Egypt help

markandkate

We ahve been to Egypt several times and have always found the poeple wonderful. The people particualry love children many of the staff in hotels etc live in Luxor or Cairo and only see their famillies once per month. They will be a bit pushy but they want to provide for their famillies and a polite but firm La Shokran ( no thank you) does the trick.

Cairo is a very busy city with few places to sit and relax. The Egypt museum is worth visitng and you will want to see the Pyramids and the Shinx. You could do this in a day but it will be firing. You really need to decide how much travelling you want to do.

Because of the heat it is very easy to travel overnight. There are overnight trains with sleepers from Luxor to Cairo and vice versa and I suspect that this would be a real adventure for your son.

There are loads of buses to Aswan and also trains from Luxor. We hired a driver for the day. There are overnight buses 5 hours to Hurghada and there are locals who meet the bus to offer their accommodation.

You could get a cheap package to Luxor and use that as a base and get buses/trains to see quite a lot of the country with a couple of overnight stays if you feel confident enough.

flossy_splodge

If you want a few basic words of Arabic to get by again Jo is the best one to ask but to start things off:

To greet someone you would say 'salarm allay kum' (thats spelt phonetically before someone jumps as you need to know how to say it, not write it. Somewhat literally it means 'greetings and thanks be to God. It is the standard greeting.
The answer would be either to also say 'Salarm' or the whole 'salarm Allay kum'.
YOu are likely to then be asked how you are which will sound like 'Keff halik'. The answer is 'zen, Allhamdulala'. (Fine, thanks be to God').
Now those with linguistic tendencies will recognise that in amongst all that is in fact the word 'Allah' Treat it with respect for obvious reasons.
'La' is 'no' (somewhat counterintuitive I always thought!
'Marsa lama' is Goodbye.
Jo may well suggest a couple of other ones.
It really gets you a long way if you can master these as so few Brits bother.
Enjoy your trip, I'm jealous. x:D

folkestonelisa

Thank You Flossy, I have untill May to practice them :j

flossy_splodge

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: