Egypt summer 2011, LUXOR part 3

On the 5th of June we woke up pretty early and ate breakfast at the roof of the hostel enjoying the sunshine. Then we left to the train station to buy tickets for the next days train to Aswan. We were pretty lost at the train station but figured it out where to buy the tickets. It cost us 40 pounds together. We had decided that why not to go and see the city of Aswan too because we had almost already seen Luxor and we had spare days before our hotel reservation started in Hurghada! No idea about the city or where we were going to stay at but that's what we decided to do. After buying the train tickets we were supposed to find a bank to get money from because we didn't have much left. We ended up walking across Luxor from bank to bank. We went to three different banks and each one of them sent us to the next bank. None accepted our Visa Electron cards.. The last bank sent us to here..

Saija who hates machines wouldn't even think about putting her card there, neither did I. So we had to manage with the money we had left and try to find a bank in Aswan. Back at the hostel we packed our backs and headed towards the River Nile to cross it over to the West side where we were going to spend one night. Marc followed us all the way to the boat and said bye to us. Finally we got rid of him. The boat owner was a nice young man (first my opinion of him wasn't that good.. I thought he only wanted us to pay to him) who proved to be quite a gentleman. He took us straight in front of our camp where we were hoping to stay at. We wandered a while before we had the courage to walk in. We were basically in the middle of a countryside with donkeys and camels walking on the small sand roads. We could see the near by fields being covered with floodwater. 

We walked into the Al Salam Camp which was run by this egyptian family. We shyly asked the man if they got free beds and he seemed really shocked and surprised that we hadn't booked it in advance and asked us how we found the place. (The place is not easily found if you haven't looked for it from the internet). They had plenty of room for us. The camp was surrounded by fence and there were maybe six huts which each were for two people. There were common showers and toilets in the camp. Between the huts there was this almost like a living room outdoors with tables, chairs and couches to sit and hang around.

While we waited for the man the fix our room, the boat owner Ahmed came to sit with us and we agreed going to a felucca ride with him and his boat in the evening to the Banana island at sunset time. We also agreed on going to A HOT AIR BALLOON ride at the next day at SUNRISE! He organized it for us by calling to the Sindbad hot air balloon company. We were so excited. In the camp it almost felt like being in a paradise, the place seemed to be so far away from everything and it was only across the River Nile from the city. If you really want to enjoy a real experience in Luxor, definitely stay there! 

Our hut

After he made ourselves home at our small hut we decided to go walking around the neighbourhood and to buy some water. We noticed that we really were at the countryside. Donkeys, palm trees underwater, chickens and ducks running around on the streets, small kiosks where we could by water and something to snack. 

Saija: Go closer.. closer! Ira: I can't it'll kick me..

When we were walking back to our camp these two local boys came past us with motorbikes and asked us if we needed a ride to some place. We kept on walking even though they tried to offer us a ride. Finally Saija looked at me in the way I immediately recognized, Saija wanted to have a little adventure. So, we agreed on to go with them to have a ride around and to see an area with local people and where they lived in. The boy I rode with was really really shy small town boy studying hieroglyphs at the University. He was so shy I almost felt sorry for him, but he was the most friendly boy! I knew we were fine with him and he would never try anything with us. The motorbike ride took a bit more than we expected, almost 15-20 minutes until we were in this small village with cute houses. On the way we really got to see stuff we hadn't seen in the cities. I spotted that the houses were often been built next to these small canals and over them were handmade bridges so you could cross the canal.  The house we got in was really new and modern nothing like the hut we stayed at. At first I was a bit nervous when we got inside the house and the boys offered us some local juices to drink. The boy I rode with taught me how to draw hieroglyphs and how to write my name with them. That was really interesting and I could really see that the boy loved what he studied. His eyes shimmered when he explained and draw them to me. They played us some egyptian music and wanted to dance with us.. :D But we really weren't that into it.. The boys took us back to our hostel and Saija got the adventure she had wanted. Nice but a little scary experience at beginning anyway. Now I have to say that we really thought it through before leaving with the guys! We are quite good with reading people and to know who to trust and who not to. 

Back at the camp the owner asked us if we wanted to go swimming in the River Nile and of course we wanted to! He sent some of his friend or someone to come with us. We rode this small rowboat to a tiny island only maybe 100-200 metres from the camp and the man with us took us there. On the next island there were children playing and one boy rode a donkey which walked in the water to the island. A bit different games than we have in Finland. Anyway at this island there was this small hut were we left our things and went to swim. The man who was with us was a bit irritating and also funny. He said ALL THE TIME: you know and it sounded like he was saying ju no. The view and experience was really something and it was really cooling to get into the water because it must havee been easily over 40 degrees. On our way back we had to row the boat back to the shore.

At 5pm Ahmed picked us up in front of our camp with his boat. We got to admire the River Nile and just enjoy the weather and everything. We even got to steer the boat. At the banana island we had to pay something to get into the island which was so stupid!! But anyway we did. The island was cool! It almost felt like being in a rainforest. There were so many different fruits growing like bananas, mangos, grapes, papayas, figs and fruits I didn't even recognize.. We got the taste bananas and they tasted so fresh and sweet, nothing like the bananas we normally eat.

Back at the boat Ahmed suddenly asked us if we wanted to swim in the middle of the river. There was this very low place (ford) in the river were he could leave his boat and the water was only to our ankles and knees. It was so cool to swim there or just to stand there.. I even started walking towards were the water got deeper but the currents were too strong that I couldn't get anywhere. At the same time the sun was setting and I thought that it would be cold after swimming but in a matter of minutes we were already dry. The sunset was amazing! We took around almost 50 pictures of it. Ahmed took us back to our camp and we paid him. Earlier on the same afternoon he had invited us to go to some party at their village near by. We asked from the camp owner if he knew Ahmed and if it was safe for us to go there and he told us that he's a good man and we can go with him. Ahmed was around our age and we agreed that he would pick us up around 9 pm.  :)

Back at the hostel the mother of the family made us dinner which was the first time in Egypt we actually didn't like it that much. We had a dinner company from german boys who had their holiday from Israeli where they were working as a peacekeepers or someting like that. I was a bit weird since they were younger than us and already doing that kind of stuff in Israeli.

"PARTY"

At 9 pm we waited outside our camp and it was pitch dark and we couldn't see anything. While we waited we tried not to get eaten by hundreds of mosquitos.. Then this car came to pick us up but Ahmed wasn't there so we waited until he came before we got in. We drove about 15 minutes and stopped at some local village with no taxis, no tourists or anything at all that would give us a peace of mind that we were safe and could get back to our camp somehow. There were children playing on the streets, older people smoking shisha and sitting on their chairs. There were only couple of lamps that gave some light to the street. We changed to a "normal" car and me, Saija and Ahmed shared the backseat and Ahmed's cousin was on the front seat. He looked so weird, scary and looked like he was from some action movie and he was the bad guy.

Pretty soon it turned out the it wasn't just some party we were going, it was a wedding! We were a bit stunned and asked if we were dressed correctly and asking what about if we should have had a present or something to bring. Well, it wasn't anything like that! The whole village was happy to meet the new couple and it's about their happiness, not about gifts or what you're wearing. The WHOLE village was there, it was a celebration of the whole community. First our driver took us some place near the beauty salon where the bride was getting her makeup and hair done. People sat there and drank tea and had a good time. We also tried to do that but we were a bit nervous, Saija was totally freaking out and tried her best not to show it but I could tell she was freaking out. Ahmed's cousin didn't make us feel any better with his behaviour and the way he was, just gross. We were told that the beuty salon was owned by this english girl named Sara. Suddenly the couple came out from the salon and people went absolutely crazy! It was like something had happened and people were running around like maniacs. Before we hopped into our car and left to drive behind the wedding couple we changed a few words with Sara and she seemed really nice and for a moment we were happy that we knew someone who we could automatically trust.

The wedding couples car was this black car and it was decorated with bright different coloured lights all over the car. There were over ten cars driving behind the bride and the groom. These cars were full of people! And I really mean full! There could be over eight people in a normal car. The minibuses or the local cars were also full of people! We drove to the waterside were the first wedding pictures were taken. The bride looked beuatiful and also really young, I think they told us that she was 18 or so. The pictures must have been good 'cause the moonlight and the wedding couple looked amazing. There were also pictures taken of them when they were holding someones baby. Maybe that was also some kind of ritual or tradition. After the pictures were taken along the River Nile all the cars drove to the sightseeing place called Colossi of Memnon were they took more pictures. All the locals stayed near their cars about 50 metres away from the couple but Ahmed took us near the couple so we could take pictures of them. We ended up on their wedding video.. At the same time we saw another sight which we hadn't seen yet. Before we got to the actual wedding party it took us over two hours waiting for the couple and when the pictures were taken.

On our way to the wedding place all the cars were driving on this narrow road, speeding and driving like crazy. At that point we were driving behing this minibus so we couldn't see what happened in front of it. Suddenly I saw how the bus in front of us braked and I saw how our driver started to brake but immediately my first thought was that we are going to crash! Thank god the driver got the speed down even a bit before we crashed to the other car's back. I was sitting in the middle of the backseat without a seatbelt! I saw before we crashed so I could hold myself almost still but I still hit my legs to the seats in front of me. Saija hit her cheek and head to the drivers seat. Nothing worse happened and the people were immediatelly asking us if we were fine. We were fine, just shocked. The car got the worst damages. The driver almost couldn't get out because the door didn't open up that much.

The wedding place was located in the village outdoors along some small canal. It was on some alley with open space and the wedding couple went to sit down on this small stage in front of the space. There were only couple of benches and the rest of the people stand. We first waited something to happen but nothing did. There was egyptian or arabic music and first the children started to dance and then some adults also. The couple just sat on the stage and watched everyone. We were sitting on the bench (I was sure it was going to break down and we were going to roll down the small hill to the canal). In front of us there were about 15 children staring at us. Ahmed told us that we were the first white and blond females some of them had ever seen and that there weren't any tourists visiting their village so they were curious to stare at us. The children were really cute and they could dance! It was amazing to follow them move and dance. They really had the rhytm in their blood. Other people also shyly stared at us. We had been there about an hour when Sara appeared from some where. Sara was a 29-year old english woman who had just moved to the village with her egyptian fience. The had been engaged for four years and now she had opened her own beauty salon. She told us that the children would stare at us all night if we stayed there and she suggested that we leave to an other wedding to the next village near by.

Egyptian weddings usually take several days. There are the actual wedding day, ceremonies, prewedding things, after wedding things. Usually they take three to even four days (that's what we were told). The bride wore an ordinary white bridal dress and the groom wore a black suit. Wikipedia says this: "The ceremony starts with a car parade. The wedding car (as prestigious as possible) will be decorated with flowers and ribbons. Cars of both families move together in a noisy parade of continuous sounding of car horns to a wedding hall most often in a hotel (not in the wedding we were). The honking is to announce that there is a wedding taking place.When the bride and groom finally reach to their destination in the hall (outdoors) they sit in the “Kosha”. The Kosha usually consists of two comfortable seats in front of the guests where the bride and groom reign as though king and queen." That's the part of the wedding we got to see! :)

We left to the next wedding with two motorbikes with three persons on each. The next wedding was much different. The wedding couple wasn't there (at first) it was just a party or celebration for them. It was held on this big open area outdoors and it reminded me of like a carnival or something like a funfair with all the bright colorful lights. There was this old fashioned horse carriage in front of everyone with four men on it playing music and one of them sang. Men were sitting on the ground on carpets and all the women and children sat on the other side on chairs. There was three men from different age groups dancing some same ritual dance at the open area in front of everyone. Some of the men there were drinking beer and some smoke pot (Ahmed's cousin for example.). Sara's fiance paid to some small boy to go and buy us cokes from somewhere. After a while the boy kindly came back with our drinks. We really wanted to leave with Saija 'cause it was already at 1 am and we had to wake up before 4 am. Before we left we saw a glimpse of the wedding couple when they got there to enjoy the night. We got a motorbike rides back to our camp after 1 am.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures or videos from the weddings, 'cause Saija accidentally deleted them. :/ Afterwards we thought that maybe it was a sign that only we were supposed to see and experience the local weddings and their traditions.

It was quite a day to remember!

Egypt summer 2011 LUXOR part 2

The next morning we left to see the West bank side and the Valley of the Kings and Queens. We had asked about the trip from our hostel but it was way too expensive what they asked for, so we had decided to do it by ourselves with Marc. We had made sure to him that this was the last day travelling with him and that he needed to continue his trip on his own. He really tried to ask our plans and which cities we were going next and stuff what we made things up and lied to him.

We walked to the bank of the river and took a boat across after, of course, haggling the price down. There we were offered many car rides for crazy prices to our destination! It took quite a while before the driver really understood that we weren't going to give up on our price and ended up getting a nice airconditioned car with a nice driver with a good price. It just took a bit patience.

Walking to the Valley of the Kings

First it was time to see the famous Valley of The Kings. Kurt had told us a good tip that we don't have to pay an entrance ticket because it just allows you to go to three tombs were is nothing to see. He also told us that there is this small tourist minitrain going up right in front of the valley gates (taxis and buses have to leave you further away) but it only takes less than 5 minutes or so to walk there without paying anything. So, we only bought tickets to the tomb of Tutankhamon and Ramses the 6th (I think it was 6th..). They cost us 50 (6,8€) and 25 pounds for students. The guy at the entrance really tried to get us to buy the entrance tickets but I was really strict to him and just told him that we know we don't have to have it and walked past him. 

The tomb of Tutankhamon was really small. When we got the small steps down and underground on the left side was the mommy of King Tutankhamon resting in his tomb. It gave me chills. On the right side was his burial chamber with walls painted with hieroglyphs. It was really breathtaking that something like that has been preserved for so long. It felt so real. And greepy. The tomb of Ramses the 6th (not entirely sure it was this one 'cause there are so many different Ramses tombs) was huge, it was like this long corridor with walls and roof full of hieroglyphs and the corridor lead to some room. It was quite impressive with all the colours and little detailed drawings on the walls and on the roof also.

After we were done with the tombs Marc secrectly wanted to climb to one of the sandhills surrounding the valley. First I was like no way, there are guards with guns and it's not allowed. When I saw him climbing there my inner competitive me woke up and I thought that we only be young ones (well at least some of us were young..) and the rebel me started climbing there after him with flipflops on.. The view to the Valley of the Kings was quite something! It was also a bit challenge to get down from there. It was much easier to get up. But we managed to do that by no one seeing us (except couple of young guys trying to sell us something while they climbed after us and told us not to go there).

Next we headed to Al-Deir Al-Bahari (also many other names) it is a complex of mortuary temples and tombs. There was a temple of Hatsepsutin which I had seen in history books several times. It cost us 15 pounds (2€) and we had to past couple of shops and the men were really annoying! When we came back we hopped over the fence 'cause we didn't want to walk past them again. The temple was really nice looking from far away but in my opinion there wasn't anything to see inside it. The view was nice. :)

The temple of Hatsepsutin

The Valley of the Queens

The last sight was the Valley of the Queens and we visited tombs 52,55 and 44. It was 20 pounds for students. The tombs were smaller and but the colours were magnificent. We were really exhausted! We could barely walk with Saija after seeing the last tomb. Our really nice driver drove us back to the river and we took a boat cross and went to take a nap. On every sight there were only few tourists with us. On the Valley of the Queens we were actually the only ones there! No one else.

After the nap we took a shower and left to eat by the River Nile and to drink some beer at the local restaurant which sold beer. It was so relaxing just to sit and watch the river even though Marc was with us. I had so much fun teasing Marc without him even knowing. I asked him difficult questions like what year did you graduate and that way he had to carefully count the years because he was still lying is his age. We bought beers to go and quickly stopped by at the internet cafe and after that we went back to our hostel were me and Saija watched King Kong from tv. After having enough of it we went to the hostel roof to smoke some strawberry Shisha (again, not a good idea.) Where we were joined with one local guy who didn't speak english and we had no idea who he was. He just sat with us smoking our Shisha. :D Nice evening! :)

At the restaurant drinking Stella

Saija smoking Shisha and the random guy at the roof of the hostel

Egypt summer 2011 LUXOR part 1

The next morning we woke up at 7 am. Before we left from the hostel one of the staff members asked us about yesterday night and what we had been talking about. He told us that in order for us to be safe he wants to tell us Marc's real age. We was born in May 1972, so at the time he was 39-years-old. He had lied to everyone his age by ten years! We were a bit shocked but we kind of already knew that he had lied to us.

At the airport we called Mohammed like we had earlier promised to him. He came to meet us with three other airport segurity guys. We put our backpacks to the cargo hold and we were escorted to the check in with our own bodyguards. We felt like celebrities. We were really early at the airport so we had much time. Mohammed and his friend Ahmed (called BakkarBeko) had a 12-hour work day and they had two hours of per swift and they took the two hours to hang around with us. We had a good time talking with them at the airport. They walked us all the way to the gate and made sure we got to the airport bus going to the plane. Mohammed wrote a note to his friend who had a shift on a plane and I had to give the note to him (Eslam). On every EgyptAir flight there is one segurity guy on board. We had our own guard on the plane also. Eslam came to ask from us if we were fine or if we needed anything. During the flight I was a bit nervous about the Marc situation and how we were going to act around him.

Saija at Luxor airport

At the Luxor airport there are no local buses going anywhere so we were forced to take a taxi to get out from the airport. The longer we postponed to accept the prices they offered the lower the prices finally got. We got of from the taxi at the Luxor temple and tried to find our hostel. Immediatelly we noticed that it was much much hotter in Luxor than it had been in Cairo! We found a way to our hostel by accident. We were trying to look some map on the corner of the street (in the end it wasn't even a map..) when this man asked us if we needed help. We were a bit rude to him at first. He didn't give up and finally he said that he's the owner of Bob Marley house hostel, the same hostel we were trying to find.. He wanted to take us there with his scooter. He, me and Saija and two huge backpacks on one scooter.

The narrow street to our hostel

The hostel was situated at the end of this narrow alley (in my opinion you can't even call that a street). The place was super hippie and it was covered with Bob Marleys face on walls, wallpapers, carpets etc. We noticed Marc immediately reading his book on one of the couches. He was so into his book that he didn't hear us at all. At first. When he finally got his eyes and ears of the book we told him really rudely that we want to get our backpacks to our own room (we had our own room with Saija) and then we were going to eat something. He looked a bit stunned. However, we promised to him that we could go together to the Luxor temple later on the same day. 

Common Room

Reception

Outside the hostel "door"

From in front of the temple

Luxor temple looked nice but at this point it started to look like every other sight we had seen. We paid something to get in to the temple area. It was an old ruined temple with huge statues inside the temple. It also had hieroglyphs inside the walls. With Marc we behaved pretty nicely but tried to be more distance from him that we had been. And we really avoided taking pictures with him. We first walked though the temple and it was still sunny but when the sun got down so quickly Saija wanted to go around it another time because it looked a bit different with all the lights on.

Inside the temple

After the Luxor temple we thought about going the see the Karnak temple near but me and Saija had seen enough temples for the day and were too tired. Later we heard that we missed something for not seeing the place. Well maybe we did but at that point we didn't want to go there and we really don't know or we're not that interested in about history, so I think for us it would have been just an other temple with statues. Instead we took a horse garriage ride and Saija absolutely loved it sitting on the front seat with the driver. I got stuck with Marc on the back seat.. Thank god it wasn't that long time. After the horse ride we walked through the Old Market Street where we tried to look for something to buy but the men were too irritating. I bought only one bracelet from there. Oh, and now I have to say that where ever we went with Marc or walked with him either Saija or myself were thought of being Marc's wife. Or that Marc had two wifes! "Lucky man with two wives!!" or the best one and the most embarrasing one for Marc was when people thought that he was our father! :D Me and Saija were constantly thought of being sisters.

Old Marker Street

We found an internet cafe where we found out that Kurt and Greg had sent me an inbox in facebook asking if we were still alive and how it had gone with Marc. That was a really nice thing from them to do. We answered them that yes, we are still alive but Marc and we were the only ones in the hostel of maybe 100 beds..!

The first two nights we planned to stay on the East bank side of Luxor and one night in the West bank side since we almost immediatelly found that the city was really "empty" or that we would have nothing to do to spend six days there. East bank side is the side were the two temples are located and where the majority of hotels/hostels and tourist facilities can be found. It's where all the tourists stay at. We found the city being very simple. The Luxor temple is in the middle of everything and we could walk everywhere. The West bank is the place where The Valley of the Kings and Queens are located and it's more countryside than the other side of River Nile and also most of the locals stay on the West.

Outside the hostel

Learnt in Luxor:

• most of the men were wearing the Dishdashah; a long sleeved one piece dress that covers the whole body which helps to cool the body in long hot summer days. Men didn't wear those that much in Cairo.

•  much hotter than in Cairo

• East Bank = tourists, West Bank = locals

• Haggle the prices! The prices could go down from 230 to 30 pounds. They test are you dumb enough the pay the crazy prices. 

• Don't trust anyone, people try to make business and use you.

Egypt summer 2011, CAIRO part 4

The view from our hostel to the other direction

In the morning of second of June me and Saija left out to shop around the famous Talaat Harb square which was very near our hostel. I don't even know its history and why its famous but that's what we were told. Talaat Harb square is also very big traffic circle with many streets aparting to different directions from the sq. So lots and lots of streets to shop and to get lost into. First we tried to wander around looking for postcards, stamps and a mailbox. When this man called Kimo started talking with us and offered to help us. I was a bit cautious 'cause I somehow automatically thought that he would want something like money from us for helping us out. He offered to show us were to get what we were looking for. He seemed like a really nice guy. After getting what we had been looking for he showed us a nice juice place, where we had mango and some other fruit juices. Egyptians drank a lot of mango and other juices that were self made from the real fruits. 

From Cairo Inn-hotel. Talaat Harb sq behind us

Then he offered to show us the place he worked at, Cairo Inn hotel. That started to be a bit distressing and when we were introduced to his boss who started to show his hotel to us we both had fake smiles on and promised to tell about the hotel to our friends.. When we got back to the street they told us that the hotel also had a shop with papyrus papers and upstairs was this bottled parfume shop. Kimo got us upstairs and the boss came there also and Kimo left and the boss started to sell us parfumes.. I felt really uneasy there! I felt like they trciked us there which they had done! Saija wasn't that worried and offered to buy something from the man for us to get out from there! That was the first and the only time we were kind of fooled.

After the incidentwe started shopping but didn't find that much stuff to buy. I bought couple of shirts and Saija also bought some clothes. "We don't desing clothes, we desing dreams" was the name of one clothes shop. It took us some time to find the right familiar street to get to our hostel but first we went to eat at the same koshary place we had already been at before. Then it was a nap time and after that we left for the light show to Giza.

Me, Greg, Marc and Kurt

We had our own driver from the hostel that took us to Giza to see the light show. There were seats and seats of empty space there. It was like watching a movie outdoors. They reflected lights and hieroglyphs to the walls of the pyramids. It told a story about the construction of the pyramids and also other stuff too. On our way back we drove through the Tahrir sq and in the evening it was a bit more exciting than it had been before.

The light show

Tahrir square

Zoora

Back at the hostel we went out to buy some water from the nearest kiosk when these young shy girls came to shake hands with us. We were shocked. Their mother saw us on the streets and called for the girls who came running to us. They had obviously wanted to talk with us and had been watchind us. Their mom was this egyptian woman wearing the gown and the niqab. I really don't know the real term for the clothes. Her daughters were Fatima 9-year-old and Shoora 16-year-old. The didn't speak english at all. It all happened so quicly. Suddenly they had carried chairs for us to sit with them next to the street. Their mom looked so happy. We had an old translator man who had been studying in England many years ago. Shoora was the most real and beuatiful young woman I've ever met! She was so full of life that it was unbelievable. Shoora told us that we were the most beautiful women from the westerner countries she had ever seen. Turned out that she had watched us walk past the street almost everytime we had past it. Children gathered around us and wanted to shake hands with us and get a smile from us. Shoora and her little sister wanted to take photos with us. She was so beautiful we couldn't get our eyes of from her. Her father had passed away so she had had to drop out from school and get a job to help her family. She made this arm bracelets for living that she sold on some small bazaar. The place she worked at was already clossed and we really would have wanted to buy stuff from her to support her. All of the people there hugged us when we said we needed to go. The children walked us to the front door of our hostel. 

Back at the hostel in our room we started talking with Kurt, a man called Greg from Canada and with Alain. Kurt started to conversation asking what did we think about Marc? (He had already left to the city of Luxor to the same hotel we were supposed to arrive the next day.) We looked at each other with Saija and started laughing.. We spent almost three hours talking about him. They started talking how weird and glingy the Einstein was. He didn't want to do anything on his own and wanted always someone to come with him. The guys also said that he could be really manipulative. The australian guys had been trying to avoid him and had been glab since he had spent so much time with me and Saija. The boys had been watching our face expressions and gestures when Marc had been present and the way we had acted around him had been really cold. When me and Saija had left out with Mohammed Marc had said to the guys: hopefully he doesn't steal my girlfriend! Like what a fuck?! :D Or at the Citadel fortification he had somewhere asked from Kurt if he taught that he had a chance with me?! At this point I was really disgusted. Gross. The conversation went on and we started thinking about his stomach and his age. He just couldn't be 29 with a stomach like that. Then it hit me! He had once shown me his passport but he covered his details and I even joked about it to him like are you hiding your real name or your age.. The guys one by one went to the reception to ask around if the guy was 29 or not. They of course couldn't tell anything at the reception but to nod or something. Turned out that he was over 35-years-old! We were freaking out with Saija! The boys started teasing us about Marc being a serial killer who kills girls all over the world. That wasn't funny since we knew that he would be waiting for us at the next city. Boys told us not to go there but we didn't want to change our plans because of one crazy man. Afterall we knew that he was not dangerous or anything, just a bit nuts. We went to bed around 3 am.

Learnt in Cairo:

• traffic is insane
• all the women don't wear the scarf and other covering clothes. 
• the head scarf can be worn in many different ways. It's part of the fashion. It can be matched with nails or other clothes with colour etc.
• people are really friendly
• you must haggle the prices. It's the way they do business.
• women are really fashioned, they smile a lot and are friendly.
• Alcohol is not drinken. But people do drink it anyways. especially young people.
• Shisha
• to drive a car you need to be 18 but we saw much younger drivers also.
• donkeys, camels, horses and oxes are on the street. especially at the countryside.

Oh, and we met a man at the hostel who is married to a finnish girl named Johanna and they've been on the finnish tv show called Satuhäät. Is the world small or what? 

Egypt summer 2011, CAIRO part 3

Around 10am we left to see the Salah El Citadel fortification (it has also many other names like Cairo Citadel, The Saladin Citadel etc.) with Marc (we also named him Einstein because of his hair..). We were supposed to leave alone with Saija because Marc had made plans with some guys to go to the city of  Alexandria. 10 minutes before they were about to leave he made up his mind that there is nothing to see in Alexandria and that he wants to come with us instead.. We were really pissed of! We took a metro and a taxi to get near the famous fortification with Mohammed Ali's mosque there also (in the pic). At there we collided into the australian guys from the hostel and we were really happy that we didn't have to be alone with Marc. The place was the only place were our finnish student cards weren't valid. They were really strict that you had to have the interanational student card there. Salah El Citadel was enourmous and we took many pictures of the picturesque Cairo. The fortification overlooks to the part of Old Cairo. We went inside to the mosque and I had to wear this gown because my own clothes were too revealing..

View to the Old Cairo

 We left from the fortification and took a taxi after the guys had really made business with several drives compering prices and haggling the prices down. We had the easy role with Saija just to follow the guys or especially Kurt while he was having fun. I think that it was a really good thing to hang with other more experienced travellers the first days, we learnt a lot from them. Kurt gave us really good tips how to act in differrent scenarios, what to pay and where to go to. All the backpackers really looked after each other. Anyway after Kurt got the price he was happy with we started making our way to the biggest and the most famous bazaar in Cairo, Khan El Khalili. When the taxi went really slowly forward among the traffic, Kurt shaked hands with egyptians and made statements like welcome to egypt from the open window. :D 

At the bazaar we decided to split up to boys and girls. That way we got rid of Marc.. The australians gave us be-safe and don't-pay-too-much tips. We agreed on seeing them back at the hostel. :) The Khan El Khalili was an interesting experience for sure! I could describe it with words like exotic, friendly, overwhelming and chaotic! There were so many people going to every directions on the narrow allies full of booths! They sold herbs, spices, scarves and other islamic women's clothes, Egypt and Cairo souveniers, watches, water pipes, lamps, perfume bottles, jewellery etc. Mostly it was that one shop only sold for example lamps and the different  booths were one after the other and then the same shops started again.. Even Saija who absolutely loves shopping in different open air markets or bazaars felt a bit uneasy there. Now, however,  I have to say that not once did we feel like we were in danger or pressured into buying anything we didn't want to. Yes, the men can be really discusting shouting after you and trying to convinse you buying something but if you're strict and say no and keep on walking they'll give up. Before the trip I was a bit worried about people trying to cheat us because we can't haggle the prices and end up paying way too much. We ended up being really good at haggling and I started enjoying it (not everywhere, the tourist places/destinations were the worst)! And in the end you have to remember that it is their culture you're in and it's the way they have made business for centuries. It's all about being firm about what you are willing to pay, compare the prices but the best trick was to have a great sense of humour. If you are friendly and go into their "game" they'll probably lower the price for you if they're also having fun. We tend to buy stuff from people who didn't obtrude us to buy anything and who looked like an honest fella. You also have to keep in mind that you're probably haggling over one or two LE (egyptian pounds) and one pound is 0.14 euros..

After walking through some part of the bazaar we arrived next to this big road. We had absolutely NO idea where we were. We had no map. First 20 minutes we just walked to where our intuition told us to. That didn't work, surprisingly. It wasn't difficult to ask help 'cause every one was already watching us. I don't know how long we walked untill we found our way to the Ataba metro station. I think it was easily more than 60 minutes. People were really kind to us all the time especially when we had to cross this big road and run between the cars. The metro ride went easily and quickly but when we got of at our stop and walked to the day light then the difficult part started. We were standing in a crossroad with maybe six streets meeting and at every corner you could entry and exit the metro. Again, we had no idea which way to go. When we at last made it to our hostel the guys were asking us where have you been?! They had been back from the bazaaar for many hours ago..

Me and Saija left to eat to some local place near our hostel. It was a four storeyd place called Abou Tarek and later back in Finland we found out that it's the most famous koshari place in the whole Cairo. Koshari (also koshary, kushari, kosheri) is a very popular dish in Egypt. It's really cheap, healty and delicious. The meal consists of a strange combination of macaroni, spaghetti, rice, black lentils, chick peas, garlic sauce and a spicy tomato chili sauce, all topped with fried onions. You can have to chili sauce either spicy or not. For a small plate which was so big I couldn't even finish it every time (and I eat a lot) we paid around 1€.

The same morning we had sent a thank you text message to Mohammed and agreed to go out with him the same night. He promised us to show Cairo from the eyes of a local. First, back at the hotel I was hanging in the common room after waking up from the nap when Saija was still sleeping. There was Kurt and Marc with me also. Kurt was talking to his friend through skype and Marc suggested that he can show me his travel pictures. Suddenly he tried to make a move on me and I was totally in shock!! I was trying to stammer something in response to his action. After squirming out from the situation I went to wake up Saija and told her what had happened! She promised not to leave me alone with him anywhere.

We stopped to admire the Nile river

At 7 pm we got ready and went out to wait for Mohammed to pick us up with a car. He asked us if we wanted to visit the Tahrir square and of course we wanted to! The square was not scary at all! There were families sitting around and having a picnic. We drove around and he showed us places. We saw thiese HUGE seven star hotels! We thought that five was the maximum but apparently not.. :D We saw numerous big mosques but we didn't quite get the names of them. The ride was interesting in many ways: we got to listen to arabic music, we heard about the revolution from some one who has been there while it started and still goes on and experience the crazy traffic. We for example drove pass some crossroad we were supposed to go. So our driver decided to drive backwards against the traffic on a HIGHWAY! Mohammed took us to see the Cairo Tower which we had seen from our hostel windows.

The Cairo Tower is 187 metres high and one of Cairo's well-known landmarks. It cost 70 pounds / person to get in (10€). Mohammed paid us in, he didn't allow us to pay. The view was amazing!! All the city lights. We got our first young admirer from a local 10-year old boy who was brave enough to come and talk with us. Her parents took a picture of  us with the boy. :) 

me, Mohammed and Saija

After the Cairo Tower he took us to eat at this local area with only egyptians there. He told us before hand that it's an expensive but not so elegant place and its very popular among the locals. We don't know the name of the place. There was mostly men in the restaurant, most of them sitting outside and there were couple of tables inside also. When we entered the restaurant ALL of the people there including the staff stopped and stared at us. We went to sit inside to get a bit shelter from the people staring at us. All the menus were in arabic and Mohammed offered something for us. The plates just kept coming to our table non-stop. We were like idiots in the restaurant for the first time. We had no idea how to act there, whether we were supposed to eat from the common plates or gather food to our own plates. We tasted some green soup (don't know and don't want to know what that was), liver, some beef (called banana) and many many other things! We fell in love with the local rice!! It was so good! Mohammed introduced us to his cousin (also working at the airport) Rami. Mohammed paid also our food! 

Rami, me and Mohammed at Mokattam

Next they wanted to take us to this famous Mokattam hill from where we could see the whole Cairo. Right at the edge of the hill there were tables and chairs were people could sit and watch the city while drinking the local tea and smoke Shisha. We talked about stuff and had a good time there drinking the local tea. For the first time in Cairo I had cold because we were so high and there was windy up there. At 1 am the boys took us back to our hostel and we were really happy and had a great evening. We had seen the Cairo in a very unique way! The boys at the hostel were jealous to us. :D Oh, and we went to the big bathroom to wash our faces at night and got stuck there! There wasn't a handle on the door and we laughed so much and tried quietly to shout someone to help us until we finally figured it out how the door opens up..

We heard a lot of history during the night. We also got a better perception of the revolution. And it's a bit sad that the media only shows one side of it. So far we had learnt to speak arabic: (don't know how to write them)

• Ählän = welcome
• Ähläm = dream
• E or Is Zaijak? = how are you?
• El hamd lele = thanks to Allah i'm good
• Afwan = you're welcome
• Shokran = thank you
• LA SHOKRAN = no thank you