Shopping
Shopping in Egypt must be
experienced by visitors, regardless of whether or not any money is spent.
Shopping opportunities range from fixed-price stores to bargaining bazaars.
A wide range of goods can be found throughout Egypt including: copper and
brassware, rugs and carpets, scarves, shawls, spices and jewellery. Egyptian
bazaars offer an excitement that is hard to recreate anywhere else in the
world. You will find the local shop owners incredibly friendly and an enormous
range of products on offer.
The Khan-al-Khalili Bazaar
is
a favourite amongst tourists and offers the best in brass and copperware.
Aswan market is the best place to buy gold jewellery and spices. Silver
jewellery is prominent in Luxor while shawls and scarves an be found in
Dendarah.
Shopping cannot be rushed
in Egypt or else you may find that you pay far too high a price for your
goods. It is recommended that shopping be looked at as another sight to
see and another way to spend an entire day. A lot of energy is required
to browse the bazaars, as hagglers and vendors can be quite persistent.
Fixed price stores often offer the best deals when it comes to quality,
although you miss out on the bazaar atmosphere and experience.
Tea is offered by most shop
and stall owners and it is best to only accept it if you are seriously
interested in buying one of their products or you may find yourself stuck
listening to very long and animated family stories for a very long time.
Shopping Hours are generally
from 9:00 to 15:00 and 17:00 to 22:00 every day of the week, though some
shops do close on Sundays. During Ramadan shopping hours are severely restricted.
Festival
January
Christmas
The Coptic Christmas is
held on the 7th of January. Lots of colour, dancing and celebrations can
be seen throughout the Coptic Quarter of Cairo during December and January
while preparing for the celebration.
February
The Abu Simbel Festival
This festival celebrates
one of the most breathtaking sights in the world, the temple of Abu Simbel.
The temple is a mixture of human effort and an unexplainable natural phenomenon.
It is angled so that the inner chamber lights up for his rise to the throne
which took place at the end of February.
April
Shem al Nessim
This roughly translates
as the first day of spring with a direct translation of ‘sniffing the breeze’.
It is celebrated the first Monday after Coptic Easter. Picnics and outdoor
activities are the common ways of spending this national holiday.
May
South Sinai Camel Festival
This celebrates Egypt’s
national animal and offers people the chance to watch (and partake) in
some camel racing. Visitors tend to change their minds regarding the speed
of camels during this festival. The races which take place in the popular
tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh are often the fastest and bumpiest.
June
Leylet en-Nuktah
This literally means ‘that
of the drop’ due to the fact that something is supposed to literally ‘drop’
into the Nile causing the water level to rise significantly. In ancient
times, girls were often drowned in the river to appease the gods thus causing
the river to rise. Obviously today, this does not happen but the legend
has been adapted.
Evacuation Day
This celebrated day marks
the announcement of the Republic in 1953 and the removal of foreign troops
in 1956.
July
Revolution Day
This celebrates the anniversary
of the fall of the Egyptian Royal government as well as the rise of the
Republic in 1952.
August
Art Festival
This festival is said to
be the most impressive art festival in the Arab world. The week-long party
in Ismailia is a celebration of the colourful folk-art from Asia, Africa
and Europe.
October
Armed Forces Day
In 1973, the Egyptian forces
crossed the Suez Canal during the war with Israel. In 1981, Sadat was assassinated
while watching the Armed Forces Day parade. This national holiday both
celebrates and commemorates.
Abu Simbel Festival
The famous Abu Simbel temple
lights up every October to celebrate Ramses II birthday.
National Public Holidays
Coptic Christmas Day:7 January
Grand Feast:21 January
Islamic New Year: 10 February
Sinai Liberation Day:25
April
Labour Day:1 May
Sham el-Nassim (Coptic Easter):2
May
Liberation day:18 June
Revolution Day:23 July
Wafa’a el Nil (Flooding
of the Nile):15 August
Coptic New Year:11 September
Armed Forces Day:6 October
Suez Victory Day:24 October
Bairam Feast (End of Ramadan):3
November
Victory Day:23 December
The second largest city and the main port of Egypt, Alexandria was
built by the Greek architect Dinocrates (332-331 BC), by the orders of
Alexander the Great. The city, immortalizing Alexander's name, quickly
flourished into a prominent cultural, intellectual, political, and economic
metropolis, the remains of which are still evident to this day.
International Transport
Air
Egypt has 87 airports, most
of which are used for military purposes. The main commercial airport is
Cairo International Airport (CAI). The primary airlines servicing Cairo
International are British Airways, Gulf Air, Singapore Airlines and EgyptAir.
Cairo International Airport
is the primary hub for EgyptAir. It is the second busiest airport in Africa,
following Johannesburg International Airport. Located approximately 13
miles from downtown Cairo, CAI has two main terminals and a variety of
facilities. A third terminal is soon to open.
Facilities in the airport
include a bank, bureaux de change, ATMs, post offices, food and beverage
facilities and numerous shopping outlets. A pharmacy can be found in both
terminals’ departure areas. Left luggage, baggage trolleys and porters
are also available in both terminals.
Transport into the city is
regular and reliable, with options of buses, taxis or the airport shuttle
service. Some hotels provide their own limousine upon arrival. Several
reputable car rental companies are represented at the airport.
Borg El Arab (HBE) is the
main international airport for Alexandria, 37 miles southwest of the city
centre. Facilities at the airport include a duty free shop, exchange services,
a bank, post office, VIP lounge and a restaurant.
Luxor Airport is located
3 miles outside of Luxor and has a regular bus and taxi services available
for transfers to and from the city. Facilities at Luxor Airport include
car hire, exchange services, food and beverage facilities and a bank.
Rail
None of Egypt’s north western
neighbours are connected via international rail links. The nearest railway
station is located in Sudan and connects via a ferry crossing Lake Nasser.
Bus
Daily coaches leave from
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to Cairo via El Arish and Rafiah. They are a cheaper
alternative to air travel, but are a lot longer and less comfortable. They
can get very hot and crowded.
Car
The main highway connecting
Libya and Egypt is a popular route to get from one end of the country to
another. The Route 1 that links Egypt to Israel is also very popular and
can get very congested at times. Driving in Egypt can be very dangerous
as roads are not always up to international standards and local drivers
to not seem to be aware of other cars. Egypt has one of the highest numbers
of accidents per mile of road than anywhere else in the world.
Sea
Egypt’s main coastal ports
are located in Alexandria, Port Said, Suez and Nuweiba. A scheduled car
ferry runs between Suez and Jeddah. A bi-weekly service sails between Sudan
and Suez and a twice daily service sails between South Sinai and Jordan.
Cruise ships often stop over in Egypt as part of their African package.
Currency
The currency in Egypt is
the Egyptian pound (EGP). The Egyptian Pound is divided into 100 piastres.
Coins, which are not used often, are available in: 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and
25 piastres, while banknotes come in 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 pounds.
Egyptian Math
The ancient Egyptians were
possibly the first civilisation to practice the scientific arts. Indeed,
the word chemistry is derived from the word Alchemy which is the ancient
name for Egypt.
Where the Egyptians really
excelled was in medicine and applied mathematics. But although there is
a large body of papyrus literature describing their achievements in medicine,
there is no records of how they reached their mathematical conclusions.
Of course they must have had an advanced understanding of the subject because
their exploits in engineering, astronomy and administration would not have
been possible without it.
The Egyptians had a decimal
system using seven different symbols.
1 is shown by a single stroke.
10 is shown by a drawing
of a hobble for cattle.
100 is represented by a
coil of rope.
1,000 is a drawing of a
lotus plant.
10,000 is represented by
a finger.
100,000 by a tadpole or
frog
1,000,000 is the figure
of a god with arms raised above his head.
(Click the image, above,
to download Gifs or if your browser does not support image maps use the
table left)
The conventions for reading
and writing numbers is quite simple; the higher number is always written
in front of the lower number and where there is more than one row of numbers
the reader should start at the top.
Mathematics Problems
This section is a brief
test to see if you could survive in the world of Egyptian numerals and
mathematics.
Historical Coins
Egypt, Ptolemaic Kings of.
323-285 BC. Æ 30mm (16.16 gm). laureate head of Zeus right / Eagle
standing left on thunderbolt; ?? before. Svoronos -; SNG Copenhagen
Ankh and lotus necklace
silver
The Egyptian Ankh and lotus
necklace includes the lotus flower. The Lotus flower is used to symbolize
in ancient Egypt the eternity of the soul, and the wheel of life and death.
At night the lotus flower sinks underwater and at dawn it rises.
The second symbol of the
necklace is the Egyptian Ankh, known as the key of life. The Ankh repeats
itself in the center of the necklace, in the form of the sun with hands
holding the keys of life. This motive is taken from ancient wall paintings
which describes the sun beams holding keys of life and serves them to the
breathing entries of images. This is parallel to the Prana (life force)
which we receive in every breath we take.
The sun wheel at the necklace
appears in the form of the seed of life which is the geometric base of
the whole creation.
Bulgakov ring gold
This Bulgakov ring is made
of gold and inlaid with diamonds. It was designed in the inspiration of
Bulgakov's book "Master and Margarita". The great thing about this book
is the two level story that faces the man to the truth of him. The repeated
motive in the novel is that cowardliness is the worst of human measures
and that fear is the cause of all suffering.
The ring has a triangle
with three diamonds that represent the three forces in the creation. The
triangle also represents the Delta which is the first letter in the devil
name. The triangle appears on the cigarette box that the devil uses on
the start of the book.
The M Represent the master.
The ring should remind the wearer that he is the creator of his own reality.
The ring is engraved with Hebrew "Each will live in his belief". Around
the ring engraved in Hebrew a sentence cited in the book from Faust: "who
are you, then? I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally
works good"
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Egypt
