Cairo (and Bahrain)

On Feb. 21, we flew from Mumbai to Cairo, connecting in Bahrain. As experienced world travelers, we have to say that Bahrain is just lovely. At least the airport is. Highlights there included buying a Lonely Planet Egypt book for $36 (about $9 more than face value), and taking a photo in front of Caribou Coffee for John/Dad. We didn't get capuccino there because we don't like burnt coffee. Oops, did we say that out loud? Oh yeah, we also got a photo in front of the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in the Mumbai airport because Kelly said that in LA, it's "the place to be seen." Well, we were there.

In Cairo, we:

* Found a hotel with hot water showers, although it also came with a serious mosquito infestation, which got worse every day.

* Discovered the best restaurant ever by accident on our first night in town. We had a really early flight coming in, so we took a several-hour nap. When we got up, we had to go out to get water, and didn't really feel like eating, but decided we should. Walked in to a restaurant that a guy outside described as "the most famous restaurant in Cairo." It was sort of a fast-food place, but it was good! And cheap, which most things in the city were not. The falafel sandwiches were 1.5 Egyptian pounds, a little more than 25 cents. We ate there for every meal the four days we were in town, except for one night of pizza. And we didn't just eat falafel; we branched out after the first three days and had koshari, which is a pile of pasta, rice, lentils, tomato sauce, garbanzo beans, crispy onions. Jacob also had foul (beans) with eggs, basically an Egyptian breakfast burrito.

* Explored the Egyptian Museum, which includes King Tut's loot.

* Visited the Pyramids! They're pretty impressive in real life. The touts there are pretty good, too. They kept basically pushing Kelly onto a camel and then demanding money for it. We got off fairly cheaply, although Jacob had to scream at one guy to get the change he'd been promised.

* Walked around the City of the Dead, basically a huge cemetery were a ton of people live; outside the Citadel, which is an impressive fortress but too expensive to enter; and through some narrow back streets on the way home. They were very nice, and we stopped to buy some fresh pitas--five for about five cents.

* Woke up even earlier than we did in Mumbai to catch a 3:45 a.m. flight to Athens.

* Did our last haggling of the trip, hopefully. I (Jacob) cannot stand bargaining for things. Just post the price and I'll decide whether I want to pay it or not.