa. So my before trip fears were

1-Unhygienic condition

2-mosquito related diseases

3-cheating (tricking me to get money)

4-mob

The people I met to take advice made me little scared of Egypt before trip , I was going all my own with no tourist organisation and all bookings are made personally. So my list to remain safe was,

no travel in dark, no taxis without proper taxi meter, some money in pocket rest in hotel, all important cards in the hotel, speak less so people do not easily predict I am tourist.

Flight and Hotel

I took Turkish Airline (chose any flight which lands in day time). The Hotels in Egypt are not expensive as compared to other countries, Even 5 star hotel were 120USD per night for 2 person(including breakfast-Raddison Blu) The choice of hotel was majorly because of the free airport pickup service. My advice is never stay less than 4 star in Egypt.

Arrival at Cairo

Its a strange feeling what will happen and also it brings a smile to think  this is continent AFRICAAAAAAA. The city looks quite messy/unplanned  from top and we didn't have any glimpse of the PYRAMIDS (I thought they would be visible from air ). The airport runway area is really huge it took more than 20 minutes just for the plan to completely stop after landing. Just we entered the airport premises and  the hotel person received us and took our passport and did all immigration himself and took the luggage and we were in car with 15 minutes. The immigration policemen were nice much nicer than any other Arab country. The hotel is not far form the airport and we received excellent services form them.

Initial plans in mind

Plan was simple, we have 2 days to see Pyramids, museum, river Nile, shopping and Alazhar Mosque. (We asked the hotel how to do it and the tourist desk had some options to see all these in 3 days with different packages but it feels like really expensive.nearly 600USD)

We went outside hotel and one taxi men came who speak quite less English but able to understand (at least the money things) We asked him to how much for the Museum he said quite less price which was nearly 3Euro. We sit inside and then he started asking If he can be our tour guide for next 1 days, So even with all my fears and my reluctant nature to trust  a taxi driver, I fell in to his offer and hired him for next day to show all Cairo and in total he will take 100usd. (lets finish the suspense; it was a great choice)

Museum

The taxi man left us at the main door of the museum. The ,museum looks magnificent with a burnt building in the background which the people burnt during the revolution time. We were going to enter when 1 man came and said the Entrance door is on the other side (nearly 200meter) we just started to walk that way and one more man came and said its prayer time the Museum will open after 30min and he works inside and going for prayer. He said you can visit the Government tourist bazar /shops on other side of the road and he tried to help us. (Lets accept that I was really disguised by his politeness and couldn't believe it was all just to bring me to his shop on the other side of the road and sell some monuments and perfume.) we crossed the road again and understood that that 2 person was tricking all the single tourist to go other gate and then towards their shop :). we came back to the main door again and that man was trying the same story with another tourist and saw me and just walked away with shame. we paid the ticket adults 12USD and 20USD extra If you want to enter the MUMMY room. The security will keep all your camera and laptop stuff but just insist little and they'll let you go in.(I did the same)

You just enter and you will be bombarded by the guides,(Sir,..Guide,..Book. English, Spanish,,,good experience) I didn't hire them but later inside I thought it could be good to have at least a book, the halls are really big,too many things and very less description. The Mummy stone covers, room from gold and some stone statues were really amazing. I couldn't imagine how someone had soo much free time to make these mega sculptures. The museum is surely worth a visit,go with your own homework (read and buy some book earlier). You cant see all things even in a 2 days, the museum consist of 2 floors and countless sculptures. The museum closes at 17:00

(you can walk to the river Nile form museum its hardly 10 min walk)

Street View

Pyramids

Next day Taxi man took us to the Pyramids (its in the district GIZA) I was expecting the pyramids would appear far away in the desert but in reality its all covered by the City and many must be having a window view of the pyramids. The taxi reached near to pyramids and some guides were running on the road and they try to open the taxi door and sit inside so you can hire them(it was really fearful as I wasn't expecting something like that)

Cheat from the Taxi men: We wanted to just see the pyramid form the near and with no intention of camel ride and going inside pyramids, but he didn't tell us that its possible he took to one place (most probably his friend place or he get some commission from it) they showed us very professionally that we can take long or short ride of pyramids on camel or horses as we chose, They made us sit on the camel and start negotiating the price we were almost trapped above camel :). We agreed for  nearly 50usd for 2 person and but later they said It was for 1 person, I became angry didnt want the ride atall now, so finally they said its 60usd for both of us.

The student discount works there, and ticket was nearly 5usd per person just to enter the area of desert where pyramids are.

The guide also comes on another horse with you and takes extra 10usd in the end :)

The trip is nice, the camel ride is very photogenic and the guide is very professional for taking photos; specially photos showing the pyramid in your hand and camel mouth to the tip of the pyramid.

Hiking above the pyramid is crime but you can go one two stones just for a photo, the stones are quite big nearly 4 ft high and can be hard to stand above them.

Going inside Pyramid

There is separate museum inside the great PYRAMID and cost extra 10usd , you have to bend your self to go inside few meters to reach a room of monuments, you can also give some bribe like 1 Euro to guards in front of small pyramids to see inside. If you have claustrophobia then don't even think about it. the way of going is steep and you have to bend yourself and inside is room where they keep the dead body of king and his Jewell. Anyhow it amazing to see enormous rooms inside the pyramids which are not carved but made from the placement of stones in a specific positions to make a pyramid shape.

The SPHINX at Giza is also very attractive and enormous. I heard its last few years before the head will fall down due to erosion, (lets see if gold comes out of it :))

The complete trip took more than 3 hours (the plan was for 5 hour but we got tired)

I COULDN'T DO ANY OF THESE but the tips for safety are don't drink coffee with shop keepers, don't buy their fake perfumes, be safe from taxi  and decide the price before riding the camel :)

ANYHOW THE PEOPLE ARE FRIENDLY AND THERE IS NO MATCH OF PYRAMID IN THE WORLD

Part 2 will include bazaar, Alazhar mosque and the street food