Travelling in Egyptian Taxi's with Expats ( part 1 )

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.

Arriving in Cairo, Egypt

This morning was a little sombre as the news in the apartment block all seemed to be a little bit doom and gloom, with news of my friends visa added to this being my last morning here.

As a nice finishing touch I downloaded some photos for them before I had to pack up all my stuff and once again head of towards yet another airport, but at least this time my friend was taking me there.

Once I got to the airport it was the perfect arrival time of just a fraction longer than two hours before flight time, so ideal for check in and then boarding. Or at least it would have been if the flight was not moved to a different gate twice and delayed twice, making it a much more hectic time and meant that a mini trip to see the pyramids today was out of the question.

However in the line up queue in front of me were two very friendly teachers from the states and once we heard the news that our flight was delayed we got bored and went off for a coffee.

As luck would have it the second time the flight gate was moved to it ended up right outside our coffee shop, which sort of made sence to us, and so we just sat, drank tea and talked til everyone else had already boarded the flight and then joined the back of the line.

The flight was further delayed by standing on the tarmac and unfortunately I wasn't sat anywhere near my two new friends A' & B' but at the least we had arranged to meet up again on the other side and clear customs together.

Once customs was cleared, at the expense of 85 LE sticky visa stamp, I pulled off a bit of a coup as I managed to ride with them in their privately arranged taxi paid for by the hotel for guests staying longer than 6 nights, complete with an old battered meter that is easily twice as old as I am.

By the time we reached out hotel it was still daytime just, but the location was in such a weird and hard to find location that we all had reservations about if we or even a taxi driver could ever find it again, especially late at night.

Once in the hotel there turned out to be no spare rooms for me, so I was bowled over when A' & B' said that I could stay in their room, which had a whopping 4 beds inside it, and that we could just split the bill three ways for the two nights I was there. This was great for me, as it saved me a lot of time and money, not to mention it gave us all more time to chat and get to know each other and within minutes we were plotting and planning where we could go and what we could do.

Just at that moment one of the guys from the next room came in and told us that he had arrived yesterday and that the taxi driver had stolen his passport and wallet while he was rubber necking his way from the airport. However far being a very bad story, the next day ( being today ) he was sent for by the police as they had caught the theif working over yet another tourist while he still had our guys wallet and passport on him. The thief was forced to give back our guys money and then he was given a bit of a beating, right then and there in from on teh guest, before being taken away and thrown into jail. So for him he has what I think amounts to a nice story already and he has yet to visit anyplace.

My friends A' & B' then found out that a few of their other teacher colleagues were also staying here in the same little hotel, so we all arranged to go have dinner and then maybe even stroll through one of the nighttime bazarres if we got time.

For the meal we went to a place called La Bodega, which was a very funky place to visit ... done up like the 1920's and 30's all Toulouse La Trek with the decorations and the prices were very reasonable. For the next few hours we all just sat around the table and swapped stories and travel hints. Although I had done more of South America than most of the group, they sure had me down cold for visiting places like Africa or the Middle East, with the Far East and Europe being about equal.

My experiences travelling had always been either to visit friends or sighseing but with their overseas teaching, aid work and peace keeping efforts where they had worked and lived for two or three years in plenty of places and so had a real chance to get to know the locals, find the good haunts and chance upon discovering some terrific stories and urban legends, which I feel should be written up.

After some good company and scrummy food we then went for a trip down memory lane for some of us while other wandered anew as we went to a few restaurants, antique shops and such all looking for just things that looked shiney and even had fun practicing haggle with the locals just for fun.

My best tip learned ws not to bother arguing with the local taxi drivers, but to first fix a price and anything more than 20 pounds while inside cairo city centre is being over generous, and for anyone who forgets this then the best advice is then to get out without paying at the other end and then just pass through around 10 or 15 pounds, to which they will all say is not enough but then they would say that if you gave them 50 or even 150 it would still be "no no, a little more, is not enough !!!"

Finally with a very early start train ride to Alexandria tomorrow morning we all figured it would be best to go back and try to get some sleep, so my opportunity to see Belly Dancing or smoke shisha and not to mention that I will be try to visit the Pyramids early morning the next day before leaving for an early afternoon flight to Athens.

A couple more days in Bahrain

I was very fortunate that my friends A' and S' were happy to take me in and that their fully furnished apartment was huge with 4 bedrooms. I was slighly less fortunate with the actual city as to be honest there is very little here either for a tourist or even for locals.

The kingdom of Bahrain is a small island, around 60 km long by 30 wide, and was originally just a huge sand spit off the coast of Saudi Arabia.

The whole place is full of construction sites, with at least six new tower blocks being worked on within view no matter where you are on the island, yet meaning no disrespect to the locals or authorities it is being managed by people more detached from reality than even a British politician.

Bahrains population is very small and so there is absolutely no need for all these multitudes of tower blocks to be built and so close to each other that unless you are on the top floors you have no view except of other blocks around you. You cannot even feel safe if you are on a side that is overlooking the sea or ocean, as with each year they are reclaiming more and more land by dumping tons of sand and rubble into the sea and so what was the sea front three years ago is already one tower block away now, with even more being planned in the near future.

There are no buses or trains that take you around the city, but then again there is precious little to visit. A handful of museums that are mainly just to show off their past rulers, with only a couple of rooms full of actual artifacts and even the souveneir shops are lacking both substance and quantity. There are no guide books or guides for the museum and when I went even the cafeteria was closed due to lack of interest, on whose behalf I am not sure, but it just meant that you wander around for an hour and then regret telling your taxi driver that he should return to collect you in two!

The malls are surprisingly affordable, and almost all of the apartment blocks have their own mini gymnasium and swiming pool, but these luxuries only beguile for a few weeks before you realise that you are trapped in a place where you will spend almost all of your time in either your office or your apartment.

The wage might be one of the highest in the world, but their immigration rules are a fiasco and stories abound of workers having to return home or send their families away for months at a time while waiting for the sluggish beauocracy to get off their buts and do something are enough to put off all but the most determined of workers.

Despite having my own laptop, the internet security policies of Bahrain, much like Dubai, are such that pretty soon I realised that the whole network was under thier nanny state scrutiny, meaning that unless I am a hard core hacker my ability to surf the net and dig up any dirt or good information is heavily hampered.

Apparently there are a few cinemas and even a water park also on the island, but none of the people I spoke to knew about them and if it wasnt for seing the movie listings in the local newspaper I would have sworn it was all in my head.

Finally stories of Saudi's crossing over the bridge border to bed local women on the bonets of their humvees before honking loudy at 3am in the morning announcing their triumph as they return back over the bridge, if proven to be true, show a distinct difference between the clean and pure image that the modern day Muslims portrays during the day and the more sleazy reality that are many Muslims at night.

The worst story I heard was of a reputable hotel bieng closed down after it was discovered that some of the locals, maybe staff / maybe guests, were seen herding groups of teenage and young women into the hotel late at night for either a sex gangbang or maybe longer term prostitution, keeping them locked in a room five at a time and forced to service several men a day in order to pay for their 'accomodation and food'.

Having spent a few days here with my friends, despite their very generous and friendly company I was under the distinct impression that Bahrain was a most perverse warping of capitalism, where the locals were using their money to lure the best of the talent from around the world but offering them nothing in return except cold hard cash, and always keeping and treating them as a second rate immigrant one step away from deportation, never as a valued employee or equal.