Is Egypt a great country to visit?

Egypt lives up to its hype. The pyramids at Giza, the Cairo museum, the Luxor, Karnak, and Abu Simbel temples, and the brilliant story telling by the Egyptologists are a few of the experiences that made my trip so memorable. Add to that, the instagram friendly kiss-the-Sphinx picture, or jump with joy in front of the Pyramids, or the #followmeto Karnak shot more than satiated my social media hunger. Egypt is very picture friendly. Just know when and where to click.

But first things first — you have to have a love for either history, archaeology, architecture, Egyptology, mythology, or all of them to actually enjoy the essence of Egypt. While some felt that it’s an insanely long temple trail, some of us couldn’t get enough of it. The fact that we visited the sites as close to the chronological order as possible, gave us a very good beginning, middle, and end to the Egyptian history. Why the Pharaohs built the pyramids, why they decided to discontinue building them, why the valley of kings is hidden are all individual tales that would fascinate you.

The Cairo museum is hands down the best museum I have been to. It’s worth traveling so far just to see Tutankhamun’s solid gold coffin. Since photography is prohibited inside the museum, I’ve picked up a picture from google.

I cannot talk enough about it. There was a special room with special tickets to see the mummies of the kings and queens. And there were separate gold and ornaments rooms — the designs are to die for! Imagine what it did to a group of women. :) There were 1000 year old papyrus paintings, the level of detailing in them is unbelievable.

That’s Rameses II and I.

I am not the greatest benchmark for height comparison, but this picture is an indication of how massive the structures are in Egypt. A lot of it was about show, and propaganda, and vanity. Rameses II went to the extent of inscribing his name over other already built statues. That is one of the reasons why he was so famous — he is everywhere! This is the famous mummy pose. You ask how I know all these facts? I travel, and I listen, and I observe, and I absorb. Try it.

We also went to the resort town of Sharm-el- Sheik where we went snorkeling, scuba diving, camel riding, and canyon trekking — I mean how much diverse can a place get? That’s the red sea behind us. Didn’t expect it to be so blue. :)

Throughout our trip, we stayed at the best of hotels and resorts. At the Marriott Mena House, we could see the pyramids from the hotel. That was a first for everyone! My only complaint is that the trip was so rushed that we hardly got to spend time at the hotels.

We woke up early morning to enjoy the Pyramids from within the hotel and experiment different photo shots. Never realized that the water body would give us a chance to get a perfect mirror image. So thrilled! Those are two of the three pyramids at Giza.

The food is not challenging at all, if you are a non-vegetarian. It is fresh, healthy, but for some strange reason, never hot enough. And the portions are HUGE! Vegetarians had a tough time because they were limited to onion-tomato-cucumber or tomato-cucumber-onion choices. Or pasta. So if you are a vegetarian who doesn’t like pasta, you don’t have a lot of choice.

Shopping in Egypt can be very exciting, or very exhausting depending on how much you can bargain. Everything is cheap here, but the vendors start at 4x the price. So if you are not deft, just pay whatever you think is fair, and don’t discuss the price with your homie. You might be pleasantly surprised, or overtly disappointed.

I wish I could add more, but this has already become excruciatingly long.