Treasures of Egypt

[pompei]

No, not the Pyramids, nor the Valley of the Kings, take a look at this:-http://www.nascoegypt.com.eg/e/home.aspHave any ASers been to Egypt? I understand that the standard of driving makes Bombay look like Bournmouth, and that the place is full of 1960s Fiats

[r.welfare]

Never been. We had a lad over on secondment from the Cairo office who said BMW have just built a CKD factory over there knocking out 3s and 5s, so one wonders how long the restyled Fiats will last...

[Ratdat]

I've been to Cairo. Stacks of tat about the place, especially Fiats, Mazda, Toyota, Peugeot and especially lots of Datsuns. You can see some of the pics I took on my website http://www.ratdat.com/?p=115

[Karmann Ghiaman]

 

Have any ASers been to Egypt? I understand that the standard of driving makes Bombay look like Bournmouth, and that the place is full of 1960s Fiats

Mrs Ghiaman & I had a nice holiday there a few years ago at the time of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. It was a good time to go because no American dared travel abroad so we got brilliant hotel upgrades, e.g. into the Old Cataract Hotel at Luxor, as seen in Death on the Nile. On the other hand, it nearly was death on the Nile for me with a very, very bad case of Gyppy Tummy. Managed to get antibiotics, but still seriously sick.

 

We flew to Luxor, then there was an internal flight to Aswan, then a bus back to Luxor replacing cancelled flight. Having read the Rough Guide extremely carefully we knew that you could travel enormous distances very cheaply by patiently doing deals with taxi drivers. I think our best day was a 200 mile round trip (to Abydos & back) for about £11. We went to the taxi place in Luxor and the drivers were all standing around waiting to haggle. I think their taxis were old Toyota Corrolas (all white), reasonably comfortable. On the principle that 'an old driver is a survivor' (and less of a rip-off merchant than the younger hustler) we picked Whitebeard who was certainly as good as, or better than, most Greek equivalents on other holidays.

 

My wife is very good at haggling. One of the young hustlers said 'She is wonderful! Where did you get her?' Obviously I told him that I bought her in the Great London Woman Market. He really did add 'I will give you a thousand camels for her.' As he only possessed one of said Toyotas and I had no ambition to own so much as a single camel, this offer was politely rejected.

 

There was just one road, basically running up & down beside the Nile. It was very good, but literally just laid down with hundreds of men working on a long stretch one day, disappeared the next. Must have been the same at the time of the Pharoahs. Not much traffic, the main vehicle being seriously overloaded donkeys (hardly any camels). Old Whitebeard was fine, going off to visit his mates in the places where we looked at temples, which we often had to ourselves. Soon afterwards the Foreign Office said that most of these were now off limits to British tourists. Almost everybody in the countryside had an old Lee-Enfield, slightly disconcerting at first.

 

Best thing was getting back to the hotel after 200 miles & four temples @ £11. Australian idiots were boasting to everyone 'We gotta real bargain! We went 40 miles for £20!'