Ethos83

Millie,

Quick question for you regarding Cairo airport.

I have a flight booked to Cairo on BA. The plan is to take Egypt Air only for internal flights (Cairo to Luxor to Sharm and back to Cairo).

We'd fly from Sharm to Cairo, arriving at Terminal 1. Is two hours enough time to get to Terminal 3 for the international departure on the same day? I won't have checked in luggage.

Cheers

Millhouse

yeh, I think you will be fine - I can normally get out of the airport after landing in about 25mins. Although this depends on queue times as immigration can be a little slow...

Take 15USD with you - you'll need to buy a visa sticker. If you can buy one before you go (I have no idea where though) then you can jump that queue.

I'd probably get a taxi between the terminals - but I'm lazy. Not sure I'd fancy walking it to be honest. Taxi should be less than 1LE (it's 1LE per KM)- but they will want at least 10LE...



Don't pay more than 10LE in the taxi between the two terminals...!

Ethos83

Much obliged.

I've got about 150 USD in cash lying around from the last trip to the US for my grandpa's funeral. High time I put it to use.

Suggestions for decent grub in Cairo?

How do you deal with touts in Cairo? The ones in Istanbul were bad enough and in Hanoi awful.

kittycat1

No idea, but if your as stupid as me (quite possible) then you get your visa from the bank windows in Cairo airport- just before you turn left into the passport control.

Enjoy

xxx

kittycat1

Ethos- be friendly, smile, and a polite no thanks is fine- you don't need to be rude. The hissing is wierd though but I don't think you'll get any of that as your a fella- if you are going with a female friend you might want to warn her of that ( its basically a wolf whistle) and if she wants to avoid attention she should dress modestly.

xxx

i didn't eat asheard so many stories about the dodgy tummy so take antisquitts tablets with you just in case!

Tillybean

Restaurant called Tabouleh near to the American Embassy in the Garden City area was wonderful. Lots of amazing mezehs - particularly loved the flash fried liver and the delicious little spicy sausages.

Millhouse

There is a nice Thai restaurant at the Four Seasons in Giza...

As for the touts - I just try and go along with them. OK they fleece you, but it's loose change really.

I once ran a dutch auction for a trip into town as I had so many of the buggers wanting to take me so I got them to make offers in front of each other. worked quite well - they enjoyed it as much as I did.

Ethos83

Is it easy to take a taxi from the airport to central Cairo? Will the driver know English? As you might expect, after 3+ years in Dubai my Arabic is, well, exactly as you expected.

We're staying in a shit hotel in downtown called Windsor Hotel because my buddy wanted a place with "atmosphere" and "historic charm." Those three words, in my mind, mean cockroaches and bed bugs but in exchange we're staying at the Sheraton in Luxor and Sharm.

How much time should one allow for the journey back to the airport?

scarletfanagain

Taxis are hit and miss in this part of the world. Some claim to understand English until you are in the cab, forget to put the meters on, haggle with you etc. Big network though, if they don't know where to go, they ring up their mates and ask.

Good luck with the Windsor. Hit and miss place. Love it or hate it.

As for the journey back to the airport, depends entirely on the time of day. Word of warning though, Cairo is stirring up again at the moment, best to avoid being here on Friday's until at least after the elections. Tomorrow will be interesting. Rumours of phones / internet etc being cut off due to the youth movement demonstrations.

Ethos83

I'm not going over there till early November anyway, so the questions may be a bit premature.

Have the election dates been settled yet?

Millhouse

I normally do this trip at lunchtime(ish) - and generally plan for 1hour to 1.5hours to downtown. I did it once in 20mins due to a religious holiday (PBUH). Traffic is 'fun'

I don't know the Windsor - wasn't that the pub in Sean of the dead? - anyway, taxis may speak very limited english - I always take a bit of paper with the name of where I'm going on in arabic with me. That said, I've noticed around 20% of the drivers can't read either.

Bahtatboy

That's not too bad. At least 40% don't know how to ****ing drive.

scarletfanagain

Election dates are a moving target!

Latest we heard is the beginning of November. Doubtful though

scarletfanagain

40%! Which planet are you living on? I would say closer to 85% minimum

Millhouse

I believe that Egyptian taxi drivers are some of the most highly skilled in the world. I cannot even begin to understand how they roll a fag, talk to the person behind them (while looking at them in the eye), beep the horn, tune the radio, flick between full acceleration and full breaking, and scream at people in the road all at the same time. It's amazing.

And they do all that for an hour for about 2 quid. I always take taxis over our company driver - it's just more fun.

Welcome to Egypt...