Trip Report VI
Salamat pagi setiap orang. (Malaysian)
Sawat-dii thuk khon khrap. (Thai)
Salam alekum. (Arabic)
Dag. (Dutch)
Bonjour et salut tout le monde. (guess)
1) Introduction.
2) Addenda to previous trip reports.
3) Suman's duck feed joke.
4) A vision of drunken Irishmen
5) Shopping for electronic devices.
6) Getting to Sukit's Church.
7) The gospel-my world view.
8) What I want to do with my life.
9) Sunday afternoon until the plane fight.
10) Dubai.
11) Cairo airport.
12) Getting to the Youth Hostel.
13) The Youth Hostel & the hotel.
14) It's all too much.
15) Things weren't what they seemed.
16) Thinking negatively.
17) Thinking positively.
19) Addenda for Trip Report V 6) Rama's death.
1.1) In my previous trip report I included a section 6) that was information about the events surrounding Rama's death. Apart from sending it out to all the people I normally send my trip reports to, I sent it to all my relatives as well as other friends who knew Rama. Anyway, as some of the extra people I sent that report to may be interested in receiving the ongoing reports, and as in 2 cases I heard people wanted to receive the report through mum and not directly from the people concerned (& in 1 case they had emailed me but I didn't see it), I'm emailing the trip reports to everyone I emailed the last report to plus some other friends. So if you're getting these trip reports and you don't want to, please let me know.
1.2) This meant I sent the last report to over 50 people, which is Hotmail's limit 'to prevent spamming' (it's a good idea but Hotmail receives more spam than all the other email addresses I've ever had put together, and it doesn't stop people using Hotmail to send it out, either), so I emailed the report in 2 goes, the 2nd of which was only to 2 people neither of whom knew Rama, so I didn't include that section and changed the introduction. So, Dazza & Mark, you know what these references to something you didn't get are about now.
2.1) On the trip to Ayutthaya, 5 were German, one was Slovenian & spoke German, 2 were from I don't know where & spoke I don't know what, 2 were from Japan, 1 was from York UK and then there was me. So although the man from York wasn't a particularly talkative type, we talked a lot.
2.2) Most evenings before going to bed in Bangkok I sat in the outdoor lounge at the Youth Hostel and we tried to see who could come up with the worst jokes. I remembered jokes from when I was 5 plus some old baby & dingo jokes (so now you know the level of humour). Here's one Suman told me:
3) A duck walks into a hardware store and asks for some duck feed. The owner says, "No, we don't have any duck feed, this is a hardware store and we don't carry duck feed." The duck leaves, but turns up a week later asking for duck feed again. The owner repeats that they don't carry duck feed. A week later the duck turns up and asks for duck feed again. This time the owner tells him to leave and not to come back. A week goes by and sure enough, the duck walks back in and asks for duck feed again. The owner says, "Right, the next time you come in here asking for duck feed I'm going to nail your feet to the floor." A week later the duck turns up again. This time it says, "Got any nails." "No, were all out I'm afraid." "Got any duck feed?"
4) Three drunken Irishmen from elsewhere in the Youth Hostel burst into our dorm at about 4am Saturday with chipmunk voices. They weren't too loud and it was just funny. They have also supplied a lot of the humour in our joke evenings, but I can't repeat their jokes.
5) I caught up with Suman and we did some shopping together, buying a portable CD player for myself, 2260 Baht, about $112 AUD (it plays MP3 files). Saw a Palm 130 for 40 000 Baht (just under $2000 AUD). Palm 130 in Malaysia, RM960 (about $460 AUD). Palm 125 in Malaysia, RM699 (about $330 AUD). Palm 125 in Australia, about $350 AUD. Palm 130 in Dubai, something ridiculous (I think it worked out to about $1000 AUD). Palm in Egypt, there ain't no such thing.
6) I got up, packed and headed off to Sukit's church with all my bags (the big backpack, the new little backpack & the old little backpack), caught a taxi to Siam Square then the train to On Nut, then a taxi to RCA. After driving for what seemed like ages in I don't know what direction until (which always makes trips feel longer than they are) about 70 Baht was showing on the meter it crosses my mind that even with my maps I couldn't find RCA as it's a shopping centre & I don't know which streets it's on, so the cab driver could not know where he's going and just be driving in any old direction (which happened the night I directed the cab driver to the hostel in Thai). Anyway we arrived. Sukit sends his regards.
7) The gospel is that we were trying to relate to God but kept doing stuff that broke that relationship, so Jesus came and sorted us out. Now we can do anything God is doing, which Jesus showed us is making life better for everyone, including making those who are acting destructively cease and desist. We see God not actively forcing people to cease and desist because what's important is dealing with our heart's motives, which cause us to act destructively, and just stopping people won't change their hearts, so instead he is changing people by injecting love into the lives of those who will receive it. We get to play a part in this process, and doing so is what life is all about.
8) My objective in life is to do things that are part of this injection of love into people's lives that will still be making a difference 400 years from now. As Asia has heard less about the injection of love into the world through Jesus per person of any continent on the face of the earth, as it has more people than any continent on the face of the earth, as all the emerging superpowers in the world are in Asia and for various other reasons I believe that a centrally located Asian bible college helping people from all over Asia learn about just how gracious the gospel of grace is, and to effectively help them go out and be part of God's injection of love into the world more effectively than they otherwise might, could be such a work. That is, I believe that if I threw myself into such a project, it might indeed have such a huge impact in the course of world events that the world might still be feeling the ripples from it in 400 years time.
9) After lunch I rang Suman but he had been out the night before at a colleagues going away party and was more inclined towards making contact with his bed than going out on the town, so I went back to Sukit's place & wrote French on a postcard while they had a meeting (it took me several hours to complete 2/3rds of one postcard). After the meeting we had some dinner, I jumped in the shower and Sukit dropped me at the airport bus stop. Made use of the CD player while waiting for the plane.
10) 1.20am and my plane leaves for Dubai. Catching a tail wind it get in at 4am Dubai time, which is 7am in Bangkok and 10am in Australia. My plane to Cairo leaves at 3.20pm so I have a bit of time to kill. Dubai has the fanciest toilets I've ever been in (or even heard of, apart from in space). The water for washing your butt is hot (they have paper as well but I only use that for drying my butt now), the loo flushes automatically, the water in the washbasins is hot and comes on with an automatic sensor like those in hand dryers, so you don't even have to turn a tap! Had to hold my hand behind my razor when washing it while having a shave, though. I'm excited when I arrive and everything is wonderful. Had a New York burger with six kind of cheese and a 1/2 pint of Kilkenny beer in an Irish pub for breakfast (got a photo). Spoke to mum for over an hour on the phone (I hate to think what this months mobile will be, I used it a lot in BKK and Cairo as well). This makes 11 hours total that I've used my phone since I bought it in Nov. last year. I fill out a few postcards. Some guy gives me a survey of how their airport's facilities rate and I give it mostly 10s. Then I'm checking out the duty free and an alarm goes off and nobody does anything about it by the time I've moved away taking about 10 mins. to get out of range. I go to the 'quiet lounge,' get about an hours sleep and am woken by the sounds of Muslim prayer blasting through loudspeakers. Go to the gate lounge and make use of my CD player again. We leave and I get to see the Arabian desert as we fly over it, the coast of the Red Sea & Sinai and am pretty impressed. I always go for a seat with leg room and this time I'm 1 seat away from the window, which is the best I've been so far (and often I've been flying at night). We have another tail wind and arrive in Cairo early.
11) I arrive to duty free shops with refrigerators and washing machines but not even a mobile phone or a CD player (they have tape players). Some guy offers to take my somewhere where they will give me a big discount on tours and I refuse. They check my neck passport holder. There are more police with automatic rifles than in Thailand (in Cairo they're on about every street corner, with squads outside the Egyptian Museum, in Thailand they're soldiers). A guy offers to sit me down and show me some brochures and I accept. For the sake of looking at some brochures (which I assume will be a scam), I get a chance to sit down & gather my thoughts & he helps me get my bags and carry them, and get through customs. He offers me an all inclusive tour of 2 nights accommodation in Cairo, guided tours of the Egyptian Museum, & the Pyramids on the 2nd day, overnight sleeper cabin to Luxor, guided tours in Luxor for 2 days, accommodation in Luxor for 2 nights, train to Aswan, 2 nights in Aswan & a day trip to Abu Simbel on the 2nd day, Felucca back to Luxor (Egyptian sailing vessel) including 2 nights and all meals, overnight train back to Cairo, tour of the old city and the citadel and 1 nights accommodation with all accommodation being A/C’ed private rooms with private bathrooms with breakfast included, all entry fees taken care of, guided tours every day except while on the Felucca for $1035. I think this is a great price as I budgeted 1500 pounds (2.5 Egyptian Pounds [EP]=1 AUD) for a similar trip without including entry fees or guided tours but including all meals and 20 hours internet access while staying in dorm rooms in Youth Hostels. Then I realise he means US$, about 4800 EP. He is budgeting $25/night for the accommodation. He drops the guided tours, entry fees and the Felucca ride and gets down to 1500 EP, or 900 EP if I take economy class on the train and sit up all night (this would make it impossible for me to do much the next day). I decline. A cab driver tells me he will take me to downtown Cairo (near where I want to go) for 30 EP while we are talking. After I walk away another man says come and have a drink and we'll talk tours. As he's offering me his mobile phone & I need to call directory assistance to get Matt & Robyn's ph. no. in Cairo, which has changed from the one our mutual friends gave me before I left which I rang from BKK, & I need a drink anyway, I go along. He offers me a similar price on the cut down tour, budgeting 40 EP/night for similar accommodation. If I had taken him up on the accommodation alone I would have saved EP 40 per night in Cairo. I pay 6.5 EP for a 250ml tetra pack of juice. Not all touts are frauds and not every price being asked for is 10x what is reasonable (as sometimes happens).
12) I ask around and eventually find the bus stop, which is in the car park near a store, buying a 500ml (I think) water for 2 EP. I just missed the bus so it is 20 minutes before the next A/C’ed one. I get on but he can't change my 50 note for the 2 EP bus fare and no one else will either, so I have to get off. The guy at the shop informs me it's a 50 Piastre note (50 cents). Then someone tells me the bus at the stop that is not A/C’ed also goes to downtown. I get on. It's 50 Piastres. When we've been driving for ages and pass an internet cafe and a hotel (which I assume is downtown), then start passing car yards I get off figuring I'm a bit south of downtown which should put me near where the Youth Hostel is (there seemed to be no official bus stops and no one on the bus spoke English). I get in a taxi and show him the address. After driving for ages he won't put his meter on and asks me for 14EP when we get there. I figure from what I've read this will be about 5-10 times the real fare & from experience about 30% extra (i.e. the guidebooks have stories about people getting ripped off a lot more badly than I've been) Also I thought I remembered that 10 EP was a reasonable fare from the airport (but see [15]). After arguing, during which he says Giza is a different city (he did ask if I meant Cairo when I said near the University), I agree only to find out he said 40 EP. This all gets me a bit down.
13) I get to the Youth Hostel and give him my membership card. He says to have a look at the room. There are only dorms. The room is the most like a prison cell (except with several beds) of any room that wasn't actually a cell I've ever seen, and it's empty (I could do with some friendly company). By this time I'm too tired and hassled to worry about it so I say OK. He asks me for my card and I say I gave it to him. He just says I didn't do any such thing. I search my pockets, wallet & have a quick look through my bags as he asks (I've never had my card in my bags) and I leave, being quite upset at the reception I've received at the one accommodation place I thought I'd be all right (in BKK the hostel has signs saying 'no longer lost and lonely traveller,' they have free guides and are extremely friendly). Again, see [15]. I go down the road and check into the Nile Garden hotel at 89 EP per night.
14) I've been awake for 44 hours with a couple of broken hours of sleep, I started this day off thinking I was completely lost with a taxi driver just driving around with no idea where I was, I then had my plans changed (not that spending time at Sukit's house was worse than spending time with Suman, it's just that it was a change to what I thought I would be doing which used to really stress me out), spent over 12 hours hanging around airports & got blasted by alarms & loud prayers (& that last in the 'quiet lounge'), I've been hassled by touts, I've gone from one country with a language I don't speak and a script I can't read to another, passing through another country in between, I've been put on the wrong bus and been ripped off by a cab driver, then at the end of it all, at the one place I thought all would be well, I've had someone take my hostels ID card and tell me to my face it never happened. I lay down on my bed and had a good cry, for about the 2nd or 3rd time in my life (the first time I had a good cry as an adult was when my dad died, and I was so relieved that I could finally cry). Considered ringing mum again but it was 5am there.
15) The Lonely Planet guide says from the airport to downtown should be 25-30 EP. Giza is on the opposite side of downtown to the airport, and almost as far away. The taxi driver did overcharge, but not by anything like as much as I thought, and I simply stayed on the bus too long (KL airport is 70km out of town, BKK is about 50km I think, Cairo's is 12km). I found my Youth Hostels membership card stuck to my address book by sweat. I did give it to him, but he gave it straight back & I put it in my pocket (and didn't find it searching my pockets because it was stuck to my address book). Sunday went marvellously, and Dubai does have a great airport, but no one is at their best after 44 hours. The Nile Garden is a great hotel with a manager and assistant who speak really good English and write destinations in Arabic for me when I want to go somewhere, and the first night when I wanted to buy some water they actually sent someone with me to the shop (1 EP for the small, about 500ml, water). 89 EP per night is about as cheap as you can get an A/C’ed room for in Cairo according to Lonely Planet, which suggests leaving the Youth Hostels in Cairo & Luxor alone. The taxi driver and the 2nd guy who came up to me at the airport were actually offering good prices (actually I've still got that guy's card), and at the end of it I knew exactly how I wanted to organise my time in Egypt (which I'd had a fair idea of from studying the Lonely Planet guide anyway, this just help put the final finishes on it).
16) A huge amount of the stress in my life comes from my reaction to what is occurring, even more so than what actually is going on. I thought I had come to a point where I didn't freak out when things changed on me, and to a large extent I have, but it still takes its toll to some degree. AS we passed over Saudi Arabia and I looked out at the sand dunes and rocky hills I felt like I was leaving behind my old self, with my propensity to assume the worst will happen, that people will act against my interests instead of on my behalf, and to be stressed when things change, even when it really turns out well. Perhaps my first night in Cairo was just a little goodbye party, with that kind of thinking trying to keep it's grip on me. My propensity to forget things and assume something negative is a bit of a worry, though. In KL I had put my plane ticket in a bag I left at my aunt Anu's place while travelling south, but I changed my mind and stuck it in my CD bag. On the night before I left I am greatly ashamed of the thoughts that were going through my head (not about anyone related to me). I didn't find it when I checked my CD case because I had a whole heap of business cards that I had looked at frequently while travelling in the case and just gave a cursory glance, and, of course, it was buried amongst them but I had not seen it except once & I remember praying that I'd remember where it was because I've done this sort of thing before. Once I remember finding a pair of my shorts amongst a friend's stuff and I forgot that I had given them to him. Thankfully short term memory loss & confusion are symptoms of CFS which I'm getting better from, but if I ever get Alzheimer’s & I continue with these thought patterns, I'll be a real pain. Time to change the way I think.
17) I've had to learn to assume everyone around me is thinking positively about me at all times, even if I think things are contrary to this. What I've found is that on those occasions when someone actually was being negative, it was because they had a hard day at work, got caught in traffic on the way home and got yelled at by some hoon or something. My completely ignoring it is a blessing to both of us. In theory if someone really was trying to be negative towards me I could say that my not taking it on in any way serves them right and is the best possible reaction, although I've never had this happen. It is increasingly obvious to me that I have to take a similar view of situations and begin to think that people are, in fact, acting in my best interests even when I think they may not be. In 99.9% of cases I'll be at least partially right, and in the other cases, provided I'm taking all reasonable means not to be taken advantage of, I'll be less stressed by the whole event if I assume the best even though it's not true. It seems to me that although I am not completely in touch with reality and assuming the best and that people are acting in my best interests at all times is actually a more effective, productive, stress relieving way of life than to be right about negative assumptions.
19) On the night before Rama's wallet was found (17th August), Rama rang from a public phone to tell mum how much he loved her. Both mum and Rosalyn, her friend who happened to be there, commented on how his voice was full of love. There was no phone in his room. Rama used to throw handstands in sometimes foolish places when he was happy, and mum believes (and it makes the most sense) that he threw a handstand on the edge of the cliff and fell. So at the time he wasn't deliberately trying to kill himself, although in the next moment he might have and he certainly wasn't trying to keep a firm grip on life.
Love & blessings,
Joe Krishna Mithiran
Sawat-dii thuk khon khrap. (Thai)
Salam alekum. (Arabic)
Dag. (Dutch)
Bonjour et salut tout le monde. (guess)
1) Introduction.
2) Addenda to previous trip reports.
3) Suman's duck feed joke.
4) A vision of drunken Irishmen
5) Shopping for electronic devices.
6) Getting to Sukit's Church.
7) The gospel-my world view.
8) What I want to do with my life.
9) Sunday afternoon until the plane fight.
10) Dubai.
11) Cairo airport.
12) Getting to the Youth Hostel.
13) The Youth Hostel & the hotel.
14) It's all too much.
15) Things weren't what they seemed.
16) Thinking negatively.
17) Thinking positively.
19) Addenda for Trip Report V 6) Rama's death.
1.1) In my previous trip report I included a section 6) that was information about the events surrounding Rama's death. Apart from sending it out to all the people I normally send my trip reports to, I sent it to all my relatives as well as other friends who knew Rama. Anyway, as some of the extra people I sent that report to may be interested in receiving the ongoing reports, and as in 2 cases I heard people wanted to receive the report through mum and not directly from the people concerned (& in 1 case they had emailed me but I didn't see it), I'm emailing the trip reports to everyone I emailed the last report to plus some other friends. So if you're getting these trip reports and you don't want to, please let me know.
1.2) This meant I sent the last report to over 50 people, which is Hotmail's limit 'to prevent spamming' (it's a good idea but Hotmail receives more spam than all the other email addresses I've ever had put together, and it doesn't stop people using Hotmail to send it out, either), so I emailed the report in 2 goes, the 2nd of which was only to 2 people neither of whom knew Rama, so I didn't include that section and changed the introduction. So, Dazza & Mark, you know what these references to something you didn't get are about now.
2.1) On the trip to Ayutthaya, 5 were German, one was Slovenian & spoke German, 2 were from I don't know where & spoke I don't know what, 2 were from Japan, 1 was from York UK and then there was me. So although the man from York wasn't a particularly talkative type, we talked a lot.
2.2) Most evenings before going to bed in Bangkok I sat in the outdoor lounge at the Youth Hostel and we tried to see who could come up with the worst jokes. I remembered jokes from when I was 5 plus some old baby & dingo jokes (so now you know the level of humour). Here's one Suman told me:
3) A duck walks into a hardware store and asks for some duck feed. The owner says, "No, we don't have any duck feed, this is a hardware store and we don't carry duck feed." The duck leaves, but turns up a week later asking for duck feed again. The owner repeats that they don't carry duck feed. A week later the duck turns up and asks for duck feed again. This time the owner tells him to leave and not to come back. A week goes by and sure enough, the duck walks back in and asks for duck feed again. The owner says, "Right, the next time you come in here asking for duck feed I'm going to nail your feet to the floor." A week later the duck turns up again. This time it says, "Got any nails." "No, were all out I'm afraid." "Got any duck feed?"
4) Three drunken Irishmen from elsewhere in the Youth Hostel burst into our dorm at about 4am Saturday with chipmunk voices. They weren't too loud and it was just funny. They have also supplied a lot of the humour in our joke evenings, but I can't repeat their jokes.
5) I caught up with Suman and we did some shopping together, buying a portable CD player for myself, 2260 Baht, about $112 AUD (it plays MP3 files). Saw a Palm 130 for 40 000 Baht (just under $2000 AUD). Palm 130 in Malaysia, RM960 (about $460 AUD). Palm 125 in Malaysia, RM699 (about $330 AUD). Palm 125 in Australia, about $350 AUD. Palm 130 in Dubai, something ridiculous (I think it worked out to about $1000 AUD). Palm in Egypt, there ain't no such thing.
6) I got up, packed and headed off to Sukit's church with all my bags (the big backpack, the new little backpack & the old little backpack), caught a taxi to Siam Square then the train to On Nut, then a taxi to RCA. After driving for what seemed like ages in I don't know what direction until (which always makes trips feel longer than they are) about 70 Baht was showing on the meter it crosses my mind that even with my maps I couldn't find RCA as it's a shopping centre & I don't know which streets it's on, so the cab driver could not know where he's going and just be driving in any old direction (which happened the night I directed the cab driver to the hostel in Thai). Anyway we arrived. Sukit sends his regards.
7) The gospel is that we were trying to relate to God but kept doing stuff that broke that relationship, so Jesus came and sorted us out. Now we can do anything God is doing, which Jesus showed us is making life better for everyone, including making those who are acting destructively cease and desist. We see God not actively forcing people to cease and desist because what's important is dealing with our heart's motives, which cause us to act destructively, and just stopping people won't change their hearts, so instead he is changing people by injecting love into the lives of those who will receive it. We get to play a part in this process, and doing so is what life is all about.
8) My objective in life is to do things that are part of this injection of love into people's lives that will still be making a difference 400 years from now. As Asia has heard less about the injection of love into the world through Jesus per person of any continent on the face of the earth, as it has more people than any continent on the face of the earth, as all the emerging superpowers in the world are in Asia and for various other reasons I believe that a centrally located Asian bible college helping people from all over Asia learn about just how gracious the gospel of grace is, and to effectively help them go out and be part of God's injection of love into the world more effectively than they otherwise might, could be such a work. That is, I believe that if I threw myself into such a project, it might indeed have such a huge impact in the course of world events that the world might still be feeling the ripples from it in 400 years time.
9) After lunch I rang Suman but he had been out the night before at a colleagues going away party and was more inclined towards making contact with his bed than going out on the town, so I went back to Sukit's place & wrote French on a postcard while they had a meeting (it took me several hours to complete 2/3rds of one postcard). After the meeting we had some dinner, I jumped in the shower and Sukit dropped me at the airport bus stop. Made use of the CD player while waiting for the plane.
10) 1.20am and my plane leaves for Dubai. Catching a tail wind it get in at 4am Dubai time, which is 7am in Bangkok and 10am in Australia. My plane to Cairo leaves at 3.20pm so I have a bit of time to kill. Dubai has the fanciest toilets I've ever been in (or even heard of, apart from in space). The water for washing your butt is hot (they have paper as well but I only use that for drying my butt now), the loo flushes automatically, the water in the washbasins is hot and comes on with an automatic sensor like those in hand dryers, so you don't even have to turn a tap! Had to hold my hand behind my razor when washing it while having a shave, though. I'm excited when I arrive and everything is wonderful. Had a New York burger with six kind of cheese and a 1/2 pint of Kilkenny beer in an Irish pub for breakfast (got a photo). Spoke to mum for over an hour on the phone (I hate to think what this months mobile will be, I used it a lot in BKK and Cairo as well). This makes 11 hours total that I've used my phone since I bought it in Nov. last year. I fill out a few postcards. Some guy gives me a survey of how their airport's facilities rate and I give it mostly 10s. Then I'm checking out the duty free and an alarm goes off and nobody does anything about it by the time I've moved away taking about 10 mins. to get out of range. I go to the 'quiet lounge,' get about an hours sleep and am woken by the sounds of Muslim prayer blasting through loudspeakers. Go to the gate lounge and make use of my CD player again. We leave and I get to see the Arabian desert as we fly over it, the coast of the Red Sea & Sinai and am pretty impressed. I always go for a seat with leg room and this time I'm 1 seat away from the window, which is the best I've been so far (and often I've been flying at night). We have another tail wind and arrive in Cairo early.
11) I arrive to duty free shops with refrigerators and washing machines but not even a mobile phone or a CD player (they have tape players). Some guy offers to take my somewhere where they will give me a big discount on tours and I refuse. They check my neck passport holder. There are more police with automatic rifles than in Thailand (in Cairo they're on about every street corner, with squads outside the Egyptian Museum, in Thailand they're soldiers). A guy offers to sit me down and show me some brochures and I accept. For the sake of looking at some brochures (which I assume will be a scam), I get a chance to sit down & gather my thoughts & he helps me get my bags and carry them, and get through customs. He offers me an all inclusive tour of 2 nights accommodation in Cairo, guided tours of the Egyptian Museum, & the Pyramids on the 2nd day, overnight sleeper cabin to Luxor, guided tours in Luxor for 2 days, accommodation in Luxor for 2 nights, train to Aswan, 2 nights in Aswan & a day trip to Abu Simbel on the 2nd day, Felucca back to Luxor (Egyptian sailing vessel) including 2 nights and all meals, overnight train back to Cairo, tour of the old city and the citadel and 1 nights accommodation with all accommodation being A/C’ed private rooms with private bathrooms with breakfast included, all entry fees taken care of, guided tours every day except while on the Felucca for $1035. I think this is a great price as I budgeted 1500 pounds (2.5 Egyptian Pounds [EP]=1 AUD) for a similar trip without including entry fees or guided tours but including all meals and 20 hours internet access while staying in dorm rooms in Youth Hostels. Then I realise he means US$, about 4800 EP. He is budgeting $25/night for the accommodation. He drops the guided tours, entry fees and the Felucca ride and gets down to 1500 EP, or 900 EP if I take economy class on the train and sit up all night (this would make it impossible for me to do much the next day). I decline. A cab driver tells me he will take me to downtown Cairo (near where I want to go) for 30 EP while we are talking. After I walk away another man says come and have a drink and we'll talk tours. As he's offering me his mobile phone & I need to call directory assistance to get Matt & Robyn's ph. no. in Cairo, which has changed from the one our mutual friends gave me before I left which I rang from BKK, & I need a drink anyway, I go along. He offers me a similar price on the cut down tour, budgeting 40 EP/night for similar accommodation. If I had taken him up on the accommodation alone I would have saved EP 40 per night in Cairo. I pay 6.5 EP for a 250ml tetra pack of juice. Not all touts are frauds and not every price being asked for is 10x what is reasonable (as sometimes happens).
12) I ask around and eventually find the bus stop, which is in the car park near a store, buying a 500ml (I think) water for 2 EP. I just missed the bus so it is 20 minutes before the next A/C’ed one. I get on but he can't change my 50 note for the 2 EP bus fare and no one else will either, so I have to get off. The guy at the shop informs me it's a 50 Piastre note (50 cents). Then someone tells me the bus at the stop that is not A/C’ed also goes to downtown. I get on. It's 50 Piastres. When we've been driving for ages and pass an internet cafe and a hotel (which I assume is downtown), then start passing car yards I get off figuring I'm a bit south of downtown which should put me near where the Youth Hostel is (there seemed to be no official bus stops and no one on the bus spoke English). I get in a taxi and show him the address. After driving for ages he won't put his meter on and asks me for 14EP when we get there. I figure from what I've read this will be about 5-10 times the real fare & from experience about 30% extra (i.e. the guidebooks have stories about people getting ripped off a lot more badly than I've been) Also I thought I remembered that 10 EP was a reasonable fare from the airport (but see [15]). After arguing, during which he says Giza is a different city (he did ask if I meant Cairo when I said near the University), I agree only to find out he said 40 EP. This all gets me a bit down.
13) I get to the Youth Hostel and give him my membership card. He says to have a look at the room. There are only dorms. The room is the most like a prison cell (except with several beds) of any room that wasn't actually a cell I've ever seen, and it's empty (I could do with some friendly company). By this time I'm too tired and hassled to worry about it so I say OK. He asks me for my card and I say I gave it to him. He just says I didn't do any such thing. I search my pockets, wallet & have a quick look through my bags as he asks (I've never had my card in my bags) and I leave, being quite upset at the reception I've received at the one accommodation place I thought I'd be all right (in BKK the hostel has signs saying 'no longer lost and lonely traveller,' they have free guides and are extremely friendly). Again, see [15]. I go down the road and check into the Nile Garden hotel at 89 EP per night.
14) I've been awake for 44 hours with a couple of broken hours of sleep, I started this day off thinking I was completely lost with a taxi driver just driving around with no idea where I was, I then had my plans changed (not that spending time at Sukit's house was worse than spending time with Suman, it's just that it was a change to what I thought I would be doing which used to really stress me out), spent over 12 hours hanging around airports & got blasted by alarms & loud prayers (& that last in the 'quiet lounge'), I've been hassled by touts, I've gone from one country with a language I don't speak and a script I can't read to another, passing through another country in between, I've been put on the wrong bus and been ripped off by a cab driver, then at the end of it all, at the one place I thought all would be well, I've had someone take my hostels ID card and tell me to my face it never happened. I lay down on my bed and had a good cry, for about the 2nd or 3rd time in my life (the first time I had a good cry as an adult was when my dad died, and I was so relieved that I could finally cry). Considered ringing mum again but it was 5am there.
15) The Lonely Planet guide says from the airport to downtown should be 25-30 EP. Giza is on the opposite side of downtown to the airport, and almost as far away. The taxi driver did overcharge, but not by anything like as much as I thought, and I simply stayed on the bus too long (KL airport is 70km out of town, BKK is about 50km I think, Cairo's is 12km). I found my Youth Hostels membership card stuck to my address book by sweat. I did give it to him, but he gave it straight back & I put it in my pocket (and didn't find it searching my pockets because it was stuck to my address book). Sunday went marvellously, and Dubai does have a great airport, but no one is at their best after 44 hours. The Nile Garden is a great hotel with a manager and assistant who speak really good English and write destinations in Arabic for me when I want to go somewhere, and the first night when I wanted to buy some water they actually sent someone with me to the shop (1 EP for the small, about 500ml, water). 89 EP per night is about as cheap as you can get an A/C’ed room for in Cairo according to Lonely Planet, which suggests leaving the Youth Hostels in Cairo & Luxor alone. The taxi driver and the 2nd guy who came up to me at the airport were actually offering good prices (actually I've still got that guy's card), and at the end of it I knew exactly how I wanted to organise my time in Egypt (which I'd had a fair idea of from studying the Lonely Planet guide anyway, this just help put the final finishes on it).
16) A huge amount of the stress in my life comes from my reaction to what is occurring, even more so than what actually is going on. I thought I had come to a point where I didn't freak out when things changed on me, and to a large extent I have, but it still takes its toll to some degree. AS we passed over Saudi Arabia and I looked out at the sand dunes and rocky hills I felt like I was leaving behind my old self, with my propensity to assume the worst will happen, that people will act against my interests instead of on my behalf, and to be stressed when things change, even when it really turns out well. Perhaps my first night in Cairo was just a little goodbye party, with that kind of thinking trying to keep it's grip on me. My propensity to forget things and assume something negative is a bit of a worry, though. In KL I had put my plane ticket in a bag I left at my aunt Anu's place while travelling south, but I changed my mind and stuck it in my CD bag. On the night before I left I am greatly ashamed of the thoughts that were going through my head (not about anyone related to me). I didn't find it when I checked my CD case because I had a whole heap of business cards that I had looked at frequently while travelling in the case and just gave a cursory glance, and, of course, it was buried amongst them but I had not seen it except once & I remember praying that I'd remember where it was because I've done this sort of thing before. Once I remember finding a pair of my shorts amongst a friend's stuff and I forgot that I had given them to him. Thankfully short term memory loss & confusion are symptoms of CFS which I'm getting better from, but if I ever get Alzheimer’s & I continue with these thought patterns, I'll be a real pain. Time to change the way I think.
17) I've had to learn to assume everyone around me is thinking positively about me at all times, even if I think things are contrary to this. What I've found is that on those occasions when someone actually was being negative, it was because they had a hard day at work, got caught in traffic on the way home and got yelled at by some hoon or something. My completely ignoring it is a blessing to both of us. In theory if someone really was trying to be negative towards me I could say that my not taking it on in any way serves them right and is the best possible reaction, although I've never had this happen. It is increasingly obvious to me that I have to take a similar view of situations and begin to think that people are, in fact, acting in my best interests even when I think they may not be. In 99.9% of cases I'll be at least partially right, and in the other cases, provided I'm taking all reasonable means not to be taken advantage of, I'll be less stressed by the whole event if I assume the best even though it's not true. It seems to me that although I am not completely in touch with reality and assuming the best and that people are acting in my best interests at all times is actually a more effective, productive, stress relieving way of life than to be right about negative assumptions.
19) On the night before Rama's wallet was found (17th August), Rama rang from a public phone to tell mum how much he loved her. Both mum and Rosalyn, her friend who happened to be there, commented on how his voice was full of love. There was no phone in his room. Rama used to throw handstands in sometimes foolish places when he was happy, and mum believes (and it makes the most sense) that he threw a handstand on the edge of the cliff and fell. So at the time he wasn't deliberately trying to kill himself, although in the next moment he might have and he certainly wasn't trying to keep a firm grip on life.
Love & blessings,
Joe Krishna Mithiran
posted by Joe at
Tuesday, July 30, 2002
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