![]() If you can’t even trust the bloody bus company, I thought, and actually stamped my foot like a ten year old in my efforts to get the extra fee waived. Buying the bus ticket I found that a small sum had been added onto the price agreed. This time it was my turn to lose it (again). Another two guys got on and she ordered them off too until I explained that we are on public transport and she couldn’t just throw everyone off. The driver backed us up and the tout slunk off. This time Deirdre lost her head and ordered our current annoyance off the bus. A tout follows us to a hotel, nips ahead at the last moment and bumps up the price of our accommodation. One followed us up the road and onto a minibus. ![]() Deirdre orders everyone off the busĪrriving in Hurghada we were pounced on by the hotel touts. ![]() The chicken danceĪ stroll down Aswan’s Nileside Corniche had turned into dark comedy as I metaphorically put my head out the window and shouted ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE’. I can’t say this was always a pleasant laugh but you had to admire their cheek when someone tells you a price only to see on the board behind his back the real price is five times less than his quote. When I emerged empty handed he tried to charge E£10 (£1) for the unwanted business card he had given me earlier. Eventually, I found Mahmoud the first at the end of the row and, as promised, took a look around his shop. It turned out this shopkeeper was called Mahmoud, as was the one next door and everybody else in earshot. Returning to the row of almost identical souvenir shops I deflected the first no buy just looking enticement by saying I had promised Mahmoud I would visit him. In Edfu I took a business card from shop owner Mahmoud and fobbed him off with a promise to have a look at his wares when I came out of the temple. As we sat there plotting to leave without buying anything, we wondered just how the hell that happened. She had been told by the man he had already met me and each presuming the other had found someone to show us the way we ended up in a perfume shop. Wandering away from Deirdre to ask directions in Cairo I came back to find her talking to a smartly dressed man. We cover people from all over the world, while outside their home country. Phone signals are not easy to come by in the desert and we saw another couple of drivers queuing for their turn in the tree. We watched with some amusement when our Sinai tour guide driver climbed into the branches of a tree to make a phone call from his mobile. Yet, despite two visits to Egypt of four and six weeks, we still don’t know the word for ‘yes’ – it was never needed. We learnt how to say ‘no thank you’ in Arabic very quickly, later adding ‘I don’t want’, ‘I don’t need’, ‘It’s not possible’ and ‘please go away’ to our vocabulary. …But not from NorwayĪ little less funny were the Norwegians we met while cruising down the Nile who were pretending to be from Iceland due to the fallout from the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The ruse lasted less than 10 seconds when the shopkeeper smugly pointed to the ‘We speak Dutch’ sign above his doorway. I’m Dutchįed up saying ‘no’ to every shop and stall owner in Aswan market I decided to pretend to be Dutch and deny I could speak English. Fortunately the country can be so absurd or funny that – from mistakenly threatening to punch a bus company to a cat slipping into your dinner – it is very easy to find a reason to laugh your head off. It won’t add to the weight of your luggage so make sure you pack it all because Egypt can be one of the most stressful countries to visit if you don’t know when to laugh. Top of any list of what to pack for a visit to Egypt should be your sense of humour. ![]() 20 Absurd And Funny Things In Egypt That Made Us Laugh
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