My next main stop was the National museum, which was pretty cool except that I did ask if cameras were allowed and my driver said yes only for the signs all over the plce to say otherwise and it meant that I could not take some amazing shots as there is plenty of cool things there to visit.
I had forgotten about the war boomerangs, and I dont even think I bothered with the christian or muslim exhibits last time, but this time I had a couple of hours to wander round. The place is like a tardis as the big pink building is much bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside, and made all the more full as it rarely wastes space with useless things like information plaques, instead happy to cram in as many similar artifacts side by side as they can.
The entrance price was 60, but the souveneir shop more than makes up for this cheap price with prices being totally out of kilt with the rest of the city. I tried to buy a single can of coke only to be quoted 12 pounds, which is more than even a room service 4 star hotel price, and when I said with shock and alarm how could it be the girl simple replied ( in good english ) that "Yes it is but you are now in the museum. Welcome to Cairo".
After walking around I made it to the exit with only a few minutes prior to my taxi driver comig to pick me up, and a lesser honest man would have just grabbed another taxi and headed off back to the hotel and then off to the airport and thus pay only the 75 or so instead of the full price that was agreed upon.
In hindsight , not that I would ever condone or suggest such a course of action, but ... a lesser moral person could easily walk to a different hotel than the one he is staying in, get an early taxi driver for the whole day, leaving the national museum to the last stop and then give them the slip ( as taxi drivers are not allowed to park out the front of the museum and thus while he is off parking the car elsewhere you just skip the museum and get a taxi back to where you are really staying at, with the taxi driver having no clue as to the deception til it is too late. ).
Of course, as all this entered my mind I dismissed it as soon as I thought of it, myself being far too much of a nice person to do over a taxi driver, even one who had duped me into going into a papyrus shop and then a horse ride that I didn't want or need.
Once my taxi driver picked me up I headed on over to our last stop together which was a cinema / the shopping distict of Helioplis, a much richer and prosperous area of Cairo complete with shops and malls more like Europe than the dirty and grimy filth that describes most of the downtown area.
I did some walking and passed two cinemas, but none were showing anything remotely that I was interested in, and so I walked back after stopping for a McDonalds and then a hair cut, neatly trimming my sideburns back to a non-crazy hermit image for a mere 25 pounds plus tip.
Feeling good with myself I forgot the golden rule which was to seperate my notes in my wallet and always have change, so when I took a normal taxi to the airport and stopped short to avoid paying the parking entrance fee he pulled the old "I have no change" scam and dratted I had given my last small bundle of notes to the hair salon.
Feeling that 15 was probably not going to be accepted I broke the second rule by not getting out and then paying, and then I broke the third rule by giving him the 50 note instead of waiting til we could get change elsewhere.
After a run around the 20 pounds fare suddenly switched into a 35 pound fare and he flatly refused to budge and give me any notes, so feeling very grumpy I got out and swore plenty of nasty insults as he drove away 15 pounds up and almost regretting that I had not stiffed my day long driver.
Finally I made it to my hotel where I collected up my rucksack and was stiffed again through lack of change by the hotel waiter, 15 pounds for a coke that almost anywhere else would be 3 and even here should only be 12.50.
The more I think of it the more Egypt seems to be just one long string of haggles to prevent being ripped off, which takes a lot of the fun away for me and is a real put off from me returning. I have said before, and save perhaps Miss Egypt, the best thing about Egypt is its geography and history, with its worse feature definetly being the locals.
Personally I feel that unless you are rich or come from a country where haggling for each and every purchase, even the tiny ones, is the norm then travelling to Egypt will either be expensive or a constant battle where the slightest let up will cost you dearly.
Thankfully the hotel had a nice lounge where I could plug in my laptop, crop a few photos and back out a couple of emails and blog entries which is one less thing to do tomorrow, but I still will find it hard to fit in all that I planned to do in Athens within a time phrase less than half of which I had originally scheduled.
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