We have to spend the night in Bahrain in transit. Nothing much to say here except this small country is extremely rich. 1 Bahrain Dinar = USD $2.7. A typical McDonald’s Value Meal cost almost 2 Bahrain Dinar!
Oct 17 - Bahrain - Cairo
We were received at the airport immigration by a spectacle guy that has this weird jaw setting out of his face. I don’t know his name. (update 2/21: As we were lining up to get our passport stamped, I noticed that there were many booths on my left. These are booth set up by local banks for exchanging money and the "bankers" were screaming on top of their lungs to get our attention for business. Since the line was pretty long, I told CY that I would go change some money.
Somebody told us (maybe it was the spectacle guy, I'm not sure) that the immigration in Cairo works differently. You see, first you walked towards to Immigration officer. He inspected your passport, looked at you, chatted with you if you were a girl, ignored you if you were a man, then he would ask you to stand aside while he asked the next in line to come towards him. Your passport is still being held but was passed on to an officer who works behind a booth. If we weren't warned in advanced, we would have thought that something was wrong with the passport or that you were being detained. Quite a scare.
We then met up at the luggage pickup area and waited for, I presumed our guide. After around 10 minutes, the group started walking out of the airport. The airport parking was filled with so many black cars. They are everywhere. These are the taxis and there are endless rows of them .) We then boarded our bus. In the bus, we met our local tour guide, Mido.
"Welcome to Cairo.. welcome to Cairo". Mido started the tour with these sentences. (update 2/21: Just like the guide in Beijing, Mido began by telling us about the road that the bus is running on. He said that this is a new suburb in Cairo and one can tell by the road condition. The road we were on had an "island" with grass, tress and lamp post, separating the road on the other side. Cars move on left side of the island into the city while the other side has cars moving towards the airport. (People in Egypt drives on the left side, just like Americans). In some parts of Cairo, the older part, there's only one road and there's no island. You can see cars coming in all directions without any rules)
As the bus moved up an elevated highway after passing through an ancient looking toll booth, Mido told us about the elevated highway - how it took 30 years to build because all the money went to the war that Egypt was involved in. (update 2/21: He said that Egypt has no enemies but Egypt is the self declared big boss in Middle East and Africa. So, whenever there is war between countries, Egypt is expected to send soldiers and money to help out - or be peacekeeper. So you see, the construction of the highway have to be halted because the money is diverted out to other people's war.)
The city of Cairo has the biggest population in Africa, almost 22 million people (out of 70 million of the whole country). He said that this month is the month of Ramahdan and places like Egyptian Museum were closed by 2.30pm. The original plan of going to Egyptian Museum today will be postponed to the day we returned to Cairo. That upset many of us and Mr Ong went in front to voice his disagreement, I think.. I am not sure as I sat at the very end of the bus. Mido came back to the mic and said that he will definitely cover everything in the itinerary. Don't worry.
1. Sadat Tomb
According to Mido, this monument, called Sadat Tomb, was built for two reasons. Firstly, for the unsung heroes that liberated Sinai (pronounced as Sai-nai) from Israel(?) or British(?). Sinai is an important part of Egypt as it is where the profitable Suez Canal was. Secondly, it is used to mark the death of a President Sadat (presumably the one that fought for Sinai's liberation). The President was shot in the head while sitting across this monument watching a parade. The interesting thing about this monument is the 3 types of guard uniforms: modern Egypt, Turkish (I think) and Pharonic (he pronounced as Fer-ROR-Nik). He also mentioned that these "guards" will ask you for money and we should not give them any as it is their job to guard this place.
2. Sheraton Cairo
Reached Sheraton Cairo and checked into the room. HZ upgraded his room to a suite using his Platinum card. Turned out that the damn suite has only one bed and I have to share it with him! Damn! Luckily it was only for a few hours… Let me pause by going to the bathroom to throw up :D
Later we were told that we have to get up at 1am to board our domestic flight to Aswan at 3am. Tough start!
Free time... so we walked around the East bank and the island of Zamalek. Kim wanted to go across the river to Hard Rock Cafe, Cairo. We saw a few couples getting ready to buka puasa. Surprisingly, they invited us to join them for a meal. Egyptian hospitality? I think so.
3. HRC Cairo @ Grand Hyatt Cairo
So dead. No one's there because liquour is not permitted during Ramahdan. We had a few milkshakes and shared nachos. Took a cab back to the hotel as we were all tired from walking. Cost us LE10.
4. Sending the Train group to the train station + Dinner.
Supposed to meet at the lobby at around 7.00pm. However, the escalator was full of people. Mohammad, the other temporary guide with pointy leather shoe, have to ride the escalator up and take us down. We found out that the train was scheduled to leave at 8pm... that was the reason for the rush or they'll miss the train.
The bus dropped the Train group in the station and took us for dinner at this kebab restaurant. It's called Gardenia. There was a lady outside the restaurant making the bread. The process is almost like our Tanduri chicken bread. Quite a nice place actually. The kebab chicken was excellent. Very tasty. YUM!
5. Woke up at 1am. Getting ready to take domestic flight to Aswan.
We were given some crappy Sheraton-breakfast-in-a-box. As we were boarding the bus, HZ did not see a step, fell down and sprained his ankle. Luckily he’s ok. Of course he started telling everybody about it.
While at the departure lounge, I see all the kwai los holding these breakfast boxes too. In the flight, I read the Egypt Air magazine (Horus) about King Tut (pronounced as Tut-Ankh-A-Mun by Habibi) tomb as discovered by Carter and Lord somebody. Very interesting read. This is very useful later when we went to the Egyptian Museum.
