Talk about a culture shock!!!
After a stressful few hours before I left realsing that my travel insurance had run out and it was compulsory for myself to have it for Egypt I managed to get a Southern Cross Working overseas plan.
Dont use FLIGHT CENTRE, people. They are useless and take at least 2 months to do anything. I stil havent got my refund back from the start of my trip.
Anyway, Rotterdam and Maastricht were beautiful. Really nice to see a bit more of the Netherlands than the somewhat seedy underbelly of Amsterdam.
When we arrived in Egypt we were picked up by some dodgy looking guy claiming to be from the tour. We then jumped into a non descript car complete with dangly things hanging from the windows and AM/FM radio. An hour of stressing that he was going to take us to an out of the way place and ask for all our money, finally got us to our hotel.
The tour we are on is much different from the likes of Contiki but that is fine. It is just 2 other Polish girls on the tour and they sure know how to complain. One of them said from the start - 'Is there going to be Mosquitos here, because I am allergic to mosquitos'. Honestly, sometmes you have to wonder whether people travel for fun and adventure or just to show pictures of the places they have seen.
'We want a freshly squeezed Orange juice - can you take us to a shop?'
I think they have to realise that we are in AFRICA!!!!
Anyway, Egypt reminds me a lot of India in many respects. It is slightly more cleaner and slightly less choatic but it nevertheless still has all the same ingrediants as India.
We visited all the Pyramids yesterday and were literally swamped by hagglers. Everywhere. You get pretty good at saying NO. The sphyinx was a bit of a disappointment. Really tiny and pretty badly damaged.
The great pyramids were sick though. Last night we travelled by overnight train to Aswan - about 900 kms north of Cairo. Pretty dirty train and stuff but it was OK to spend a night on it.
Tomorrow we are going to Luxor. Ancient ruins everywhere. I guess they can get a bit overwhelming.
