15 Tips for a Successful trip to Egypt

| July 20th, 2010 | 12 Comments » | Egypt, Travel, Travel Tips

15 Travel tips for Egypt1. Always ask for the bill after your finished eating at a sit down restaurant. If you don’t ask, you’ll never get it and you’ll waste your day waiting to pay for your meal.

2. Learn how to haggle. Egypt is all about haggling, whether it’s for a water at the corner store, a souvenir at the market, or a non-metered taxi fare. We even haggled for the price of our hotel room in Dahab. Seriously, everything is negotiable!

3. BYOTP! (Bring Your Own Toilet Paper). You’ll be hard pressed to find toilet paper in most restrooms in Egypt. The toilets here have a built in bidet spray nozzle so if you don’t have toilet paper with you, prepare to walk out of the bathroom with a wet or dirty behind.

4. Accept that you’re a foreigner an you will be stared at all day, every day. Literally.

5. Be careful who you trust. You should be able to figure out who is genuine and whose not after the first two minutes of conversation. If the person starts mentioning “baksheesh”, tell them “shukran” (thank you) and simply walk away. (more…)

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The Top 15 Photos from our Travels to Egypt!

| July 16th, 2010 | 15 Comments » | Egypt, Photography, Travel

Crumb Crasher

1. Waves crashing on my friend Crumb in Alexandria, Egypt.

The Library of Alexandria, Egypt

2. The Alexandria Library (Bibliotheca Alexandrina)

Egyptian Public Transportation

3. Just another day on Egyptian Public Transportation.

Egyptian Tea

4. Mmm, Egyptian Tea! (more…)

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Review: Sham’s Restaurant Dahab, Egypt

| July 2nd, 2010 | 1 Comment » | Egypt, Reviews, Travel

Sham's Restaurant Dahab, Egypt

Greetings from Sham’s Restaurant here in Dahab!

We loved Sham’s so much that we ended up spending a lot of our days here. It’s okay though, because we have nothing else to do! Sham’s is a relaxing sea side restaurant with bedouin style seating with hundreds of big puffy pillows, colorful rugs, and small sit down coffee tables.

Sham's Restaurant Dahab

The staff make this place a fun atmosphere to hang out at, and one of the most important services that Sham’s offers is the free Wi-Fi internet. As far as food goes, Sham’s has the best value for the money. The food quality is excellent and tended to taste much better than the other restaurants that we tried during our visit to Dahab. The prices are on point and are much cheaper than our hotel’s restaurant (Penguin Restaurant).

Sham's Restaurant

We’re known here on a first name basis now. As I walk up to Sham’s each and every morning I hear one of the owners yell “Hey, my brother from another mother!”. They treat us very well here, and usually bring out desserts on the house, give us discounts on meals, and more. If you’re in Dahab and you’re looking for a chilled out spot with good food and good prices, head to Sham’s.

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The Distractions of Dahab

| June 29th, 2010 | No Comments » | Egypt, Travel

Life in Dahab, Egypt

There’s something about Dahab that makes us very sleepy. It must be something in the water. We’ve been lounging here for a week now and we pretty much do the same thing everyday. First we wake up and head down to our favorite sea side restaurant called “Sham’s” to grab breakfast and our early morning dose of free Wi-Fi. After an hour or three of lying in the Bedouin style seating we get up and head for a sunny spot so that Liz can catch some rays and I can swim like a fish.

Over the last few days we’ve tried our best to actually do at least one activity during our long days filled with napping, lounging, eating, swimming, snorkeling, and conversing with our friends about how great life can be when traveling the world.

Here’s a sneak peek on what we’ve been up to these last few days…

Swimming:

Lagoon DahabWe hear that there’s a sandy beach called the “Lagoon” and it’s about a 30 minute walk from our hotel. It’s supposed to be a prime spot for swimming, snorkeling and especially windsurfing! About 20 minutes into our stroll down to the Lagoon, we’re offered a ride from a local named “Friday” and he takes us the rest of the way. When we arrive we’re amazed by how many shades of blue there are. There are hundreds of windsurfers here today, so many that I’m not sure how they avoid running into each other. I jump in and spend about an hour swimming around while Liz bakes in the sun.

There are many places to swim in Dahab, but if you want a sandy beach, the “Lagoon” is the place to go. If you’ve got water shoes, or flippers head straight into the sea at any point along the boardwalk and you’ll be sure to find all sorts of great swimming spots. You can swim along the whole coast if you’d like! (more…)

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Dazed and Confused in Dahab

| June 25th, 2010 | 6 Comments » | Egypt, Travel

We’ve been in Dahab for three days now and we just absolutely LOVE this place. Our days consist of lounging around in the endless piles of pillows along the sea front, walking along the ocean, haggling at the shops, eating falafel, wasting our days away on the free sea side WIFI, snorkeling, and more.

Sham's Restaurant Dahab

We’re staying at a super cheap sea side budget hotel called Penguin Village. We’ve got a double room with ensuite bathroom, full sized bed, and air conditioning all for a measly 90EGP ($15 USD/per night). Our friend Crumb has his own single room with two twin beds, a fan, and shared bathroom and he’s paying only 40EGP ($7.03USD/per night). The rooms are immaculate and the grounds are extremely clean. This is the cleanest place we’ve been to in Egypt so far. (more…)

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A Scary Day in the Sahara Desert

| June 21st, 2010 | 13 Comments » | Egypt, Travel

Sahara Desert

Our 4×4 tears off from our desert guides home. Were a group of nine; 5 in the first jeep, 4 in ours. A few miles from siwa and were entering the desert. Giant sand dunes surround our 1980 something Toyota land cruisers. There’s obviously no speed limit in the desert, our driver is making that quite apparent.

Five minutes into the desert and we’re climbing this huge dune. All of a sudden there’s a loud boom! The water pump explodes… (more…)

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Heading to Siwa Oasis

| June 21st, 2010 | No Comments » | Egypt, Travel

Its cooler tonight. We arrive at Mawkaf Mohram Beh station. It’s dark here. Not because it’s 9 pm but because there’s currently a power outage at the station.  The only lights  here are the ones from the buses and taxis which are barely enough to illuminate the parking lot.  Our group of nine Couchsurfers somehow arrange a meeting spot through text messages.

Our bus arrives and we quickly jump on to evade the rash of mosquitoes. The bus departs at 10:05PM and within minutes the air conditioning is on full blast and the Quran is blasting so loud that it’s actually over powering my iPod. Excellent!

Every so often the bus swerves followed quickly by an air horn from hell. This is going to be one long 8 hour bus ride.

Bus to Siwa (more…)

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Welcome to Alexandria, Egypt!

| June 16th, 2010 | 5 Comments » | Egypt, Travel

Alexandria, Egypt

Alexandria. A beautiful coastal city that lies on the north coast of Egypt. The sparkling aqua colored Mediterranean Sea crashes along it’s coastline.

By train from Cairo it’s only a mere two and a half hour ride. We’re glad we purchased our second class tickets for 37 EGP ($6.51 USD). From the outside the train looked like it survived World War II.

Train from Cairo to Alexandria (Ramsis Station)

Inside was another story. Clean, comfortable reclining seats and a breakfast cart that passes by two times through out the short trip. Liz claims it’s the most comfortable train she’s ever been on, and we’re on second class? We sit and wonder what first class is like. (more…)

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