Let me first present our itinerary....
Day 1: Landed in Cairo by evening. Went on a dinner cruise.
Day 2: Visited the pyramids - Sakkara, Dashur and Giza
Day 3: Day trip to Alexandria
Day 4,5 : Two days and One night at the desert (Bahariya Oasis)
Day 6: In and around Aswan
Day 7,8 : Two days and Two nights on a Felucca (authentic egyptian way of enjoying the NILE)
Day 9: Kom Ombo, Edfu and Luxor (Karnak & Luxor Temples)
Day 10: Luxor - Valley of Kings, Colossi of Memnon
Day 11: Back in CAIRO - Egyptian museum, Khan-el-khalili (the cairo market place)
Day 12: Flight back to India, with one day stopover at Bahrain(bonus visit ;-) courtesy - flight delay)
Having told the itinerary, I must say that each place/experience had a lot more to it than we expected. For that matter, I thought Pyramids would be the biggest highlight of the trip but it turned out that Pyramids became just one of the many highlights. The Desert trip, 2 days on the Felucca, the taste of Egyptian Vegetarian food, the striking similarity between Egypt and India in so many aspects - all these are hard to forget. I was reading an article in one of their magazines and the author rightly terms Egypt as "The India of the Middle-East".
I will be blogging about each experience whenever I find time. But before I conclude this one, I would like to mention the people who made this all happen. :-)
- Ankita and Mahesh - my colleagues and fellow travellers. The people who planned this whole vacation.
- Eric - Our safe window to egypt ;-). The person who arranged parts of our trip (like the train tickets, felluca ride, desert trip etc). He handed us a cell phone as soon as we landed in CAIRO. And he put us in touch with the local guides.
- Waheed - Our Mr Desert, who gave us the desert experience on his 4X4 and also the wonderful home made Egyptian food at his house in Bahariya.
- Khalid - Our guide in Aswan and on the fellucca. Always filled with energy and stories. :-).
