Alas, poor rodents, they don’t do well with Dorrie around.

On Saturday evening, she joined me in the computer room, proudly carrying a mouse in her mouth. Unfortunately, when she dropped it and it started to move, I realised it wasn’t dead. Sadly, it was very much alive, but its back was broken. It was trying to crawl around, but could only drag its back legs behind it. There was nothing I could really do - Dorrie showed no further interest in it, and it would have been beyond cruel to leave it outside. In the end, I put it in an empty jam jar and took it down the road to the PDSA, where it was put to sleep.
Poor thing.

Browsing through Friends Reunited and LiveJournal earlier; of 10 friends I knew when I lived down in Cardiff whose profiles I’ve found:

Seven are married, one is getting married soon.
Five have a child, one is pregnant.
Three are living abroad.

Thinking back to then seems a world away - Tuesday nights down the Tavistock, shared houses and bad landlords, live gaming in the upstairs room at the 147 Club or down at that place by the bus station (I’ve forgotten its name!), cycling to work down Queen Street at 6.45 in the morning when it was deserted…

Time since I…
…left secondary school - 14 years, 2 months.
…left University - 10 years, 3 months.
…moved to Sheffield - 7 years, 4 months .
…bought my house - 5 years, 5 months.
…started my current job - 4 years, 11 months.
…acquired a cat - 11 months.

It’s amazing how it seems to pass so quickly.

Bought a humane mousetrap last night, baited it, and went to bed. Woken at 2am by Dorrie batting the dead vole around under my bed. Obviously deadly revenge for having her food stolen and her water bowl pooped in.

Dorrie 1, Vole 0

There’s a mouse loose about my house!

Or to be more specific, a short-tailed vole. I walked into the kitchen this morning to find a piece of Dorrie’s food on the floor with several small, suspect droppings around it. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement by Dorrie’s litter tray. Pulling it out, a found a small pile of cat food, and a tiny little brown vole. The thing was too fast for me to catch it by conventional means, and it disappeared under the cooker. I can’t be sure that there’s no others in the house, so I’ll be off to the pet store this evening to track down a humane mouse trap.

In the meantime, I’ve put Dorrie’s food on top of the kitchen table (apparently, short-tailed voles are poor climbers). I wouldn’t be surprised if I came home this evening to find Dorrie proudly displaying a dead vole in retaliation for it sharing her food, but better to be safe than sorry. I don’t want a vole infestation!

No sooner am I back home, and recovered from what I’ll delicately refer to as Egyptian digestive tract problems, then I catch some kind of gross snorky cold thing. I am most definitely unimpressed. I blame the 25C drop in average daily temperature. Damnable English (lack of) summer.

Guide books are great sources of information when you’re off on your travels. I took the Rough Guide to Egypt with me, but I saw just as many people leafing through Lonely Planet. Either way, they you lots of useful hints and tips. There’s some things that they don’t tell you, though. That’s the stuff you have to figure out, often through painful or embarrassing experience. I thought I’d mention a few things for anyone visiting or considering a holiday in Egypt.

Disclaimer - This is definitely not intended to be disrespectful or anti-Egyptian; it’s just what I found on my travels. Others may have entirely different experiences. I did have a great time in Egypt, and what’s not mentioned in this post - the sights, the sounds, the good times - is definitely mentioned in previous entries.

Arriving at Cairo airport:
On arrival, if you haven’t got a visa before leaving your home country, you need to get one before going through passport control. No-one mentions this, and there are no handy signs to warn you in advance. I waited in the queue at passport control for over half an hour, and then got sent to the back again because I hadn’t got a visa. There are several bank kiosks just before the passport queue, where you buy the visa that they stick in your passport. It costs around £GBP10.
After passport control and baggage collection, it’s out to the main hall. It’s likely you’ll be immediately accosted by touts asking if you want a taxi. If you say yes, they’ll try to take your suitcase off you to help you to the car. They will expect extra money for this, so either keep hold of your suitcase yourself or have a £E1 note handy.

On tipping:
You will tire of hearing the word baksheesh. Strictly speaking, I believe it means blessing, but in the normal context it means ‘give me money’. People will ask for baksheesh for many, many things - helping you with your bags (even if you don’t want them to), pointing the correct way to a landmark or street, taking a photograph of them, getting them to take a photo of you, providing toilet paper in a public toilet - or even for no reason, as is often the case with young children. If you think the tip is deserved, e.g. room cleaners in a hotel, then pay something, but don’t feel obligated to stump up cash for nothing. A fair tip is only £E1-2.

Taxis:
I know, my posts made it seem like I obsessed over them a bit - but unless you want to brave public transport like the buses or metro (and I didn’t want to venture there), taxis are the best way of getting around if the heat is too much for you to stomach walking any distance.
To take a taxi, just flag one down on the street and tell them your destination before getting in. They’re black and white, and extremely plentiful. They’ll even pull over if you don’t need one, and ask if you need a ride anywhere. Drivers are not obliged to take a fare, and if they don’t want to go to a certain destination then they’ll refuse and drive off.
The fare meters in taxis are never turned on. In general, prices are not agreed beforehand either, although those taxi drivers who want to get away with overcharging will often quote a price in advance. When you reach the destination, get out of the taxi and then pass the driver the money. Try to have the correct change or you’ll leave yourself open to being fleeced or hassled. No-one ever has change, it seems.

Acceptable fares:
From the airport to the city centre - £E40.
From downtown to the Pyramids or Heliopolis - £E15.
From downtown to Khan El-Khalili or Islamic/Old Cairo - £E5-7.
A hop across the city centre - £E5.

If the driver complains when you hand him the money when you know it’s a fair fare, and he refuses to take it, leave the fare on the passenger seat and walk away. Be firm.

On the roads:
Drivers in Cairo are, without exception, crazy. Cars are invariably boxy and beat up affairs, and the driving style is homicidal. Drivers weave in and out of traffic, communicating with other drivers through a complicated system of horn usage which, as far as I can tell, can mean anything from, “I’m coming through, make room,” to “What the hell are you doing, you idiot?”
There are traffic police all over the place, but they make little difference to the way of driving. Adherence to traffic signals is optional, so for God’s sake, be careful crossing the road. If a car does seem like its going to run you over as you cross, the done thing is to keep walking confidently whilst sticking your hand out as if you can stop it hitting you. Pray.

Purchases
Very rarely will you find price labels in general stores, the kind that sell drinks, snacks, cigarettes, etc. This is because there are two prices - the Egyptian price, and the tourist price. This is a country where haggling is pretty much compulsory. Again, the idea is to be firm. If they quote a vastly inflated price, laugh and tsk and quote a fairer one. You’ll still probably pay a little bit more than an Egyptian, but when you’re haggling over what amounts to mere pennies, only the most frugal travellers will object.
For a bottle of water, a can of Coke, or fresh juices (mango is gorgeous) - £E2-3. I was quoted anything up to £E8.
A packet of crisps (potato chips) - £E1.
A bar of chocolate - £E1-2.

Health
Don’t drink tap water. Cheap bottled water is there for a reason. Drink plenty of it - dehydration is not good.
Don’t eat unpeeled fruit.
Most places do have Western style toilets, but many won’t have toilet paper. Little tissue packets come in handy.
Cairo can be very humid. I highly recommend making sure your accommodation has air conditioning.
Cities are active well into the night. If you value your normal sleeping hours, find accommodation with good sound insulation, or invest in ear plugs.
Sun tan lotion is your friend, as is head protection from the sun - think scarf, hat, bandana.

Hassle/hustle/haggle
In terms of personal wealth, Egypt is a poor country. Wages are poor, and tourism is a vast source of income. As a result, vendors are always trying to get you to buy from them. You’ll often be approached by people with the intent to usher you into their shops. The two invariable starter questions - What’s your name? Where are you from? If you want none of it, ignore them and keep walking. If you want to be polite, greet them but keep walking. If you follow them into the shop, you get the hard sell, even if you’re told, ‘No hassle here, no obligation’. If you want to buy, it’s much better to go into a shop where you weren’t hustled in off the street.
The problem is, Egyptians are friendly in general, but it’s so hard to tell who is just being friendly - just saying hi - and who’s out to make money off you.

The other trick you’ll get is the outright con. I was on my way to the Egyptian Museum when a guy struck up a conversation with me and asked where I was going. I pointed at the Museum, and he shook his head and told me the museum was only open to groups until midday, so why didn’t I come and get a drink at his shop until then? Don’t believe it. The other one to watch out for is people telling you that the shop is government registered, and is therefore very respectable and honest and won’t try to overcharge you. Again, meaningless.

When haggling with vendors, especially when it comes to souvenirs and tourist tat, a decent rule of thumb is to initially offer 30% of the price quoted to you. They’ll laugh, they’ll protest, they’ll point out the quality of the item and how they have many tiny children to feed, but you’ll see the price come down slowly, and you can raise yours if you wish to find a happy compromise. The price will often come down even further if you try to leave the shop. Remember though - don’t feel forced to buy if you’re not sure. Also remember that a fair deal works both ways. It’s their livelihood, and while it’s not right for them to vastly overcharge you, you shouldn’t try to vastly undercut their profits either.

Women
You can happily travel on your own as a woman around Egypt, but expect attention. Unless you’re somewhere blatantly touristy like Sharm El-Sheikh or Dahab, don’t wander around in shorts, miniskirts, and strappy or lowcut tops. A Cairene friend told me that the perception of Western women by Egyptians is heavily influenced by Hollywood, and the appearance of women as sex objects. Even dressed relatively conservatively (cropped trousers and t-shirts most of the time) I was propositioned many times. The stock question seems to be ‘Are you married?’, followed by the comment that they would like an English wife. I generally lied and said I lived with a partner. Don’t say you’re gay, even if it’s true. Homosexuality continues to be a taboo in Egypt.

Useful phrases
Although many people speak fair to good English, a little effort at the native language always goes down well.

Yes - aiwa
No - la
Please - min fadlak
Thank you - shokran
Hello - ahlan w-sahlan
Goodbye - ma’a salaama
Leave me alone / Don’t touch me - sibni le wadi
Enough / finished - khalas

Written Arabic numbers
Useful to learn, as some numbers in Arabic look like ours, but are actually different. For example, a ‘0′ in Arabic is ‘5′ in English. Their ‘6′ looks like our ‘7′. ‘1′ and ‘9′ on the other hand are the same as in English.

Sharm El-Sheikh Airport
If you plan on eating at Sharm airport, take food with you instead of buying it there. The prices are beyond belief.

Leaving from Cairo Airport
Cairo Airport has 2 terminals. By default, the taxi drivers will take you to Terminal 1, but most English/US flights leave from Terminal 2. Check before you go or you’ll end up having to take a second taxi when you realise you’ve made the mistake.

There’s a lot more to Egypt than you might think. Like anywhere else, there’s good things and bad things. It’s well worth it to take the chance, though. Ultimately, have fun. It’s all an experience.

As Mike, Bryan and were having dinner together one night, I saw a blonde woman walk past to the buffet tables. Very short red dress, slim and tanned, and with a gravity defying chest that looked way too big for her figure.

Me: Hey guys, check out that woman behind you. The one in the spotted red dress heading for that table. Boob job, yeah?
Mike: Oh god, yeah.
Bryan: Totally.
Me: Yeah. Face that old does not go with boobs that perky.

Collective mm-hmmm.

It’s interesting that the conversation could have easily been between a group of girls or a group of guys, but not really a combination. Does it class me as being really bitchy, or just ‘one of the guys’? I just can’t decide. Either way, it was funny.

I love holidays, but I really, really hate travelling.

I was up at 5am to be at the airport in time for my 8.35am flight. I gave the taxi driver £E40, the standard fare for a ride from downtown to the airport, and shook my head when he asked for £E50. He then asked for £E5 for the ticket entry to the airport, when I know for a fact that the taxi drivers only have to pay £E2 at most. I refused to give him that too. After two weeks of firmly but politely pushing aside requests for baksheesh, and protesting at being overcharged, I was about ready to snap, and wasn’t going to budge. Seeing as I already had my bags and case out of his car, there wasn’t anything he could do but pout and leave.

Inside the airport, I got through security only to be told by a guard that I was ‘at the wrong airport’. I was told I needed the new airport. This was news to me. I was aware that Cairo only had one airport. Thankfully, a helpful translator told me he meant the new terminal across the road. I managed to miss a shuttle bus by mere seconds due to my hideously unwieldy suitcase, which had lost its balance support when I fell down the stairs in Hurghada. Instead I got another taxi. The driver drove me from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 in about 2 minutes, then wanted more than £E5. I snapped and shouted at him, told him that that was a perfectly good fare, and that I was sick of people trying to fleece me, and he’d only driven me across the road, for god’s sake. I huffed off into the terminal, and happily confirmed that yes, my British Airways flight would be leaving from there.

I slumped through security, having my suntan lotion confiscated en route. Not like I need it in the UK, so I let them take it off me with little protest.

My requested window seat was taken off me at the check-in desk due to a very full flight, so I kicked up enough of a fuss to be upgraded from World Traveller to World Traveller Plus - score! Extra leg room, more recline, thank you very much. I was willing to put up with having no window seat for the extra comfort.

The flight was as monotonous as they all seem to be. When we got to London, I was extremely disgruntled to find that we had to circle around Bromley for 20 minutes whilst Heathrow cleared some kind of weather related backlog. It meant my flight was late in, which meant I was late getting to London St Pancras, which meant I missed my scheduled train and had to wait an extra hour to get a train home.

At Sheffield, I got a taxi back home. The driver put me in mind of the Cairo taxis in that it seemed as if he could barely speak a word of English, and had no grasp of the city geography.

“Attercliffe, please,” I told him.
“At-cleef?” he repeated.
“Yeah. You know, Don Valley Stadium?”
“Tru vikka?”
“Um. What?”
“Vikka. We go tru vikka?”
Comprehension dawned suddenly. “Oh! The Wicker. Yes, drive down The Wicker.”

It was 5pm by the time I got home. Mum was here, having painted my bedroom and rearranged the furniture - it’s absolutely gorgeous. Dorrie had also been returned to me by the cattery owner, and she was in perfect health, extremely vocal, and just as adorable as ever. Yes, I missed her.

I managed to stay awake until 9.30pm, then flaked. In my newly decorated room, under a new quilt and in my wonderful, familiar bed.

My last day in Egypt!

I had gone to bed the previous night with excellent intentions of getting up to see Islamic Cairo in the morning before meeting up with Alex and Jenn. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Like a complete layabout, I slept through the noise of my crappy alarm clock, and didn’t wake up until 10.30am. Oops.

Given I didn’t have enough time to get to Islamic Cairo and back before 12.30pm, I had breakfast then half-heartedly packed most of my stuff. Down on Talaat Harb and finding Alex and Jenn, we got a taxi (eventually - drivers often refuse fares to places they don’t want to go) down to Khan El-Khalili. The driver wasn’t impressed when Alex only left him £E5, and for a horrible moment we thought he was going to chase us into the bazaar for more money. We’re wise to them now, though!

Just as last time, the vendors in the bazaar plagued us constantly to buy. I resisted temptation until right near the end of our circuit, when I went into a shop to buy a mother-of-pearl inlaid wooden box. The shop owner was straight in with the hard sell, quoting a price of £E250. I laughed and told him it was worth no more than £E70-80. There was much protest from him and miniscule lowering of price, and it wasn’t until all three of us walked out the door that he finally accepted my bid of £E80. He tried to seal the deal by taking my hand and raising it to his lips to kiss it, but I was having none of that! I pulled my hand away and suppressed the gag reflex. Eww.

We finished our afternoon with drinks and sheesha at El Fishawy, purportedly the oldest and longest running coffee shop in the world. It’s cool and shady in the alley where it’s situated, and it’s a great place to just chill out and chat.

Back downtown, I said my goodbyes to Alex and Jenn. They were flying out to Amsterdam for the last five days of their 4 month Middle East tour the next day. We exchanged offers of accommodation in England/Canada, and swapped email addresses. I really enjoyed spending time with them, and I was glad we got to catch up again in Cairo after the time in Luxor.

In the evening, I heard from Mike and Bryan. They were staying overnight in Cairo before heading out to Alexandria, and I jumped at the chance to see them again. We met on Talaat Harb after they had a nightmare trying to find the place (taxi drivers in Cairo have a hazy grasp of city geography at best), and went to Groppi’s at Midan Talaat Harb for drinks and banana splits. I was slightly dubious about the sanity of eating fruit and dairy given my dicky stomach, but figured as it was my last day I’d throw caution to the wind. Very nice it was too. It was a real shame to say another set of goodbyes, but I’ll make quite sure that that’s not the last I’ll see of Mike and Bryan!

The flight tomorrow means I’ll have to be up at yet another god awful hour, but I can always try and futilely sleep on the plane.

After missing them first time around, I had no intention of leaving Egypt without seeing the Sphinx and Pyramids. I arranged to meet with Amr, a couchsurfer, at 7.30am at Midan Tahrir, just down the road from the hotel. Waking up at 7.15am was therefore not a good way to start the day. I was up, dressed, and out of the hotel in 10 minutes flat, and at Midan Tahrir for 7.28am. As it turned out, Amr himself was rather late, and at 8am I’d just walked off to get a drink from a nearby shop when I heard a shout behind me. Amazing timing on Amr’s part - he’d seen me walk away, and immediately parked his car on the road (a perfectly normal occurrence in downtown Cairo) and leapt out to catch me.

Drinks in hand, we drove up to Giza. Even given it was a Sunday morning, the traffic was crazy. I learnt that Friday and Saturday were the weekend days in Egypt, so Sunday is like any other rush hour. When we got to Giza, the site was just warming up in terms of visitors, so thankfully it wasn’t too busy.

The Pyramids are just as awe-inspiring as people say. They’re huge. Standing at the base of any of them, they fill your entire field of vision. I went into a couple of tombs, but not into the Pyramids themselves - I’d been told by Alex and Jenn that they were extremely hot and extremely cramped. Add in the extra expense to see them, and I didn’t want the hassle or the claustrophobia. Just seeing them is enough.

I rode the obligatory camel, of course. The camel owner seemed put out when I gave him £E8. I assume he often fleeces unsuspecting tourists out of much more money by exploiting their embarrassment when he protests. Thankfully, I had the wonderful Amr with me, and he put paid to any hassle. Riding the camel itself was terrifying, to be honest, but it had to be done. I also rode a horse for what I think was the first time in my life. I’m just very, very glad that no-one I know saw me trying to get onto it. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

We moved on to the Sphinx. Everyone says it’s smaller than you expect, but I thought it was pretty damn impressive. A lot of restoration work has gone into it, which is good, but it’s painfully obvious where the old stone ends and the new stone begins, and that’s a shame.

After leaving the plateau, Amr and I met up with his best friend, Ahmed. Due to his English-school education and time spent in the US, Ahmed speaks perfect English. The three of us chatted for ages, and they eventually dropped me back off on Talaat Harb in the early afternoon after arranging to meet up again that evening, “around 8, 8.30pm” to go up the hill Mokattam.

Around 6pm, chilling out in my hostel room, Alex and Jenn turned up. They were in Cairo for their last few days in Egypt, and had just been relaxing. They mentioned they were going to Khan El-Khalili the next day, and asked if I wanted to come. I hadn’t succumbed to buying any souvenir tat, so said I’d love to.

At 8pm, I went outside to wait for Amr and Ahmed. And I waited. By 8.50pm I’d lost patience, and I wandered around for a while before heading to a nearby outdoor cafe and playing a couple of games of backgammon with a guy called Walid. I hadn’t been back at the hostel for more than 5 minutes when Ahmed knocked on the door of my room at 9.25pm with profuse apologies and explanations of hideous traffic jams. We finally made it up to Mokattam and sat out at tables hideously close to the edge of a long drop, with the whole of night time Cairo laid out below us. Drinks, food, and philosophical conversation were the order of the evening - a fantastic way to pass the time.