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Cairo without Tears
By Bill Kirtz
Five thousand years of culture. A hub for three continents. And totally overwhelming without the kindness of strangers.
If you want to do more than just hop from American hotel, to belching tourist bus, to American hotel, coping with Cairo requires a guru. In the
Northeastern group’s case, his name was Abdu—Abd El Magied Sayed, driver, guide, and negotiator extraordinaire.
With Abdu in charge, our little band of Huskies whisked from camel to mosque, papyrus museum to pyramid, with maximum efficiency and minimum cost.
His modest daily fee is more than made up by the end of the first stop. Besides knowing the most interesting places to go, he assuages the myriad officials, car watchers, and shoe holders who incessantly plead for baksheesh (tips).
He steered us through the famous Khan El-Khalili souk—a bazaar dating from the fourteenth century—as well as the locals’ Bab Zuweila souk. Perfume, silver, ivory, wall hangings, “evil eye” protectors go for bargain prices, especially when Abdu does the haggling.
On your own? In the souks, figure to pay about half the original asking price, but only after a lengthy discussion covering family pride, tradition, and personal honesty. Paying with American cash gets you a slightly better exchange rate than the current official rate of about 3.8 Egyptian pounds to a U.S. dollar.
The ATMs in the major hotels are the easiest and cheapest way to get money. Exchanging travelers’ checks is another option, though the rate of exchange is a little less good.
For cab rides, ignore the taxis lined up just outside the hotel door, walk a few steps down the street, and pick a slightly more battered vehicle. Establish the fare—which includes tip—before you hop in. A fare of 10 to 15 Egyptian pounds—about $2.50 to $3.50—should get you nearly anywhere you want to go in Cairo.
Stick to bottled water, avoid all vegetables and any fruit you can’t peel, and tote Immodium and plenty of Handiwipes. Sanitation can be fairly primitive outside the big hotels.
Before you leave home, establish your special Egyptian calling code with your long-distance telephone service provider. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck paying the hotels’ exorbitant international rates.
Speaking of hotels, a prepaid reservation—through <www.hoteldiscounts.com>—worked out well for us, but be sure to bring printouts of your reservation. There was a slight hassle—necessitating a 2 a.m. phone call—before our reservation was honored. Even old Egyptian hand Denis Sullivan found the group bookings he’d made weren’t honored because his credit-card charges somehow hadn’t gone through.
If you book a hotel far in advance, keep checking your room rate. Hoteldiscounts.com honored a rate significantly lower than the one we got when we booked. If they hadn’t, paying a cancellation fee and rebooking would still have given us a cheaper price.
For airfares, Ticketszone.com and Justfares.com offer significant discounts on scheduled international flights. And a new website, Qixo.com, consolidates cheap fares from other sites like Priceline and LowestFares.
(To contact Abdu from the United States, telephone him at 011.202.358.0429. Let him know you’re a Northeasterner.)
By Bill Kirtz
Five thousand years of culture. A hub for three continents. And totally overwhelming without the kindness of strangers.
If you want to do more than just hop from American hotel, to belching tourist bus, to American hotel, coping with Cairo requires a guru. In the
Northeastern group’s case, his name was Abdu—Abd El Magied Sayed, driver, guide, and negotiator extraordinaire.With Abdu in charge, our little band of Huskies whisked from camel to mosque, papyrus museum to pyramid, with maximum efficiency and minimum cost.
His modest daily fee is more than made up by the end of the first stop. Besides knowing the most interesting places to go, he assuages the myriad officials, car watchers, and shoe holders who incessantly plead for baksheesh (tips).
He steered us through the famous Khan El-Khalili souk—a bazaar dating from the fourteenth century—as well as the locals’ Bab Zuweila souk. Perfume, silver, ivory, wall hangings, “evil eye” protectors go for bargain prices, especially when Abdu does the haggling.
On your own? In the souks, figure to pay about half the original asking price, but only after a lengthy discussion covering family pride, tradition, and personal honesty. Paying with American cash gets you a slightly better exchange rate than the current official rate of about 3.8 Egyptian pounds to a U.S. dollar.
The ATMs in the major hotels are the easiest and cheapest way to get money. Exchanging travelers’ checks is another option, though the rate of exchange is a little less good.
For cab rides, ignore the taxis lined up just outside the hotel door, walk a few steps down the street, and pick a slightly more battered vehicle. Establish the fare—which includes tip—before you hop in. A fare of 10 to 15 Egyptian pounds—about $2.50 to $3.50—should get you nearly anywhere you want to go in Cairo.
Stick to bottled water, avoid all vegetables and any fruit you can’t peel, and tote Immodium and plenty of Handiwipes. Sanitation can be fairly primitive outside the big hotels.
Before you leave home, establish your special Egyptian calling code with your long-distance telephone service provider. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck paying the hotels’ exorbitant international rates.
Speaking of hotels, a prepaid reservation—through <www.hoteldiscounts.com>—worked out well for us, but be sure to bring printouts of your reservation. There was a slight hassle—necessitating a 2 a.m. phone call—before our reservation was honored. Even old Egyptian hand Denis Sullivan found the group bookings he’d made weren’t honored because his credit-card charges somehow hadn’t gone through.
If you book a hotel far in advance, keep checking your room rate. Hoteldiscounts.com honored a rate significantly lower than the one we got when we booked. If they hadn’t, paying a cancellation fee and rebooking would still have given us a cheaper price.
For airfares, Ticketszone.com and Justfares.com offer significant discounts on scheduled international flights. And a new website, Qixo.com, consolidates cheap fares from other sites like Priceline and LowestFares.
(To contact Abdu from the United States, telephone him at 011.202.358.0429. Let him know you’re a Northeasterner.)