Saturday 24/5 Travelling to Egypt

The first leg of our trip took us to Bahrain (apparently, its own country). Its a small kingdom in the middle of the middle east (or something). We had a few hours stop-over and we slept for most of it, sitting on the chairs by the gate. The boarding was delayed a half hour which was annoying. But, we eventually passed the time and got on the plane. The plane sat for an extra half an hour because of a passenger who got off, meaning they had to find their bag in the hold and get it off too. Quite annoying.

I slept for most of this flight too, but it was really disturbed sleep. The whole trip was really a red-eye deal so were really quite dead at the moment. At the airport the topdeck guy Osama met us and helped us get our visas, go through immigration, grab our bags and get us to the transfer car to our hotel (the Indiana). Very relieved once we got here because we finally had a bathroom, so we could shower and revive.

We set off into the street and got talking to a guy who claimed to be from our hotel (though neither of us could remember his face). He was fairly helpful with directions but pretty much led us to a store where the owners must have been colleagues of his. The store guys were nice, easy going, and gave us free Egyptian tea. They sold papyrus prints and perfumes but werent the sort of pushy marketplace salesmen. We finished up and headed over to the Cairo Sheraton to get money changed and sorted out, and we bought a map.

The traffic in Cairo is absolutely insane. Its a wonder how there arent crashes or pedestrian fatalities. Crossing a road is literally taking your life into your own hand (and into a deadly game of real-life frogger). Somehow we made it there and back, avoiding serious injury from traffic, taxi offers and people starting up conversations, most likely trying to lure us back to their stores.

Now we are crashed in our room, updating our blogs, napping, eating mini Oreos and pondering the possibility of venturing out to find some form of food. There was a good kebab-looking place just down the road that well probably go to.

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We eventually got ourselves out of the hotel room to go find some dinner. Dinner consisted of mystery pita from a little store down the road from the hotel. The shop owners spoke zero english but we ascertained that there wasnt any meat in it (although, even if there was it would probably not be pork because of the whole halal thing going on). It was falafel, beans and other various vege things. Very filling and quite tasty.