Magical Expeditions

Got back from Egypt a month back and have a truckload of information to share. To begin with it was one helluva experience. We covered a LOT of Egypt. For the first time I saw the sea, the desert and sailed on a river, all in one trip.

Egypt at almost all levels reminded me of India.

The streets, the bazaars, the haggling and the people. Egyptians are a friendly group of people. They shout out “Indian” when they see you walking down the bazaar and greet you by saying “Amitabh Bachachan ” when you stop at their shops. Egyptian taxi drivers are more reckless than their Bangalore counterparts, which is saying something. Their food however, is fabulous and their cheese divine. I traveled with 2 vegetarians and we always had good veggie food to eat. It is the one country where I did not have to worry about food!

There were touts everywhere but thanks to Lonely Planet we managed to not get conned most of the times. We did get ripped off once ( not too badly though)- but I guess, having a story to tell when you get back home, somewhat made up for it!

Eric from backpacker’s concierge was wonderful. The moment we reached Cairo, he met us and gave us a local mobile phone so that we could keep in touch with him and his agents. All we had to do was get a recharge card and we were connected all the time. He called us regularly during our trips to know whether everything was satisfactory or not. The most important thing was that the trips he organized for us proved to be the highlights of our Egyptian travels. Do get in touch with him, if you are going to Egypt. His is one of the best concierge services available for the independent traveler.

The one thing that I would like to stress here is that do not go to Egypt as a part of a packaged tour. There are many such tour operators, who will show you all there is to see but you will miss out a lot in just getting on to a bus and sleeping till you reach your destination.

We met quite a few independent travelers all through out our journey. Swapped stories with a Brazilian (who was on a world tour, and whose next destination was India ) under the stars in the White desert and kept on bumping into an Indian-Chinese couple from the US who were also following the Lonely Planet and hence were either being followed by or were following us!

I have a lot more to share and as I get in the flow of writing, I guess more stories and experiences will come out in my following posts. Also, do post me a comment if you want to know something specific about organizing a trip to Egypt.

I leave for Egypt with 2 other friends on the 10th of April. Stuff left to be done as yet are my travel insurance and deciding whether to buy Lonely Planet - Egypt or the National Geographic Traveler- Egypt. I was talking to a friend the other day and he mentioned that he was not a big fan of Lonely Planet as it gives you a lot of information and little experience. Lonely Planet is less intimate. National Geographic Traveler on the other hand is drenched with colour and history, but has less information. I guess there should be a happy medium which  I haven’t stumbled across as yet.

So this is how our itinerary is going to look:

1. Friday -Reach Cairo Friday afternoon. Check in at the hostel. Roam around Cairo.
2. Saturday - Day trip to the Pyramids
3. Sunday-  Day trip to  Alexandria
4. Monday Tuesday- Jeep Safari to the Bahariya desert
5. Tuesday night- Train to Aswan
6. Wednesday-  Aswan site seeing.
7. Thursday - Beginning of the 3 day 2 night felucca trip down the Nile.
8. Saturday afternoon - Reach  Luxor.
9. Sunday- Luxor
10. Sunday night train to Cairo
11. Monday- See Cairo
12. Tuesday early morning leave Cairo for Mumbai.

We  are not going to Dahab (area around the red sea) and hence will miss Mt. Sinai where Moses received the 10 commandments. It was a tough decision but we decided in favour of the White desert. We didn’t have the time to visit both of them.

The itinerary looks good  right now. Hopefully it will not be too hectic. I am counting on the felucca ride to unwind sit back and relax. Another thing I am counting on is that the hostels would have internet access so I will be able to update this blog as I experience Egypt.

It is falling into place. We just wired money to Eric, who is the proprietor of Backpacker Concierge. His company is arranging for our 2 day 1 night trip to the Bahariya Oasis in the White desert and the 3 day felucca cruise on the Nile. I found his company by chance while trawling Thorntree for travel information and cheap cruises on the Nile.

Any trip to Egypt is incomplete without sailing down the Nile over 2 to 3 days. There were two options in front of me when deciding on the Nile Cruise -the 5 Start luxury cruise or the more authentic but less luxurious felucca cruise. The cheapest 5 Start luxury cruise was turning out to be 500$ and considering that one of the primary concerns of a backpacking trip is money, I definitely veered towards the felucca ride.

However the one big stumbling block towards a felucca ride was that almost all entries on thorntree advised that you should be careful while choosing your felucca. You should talk to the felucca captain, find out about who are the other passengers on the felucca and check out the felucca before booking it. The point is to ascertain how hygienic the environment is and to ensure that you do not get conned. You book your felucca trip once you reach Aswan in Egypt. All this made me a little apprehensive about the entire felucca experience, when I stumbled across Backpacker.

This concierge service is said to be the beginning of honest tourism in Egypt aimed at a shoestring budget. They arrange felucca trips down the Nile and other excursions. I quickly posted on Thorntree inquiring about them and in 2 days time got first hand glowing reviews of the company.

Getting in touch with them was easy and Eric has been quick to reply to my queries and things have been going smoothly. Final review on Backpacker of course after my trip!

If you are planning on going to Egypt and have a little more money to spare, then you can look at the Sun Boat IV 5 Start luxury cruise. It has good recommendations from both Lonely Planet and National Geographic.

I am hoping to finish this trip in 50,000 rupees inclusive of everything. Let’s see how successful I am.

Note to self: Watch Lawrence of Arabia.

Taking 11 days off from work turned out to be not as easy as I had imagined. But as they say where there is a will, there is a way and buddy there is a lot of will here. Hence, the last couple of days have been quite hectic at work. I want to ensure that I meet all my deadlines before I leave for Egypt for a hassle free vacation. As the days go by in a haze of work and travel preparation I find myself thrilling at every little detail that I have to plan. There is a spiffy little travel agent in me who loves all the little details of a vacation… who just goofed up!

So I was booking flight tickets from Bangalore to Mumbai and back, and I mis-spelt Arjun’s name. It reads “Arjum Manjunath” instead of “Arjun Manjunath” . A typo! No big deal I thought. I can easily get the spelling of the name corrected. Hah, I was in for a surprise! I have called MakeMyTrip and I have called Inidgo and there only solution is to cancel the ticket, rebook it and of course pay cancellation fees! How much of a difference does a mistyped alphabet make? In India, customer service is just lip service. Not once did the lady at Indigo mention that a typo is ignored at the time of check-in. Her aim was not to help me but to fleece me.

Travel agents do typos all the time! I have traveled abroad on a ticket where my surname and first names were swapped. My friends have similar stories to tell. But still when you call customer service all you get to hear is “Sorry ma’m, we can’t help you!”. Frustrating to say the least.

This post was supposed to be about my travel itinerary in Egypt instead it turned into a minor rant about airlines. Next post on places I am going to see in Egypt and how I decided on them!

Update:

1. Air Deccan was quite helpful. They told me that they can’t change the name but will put a comment next to our PNR number ensuring that we don’t have any problems while boarding our flight from Mumbai back to Bangalore.
2. Using Air Deccan’s good service example, I called up Indigo again and this time got the number to Indigo check-in counter at the Bangalore airport. The lady at the check-in counter told me that she will make a comment about it on our tickets which will lead to hassle free boarding. Phew!

As mentioned in my earlier post, the entire visa process is painful. However, you can make it hassle free quite easily. The major hurdles towards this are the following 3 questions:

1. Does the country that I am traveling to require a personal interview for processing a visa application or can I get my visa done through a travel agent?
2. Why does the consulate require confirmed flight tickets? Is it worthwhile to shell out all that money even before I get a visa?
3. How do I get confirmed hotel booking? How do I find good and cheap hotels in a city in a foreign country?

For now, let us assume that you are going to a country which does not require a personal interview. You can find this out by googling for the consulate’s number. Give the consulate a call and someone will be more than happy to tell you whether your presence is required or not at the time of granting a visa. As far as I know, only the US and the EU countries require a personal interview.

1. The first step would be to find a good travel agent in your city. If you are in Bangalore, I would recommend Mr. George at Orion Travels. The travel agency will be responsible for taking your passport along with all supporting documents, to the consulate and submitting it there. It will also be responsible for couriering back your passport to you, once your visa has been granted. Hence the emphasis on a good travel agent.
2. Booking confirmed flight tickets - Ask your travel agent to block your tickets instead of buying them. Once you get your visa, you can either buy these blocked tickets or go online and buy tickets from there. For our Egypt trip we bought out flight tickets from MakeMyTrip . Your flight tickets will constitute 60% of your trip cost so do a lot of research before you buy these.
3. Finally and by far the easiest step is to get confirmed hotel reservations. I discovered HostelWorld two years ago and since then I have been an absolute fan. A lot of the hostels mentioned here are safe, clean and fun. You pay 10% of the amount at the time of booking a hostel and the rest when you finish your stay with them.

With the above 3 things taken care of you can apply for your visa and in all probabilities it will be granted to you. Once you get your visa, you can re-plan your whole trip or not plan it at all depending on your whim! However, the one thing that you must absolutely have are return tickets from your country of travel. I also recommend a 2 day hotel booking in your city of arrival if you don’t know what your itinerary will be once you enter the country - makes life easier at the immigration.

Next post on, what if I want to go to the US or Europe for travel? How do I get my visa then?

Wohoo! We got an Egyptian Visa. Last time a colleague had applied for an Egyptian tourist visa, his application was summarily rejected. Hence we were a little apprehensive.

If you have done any bit of traveling outside of India you will realize how difficult is it for an Indian to get visa for another country in comparison to other nationals. If you are an American or a European, you either do not require a tourist visa or you will get a tourist visa on arrival. On the other hand, if you are an Indian you will be required to get a tourist visa in India before you hop on a plane. You will always find India in the exception list of countries whose nationals DO require a visa, clubbed alongside with Pakistan and Nigeria.

Of the countries that I have visited there are only two where I got visa on arrival. They being Cambodia and Thailand.

The process of getting a visa pretty much puts a damper on “let’s go to a country and explore it impromptu”. You need to submit an itinerary, confirmed hotel bookings and confirmed flight tickets to and from the country along with a visa application form. Travel agents through whom you would normally get your visa processed( until and unless you want to go to Europe or the USA. These countries require a personal interview even for a tourist visa) will insist on your submitting a bank account with a hefty balance or proof of foreign currency bought. This is not mandatory. But a bank statement definitely helps.

Let me put down a list of documents that I have submitted every time I applied for a visa.

1. Country specific visa application form
2. Passport and a copy of the front and back page of your passport
3. Photograph as per the requirements of the country
4. Letter from your organization stating that you are going on vacation and you will be back in your office after your vacation. This definitely helps as a lot of countries are skeptic about the return of the tourist.
5. Confirmed airline tickets.
6. Hotel bookings for the first couple of days
7. Cover letter
8. Salary slip for the last 3 months and
9. Last year filed IT return.

Next post on how to plan a trip yourself with loads of flexibility despite of all the rigidity required in order to get a visa and on how are we planning our Egypt trip!

It has been two years since I backpacked last. It is time to travel again. To a place which is alien so that I can savour the thrill of discovery. To a place which is ancient so that I will be humbled by its timelessness. Old places call out to me. I like them so much more than the modern architectural wonders of man.

Egypt.

The grandeur of the pyramids, the unrelenting desert, the Nile, Queen Nefertiti, Tutankhamen, the souks. There is definitely something hugely romantic about Egypt. I quickly ask around to see if there are other people interested in going to this country (I have traveled alone before, but it doesn’t feel as if Egypt is ready for a lone girl-traveler). I find a couple of eager beavers like me and decide, then and there that in April of 2008, I will go to Egypt.

Angkor
Lonely Planet
therefore I travel.

The above two lines never fail to inspire me. On a sluggish morning, when life seems to be wrapped up in fog , these lines make me open my lonely planet guides and chart out my next trip. A new destination, new sights, new smells and the adventure of it all.