Today was always going to be a bit of a handful, with not only were we a group of eight folk ( broken into four families ) of all ages, but we had to try and get ourselves to Alexandria and back plus visiting the best bits of there without falling out with each other or getting ripped off by the various taxi drivers.
As we had some worldly wise travellers, including my new friends A' & B' who were even former residents of Alexandria, I felt comfortable that we would not fall prey to many of the scams and beggars that I remembered and feared from my last trip, but as the wise say "it is often when you are feeling at your most strong that you are actually at your most weakest" - I just hope that my return to England is not such a similar shock.
We met up and managed to find two taxis to take us to the train station where we had return tickets for a trip to Alexandria for a low cost of only 10 Egyptian pounds each car, showing that for a short distance it will only cost a small amount, nothing huge, and that they do not try to double or increase the price for a full car, or usually.
All in all we must have taken around 6 taxi rides during the day, and the formula for not getting ripped off too much is not to bother asking them for a price and especially not to try and haggle for a good price to start with, but instead to just give them direction and say "we will pay you a good price when we get there". For around ten minutes only 10 pounds is needed, up to 20 minutes and then maybe 15 or 20 pounds, 30 for a full hour and 150 - 200 for a full day.
A few time the driver would be very pushy, and I still say that 99% of the time you should never accept a taxi from either a foreign train station or airport unless it is a proper metered or fixed ticket fare, and more often than not the ones that were pushy, or even touchy feely, were the ones that we gave short thrift to and just walked away from.
The Cairo train station is a relic from WW2 and you could almost feel yourself slipping back in time as you waited in the coffee bar for the train to pull into its platform.
Our train was a more modern Spanish train that had twin seats that could be reversed so that you could sit together in small groups or all face forward much like airplanes, and so with our 8 seats together we did a combination of both and happily chatted and watched the world go by as we sped towards our destination.
It would appear that much has changed in Alexandria, including the train station, and our former local expats were a bit confused along with the rest of us, but they soon got their bearings a bit more once we were on more familiar turf.
Breaking every travelling law we all knew, we allowed this rather clean but English speaking taxi driver to convince us to pay him 200 pounds and the same for his friend for them to ferry us around for the day, with the first stop being food and the golden rule of "Keep Miss B' happy and we're all happy, upset her and you upset us all". Despite us offering good money it would appear that he forgot this main golden rule as soon as we told it to him and right off the bat he took us to a lovely looking but terribly expensive and seedy restaurant.
Anywhere that has no menues is to be avoided, especially by large groups, and here was no exception, only we did our best to haggle and agree a fair price for a fair amount of food, however what we got was 4 standard meals meant to spread out for 8 people, a couple of plates of chips and them expecting us to fill up on bread and Humus ( for extra of course !).
This was not the start that we wanted but our experience here went rapidly down hill when it was discovered that the male waiters had drilled a tiny hole peeping into the toilets and covered one side with a shirt which they would slyly pull back to snoop into the bathroom whenever one of the ladies was in there and they felt they were not being observed. But observed they were, many accusations were thrown and of course denied, and at one point I had visions that a riot was about to occur, but in the end it eased as the women walked off to understandably calm down while the men drastically cut what we were prepared to pay of the bill, almost in half, and left with a firm repremand and the threat of police action if it was ever repeated.
I feel happy to name and shame in such cases, so my advice is to avoid the Mermaid Bar on the sea front at all costs and to always check for tiny holes in walls when you go into toilets.
When we finally caught up with the women they were still fairly steemed up and were rightly refusing to get back in the taxis that had brough us, so after a five minute stomp flanked by the taxi drivers pleading for money which we flatly refused on principle, we ended up at a posher hotel where we felt we would ditch the idea of hiring a taxi for the day and just take them one stop at a time.
Our first attempt was a big station wagon, which we only managed to fit all eight of us in plus the driver with a tight squeeze and us all getting to know our fellow passenges a whole lot more, but then he turned out to be an even bigger thief than the past lot and expected 50 pounds for a tiny trip. Less than a minute later we were prying ourselves out again as he would prefer to lose the entire fare than to not agree a price ( highly inflated ) and just take us to our destination where he would then receive a far price once we got out.
This was, thankfully though, our last bad taxi ride and after this they were all much more friendly, happy to take us to our destination and did not bother to try and dicker around with prices or uphike the cost once we were at the end. The tip definetly is not to even fix a price, only pay when you are out and, asuming you have given him a fair price, to walk away firmly and never stick around to see if he is happy as no doubt he will say it is not enough, whether you have paid him ten or fifty pounds.
Our firs stop was the Catacombs, which were underground burial chambers which were only rediscovered when a laided donkey fell in though the loose top soil covering one of the halls, and is some great example of mixed greek and egyptian architecture. The guards were very strict on the no cameras allowed rule, and try as we might they were very unmoving on the whole give us your camera thing. In the end we negociated with a "we will give you the camera battery, but not the camera itself" which seemed to pacify them.
Our next stop Pillar of Pompey, incorrectly labelled by I think it was the crusaders who thought it was built to honor the Roman general Pompey, when in fact it is much older.
Stop three was a Roman Amphitheatre which, despite being incredibly small compared to some of those I have visited in Europe, had an amazingly clear sweet spot and changed your voice from what you hear to what others hear just by stepping onto or off of the central stone marker.
Our last tourist stop was the Ottoman fort, built on the site of the old Lighthouse, and it was here that we all got suckered into visiting the miniscule marine museum that we all mistook for the entrance to the fort. It was basically the front keep gate house, cut off from the rest of the fort and had barely enough exhibits to fill one room anywhere else, and here replied on the whole entrance trickery and some huge dodgy looking paper machet displays to keep it going.
Here that I picked up a few female admireres who politely requested that they have their picture taken with me on their cameras and cell phones. I naturally agreed, feeling a bit like a c-list celebrity, and was so surprised that I missed how close they were getting or how they were blushing before they approached me. It was only as they turned the corner of the keep just as they were leaving eyeshot that one looked back and waved at me, but by then I was already heading off in the other direction and could not really double back on myself without making it obvious and risking a confrontation with a group of girls that spoke almost no English.
Due to the main forts ticket booth having no change, even from 50 pound notes, we got seperated from each other and ended up walking around by ourselves for a bit before finally cathcing up with each other before leaving again.
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