Day 235 – Doha to Alexandria, EGYPT
Today we were leaving Qatar in the morning. As our family friend dropped us off at the airport, we were quite surprised with the amount of differing activities we had done over the last few days. We boarded another Qatar Airways flight bound for Kuwait, as there are no longer direct flights to Egypt due to diplomatic tensions between the two nations.
In Kuwait, we would be swapping over to a budget airline called Arabian Air. Since the Qatar flight and the Arabian Air flights were on separate tickets, we were not sure how the transfer process would work. However, it was a breeze, with the NAS transfer desk handling finding the bags and issuing us boarding passes, just outside of the terminal. Mind you, we did walk around the airport quite a bit trying to find the correct process and we were given different information at every desk. It was only the immigration officers who turned us around and sent us to the correct area. Also the NAS transfer desk were busy on their phones for a long time before we were served.
Kuwait from Above NAS Transfer Desk
The entire plane appeared to have locals besides us. I can’t confirm this, but it appeared like the women were able to jump straight to the front of the line. Once on the plane we had no issues, expect we had paid for a meal, but the staff said our tickets did not include a meal. We did not receive the meal we had paid for! If travelling Arabian Air, don’t bother adding a meal as it may or may not be given, and from my experience, not!
Egypt from above. Not the desert I was expecting to see.
Once we arrived in Alexandria, we were surprised with how small the airport was. We had filled the paperwork that the Arabian Air staff had given us, and we also bought our Visa stamps in a very simple exchange just after disembarking from the plane for $25 USD / $35.83 AUD per person (paid in USD & cash only). After going through immigration and customs we were in Egypt!
We bought a tourist SIM card from the only place available, which was an Orange outlet with 5GB of data, 200 local minutes and 20 international minutes for 265 EGP (Egyptian Pounds / $22.73 AUD. There is also ATM facilities to withdraw Egyptian Pounds.
We caught an Uber from the airport to the town, which was just under an hour away due to traffic. It was surprisingly cheap at 185 EGP / $15.86 AUD, and the driver spoke limited English. The car wasn’t the cleanest thing in the world, but as we were driving there was a heavy downpour, which could explain it. As we were close to the city, the skies cleared and we were rewarded to a beautiful sunset.
Alexandrian sunset 🙂
We checked into our hotel, Transit Alexandria Hotel, which was a little hard to find. Luckily the Uber driver asked a local, and we could find it. It was on the top level. There was an elevator, but neither of us wanted to risk our lives (the owner assured us it was safe). Our double room, came with 3 beds and a small balcony. It was decent. The building felt old and so were the rooms. The traffic outside were pretty loud.
Views from Transit Alexandria Hotel Transit Alexandria Hotel room
Then the fun began, as we wanted to eat. After a recommendation from the hotel we arrived at a very busy food shop called Abu Nasser. We asked to eat in, and were gestured to go upstairs. We discovered that we had to wait in line. This is when we met two 20ish year old Egyptian mates. They spoke Arabic and limited English, but were super friendly. With the aid for Google Translate, we had a conversation with them. They even made us jump the que and go in front of them. However, we ended up sitting on the same table and they helped us order our food (menu was in Arabic).
After dinner, they even tried to pay for our meal too. It was mind blowing how friendly these guys were. They asked if we would come with them for drinks…unfortunately tea. We said yes, and ended up playing Dominoes with them. It was very cool. This time they refused to take payment for the teas.
Getting demolished in Dominoes
We found out they were actually from Cairo, and they told us to meet them, when we came there. As we were walking back to our hotel we met another friendly girl who thought we were locals, and long story short, she was staying at our hotel. She became our translator with the two boys as she knew perfect Arabic and English.
First impressions of Egypt…the people are super friendly.