"Cairo" a Cairo Travel Page by hez28

There are too many words to describe Cairo. Friendly (but sometimes irritating) sellers, crazy drivers (I swear, the word "pedestrian" doesn't exist in their dictionary), old buildings, old cars, old everything for that matter. What fascinates me is the fact that most of the Cairenes (especially sellers at bazaars) KNOW basic Malay phrases i.e. apa khabar, mari sini, harga murah, lima puluh dua puluh it's amazing! It proves that they get too many tourists from Malaysia. I also read a statistic somewhere that the foreign country with most Malaysian university students is Egypt surprisingly, all these while I thought it was Australia (where I am). These Malaysian students particularly go to Al-Azhar University to pursue Islamic Studies (mostly). I could never do it, conversing in Arabic is too difficult for me (especially Egyptian arabic), let alone studying a course in that language. heh.

Another biased thing I noticed is if you happen to be a muslim, they give you more discounts. They're especially friendly to Malaysians, saying "Malaysia is good country, good people" and all that jazz. But funny when I mentioned about the tsunami that had occurred not so long ago, most of the Cairenes didn't know about what i was talking about. i told them I was from one of the tsunami-affected countries. and their reaction? "What is tsunami?" HILARIOUS!

Well, it'd be endless if I started talking about the fun experiences I had in Cairo. All I can say is, Cairo rocks! I would go there again in a heartbeat, especially to the places that i missed. I'll just make sure when i go there the next time, I'll have to learn the art of bargaining beforehand =) and be a smarter tourist. No more tricks on me, no more torn money! haha