Monday 8 June 2009
Highlights: Giza Pyramids, Visiting Papyrus and Perfume Outlets, Overnight Train

We started with a 7 am wake up call, 7.30 am breakfast, a welcome to Amy and off we headed at 8 am to the Giza Pyramids. As soon as I got into the paid area I made the mistake of not ignoring a local and ended up with them taking my photo and demanding money. It was a lesson for not just me but the entire group. You basically have to be extremely rude to make your point, I suppose when in Rome do as the Romans.

There are three major pyramids in Giza, and it’s really weird how close to the city they are, in fact there is a KFC about 200 meters from one. Obviously I got to see the Sphinx as well it is amazing how they built these things.

From there we went a visited the Egyptian Museum which is a must, especially for the King Tut display (since the gold masks etc weren’t stolen). Our guide Ahmed was excellent going through a lot of the displays and educating us all, although the tests at the end of each explanation are a worry 🙂

We then visited both a Papyrus Outlet and a Perfume Outlet. I should mention you get offer tea/coffee or a drink when you enter big stores / outlets. As I didn’t want to buy anything today (I had both perfume and papyrus already) I decided not to take the drinks (since I see the drinks as an introduction to starting the buying process).

Finally at the end of the day we arrived in time for the train which we will be sleeping on during the night. I had a cabin to myself (very happy I paid for the single room on this trip). They served dinner and it was airline standard (QANTAS) so a good surprise.

Ahmed warned us all it gets much hotter from this point onwards as we are heading inland, interesting to see if I survive.