Well, not really. This is about how I got to Egypt not my first day there.
I thought I'd chronicle my holiday in Egypt this December so that I
wouldn't forget. Also, these are backdated to the actual dates I'm
writing about. Here goes.
So I only bought my ticket to Cairo five days in advance. Somehow, the
dates never really struck me. And then having decided that I should
probably do a little more by way of preparation besides deciding how
I'd get there, I bought a Lonely Planet three days before my flight.
It struck me the next day that it might also be a good idea to
book a hotel, if only for the first night. So a day before taking off,
I called a-hotel-any-hotel and told them that I'd be arriving the
following night and they should pick me up at the airport. It's always
been my policy never to leave anything to the last minute.
I'd decided that I'd be doing this backpacker-style. Which meant, of
course, that I needed to buy a backpack. Three hours before my flight,
I introduced my backpack to my dear friends Higgledy and Piggledy.
Which meant that I forgot to pack the number one most important thing
that I'd been warned about. Passport? No. Tickets? E-tickets. Moolah?
Uh-huh. Toilet paper. No matter, I thought on my way to the airport. How bad
could it be? Surely I'd find toilet paper somewhere.
Brave words. Asinine but brave. I blame my foolhardiness on the cough
medicine I'd been doped up on for the past five days.
I arrived at the airport insanely early. I even had time to go to the loo. (I exaggerate. I also had time to drink some water.)
The flight was fairly uneventful. All I remember is watching a German
movie called Vollidiot (4 stars out of 5) and racking my brains to
recall on which previous flight I'd seen the flight attendant in my
section of the plane. I was dead sure that I'd even had a conversation
with her on some previous flight. On this flight, she looked like she
wanted to yank someone's head off, throw it out a window and then take
her time with the rest of the body. The sign above her head said
Beware, I Bite and I bewore, lest she bit.
Ten hours, three movies, two meals and a nap later, I found myself in
Cairo, where I was met at the gate by... no one. Hardly a surprise.
After all, I'd only called the hotel twice from Singapore that day to remind them that I needed a pick-up.
Someone let me use his mobile phone to call the hotel. I was assured
that the driver was less than five minutes away and would I please
wait. An hour and ten minutes later, having gotten on first-name basis
with every tour operator, tourist and tout within a thirty-yard radius,
I was on my way to the hotel.
Where I made notes on all of the above before hitting the sack, finally
ending with, "Room: a bed and... that's it. But what else do I need?"