I enjoyed a fantastic short break in Giza and Cairo, experiencing both ancient and contemporary Egyptian life. One of my favourite feelings is “culture-shock” as I know I’m learning something new – here are some reflections on those key moments
Modest dressing
As a woman visiting Egypt, dressing modestly to respect local Muslim cultural norms is important, and it is a necessary step to enter certain religious tourist sites. I packed two long dresses, a jumpsuit, and two large scarves to wear over my head and shoulders, doubling as protection from the sun.
On our first full day in Cairo, I actually opted to wear one as a headscarf all day, despite this not being compulsory in most places. When walking around the Old Cairo area, I felt more comfortable blending in rather than standing out as an obvious Western female tourist.
It was a new experience for me to feel this exposed and vulnerable as an “outsider”, but being a visitor to a religious state with strong punishments for indiscretions (and men who weren’t shy of staring and yelling comments), it was easy to feel a little paranoid and making a minor sartorial adjustment felt easier.
Security precautions
Each large hotel in Cairo had security guards with sniffer dogs inspecting each car as they approached the entrance. Drivers would have to show ID and get out to open the car boot, while another inspector walked around the car with a mirror on a stick, checking for explosives. At the entrance to several hotels and a shopping mall, we had to put our bags through X-ray machines and walk through a metal detector. This was a reminder of the not-so-distant violence that has been an issue here.
Wealth disparity
We experienced many drastic contrasts on this trip, and the wealth disparity was one of the most pronounced I’ve witnessed anywhere. The shiny, brand-new Giza Sphinx airport, the beautiful Grand Egyptian Museum, and our fancy hotel in Cairo were in stark contrast to the crowded and chaotic streets of residential Giza and Cairo, where most locals would live and work.
While staying in a high-rise hotel in Giza, we noticed that most surrounding buildings had rubble on their rooftops or that the top floors appeared to be unfinished or still under construction. Our guide informed us that owners only pay taxes on properties once they’re finished, so there is a tax incentive to leave them like this, which is especially appealing for developers building in lower-income areas.
Alcohol
In Cairo, there were no pubs, and only big hotels had bars serving alcohol. The posh hotel bar scene isn’t so much our thing, so we decided to find some local beer and bring it back to drink on our balcony. We learned that alcohol is only available from a very small number of government-licensed stores, dotted around the city.
We hunted down one of these stores and bought one of each of the four local beers available (actually, apart from one, which the owner described as “really not good” – we appreciated the honesty!). We had low expectations from a predominantly dry country and found most of them quite bland, but the Sakara Gold won the best on offer for us. We didn’t come for the beer, so it was just a fun experiment!
Walking
Aside from our visit to Old Cairo, we took taxis everywhere. We learned this after an initial mistake of deciding to take a walk around our hotel surroundings in Cairo. The roads were incredibly busy, with lots of older vehicles spewing pollution, which, coupled with the desert dust, made it difficult to breathe and almost impossible to cross the street. We’d been warned about crime by our hotel (and the internet), so I was feeling a bit on edge, especially with the car horns blaring and predominantly men walking the evening streets. We learned that it was much easier to take taxis to the general area you were aiming for.
Seat belts
Only about 50% of our Uber cars were fitted with seatbelts in the back seats! Coupled with the crazy nature of the roads, this made commuting a risky necessity.
Scamming
Largely, we managed to avoid the “tourist scamming” you read about, but we did get caught out once. Fortunately, nothing dangerous or costly, it just left us feeling disappointed at the dishonesty and sad that someone went to these lengths to make a living.
In central Ciaro, we stopped on the pavement to look up a convenience store on GoogleMaps to buy bottled water. An older, well-dressed gentleman kindly offered to take us to a little shop on the next street. On the walk, he explained that he’d lived in London for a while, that his wife had studied art, and they now ran a gallery closeby. After we had made our purchase (and he’d declined our offer of buying something for him to return a favour), he gestured down the street about 70 meters in the direction of a woman and a teenage child waiting on the pavement, and asked us to please come and meet his family.
We agreed, as it wasn’t far and he seemed genuine… However, we walked right past the women on the street, and he started to lead us down an alleyway. We stopped and declined to go further. He then admitted that there was a tourist shop he wanted to take us to buy things, not a gallery. We politely declined to go further and began to walk away. Fortunately, nothing further occurred – he wasn’t happy with us, but we moved away quickly, and I couldn’t hear what he was muttering after us. This was an isolated incident on the trip, and we met many lovely people, but it was a reminder to be cautious.
I love being challenged, and I think this trip will stay with me for a long time – not just the expected parts, like visiting the Great Pyramid or the Sphinx, but these times when I was outside my comfort zone and experiencing a truly different way of life. Bring on the next adventure!
Thanks for reading 
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