UNPLEASANT MATTERS IN EGYPT

The worst - having the shits.

The best - getting away from tourists/touts and being able to immerse myself in so much history.

Dave

It would have to be the maniac way of driving.....its a nightmare!

Cairo... the people there (generally) must be the friendliest, most easy-going, happy lot, of anywhere!

Most unpleasant - Cairo: though I wasn't personally hassled [in fact I had quite a good time there] just walking down the street you can almost feel the tension in the air - it hangs like huge electricity cables.
Though maybe I felt it more cos I'd just come from the ....

Most pleasant place: Gebel Musa [Nount Sinai] and Fox Camp.... days spent wandering around the village or lazing under a bedouin tent canopy, eating supper round the fire; night climbing the mountain to see the sunrise - Ahhh!

The worst- anywhere close to a Pyramids camel jockey, or stuck at any Sound and Light Show.
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The best- anywhere not close to a Pyramids camel jockey, except Hurghada and Sharm. On the river in a felucca at Aswan at sunset, underwater at Dahab, in the Egyptian Museum, in a Cairo cafe bubbling a sheesha, in the inner courtyard of Luxor Temple at 9PM, in the Hypostile Hall at Karnak anytime there's not a Sound and Light Show, at Abu Simbel at sunset, at Ramses III at first light, on the roof at Dendara, in the huge pool at the Intercontinental Pyramids Park at noon, or along the Corniche at Aswan in the evening.
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Golden Oldie, are you talking about Cairo, Egypt, or the one where the Ohio hits the Mississippi? Your experience certainly is different from mine!

the worst: not being able to walk anywhere remotely connected to tourism without constant hassle. people lying about prices, trying renegotiate midway felucca rides, demanding bakshees, etc. In general, the term 'hospitality industry' should be renamed 'hostility industry' in egypt.
i thought the food was pretty uninteresting compared to for example Turkey.

The best: so much history, visiting the desert monastery of Wadi Natrun where the people were genuinely friendly.

The worst : travelling within a group as you'll have to visit every monument in 5 minutes in order to spare time for some uninteresting, overpriced shop, and as you'l be stuck strictly within touristic areas which means you'll be hassled constantly and won't see any real Egyptian (meaning : not working in the tourism industry). Also artificial cities such as Hurghada and Sharm are horrible, and crowded with naive tourists who believe walking under plastic palm trees means being in Egypt.

The best : everything you can do as an individual traveller or an expatriate. Taking your time when visiting the antique sites, walking for days within the extraordinary neighborhood of Islamic Cairo where little has changed since the Middle Ages and where you'll often find ourself almost alone in restores houses, mosques, towers, caravanseray... Enjoying the thriving nightlife of Cairo while mixing with all kinds of people : the warmth of poor people in small cafés chicha in poorer neighborhoods, the Egyptian families at Café Fichaoui in Khan el Khalili after 9pm, the artists in Café Al Horreya in Dowtown where you'll find cheap beers, the rich youth in posh Sequoia restaurant in Zamalek with an incredible view on Cairo's skycrappers...

Generally speaking, take your time and you'll discover an Egypt no tourist travelling in a group has ever seen.

For the sea : head to Dahab or to the beaches of Ras Shaitan between taba and Nuweiba, where hippies still mix with the beduins in the midst of nature

I assume you're a guy. For girls, the sexually frustrated Egyptian men are a bore, though after a while you no longer notice their sex-craving looks.

Worst : the shopkeepers and the taxi drivers in the tourist areas :-(

Best : relaxing on the beach and snorkelling at Nuweiba on a day like today :-)

Catw, is that true that the palm trees are plastic? Sounds dreadful!

Not only are palm trees in plastic in Sharm, but they can also be enlightened at night since their plastic bodies conceal a lamp. Since most of Sharm's natural environment has been destroyed in order to build huge touristic compounds, not many of the real palm trees have survived.
I'm always amazed to see tourists smoking chicha in Sharm's main street... when they could take a 5 minutes walk and have the chicha next to the sea. But this perfectly illustrates the true nature of this artificial town.