My mummy told me: "never talk to strangers"

The Arab culture in Egypt took a lot of getting used too.  If there's one tip I can give its do your homework.  Know up front exactly what you are getting and agree on the price beforehand.  NEVER accept the first price offered, not even for a coke in a restaurant.  After using cab services for a day or so we began to get a feel for what they should cost, before that we asked people.  Tourist info centers always told us higher prices than regular people we asked on the street, by the way.

We were two unmarried women traveling unescorted by any  men.  We encountered a few situations where the men would harass us but it usually stopped at the mention of a husband waiting somewhere.  I have heard stories of women tourists wearing fake wedding bands and I highly recommend it.  Wish we had.

Our worst scenario was trying to get from the airport to a hotel.  We arrived at 8:00 am and had a few hotel names but nothing definite.  Some people we had met in Thailand and who had been to Egypt before said that a cab to any area downtown from the airport should cost roughly 15 Eg. pounds.  The tourist info booth and a lady pretending to be from some tourist board (who tried to press us into a pricey hotel) both said 35 Eg pounds.  Some locals waiting in line told us we should not pay over 15-20 Eg pounds.  When we finally found a cab who said he'd accept 20 Eg. pounds we got in, but on the way to the hotel he changed his price to $20 US a piece.  Yeah right! We argued the whole way to the hotel, when we got out we paid him the original offer.. he followed us into the hotel yelling and proceeded to wait there 1/2 an hour for the money he most definitely was NOT getting.

Once we were accustomed to bargaining, getting around Cairo was no problem as long as we followed the advice mentioned above.  Some of the  prices we paid for various things are listed in the picture captions below so you can get a feel for what to pay.

We stayed at the Garden Palace Hotel in the Garden City section of Cairo.  A block away is the American Embassy and the city center is a comfortable walk or a 2 Eg.pound cab ride.  We used the subway once to get out to Old Cairo, it was cheap, crowded, fairly easy to navigate but doesn't cover the whole city.

Don't miss the National Museum (King Tut's jewels) and the Pyramids at Giza (south of downtown Cairo). The Kahn al Kalili Market was really cool as well. Great place to eat, shop and get lost in the winding streets of the marketplace. We accidentally walked into someone's house trying to get out of a twisting alley.  Oops!  My favorite souvenirs are some painted papyrus scrolls we got at a Papyrus Museum. There were many scattered along the route from Cairo to Giza.  They gave us a demonstration on how papyrus is made and, of course, plenty of opportunities to buy, buy, buy.  We found the papyrus in Kahn al Kalili to be much poorer in quality than that at the museum.

Egypt Photos