Day 10
Discover Egypt
We are woken by the the porter at 03:45 for breakfast. The breakfast is no better than dinner and most of it is left. The train arrive at Giza Station in Cairo about 5:00 and we all disembark and climb onto our bus which is waiting outside. Back to the Pharaohs hotel and thankfully we can check in and have a nice shower. After a few hours rest we head out to explore Coptic Cairo, visiting some churches, mosques before going to the markets at Khan al khaili. When we arrive at the markets we decide to get something for lunch and wander around for a while until we find somewhere that is serving food as a majority of the places aren't during the day due to it being Ramadan. We eventually find a place and even though it looks a little bit doggy we give it ago. We go inside and are given the menus, there are flys everywhere and the kitchen area doesn't look at all good. We browse the menu and all place our orders, Rachel just ordering French fries as she doesn't like anything else on the menu. Our drinks are brought out and the after a while a some plates of salad are brought out. These look limp as if they have been sitting in the heat for to long, not only that but the plate is filthy. Most of us leave the salad and then some crisps are brought out in foil trays. We all think this is just to keep us quite as the food is taking so long and I joked with Rachel there's your French fries. After a long wait and Tam having a go at the waiters several times the food arrives, or at least a meal arrives. Apart from Jenny who ordered falafel every one else has kebabs even though non of us ordered this. We question it and we are told the dishes we ordered are not available and that they had told us this. We all deny but as we are hungry we say we will have the kebabs. The kofta's aren't to bad but the bread is solid and the other meat on the kebab is not cooked properly and rough as hell. When it comes to paying the bill all hell breaks out with our guild Tam shouting at the staff as the food was crap and not what we wanted and they want to charge us more for the kebabs than the price of the food we ordered. It is eventually sorted out and a reduction in the bill is made but believe me non of us are happy and had we been in the UK the bill would not of been paid at all. We leave the restaurant and wander round the markets for a while before meeting the coach which is going to take us to the biggest shopping mall in Cairo. We get there and the first thing most want to do is get food. Grant and I wander off and find a costa coffee as we have both been craving a good cuppa coffee for ages now. Scott and Rachel wander off on there own and Grant and I meet up with the rest of his family. I leave them and go wandering myself but the strange thing is all the stores seem to be closing. I meet up the the boys and they say it's the same around the rest of the mall so we find the girls and head to the exit. We have to wait around for our bus to return so we all sit down on a patch of grass in the shade. The bus arrives and we head back to the hotel. The plan tonight is to eat there as surprise surprise we have another early start tomorrow. I meet Grant, Jen and the rest of the family and we sit and have dinner together. At the end of the meal Tam arrives and sits down and chats with us. Before long everyone has gone back to there rooms leaving Grant, Tam and myself to have a smoke and a chat. Before long we all decide to turn in ready for our 06:00 departure to Mt Sinai in the morning.