Egypt 12 - edited with photos
Feb 17, 2009 13:49:01 GMT
Post by bazfaz on Feb 17, 2009 13:49:01 GMT
We are on the way home now - a couple of nights with my daughter - so this is the end of the Egypt trip reports.
We had one final scam. On Sunday we were taking the bus from Luxor to Hurghada and I went to the Upper Egypt office to enquire about times. There was a 10.30 bus but the bus terminal is way out of town. The man at the office said he could arrange a taxi for us to pick us up at our hotel at 9.45. Cost:30 Egyptian pounds. I agreed and paid 10 pounds in advance.
No taxi came. At 9.55 we went and got another taxi and made it to the terminal just in time - the bus actually left early. So don 't fall for that one.
Hurghada is charmless. We stayed at the Empire Inn which we had done at the beginning of the holiday. These were the only hotels we booked. At the beginning the Inn was full so we were "upgraded" to the Empire Hotel next door. This is a vast package holiday hotel, totally anonymous. The Inn only has a couple of dozen rooms but ours was spotlessly clean, well decorated, a balcony with views of trees rather than a slab of hotel rooms, plumbing that worked. The rack rate for a double room with breakfast at the Empire Inn is $40. Booking through Venere.com it costs 13 euros.
We had a good holiday in Egypt and have memories of people who were kind and generous to us. The constant need to haggle is a bore. I know that most of the population is poor but strangely we found that Egypt was more expensive than Thailand where there is no need to ask the price of everything first. I calculate that if I hadn't haggled over prices the holiday would have cost 25% more - and even so there were times when we were cheated.
One small pleasurable thing about being back in Europe is that we could take a taxi at midnightlast night and not have to haggle over the price.
We'll soon be back home in France. We dread to think what havoc the gales have caused.
A few final photos
Not all of Egypt is clean and tidy! Goats foraging at Luxor
Sun breads proving hygenically on roof tops in Luxor
Local transport at Qus
Drinking water in the desert
And finally....some sunsets
We had one final scam. On Sunday we were taking the bus from Luxor to Hurghada and I went to the Upper Egypt office to enquire about times. There was a 10.30 bus but the bus terminal is way out of town. The man at the office said he could arrange a taxi for us to pick us up at our hotel at 9.45. Cost:30 Egyptian pounds. I agreed and paid 10 pounds in advance.
No taxi came. At 9.55 we went and got another taxi and made it to the terminal just in time - the bus actually left early. So don 't fall for that one.
Hurghada is charmless. We stayed at the Empire Inn which we had done at the beginning of the holiday. These were the only hotels we booked. At the beginning the Inn was full so we were "upgraded" to the Empire Hotel next door. This is a vast package holiday hotel, totally anonymous. The Inn only has a couple of dozen rooms but ours was spotlessly clean, well decorated, a balcony with views of trees rather than a slab of hotel rooms, plumbing that worked. The rack rate for a double room with breakfast at the Empire Inn is $40. Booking through Venere.com it costs 13 euros.
We had a good holiday in Egypt and have memories of people who were kind and generous to us. The constant need to haggle is a bore. I know that most of the population is poor but strangely we found that Egypt was more expensive than Thailand where there is no need to ask the price of everything first. I calculate that if I hadn't haggled over prices the holiday would have cost 25% more - and even so there were times when we were cheated.
One small pleasurable thing about being back in Europe is that we could take a taxi at midnightlast night and not have to haggle over the price.
We'll soon be back home in France. We dread to think what havoc the gales have caused.
A few final photos
Not all of Egypt is clean and tidy! Goats foraging at Luxor
Sun breads proving hygenically on roof tops in Luxor
Local transport at Qus
Drinking water in the desert
And finally....some sunsets