Spent 10 days of so in Egypt recently.Itinerary:>Cairo>Med coast & Marsa matruh>Siwa Oasis>CairoIt usually gets a bad rep, so will tell a few tales, give some advice, answer some questions, and share some pics from along the way.
Nice approach. Made a family next to me happy by pointing out the pyramids - all lit up - as we were landing.Foreigners need to hand over their 20 or 25 usd to some bank counter to get their visa, which is stuck in your passport at border control.The place is obviously an African airport, as there were no real queues for anything, women carrying shit on their heads, people with ungodly amounts of luggage milling around, and just a general vibe of chaos, with police telling people very reactively what to do, as opposed to there being any systems.I remember around 15 years ago I had my luggage checked for alcohol upon exiting, but this time - maybe due to only having backpacks - they thought wasn't necessary. I was also expecting a huge crowd of people shouting 'taxi taxi taxi freind hello friend taxi good friend nice price friend friend pyramids friend', but it was surprisingly quite calm. Maybe taxi apps have hurt their game.Uber - nicely - actually has instructions and pictures on where to walk to upon exiting the airport. I've never seen this anywhere else. I guess the complaints are hiiiiiiiiiigh here, lol. We thought ordering would be quick and simple, but no, we were waiting like 10 minutes for an order to be confirmed. I heard that 'card payment' doesn't go down well here any more, and idiotically, we only had $40 or so. Thankfully some shitbox eventually arrived. He tried giving some grift about Uber not having prices matching local increases in fuel, and I shut the fucker down instantly with a 'no, it's not my problem, speak to Uber' in terrible Arabic. That shut down all conversation. I made sure to speak my gf's language the whole journey to avoid any opportunity of opening conversation which would no doubt turn into launching a scam.There's something beautiful about driving in night in Cairo. It's weirdly cyberpunky. The overpasses, the endless buildings, the sheer infinity feel of the city.
We had an all inclusive resort booked for a couple of nights up on the coast, but didn't really give too much of a fuck about how to get there upon booking. It wasn't the best of ideas arriving at midnight.The original plan was to get an Uber straight to Alexandria, try and kill some time in the early hours, then get whatever transport possible onwards to our hotel, which was upon near Marsa Matruh. We fuck this all off though, and instead, got a taxi straight into downtown Cairo, where we could withdraw some cash, and where I knew there'd be lots of bars open, where we could kill some time and devise a plan. Maybe - having lived here 15 years ago - I was entering this all a bit too blase.I've always lvoed the feel of downtown Cairo. There's always so much action and energy at all times. There's also surprisingly an interesting little nightlife scene tucked away. The hassle has massively reduced since before, too, and I had no issue, and no comments, walking around with my gf at midnight.It took 4 ATMs to manage to get cash, each accompanied with police in their white uniforms staring at us from their little wicker chairs in an attempt to feel busy, before moving on.We hit up the Odeon Rooftop Bar, which is typically open till the early hours and serves booze. The security at the entrance didn't need to check our bags, but demanded we throw our water away, kek. We just chugged it in front of him, and let the bottles on his desk. The lift is like from a horror film up the 13 or so floors. There's no door, and you feel every rattle and crankle as it squeaks up in an irregular fashion. Over 3 or so beers each, a mezze plate, and kinda beautiful views overlooking midnight Cairo, we managed to find a driver to the resort for about $100. A 400km journey which was to take 4-5 hours. ETA around 8 or 9 am. Some German online guy said that early check in at thre resort was no problem, and it was off-season, so fuck it.
>>2845632Ah, a map of the taxi route, plus where Siwa is, the final destination.
Was quite amusing rocking up to this '''5 star resort''' in some beat up vehicle, with backpacks. It was a really nice place. Set us back 350gbp for 2 nights all-inc for 2 people. The 9am check-in and free extra breakfast definitely helped smooth over the value.Autumn in Egypt is great. It's warm, without burning the fuck out of you, and also relatively empty, meaning you get shit to yourself. The hotel was absolutely dead. Felt like there were 10 members of staff per person, with just a couple of random cutiepie Russians wandering around (probably enjoying their husbands' sign on fees, kek). Thought they were going to snap their necks when they turned round so quickly when I started speaking English at the bar. Fuck, in their silken white beach robes, it did make me think back to my single days....
>>2845639Fuck, wanted to mention more about the ride from Cairo to the coast. It's pretty spooky driving through Giza at night. It's huge-scale slum, with endless buildings with no windows or lights, irregular building patterns, and shit just stacked on top of each other. It's almost as if they liked the idea of the City of the Dead, and decided to scale it. Getting a taxi through at midnight feels a bit like an Aladdin magic carpet ride.Apparently all the buildings there are illegal, and when this highway was built, they just bulldozed their way through and said 'gg' to the locals. There's shitloads of poverty in Egypt, and the military government has no choice but to run a police state to keep a lid on things.As you leave on to the desert highway, it's insane the amount of construction which is happening here. Apparently the government are copying China page for page in just 'build build build'. As you get past Giza you'll see>the world's biggest(?) monorail system>a brand new airport>lots of gated resort-tier communities>tech parks>strip mallsPractically all of the traffic at night is construction vehicles and freight, endlessly traversing the highway. I wonder if the government can outbuild the poverty and debt, and raise living standards in long run; getting people out of the ghettos where extremism no doubt breeds, and into a nicer future...This construction boom is most evidence in El-Alamein, where the Allies turned the tied against the Axis forces in WW2. In the dark, it looked like there was a mini Dubai - complete with a marina - springing up along this stretch of coastal desert. Apparently they're building a 3million pop city which is to be a hub of education, tourism and culture.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Alamein
Egypt in ironically sounds like paradise right now compared to the country I'm in
>>2845642The northern coast of Egypt, up by Marsa Matruh, has beautiful beaches. However, it's windy as fuck in Autumn, and the sea was quite chopsy. Not that I'm really bothered ,I was quite content getting Stellas (the local beer) direct to my lounger, reading, and soaking up the heat under a nice breeze.Always thought it was cheesy doing all-inclusive shit, and mixing it up with normies. Also don't really like having literal servants hovering around calling me sir.. The staff looked like they were having as much of a holiday as us, and took the time to speak to some of them.One guy told me how he's going to study English in Hungary soon so he can get a visa and escape Egypt, which he considers to be a military state shithole where people get disappeared and there's no opportunity. Was quite surprised about how forward he was about it, desu, especially given that the military appraently has stakes in all these hotels. Not overly impressed by how easy it is to come to the EU, and how blase people are about exploiting various loopholes :/
>>2845669The sunsets are really quite something here, too. Was a beautiful 2 days in the evenings, dragging out some chairs to the shore, snacking on little mezze plates with a bottle of wine,listening to the waves crashing in front of us, and looking out at the moonlit sea.It did feel like it was all for us, until some cats started playing with us, and 2 soldiers marched along the beach with ridiculously high powered flashlights. Never liked teenage-looking 'soldiers' with AKs parading around when you're relatively isolated.... Cutely, they found some cats and ended up playing with them, too, lol. I guess they have one of the better gigs in their 2 year(?) military service.
>>2845663It definitely can be an elite tier nation for travel, but living here back in the day was fucking manic. Not a moment's peace, and everybody prying into your shit, in between the pollution, dirtiness and retardation. Though saying that, I look back on it all very very fondly. It was a true love and hate relationship. I guess there's worse places in the world, especially if you can break into the 'international middle class' and shield yourself from a lot of shit. Where you at?
>>2845672>Where you at?I'll give you a hint.There's been nonstop honking right outside my hotel for the past 4 hours since I've been here.
>>2845682kek, could be Cairo desu. The non stop honking did my fucking head in. Just buy a sim card by any chance?
>>2845690No but I am in India and I'm not the anon you're referring to in the Indian thread
>>2845693Lol, I got the six month visa..."Im gunna tour the whole country!" I said. At week 8 or so I just decided one night...."Mmmm...Imma buy a plane ticket for tomorrow morning." I hadnt really eaten much in months, I was fucking hungry.
>>2845633Arriving late at night in these big Thirdie cities seems a good idea. Much less stressful than arriving at peak travel hours.>>2845682You can't use the map to pick a hotel that is removed at least 100 meters from the major roads? Come on man. Rookie mistakes.
>>2845783When I looked at Google Street view there weren't too many cars on the road and it was one of the few places that was at an affordable rate with generally good reviews and in the city center so I was dumb enough to believe it would be okay.Lol nope. Non stop honking all day until the early hours of the morning.
>>2845749Being able to withstand 8 weeks in India still makes you stronger than most men I think
Checked out of the resort, and grabbed a taxi to Marsa Matruh. The final major town/city before Libya along the coast. Here, the plan was to find a bus which would take us down through the desert to Siwa. We aimed to get an apparent 9am bus, but the ticket office said we had to come back at 4pm or so, giving us the day to explore.The place is a bit of a shithole desu. I always thought it was a 'resort town', which catered to foreign tourists. It turns out it's actually the Egyptian resort town, where locals come to escape the heat in summer, haha. There was trash everywhere, and it had a bit of a nastier feel than other places in Egypt. The kind of place where locals randomly say "hello" when you walk past, followed by a "fuck you bitch" as it's the only words they know.I tried visiting Rommel's cave, one of the city's only "historical sites", located on some type of peninsula which hooks around over the main bay, but the fucking bridge to get there directly was being rebuilt. I wanted to get a taxi there, but my Polish gf started whinging about "there not being time" and "why are we seeing Nazi shit anyway?", and we ended up just kinda wandering around, a bit bored, bouncing from cafe to cafe, worried about the state of the toilets each time. This place has a fuck ton of potential. Geographically, it'd be absolutely perfect for a top-tier resort town, but nobody looks after anything.
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>>2845749What's this got to do with Egypt lol?
>>2845632But most importantly>Is your gf Egyptian?>How to get a cutie Egyptian gf?
Trash, trash, trash, fucking trash.Imagine throwing so much shit away you can see it from space:>31.156591, 27.034510The bus to Siwa started with fuming trash piles. I guess they just left the desert and natural processes to do their thing, hoping it'd work itself out. Not a pretty sight.The desert started out quite rocky. Not the sandy duny infinite landscape I'd expected. Lots of trucks, lots of random shit being moved around. It felt like a huge playground for JCBs.
>>2846779>1.Nah.>2.Not sure, when I was there before I literally found one on couchsurfing, and on the first night she said>you cant sleep in this bed, its full of clothes>you'll have to sleep with me>no sex though>i'm afraid you'll get attached>5 mins later.....Needless to say, she was a little crazy. Nice girl though, just a bad starting roll.
>>2846821>she was a little crazylel that's MENA girls for you
Good thread. Never been but I always thought it'd be cool to explore the Cairo slums and the coast. I can see deserts and old shit anywhere, but a place so thoroughly weird as Egypt just makes me want to observe the brownies and their ways.
>>2846877Cheers man, nice to get a little boost to help keep the thread going :)))Egypt is great to explore. It's a fucking wild country, which is a nice blend of being quite raw, while being safe. You need like 2-3 weeks here, imo, to truly soak it all up and get that adventure spirit going.
Everywhere in Egypt seems to be under construction, even in the middle of the desert.Seems they're doubling the size of the road going down to Siwa Oasis from Marsa Matruh. It's qute fascinating loading up Open Street Map and looking at all the random stuff on the way. What seems quite an empty expanse, is actually quite busy. There's little villages, oil/gas pumps, and a whole range of random shit.Also quite cool seeing herds of camels lingering around in the background. The road sides are full of these gravel banks. Apparently they were initially for road construction, but it was realised soon that they could double up as barriers to discourage camels from coming on to the roads(?)
About 2.5 hours into the 4-5 hour journey through the desert there's a series of turnoffs which seemingly lead to nowhere.>30.271194123122417, 26.258925048632236One continues on for about 60km into the desert hills near the Libyan border, where Google says there's a '''drinking water fountain'''.The other turn continues to Cara Oasis. When I see spots like this, I had a voice inside me telling me to get the fuck off the bus, and try and hitchhike there. But yeah, for another day.... 29.60872652032459, 26.523462631862724
When we stopped off at some roadside cafe, it felt quite surreal being in what felt like the middle of nowhere. All around was just orange/yellow, as far as the eye could see.I had a piss, and picked up some snacks, and got speaking to some chinks who were also on the bus. Siwa must've gone viral out there, as there were quite a few, keeping themselves to themselves.Even though there was nothing out there on the bus journey, I felt kinda mesmerised looking at the endless desert for hours upon hours, trying to match up features with Open Street Maps, imagining what things could be for, and internalising the sheer vastness of emptiness all around me.
The sun started to set as we got closer. Was pretty kino watch the sun set over a huge desert air force base, with little secunrity towers punctuating the bands of pink and orange in the sky.You can actually fly to Siwa once or twice a week with a chartered plane. Think it's $200 each way or so. People staying at one of Siwa's exclusive resorts (including King Charles) seem to use it. Would be pretty kino flying over the desert in a military charter plane and landing in an air base... Maybe another day.Unfortunately the exact moment I past this base to text our host, it seems the internet was fucking jammed, and nothing got through. Wasn't hugely happy about ending up in a desert town after dark with no contact in place, but fuck it, I've heard Siwa is one of the safest places on the planet.
kino thread is kino
As we reached Siwa, the road snaked downwards from the rocky plateau, down into what looked like the sillouhette of a fucking forest, all illuminated by a near full moon.Upon entering the town, we had to have our documents and bags checked, apparently Libyan smugglers run these routes, and apparently you're not really allowed to bring alcohol in to the town (might be 1 bottle for tourists IF you have a receipt).We met our host, and was shocked at the sheer size of the place. It looked like a normal (for Egyptian standards) town, right in the middle of the fucking desert. We got some juices, and got a little intro to the place, all before jumping in the back of his 4x4 and getting taken to our accommodation....My gf was evidently a little scared as we seemed to endlessly drive through date plantations, cottages, fields, and backstreets. My phone was on about 7% battery and turned off wifi, and ii have to admit, it felt a little strange just getting driven off into the middle of absolutely nowhere, in pitch black, watching how the 'civilization' we saw before gave way to sheer abandonment.
It was a little scary the first night. We were dropped into a house 10km away from the centre of the oasis, and pretty much were in the middle of nowhere. Given we were about 20km away from the Libyan border, it was quite a surreal feeling, and I couldn't help thinking about the odds of a rigged out Toyota Hilux coming rolling over the dunes in the background, and fucking everything up.We were both a bit nervous, so decided to get out some vodka and chill on our terrace. Every noise made me wonder wtf was happening, whether it was a random motorbike from an unknown direction, the rustling of date trees, voices.... But as the drinks kept flowing, these noises started to disappear, giving way to the beauty of a near full moon illuminating the unknown of the desert in front of us, and wondering whether there's another soul anywhere within the next 1500km in front of us.
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