Totally agree with Jumanji's point about trying the local cuisine. It's great food and cheap. For instance, we were walking in the vicinity of the museum, and had the best falafel sandwiches from this nook in the wall kinda place for about $0.10! Dealing with the locals was a bit of a hassle, especially being there with a wife, but not anymore than any other 3rd world country I've been to. It was absolutely worse in the Khan-el-Khalili bazaar, where every other person would be calling out to us, trying every language to get us into their stores. Some derogatory remarks were made against the wife, but that was quite rare. One tip is to bargain, and bargain hard. We bought a silk, wall-hanging carpet for 1800LE, where the starting price had been stated as 5000LE!!! And the speed at which he agreed to our offer told us that he would have gone lower, had we had the patience to sit around and bargain. Everything we bought was at least 50% off the initially stated price. Things that they said were 30LE, we got for 12LE, from 65LE to 28LE. Blew our minds. cur.ve ... yeah, we took one of the gajillion cruises from Luxor to Aswan, and it was thoroughly enjoyable. To/From Cairo was covered on the overnight trains, and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality. Clean, good food, and comfy beds. To answer the question about it being safe for Americans ... yeah, definitely. You won't find people being hostile towards you or anything. Our cruise had about 26 ppl on it, out of which about 15 of us were Americans. Nobody had any horror stories to relate. Most of them weren't ethnic-background Americans, like myself. a la rockets ... The Lonely Planet guides are the only ways to go
Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I have a few questions about visiting Egypt. My brother is going to be in Alexandria this summer and I plan on visiting in either June or July (I know it's going to be hot, but whatever). I want to see as much of Egypt as possible (pyramids, Cairo, beaches, etc.) and have quite a bit a of vacation saved up (so I can take up to 3 weeks off from work, if necessary). My question is...what's the cheapest way to get to Egypt from the US? Direct flights to Cairo seem pricey, and I know there are tons of low-cost airlines that fly to multiple Egyptian cities from Europe -- any tips on this? Also, what city has the best beaches (Alexandria, Sharm El Sheikh, etc)? What cities can't I miss? What major cities are worth skipping out on?
