Cairo - life after death
 Aug 17th, 2004
Advantages:
the atmosphere and strangeness of the place
Disadvantages:
don't go if you dislike heat, pollution and stench !
Recommendable:
Yes
Detailed rating:
Value for Money
Shopping
Nightlife
Ease of getting around
Family Friendly
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  fallon005
About me:
Member since:26.03.2004
Reviews:3
Review rated by 13 Ciao members on average: very helpful 
I visited to Egypt in 1998 and stayed at the Luxor Hilton, travelling to Cairo on the overnight train which cost around £20 return per person at that time. The "sleeper" compartments of the train really just meant large reclining chairs and curtained windows! I remember it being comfortable enough though - one advantage being that you wake at around 8am having slept for most of the journey, and so feel somewhat refreshed - which is lucky because Cairo hits you right between the eyes!
The almost suffocating choke of the city's pollution and dust was quite shocking after the relative peace of Luxor,
which is still considered a "village" by many! The traffic is incredibly busy and crossing the road is to take your life in your hands!
I took a taxi from the train station straight to the Giza Plateau to visit the Pyramids and the Spinx. The oddity of seeing the Pyramids rise up from the desert at the very edge of the city is a sobering moment - at first you don't believe they can be real as they shimmer before your eyes. But of course they are real - and to anyone harbouring romantic notions, as I did, about climbing a pyramid - think again! Nothing prepared me for just how enormous they really are - to step up from one block to another is hard enough, but to reach the top? I would have needed to be a lot fitter than I was at the time....or still am!
I viewed the pyramids twice - once on foot and once from the back of the most bad-tempered horse in Africa, who decided to make a break for freedom by galloping off away from the city with me yelling at the top of my lungs to stop! Aside from the Giza Plateau, I visited the Cairo Museum and stood, dumbstruck before towering statues - humbled by a lost civilisation who's faith created the basis for human-kinds ever increasing curiosity of life after death.
Tutankhamun's treasures lie in the museum, goggled over by thousands and people each year. I stood back from the crowds gathered around the most famous icon of them all -Tutankhamun's gold mask - sensing the excitement and wonder in the room around me, hearing the exclamations of awe and feeling, just for a moment, that it was a little sad that this young boys life was forgotten amongst such grandeur. His true character, the subject of such conjecture and supposition, lost forever. He was, after all, just a boy, who in death has become the ultimate symbol of Ancient Egypt. After the museum, I walked through the streets, savouring the dust and stench - enjoying the feeling of being somewhere so totally alien to my unremarkable British upbringing.
Street vendors hollered, donkey's forged a path through stacks of fruit and vegetables and stalls piled high with spices, children laughed as they chased one another, their robes catching around their ankles to trip them up and spill them to the floor. I loved it all, and later, sitting high up in the air-conditioned cafe at the Cairo Hilton, gazing at the city below and sipping a gin and tonic, I wanted to be back down there amongst the heat and muck.
The whole country is like a sepia-toned 1930's Katherine DeMille movie. The contrasts between the bustling, dusty cities and the vast expanses of silent desert are obvious, but what struck me most was the amazing energy that pervaded my senses everywhere I went. Egypt's history is among the most well known of any culture, but despite being fully aware of the Sphinx, pyramids and other icons from the pharonic era look like from TV programmes and books, nothing prepared me for actually being in their presence. It was like a dreamscape, a strange sensation of walking through the pages of a picture book from my childhood.
Back in Luxor on most evenings I sat on the shores of the Nile and watched people going about their normal routines, mindful of the fact that their habits had remained unchanged for hundreds of years. It was a serene, life-defining moment, sitting there with the sun settling behind the mountains of the West Bank in a startling display of dying fire. For me though, Cairo was the true Egypt - where the maddest, most crazy display of life exists alongside the most potent images of death in the world.
Go, you'll love it and when you come home and you can still feel the wonderous heat of the dry Egpytian sun on your skin, you'll want to go back.
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by (8%):
24.06.2006 09:46
Going to Egypt this year, definitely visitng Cairo for the day but don't think I'll be climbing any pyramids! Fantastic review.
11.10.2005 16:53
I have always wanted to visit Egypt ever since i was a little girl, this just makes me want to visit even more! :) by the sounds of it may have to go to the gym a bit more if I'm hoping to climb any pyramids :) great review!
28.09.2004 23:58
vn review i want to go to egypt at some point, :) ive got my bags packed thanks james