Photos, videoclips, texts, etc from Kairo

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Thursday February 24th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > AswanAfrica > Egypt > Cairo

Car traffic and early morning life (video)

Category: Egypt, 2005

This entry has one or more files attached:

Download the movie (18.4 mb)

A video clip of the dense Cairo traffic and some tranquil early morning life observations from Aswan.

Tags » cars, traffic, video

Thursday February 24th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Traffic in Cairo

Category: Egypt, 2005

There are lots of cars in Cairo. The photo shows a standard road situation.
Photographed from our hotel room.

Tags » cars

Friday February 25th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

(travel diary) Cairo: a change of hotel

Category: Egypt, 2005

We didn't like the location of our hotel so we checked out, left our bags in the reception, and went out to search for a better one.

We concentrated on the downtown part of Cairo and checked almost all the budget and middle class hotels in that area (From 5EP to 120EP). About 10 to 15 hotels. It was quite interesting. Not many hotels in Cairo is taken care of as they should be. The bathrooms were often in very bad condition. Too bad we didn't photographed the hotels, we could have a made an entire website about them :).
Pension Roma was really clean, with nice interiour and was run by a french lady but had only one night free so we checked in at New Minerva (NM) hotel instead. NM didn't have private bathroom and TV which was on our wish-list but it was clean and nice and the location was very good. It is situated in the middle of a shopping district.

In the afternoon we visited some of the nearby shops and bought a couple of pastries from one of Cairos most famous and best patisseries: El Abd.

Friday February 25th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Our room at the New Minerva hotel

Category: Egypt, 2005

We didn't have private toilet or shower, we shared access with the other rooms to a separate toilet/shower room.

Overall pretty clean. This hotel wasn't bad. I can't remember the price but I would guess 50-100 EGP.

Tags » accomodation

Friday February 25th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Cairowood

Category: Egypt, 2005

On one of our walks in the city we stumbled upon an unusual dense crowd. What's going on? Well, It was a movie recording session. The woman holding the child tried to act surrounded by hundreds of spectators.

Tags » crowds

Saturday February 26th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

(travel diary) A walk in Cairo

Category: Egypt, 2005

Today we took the egyptian subway to the Mar Girgis station where Old Cairo is situated. Here we checked out some greek-orthodox churches and the Amr ibn al-As mosque.

Then we took the train back to our hotel and ate "Beef Shewarma Fatta" at a restaurant near our hotel. I don't know really what it was we ate but it tastet good. We got pretty much food so we returned half of it to the chef.

After the meal we took a taxi to islamic Cairo to try out a tour that was described in our Lonely PLanet guide book. The tour was not easy to follow... we ended up walking by ourselves. The Khan el-khalili market was big. Lots of people. And labyrinths of narrow corridors.
The citadel was closed when we arrived.
It was now getting darker.

We ran into an egyptian man who had studied history and wanted to show us around. Together with him we walked to the blue mosque and payed an entry fee of 20 pounds and an additional 20 pounds to climb up in the tower (according to the lonely planet book the tower had a great view of Cairo). Tobbe had a swedish student card so he payed half price for the tower.
The view was pretty nice. It was dark and the citadel was nicely illuminated. I photographed a 360-panorama. We then thanked him for the little tour, he asked us if we wanted to give him money to his sick wife... We offered him 1 pound but he didn't want that...
We took a taxi back to the hotel, bought some sweets (we hadn't got any dinner), rested for a couple of hours and now - midnight - we are sitting in an internet cafe. I think there will be one our more "sugo" (egyptian fast-food goes hotdog) before bedtime.
See you!

Saturday February 26th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Church St. George

Category: Egypt, 2005

Yet another picture from Old Cairo. This one the church of St. George (Mari Girgis). Built in year 684.

Tags » churches

Saturday February 26th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Mosque of Amr ibn al-As

Category: Egypt, 2005

Situated in Old Cairo.
Constructed year 642 AD.

Tags » islam, mosque

Saturday February 26th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Internet cafes in tough competition

Category: Egypt, 2005

This was the place where we spent most of our surfing-time while in Cairo. Clarification: I am talking about the left place: "Five St@rs Net".

It was the fastest we could find.

The fastest internet connection in Cairo is ADSL at 512 kbit/s (not too fast if you're sharing it with 10-15 other computers). The advantage of Five St@rs Net was that they had two lines: 2*512 kbit = 1 mbit which is rather good if you are uploading pictures or small video clips.

Tags » internet cafe

Sunday February 27th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

(travel diary) Cairo: the Giza Plateau (Pyramids)

Category: Egypt, 2005

This day started at three o'clock in the morning after the internet cafe I wrote about in the last entry.

When we got back to our hotel, the gate to the hotel was locked! We walked to a night open restaurant and ate some egyptian pizza and their famous "fiteer" (like waffles). The pizza wasn't too good, the fiteer was pretty tasty.

Then we walked back to the internet cafe (we had to do something, everything else was closed). A about six o'clock we went back to our hotel which now was unlocked! Time to sleep!

After a couple hours of sleep we got up at nine - today it was time for the Giza pyramids. We didn't bother about the minimal hotel breakfast (three small pieces of bread and tea) and took a taxi to the Giza plateau. When you're sitting there in the taxi, in the outskirts, and the pyramids is reaching for the sky in front of you - they feel enormous.

We entered the pyramid of Cheops and that was pretty nice! Long, narrow, hot, sweaty corridors. On the way we could see some dark shafts which was used as traps - these where closed for tourists... After a couple of rooms we reached a bigger room with a great reverb sound in it!

This walk in the pyramid was worth the pretty expensive fee (about 70EP). We walked around in the pyramid for a pretty long while and later on also found our way to the Sphinx :) (it's pretty small and on a lower level than the pyramids so it's easy to miss it if you are on the plateau)

We then got back to our hotel to rest for a little while.

After the hotel stop we went to World Trade Center to check out Cairos biggest record music store but since it was sunday everything was closed, too bad. We then took a taxi to restaurant Da Mario at the bottom of Hilton Hotel. We had read that their pasta was something extra and yes, it was good! 60 EP did't the restaurant cost (two persons). Pretty good since it was a pretty luxurious restaurant.

After the dinner we got back to our hotel. We felt that we needed some sleep. We thought about visiting some live jazz or blues club but tired as we were, we slept like camels...

Tags » pyramids

Sunday February 27th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Taxi ride to pyramids

Category: Egypt, 2005

Me and Tobbe are on our way to visit the pyramids on the Giza plateau. The strange feeling I got when I saw the pyramids reaching for the sky was the same feeling I got when I first saw the skyscrapers in Hong Kong. A great positive feeling.

Tags » pyramids, taxi

Sunday February 27th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

View from the Giza plateau

Category: Egypt, 2005

The skyscrapers of Cairo is just visible in the Cairo haze.

Tags » camels, Giza, horses

Sunday February 27th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Clost to the sphinx

Category: Egypt, 2005

The picture is fooling you. The sphinx is not as big as a pyramid .

Tags » sphinx

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Sunday February 27th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Cheop's pyramid and the sphinx

Category: Egypt, 2005

Size comparison between the Sphinx and Cheop's Pyramid.
The Sphinx is smaller then most people think.

Tags » pyramids, sphinx

Monday February 28th, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Sound environment: Cairo Jazz Club (sound)

Category: Egypt, 2005

This entry has one or more files attached:

Nice, speedy, jazzy music from the jazz club in Cairo.

Tags » jazz club, sound

Tuesday March 1st, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

(travel diary) Cairo: Shopping, live music and bellydancing

Category: Egypt, 2005

Woke up at twelve. We started up with a couple of kebdas and a guava/milk drink in the juice bar - wow, really tasty as always!

We then headed for some of the bigger shopping malls to find more nice music and movies. I bought a CD with the egyptian Ruby who is really big here right now. I also bought a belly dancing movie. The taxi drivers of Cairo is either very bad at finding our maybe a little odd destinations, or they are really good at acting. Anyway, our shopping trip took a cuple of hours longer because of these taxi drivers.

Then, we went to the bus station to buy two tickets for the bus that tomorrow at 14:30 will take us back to Hurghada. The bus trip will take about 6 hours. In Hurghada we will sleep one night and then return home to cold Sweden. This may, in other words, be my last travel diary entry from Egypt.

We then visited the Super Night Club. It was pretty similar to the Palmyra night club but the interior was a bit more proper. Like Palmyra there where mostly older men watching the show. The belly dancing girl was pretty OK.

...and here we are. At our internet café.

Tuesday March 1st, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Kibda - Egyptian fast food

Category: Egypt, 2005

We visited this place several times. Their kibda is delicious. Kibda is chicken liver with bread. It's also really cheap: about 2 pounds..

This place is right next to the New Minerva hotel in downtown Cairo.

Tags » food

Tuesday March 1st, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Juice bar

Category: Egypt, 2005

"Our" fruit coctail bar.

The place is situated at the Talaat Harb street in downtown Cairo and is worth at least one visit. Incredibly tasty fruit coctails in different flavours and colours.

Price: about 2-3 Egyptian Pounds

Tags » food, fruit juice bars

Tuesday March 1st, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

A pretty typical car in Cairo

Category: Egypt, 2005

Dent free cars are hard to find in Cairo.

Tags » cars

Tuesday March 1st, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

After Eight sound clip 1 of 2

Category: Egypt, 2005

This entry has one or more files attached:

Sound clip 1 of 2 from the performance by a nubian band at the After Eight club.

I think that the band consisted of five members. Instruments was: flute (played by a girl that had a bad cold), tabla, piano, violin and bass violin.

After Eight is situated in downtown Cairo.

Tags » jazz clubs, live music, sounds

Tuesday March 1st, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

After Eight sound clip 2 of 2

Category: Egypt, 2005

This entry has one or more files attached:

Soundclip 2 (of 2) from the performance by a nubian band at the After Eight club.

Tags » jazz clubs, live music, sounds

Tuesday March 1st, 2005

Africa > Egypt > Cairo

Sound from Super Night Club (sound)

Category: Egypt, 2005

This entry has one or more files attached:

This is how it sounded at the belly dancing joint Super Night Club in downtown Cairo.

Environment description:
Tobias and I are sitting at a small table in a pretty large room together with about 30 other people (age = middle age+). In front of us there is a stage. In the back of the stage the 5-man band are sitting, playing their instruments. On the scene a 50-year old man is moving around with a microphone in is hand, singing in arabic. A belly dancer is moving to the beat dancing round the singing man.

The music is played extremely loud and gets distorted in our ears. They are applying heavy delay effects on everything, both instruments and microphone!.

Tags » live music, night clubs, sound