Words like mummies, pyramids, pharaohs, Egyptian Gods (Isis, Ra, Seth, Horus, Amun-ra, Osiris), the Nile, Cleopatra, tens of Hollywood movies based on Egypt must have been heard or seen by most Indians growing up. The connection between Egypt and India is so old that the country is called “Misr” & not Egypt in Indian languages.

We were 8 friends who visited Egypt from the 23rd of Dec 2023 to the 1st of Jan 2024. This is what our itinerary looked like-

Date	Day	When Awake	Night in
23rd Dec	Sat	Koshari & the Old City	Cairo
24th Dec	Sun	The Pyramids, Papyrus & Perfume	Aswan
25th Dec	Mon	Philae Temple, Reservoir, Nubian Village	Cruise
26th Dec	Tue	Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo, Crocodile Museum	Cruise
27th Dec	Wed	Edfu Temple, Light-Sound show at Karnak	Cruise
28th Dec	Thu	Karnak & Luxor Temples, Valley of the Kings	Luxor
29th Dec	Fri	Water Park & Resort Stay	Hurghada
30th Dec	Sat	Scuba with dolphins in Red Sea	Hurghada
31st Dec	Sun	Zamalek & Casino at Marriott	Cairo
1st Jan	Mon	Returned to India

Tourist Landmarks in Egypt

Let’s follow this map from left to right & then top to bottom along the Nile-

1. Siwa Oasis- Salt water pools in a distant arid place
2. Marsa Matruh & Marina El Alamein- Resort towns along the Mediterranean
3. Alexandria- A city with much ancient history
4. Cairo- Capital city & home to the Pyramids
5. Sharm El-Sheikh- Resort town in the Sinai Peninsula
6. Hurghada & Marsa Alam- Resort towns along the Red Sea
7. Luxor- Ancient Egyptian city with the Karnak Temple, Valley of the Kings, etc.
8. Aswan- Ancient Egyptian City with the Philae temple and Nubian Village
9. Abu Simbel- Iconic Egyptian Landmark

Little about today’s Egypt

Egypt is largely a desert. It is a country located in the north-eastern corner of the African continent. Most of its population lives along the Nile River, which happens to be the longest river in the world.

Cairo is the capital and the largest city in the country. Alexandria, about 2.5 hours north of Cairo, is the second largest. Both towns have an ancient side and a new modern side.

The Egyptian Pound is the currency of the country. Though it is accepted everywhere, there was a black market for USD in the country. The demand for USD is much higher than its supply. When we visited, the USD: EGP rate was about 1:30 but random retailers on the streets would offer us conversions of up to 1:51. On 6th March 2024, 2 months after we returned, the govt devalued the EGP to match the black market rate, so today the official exchange rate between USD to EGP has become 1:50.

Only Arabic is spoken throughout the country. Only tourist-facing people like guides, hotel front desk staff, tour operators, etc spoke English. Even the number plates on the cars were in Arabic, so when an Uber comes, you can’t match the English numbers on the app with the Arabic numbers on the vehicle. In terms of English proficiency, I would rate Egypt the lowest among the countries I have visited, lower than SE Asia.

The country has a long coastline with both the Mediterranean and Red Seas. As a result, there are lavish and huge resort towns. The largest and most popular are Hurghada and Sharm-el-Sheik, both along the Red Sea. The economies of these places run purely on resorts thronged with European tourists.

Cairo, their biggest city, looks so much like an Indian metro 15 years back. Maybe like a Kolkata today. The ugly wires, unplanned construction, general trade shops, encroachment of footpaths, and dusty atmosphere are some aspects on the negative side. The hundreds of food joints, clothes showrooms, small cafes and parlours, helpful and simple people are all aspects on the positive side.

Unlike anywhere in India, we didn’t see any potholes in the whole country. The roads were so smooth and well-made. However, the cars in the country were so old. 90% of the cars in Egypt would be older than me, i.e. 30+ years of use. When we Indians do International travel, we often go to countries more developed than ours- Singapore, Thailand, UAE, EU countries, etc, going to a poorer country has its own charm. You feel so rich, there is no need to look at prices in any menu, and tour prices are usually affordable.

It gets dark pretty early in the country, at least that was the case around New Year’s. It would get dark around 5:30-6 pm.

The weather was somewhat cold during our time there. I think the perfect months would be Oct- Nov or Feb-Mar. From Apr to Sep, it would be too hot for history sightseeing.

Scams in Egypt

It is highly improbable that you visited the country and weren’t scammed or tried to be scammed a few times. Some scams that we escaped from-

Changing the currency note- We gave a 100 EGP note to a driver, he had a 10 EGP note in the other hand, he quickly switched them and claimed that we had only paid him 10 EGP. We were 8 and equally confident. We shouted back, showed him the middle finger (in our minds), and walked away. (Location- Aswan)

USD vs EGP- We were booking a ride through Uber and the fare was 50 EGP but no one was accepting. While we were waiting, a meter taxi stopped by and offered us a rate of 70 EGP. We showed him the 50 EGP on Uber and tried haggling but then settled for 70 EGP and left. On the way, he was continuously trying to upsell himself for tours on the subsequent days, all of which we were politely declining. Somehow, my instincts picked a very negative vibe from him. I told my friend in Hindi to take out exactly 70 EGP in currency and stay alert. On reaching the destination (a 10 min ride), we got out of the car, checked all our belongings, and offered him 70 EGP, we read out both the notes- the 50 EGP note and the 20 EGP note before handing him out. He realised that he could neither call out that we had paid him less nor was he able to book himself for the subsequent days. In anger, he said that he had agreed to 70 USD and not 70 EGP. To put things in perspective, he was asking 70 USD (2100 EGP) for a 10-min ride for which the Uber app had shown just 50 EGP (1.7 USD). I got so angry that I shouted at him, saying- “Do you see the policemen there? I will call them and file a case against you. Get lost!” He understood my sentiment quite well. We walked away but he kept shouting. (Location Luxor)

Mugging vs Molesting- We were gladly surprised to see women walking by themselves, freely, even at night, even in smaller towns like Aswan. I feel the country is much safer than India when it comes to molestation. However, there were many groups of shady boys on the streets who seemed to be there only for mugging lone tourists. Gladly, we were 8 and, presumably, they didn’t have guns. So beware, while walking.

Just for 5- While exiting any tourist destination, you will see souvenir shops with vendors selling model versions of everything that existed in ancient Egypt. The vendors and we both knew that haggling was the norm in such shops, which is okay. This is how it goes. They will say, just 5 pounds. You will be tempted, just 5 EGP or just INR 15, that’s nothing. Then when you pay, they will say that they said 500 EGP. So, if you gave, say a 100 EGP note in the first go, now you will have to argue with him to get it back or you can buy the souvenir for say 200 EGP, by paying him 100 EGP more.

Lastly, let me highlight some wrong practices (not scams). Metered taxis will not run on a meter and will be like autowallahs in Bangalore. They will only quote their inflated prices. Shopkeepers will ask for a tip despite already over-charging for the purchase. For e.g., he will from the beginning quote you 30 EGP for a 15 EGP chips packet. Say you bought 3 and gave him a 100 EGP note. Instead of returning the 10 EGP, he will smile and say tip? Tip for what! You can insist him to return the 10 EGP and he would, but the practice is outrightly cheap.

The Visa & Flights

Indians do need a visa to enter Egypt. Getting one is very easy, one just needs a passport. Go to the Atlys app, upload a soft copy of your passport, and pay the fees (~Rs 2000). Voila! Your approval will come in 4-5 business days. That’s all

In Dec 2023, there were no direct flights to Egypt from India. Some of us went through Bahrain, and others through Saudi, Kuwait, or Qatar. As of mid-2024, Air Cairo runs direct flights to & from Cairo from both Delhi and Mumbai.

Cost of the Trip

	Cost (INR)	Comment
Flights	50,000	BLR-BAH-CAI (Gulf) CAI-DOH-BLR (Qatar)
Nile Cruise + Hurghada transfer + 4-days sightseeing	51,000	Entire Cruise Stay, All private transfers, site entry tickets, guides
Visa	2,000	Atlys
Internal Flights	20,000	CAI-ASW & HRG-CAI
Food & Drinks	25,000
Experience & Tours	11,000	Casino, Bowling, Pyramids, etc
Scuba Diving	3,500	With pick-drop & lunch
Stay	22,000	Cairo 2, Aswan 1, Luxor 1, Hurghada 2
SIM & Insurance	1,500
Shopping	5,000
Total	1,90,000

Our 9D9N Itinerary

23rd Dec 2023, Saturday

We had chosen Gulf Air which flew us from BLR to BAH and then BAH to CAI. We landed in Cairo at around 1 pm. The immigration process was pretty simple. Please note that there is only a small duty-free at the CAI airport. We had expected the same and as a result, had already made our alco-bev purchases at the Manama airport.

There are 3 SIM card providers just before the last gate of the airport- Orange, Vodafone and Etisalat (I think). Like always, we took our SIM card from the airport itself. There are E-sims available. All of them had queues and this process took about an hour. We chose Vodafone’s 20GB plan which we felt was more than sufficient. We chose Vodafone as we felt that the queue was shorter there but you know how it is with queues- our queue was moving the slowest. FYI, Orange is also a reputed service provider.

We booked an Uber which came right outside the airport gate. Please note that there will be a lot of people selling taxi services, like India, at anywhere from 2x to 10x the Uber cost. Do check on Uber and then haggle. Also, these local taxi players will lie to you that the Uber pickup stop is 2 km away and that you will have to walk there. All of this is false.

Cairo has two very distinct sides- Old Cairo and New Cairo. Both our entry and exit flights were from Cairo itself. We were going to return to Cairo towards the end of our journey too and had booked our stay in Old Cairo then. So, we decided to stay in New Cairo in the beginning. Wrong choice of location. For short-term tourists, there is nothing in New Cairo. For localites, it has high-rises, amenities and offices. We, tourists, would have to go to old Cairo for any popular thing and that was an hour’s drive from New Cairo.

We had a nice duplex Bnb in a high-rise apartment. We reached our Bnb at around 3:30 pm, took a shower and headed for Abou Tarek (the most famous Koshari place in Egypt) for some Koshari. Koshari is vegan and the national dish of Egypt.

We were in the old alleys and strolled around the old downtown area. There are so many shops selling food, vegetarian food as well, especially sweets. We ate and shopped on the way. It was a nice vibe. These are streets just behind Abou Tarek if you want to Google-locate.

It was a Saturday. Islam is the state religion of Egypt so the bars and pubs industry is not too big across the country. Like Gujarat and Bihar, with their liquor bans, have no disco or bar-nightlife, Old Cairo too didn’t seem to have much within the city limits, at least. We found a small-quaint bar, called Carol’s Bar– one of the more known bars in Cairo. We had a few drinks, and they actually tasted good (we had very low expectations).

We, then, headed to the Zamalek area for some dinner. We stumbled upon an Opera House. It was grand but we were not dressed appropriately for it and couldn’t enter. We later found out that it was a spectacle to behold. Search the Cairo Opera House. Anyway, we found a dinner place serving vegetarian food- L’Aubergine Zamalek. The tomato pasta was too good but the service was too slow. We went back to our BnB and slept.

On a scale of -5 to +5, I will give Abou Tarek a +2, Old City Street experience +2.5, Carol’s Bar +1, L’Aubergine Zamalek +0.5.

24th December, Sunday

It was Pyramids Day! We had pre-booked a half-day pick-and-drop cum guide tour of the Pyramids from Dahab Day Tours (dahabsafaritours@gmail.com). Their service was good and reliable but do haggle with them as they quote handsomely. Also, it is advisable to book in advance rather than at the spot.

The person arrived at 10:30. We checked out of our Bnb and stopped for some breakfast on the way- again for some Koshari! After that, we visited the Pyramids. We were honestly more interested in the pictures than history. We heard some old stories and then took lots of pictures. The guide was nice to accommodate our requests.

There are 3 Pyramids of Giza in the compound and 1 Sphinx. They look magnificent; the yellow cuboidal rocks are huge and it’s applaudable to even imagine what great engineering would have been used in that era. The whole visit took about 2.5 hours.

From the Pyramids, we headed for an Egyptian perfumery. They had facsimiles of all internationally popular perfumes in the Ittar form, i.e. pure perfume oils. I bought a Dior Sauvage sample of 20 ml for 20 USD. They gave an excellent pitch with samples and then we were nicely overcharged. It was an overall nice visit.

From here, we headed to a Papyrus shop. The shop had hundreds of paintings on Papyrus paper. The attendant performed a demonstration of the papyrus paper-making process, its quality and its unique features. We can then buy the plain paper or the paintings but please don’t buy any paintings from here as you will eventually realise that you get them dirt cheap at other sites on your visit. Maybe tip the person for the demonstration.

We, then, headed to a cafe in Downtown Cairo for a late lunch. We had an evening flight from Cairo (CAI) to Aswan (ASW). So, we headed to the airport. Please note that the domestic airport will not have many food options, even the lounge will suck. Being vegetarians, we ate Pringles and some Alco-bevs. We had chosen Egypt Air. Internal flights are relatively more expensive than other things in the country, We paid 10-11k INR pp for this.

On a scale of -5 to +5, I will score the Pyramids of Giza a +4, the Perfumery a +2, The Papyrus Shop a +2.

Nile Cruises

There are 10s of operators who run a river cruise along the Nile River between Luxor and Aswan. All of them have the same itinerary. They run from Luxor to Aswan with one group and then from Aswan to Luxor with another group. We were on the Aswan to Luxor route. The package also includes touring the local sites (with pick and drop along with English-speaking guides). We had booked the cruises also with Dahab Day Tours (dahabsafaritours@gmail.com). Not promoting them, just giving you an option. There are many fake agencies enlisted to provide tours in Egypt that you can’t verify sitting in India. They might take your advance and block you.

As I have written earlier, all cruises follow the same itinerary and have similar types of rooms, service and food options. We paid a bomb for this experience as it was the New Year’s week – 600 USD pp, usually it is around 350 USD per person. This was a 4-day & 3 nights package from Aswan to Luxor. The road trip from Aswan to Luxor only takes 3 hours while the cruise covers it over 3 days. The below table shows its route.

We, personally, felt that these cruises are for laid-back couples or families or big groups and not for active travelers. We prefer back-to-back activities and this cruise had more free time scheduled than sightseeing.

Days	Aswan to Luxor
1st day’s Morning	Philae Temple & Aswan High Dam Reservoir. (Cruise docked in Aswan)
1st day’s Evening	Free Time. One can pay extra & visit the Nubian Village. (Cruise is still docked in Aswan)
2nd day’s Morning	Free Time. One can pay extra & visit Abu Simbel (Cruise is still docked in Aswan)
2nd day’s Evening	Cruise heads towards Luxor post lunch. We reach Kom Ombo temple around 7pm. (Cruise keeps moving North)
3rd day’s Morning	We reach Edfu Temple at 5am. (Post that, the ship keeps sailing towards Luxor)
3rd day’s Evening	In the evening, we reach Luxor and (the ship is docked here for good). Free Time in Luxor.
4th Day	We check-out of the cruise and drive to Karnak Temple, Luxor Temple, Temple of Hatshepsut & the Valley of Kings

25th December, Monday

It is midnight on the 25th of December. Our flight has just landed & we are dead hungry. Aswan is a small city and most food outlets would have closed by now. We hadn’t eaten much at the airport either. To our surprise, our cruise operator had included an airport pick-up for us which we weren’t expecting. He picked us up and took us to a falafel and pita bread shop. We had some really bad food but it was too late in the night to complain. We, later, checked into our Hotel- Kana Kato.

In the morning, we had free breakfast at our hotel and our tour operator came to pick us up for the Philae Temple at 10 am. We first visited the Aswan High Dam which was built by the Soviets in the 1960s. It had a huge reservoir but I don’t know why we went there, one can skip.

From here, we headed to the Philae Temple. One needs to take a short ferry to reach the Philae Temple. A very nice temple. I liked the guides in Egypt, they told the main points of the historical spot and didn’t bore us with too much information. I would suggest you take a guide at all spots, or else one wouldn’t understand anything on their own. Philae is refurbished very well, is both beautiful and has an interesting history too.

We returned from the Philae temple, checked into our cruise and had lunch. Lunch had 5 main-course veg options, lots of desserts (most of them had egg) and a salad-bread counter. The veg food was not great as per our Indian palate and FYI, it wasn’t Indian food. Vegetarian Indian parents will cry and won’t have anything. But I found it to be decent as my expectations were very low.

We had paid about 51,000 INR for this 4-day-3night tour, i.e. 17000 INR per person per night. Commenting on the other aspects of the cruise, the rooms were akin to that of an old 3-star hotel, there was paid wifi, alcohol was super expensive at the bar (glad we had our own bottles), and the terrace was decent with a tiny-namesake pool. The staff was courteous, they even organized a DJ night for the guests (cute), the common areas weren’t crowded, and housekeeping was good. We had entered about 4 other cruises docked at the harbour and all looked very similar to our cruise.

We had free time in the evening. We paid 15 USD pp extra for a trip to the Nubian village. A private ferry came to pick us up from our cruise itself. Nubians were an ancient civilization from the BC but today’s Nubian village is 100% commercial with fancy wall paintings, a crocodile house with 1 or 2 crocodiles & hundreds of souvenir & flee-styled shops. It looks very artificial as if it was made only for tourists. But then, we were tourists and we quite liked its vibe. There was nothing historic about the place. Plus the boat ride to the village was also quite serene.

We returned from the Nubian village on our private ferry which dropped us at our cruise. It was dark now. The cruise was still docked in Aswan, so we decided to roam around the city. We saw a bowling alley right next to where our ferry was docked. We were 8 people and had a really fun bowling experience. It wasn’t anything different from what we see in India.

We returned to our cruise for dinner, and had dinner. We still had energy and headed to a sheesha (hookah) place. The quality of the shisha was very bad. Smoked for a bit and then returned to our cruise again. Played some cards and slept.

On a scale of -5 to +5, I will score the Aswan High Dam a -2, The Philae Temple a +3, The Cruise Stay a +1.5, The Nubian Village a +1.5.

26th December, Tuesday

The iconic temple of Abu Simbel is ~300 km south of Aswan, very close to the Sudanese border in the South of Egypt. It is a 3-hour car drive one way from Aswan. So 6 hours up-down + 2 hours of visit time. It is an 8 hr affair.

We got up at 4 am for the Abu Simbel tour. We had to pay 35 USD pp more for this visit. The fare was inclusive of the private pick and drop, the tour guide and the entry ticket. It is huge in its magnificence, shown in countless movies and shows, the second most popular Egyptian site after the pyramids. But was it worth traveling for 6 hours after waking up at 4 am? The answer was a “No” if I would have been asked on the evening of 26th Dec, but a big “Yes”, if I think of it today. We reached the cruise around lunch. Had some lunch and crashed back into our beds to sleep again.

Post lunch, the cruise finally started traveling towards Luxor. In the evening, we reached the Kom Ombo temple. It looked beautiful in the night. The lights were placed very aesthetically. The Egyptians have done a great job in refurbishing this temple too. Again, like in all Egyptian historical places- do take a guide. In terms of inscriptions, this was my favourite temple.

There is a crocodile museum with mummified crocodiles right next to the Kom Ombo temple. It is small with 1 main exhibit and a couple of smaller ones. Do not skip, it is included in your cruise cost.

We returned to have some dinner. The cruise later had a DJ night for its guests. They were kind enough to play some Egyptian music, some Southeast Asian songs and also some Indian songs seeing the nationality of their attendees. You will be surprised by the number of people who will say the words, “Amitabh Bachchan” and “Shahrukh Khan” when they see us, Indians. Crazy soft power. We had gotten our own alcohol (please do, cruise drinks are too expensive). We drank and enjoyed ourselves. As we had all slept during the day, we slept very late in the night.

On a scale of -5 to +5, I will score the Abu Simbel a +2, The Kom Ombo Temple a +4 and the Crocodile Museum a +2.5.

27th December, Wednesday

As we slept really late, none of us was able to wake up at 5:30 am to visit the Edfu Temple. The cruise had left Aswan post lunch on the previous day and had been continuously moving towards Luxor since then. This whole day, we sat on the deck of the cruise, seeing the Nile banks on both sides, playing cards, enjoying the sun, & listening to some music.

We reached Luxor at dusk. Our cruise would dock here for good. We were free to explore Luxor on our own. We had read about the Light and Sound Show at the Karnak Temple. Please don’t buy tickets from any agents or website. Just walk to the ticket counter, it will be much cheaper. It starts at 7 pm. We decided to head for it. This was the worst decision ever. The temple structure is phenomenal but the show sucked big time. The show takes place in different languages like German, French, Spanish, etc. and we were lucky that it was in English on the day we went but still no one understood a sentence of what that recording said. It is gibberish. The accent and the sound quality were so bad that none out of the 8 of us understood anything. It was a complete waste of time.

We were tired of the mediocre cruise food and looked for fancy restaurants in Luxor. There are unorganised taxi drivers all around with whom you can haggle a price. Their cars will be at least 30 years old and you will not be sure if they work but they will. We found the Hilton Hotel with some restaurants offering vegetarian food. We headed there. It was good and returned to our cruise, chilled for a while and then slept.

On a scale of -5 to +5, I will score the Light and Sound Show of Karnak Temple a -5, the restaurants at Hilton a +2.

28th December, Thursday

We checked out of our rooms at around 10 am. Had breakfast and then headed for the Luxor city tour. The tour normally includes the Karnak Temple & the Luxor Temple on the East side and the Valley of the Kings & the Temple of Hatshepsut on the West side.

Luxor’s east is the developed side and has almost all the shops and restaurants. We started with the Karnak temple first, the same place we went last night for the terrible Light and Sound show. The same temple was so good in the morning. The temple is grand and with a good guide, the experience is enhanced even more. The Karnak Temple was the most beautiful temple for me in the entire country. From here, we headed to the Luxor temple which is less grand than the Karnak but again good in itself. Both these temples are within the city, so the commute time is quite less.

We were somewhat hungry and found the 5-star Steigenberger Nile Palace which had two beautiful restaurants- an Italian and another Mediterranean. We had great Italian food paired with lovely Egyptian wine.

Now to reach the western side of Luxor, one can go by car traveling 45 mins or cross by a ferry in just 10 mins. We chose the ferry. We had sent our car much in advance even before we sat for lunch to wait for us on the western side of the ferry port. We reached the West side on a ferry, sat in our car and headed for the Valley of the Kings.

Valley of the Kings is a burial site for all Luxor Pharaohs. There are many tombs. The entry ticket for this place is based on the number of tombs we want to visit. Our tour operator had taken the ticket which included visits to 3 paid tombs + all free tombs. They are all underground and we had to walk on a downward slope to explore them. They all have different decorations on the walls, the length of the tombs vary, the number of artifacts found inside it differ and so on. There are a few famous ones, but most people visit them only. We decided to skip the Hatshepsut Temple (too many sites for one day)

The car then dropped us to our Bnb and left. Please note that the East side of Luxor has all the facilities and restaurants, but the west side has nothing. We were staying on the West side. Our BnB had a caretaker and we were completely reliant on him for food and drinks that night.

We had our best night in that house. We ordered some veg pizzas and lots of Egyptian wine. We had the whole villa to ourselves. We just drank & drank, sang & sang our hearts out for 7 hours. That night was a 10/10.

One can also opt for a Hot Air Balloon experience in Luxor. It can be booked as an add-on on the cruise booking or a separate individual experience. We had skipped it.

On a scale of -5 to +5, I would give The Karnak Temple a +4, the Luxor Temple +2.5, The Valley of the Kings a +3, The Steigenberger Hotel’s restaurant a +3 and our Bnb a +5.

29th December, Friday

Post our wine-derful night, we had to head for Hurghada. We had booked a private transfer from our Bnb in Luxor to our resort in Hurghada, again through Dahab Tours. It is a 4-hr Drive. Please note there are no shops, restaurants, hotels or anything on this 4-hour journey. It is a pure arid desert.

We reached our resort in Hurghada at 3 pm. Our resort is called the Sunrise Aqua Joy Resort. It was one of the best decisions to choose this place. We paid 5,500 per person per night. The place has 4-6 swimming pools, has water rides like an amusement park, all 3 courses of meals (150+ items) are included in the room tariff, in addition to that some range of alcoholic beverages is also free till 11 pm, a snacks bar near the pools serving pizzas, sandwiches, pita, beverages, beers etc is also free from 3 pm – 5:30 pm. There are performances at night if one wants to sit back and watch. The place is close to the airport, and all scuba companies provide pick and drop from this resort, it has its own scuba packages as well. There are some cuisine-based restaurants also included in your tariff but one needs to pre-book seats. We didn’t get any availability.

So, this day was about swimming in the pools, enjoying the water rides and playing beach volleyball. The water rides were actually good and took me back to my childhood. We also contacted agencies for a scuba diving tour for the next day in the Red Sea waters.

On a scale of -5 to +5, I will give Sunrise Aqua Joy Resort a +5.

30th December, Saturday

It was Dive Day. We got up early to be picked up for our sea day. The plan included 2 dives and lunch on board with pick and drop. We reached our scuba yacht which took us to the first site.

The marine life was rich, with so much coral and fish and topping that it was our lucky day. Dolphins visited us while we were diving and it was surreal to dive along with these majestic creatures. The water was calm, rightly cold and clear. Some of us chose to snorkel around the area after our dive. I have dived in Havelock, Andaman and the west coast of Sri Lanka before and this dive was the best.

We had a simple good meal on the boat and then headed for the second dive site. We had already done a dive, snorkeled around and eaten a good lunch. We were all dried and tried, so the second dive was not that fun but the marine life was equally rich.

We reached our hotel in the evening and rested for a bit. In the evening, we went out to see Hurghada beyond our resort. It is a resort town with every other structure being a resort, hotel, shop or restaurant. We returned to our resort and enjoyed our free drinks at the bar. We had planned to go out clubbing post this pre-boozing. Clubs are open till 4 am. But we drank too much and passed out before we could even head to one of these clubs.

On a scale of -5 to +5, I will give Red Sea Scuba Experience a +4.5, the Hurghada neighbourhood a 0.

31st December, Sunday

We check out of our hotel to catch a flight to Cairo. It was a short flight from a small basic airport. We landed in Cairo and headed for our hotel- The Jewel Zamalek Hotel in Zamalek in Old Cairo. We reached the hotel around 4 pm and headed out for a late lunch. Guess what we had? No prizes for this one. Koshari! We also bought some Kunafa from the Al-Agha Restaurant. It was the best Kunafa that I have ever had, better than Turkey.

We had some time before we would get ready for the NY party. We decided to buy some souvenirs. We first headed to the Khan-el-Khalili market. It had hundreds of small shops selling bags, perfumes, miniatures, mufflers, carpets, home decor, paintings and hundreds of other items. Post some souvenir shopping, we came across this store of LC Waikiki, it is a Turkish fast fashion brand. It was like Zara but way cheaper. We shopped over 20 kgs of clothes.

Later, we checked for options in Cairo to celebrate the NYE. To our dismay, there were very few options and that too didn’t look like a lot of fun. Being an Islamic country, alcohol is anyway frowned upon and on top of that NY celebration is not considered culturally important. We decided to head to the Marriott Casino, play, have food and drinks and then head to one of the modest party options that we had come across.

The casinos in Egypt don’t accept local currency, i.e. the Egyptian Pound. It was an expensive casino as the minimum bet on a roulette number was of $5, i.e. Rs 400+. We all played a little, ate a little, drank a little and then headed to those parties. All these venues were actually docked ferries hosting a party. They all had a handsome entry charge, so some of us went inside to check the vibe before paying. It was uncles and aunties in their 40s, 50s & 60s sitting at a table with food and drinks and a performer singing to the audience. It couldn’t have been worse. We tried various venues but all were the same and so, we called it a night. Not the best NYs.

On a scale of -5 to +5, I will score the Khan-el-Khalili market a -1, the Marriott casino a -1, the NY scene in Egypt a -4.

1st January, Monday

We had our return flight to India. Our timings were different as people were heading to Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai or Delhi. The Cairo Airport was decently big, it even had a lounge where you can use your Diners and Priority Passes.

We had a safe and comfortable flight and our trip came to an end.