Egypt Tour - Part 0

Finally i am sitting down to wrtite about my egypt trip. Laziness has been the biggest reason behind it not being written before. Let's get started.

As egypt is very close to cyprus, you can easily plan a trip to Egypt. There are two options - going by cruise and other by air. If you go by cruise, you get to see the pyramids and that is it in egypt and most of the time you would be spending in the cruise and also travel from alexandria to giza and back. I did not like this option. I wanted to have more time in egypt. I could not make it before while sarath and srinivas (colleagues of mine) went during april this year. So when i got a chance and interested friends to go by air, i was ready to go.

Sridhar , Naga and I planned the trip. We planned the trip with EOL Tours. We customized our itinerary. We visited cairo , giza plateau , luxor and alexandria. We did not have enough time for aswan. We went by Egypt air on thursday evening and returned back on monday night.

Day 0:
We landed in Cairo airport after a 1 hour delay of the flight in larnaca. On entering the airport terminal, we were received by a person from EOL Tours who helped us with filling of the arrival card and took care of the luggage. It is a nice big airport , bigger than the larnaca airport. We drove to the hotel in Giza from the airport. We took the outer ring road which has been built around the cairo city and avoids lot of traffic of cairo. Cairo is a very busy city.

Traffic in cairo (as such in egypt) is like in india. Even though lanes are marked for traffic , no body seems to be following them. It is like india - free for all. You can find as many lanes of traffic as possible. You give an indicator when you have to take a left or right. Otherwise keep switching lanes at free will and also being careful not to get hit.

Something caught our attention. Young men driving in cars sitting on the left and right doors with their upper half facing out of the car and some sitting on the trunk of the car. We thought it was crazy. The driver told us that this happens during marriages. In cyprus, during marriage the cars go in procession in the city and with constant honking. They dont have any bands like in india welcoming the groom.

We reached hotel and we went to the restaurant on the roof from where we got our first glimpse of the pyramids. The pyramids are lit, so you can see it from a distance. I always wanted to see the pyramids , but seeing them lit from a distance made me feel , i was watching a mountain - nothing more nothing less. I was not too excited. I said to myself i will be more excited when i see it in daylight and very close. After dinner, we went to bed.