el seya7a wel seya3a
7ekaya aghrab mel khayal, at least for me! read this guys and tell me, ana elli magnoon walla el kalam da fe3lan ghareeb...
last weekend i went out with friends and there we met a couple of their friends that i met for the 1st time, they are married german couple around 30, very nice couple actually.
we had dinner and a few drinks and we talked and laughed a lot, then suddenly the wife tells me:
u know, u r really a nice guy, actually although...
i asked: although what?
she: sorry to say this, although u r egyptian!!
i was shocked of course and asked: why? whats wrong with egyptians
she: well, we were in egypt few years ago and we didnt have the best experience
i thought, probably the usual things like getting annoyed by sha77ateen, or getting fooled by nassabeen khan el khaleely or mo3aksat el sha3b el wesekh who thinks any european woman is a whore, but what she told me was really far beyond my imagination!!!!
she: well u know, tourists have to pay "baksheesh" for the tour guide
i said b montaha el seqa: well maybe its common to do this but its surely not a must
they laughed: well its written in every tourist guide about egypt but we thought its not correct to do it so we didnt pay
me: wow, is it really written in tourist guides?
she: yeah yeah and the first thing u have to do when u arrive at the hotel is that the tour guide introduces himself and tells the amount of money u have to pay and he starts collecting the money.
me (tab3an weshy ebtada yetlawwen b alwan el teef): and what happened when u didnt pay?
she: that was actually the problem, he started insulting us, talkin to us very badly and he was even threatening us all the time
me: what?????? threatening????
she: yes, it really got very dangerous and i was never so afraid in my whole life
ana tab3an mesh ba2eet f noss hdoomy, ana ba2eet men gehr hdoom khales, of course i was so sad that i couldnt ask about more details and they felt this so they changed the subject
men sa3etha wana 3ammal afakkar ma32ool el kalam da?? is this the image we give tourists about our country????? ya3ni mesh bass she7ata w mo3aksa w nasb la2 kaman ferda w baltaga w tahdeed, w men meen??? mel tour guide, elli howa mafrood yeb2a 3aref en el nas di lamma terga3 t2ool l as7abhom: di balad weskha ew3o troo7ooha, hayo33od f bethom!!!!!!! w ba3d keda bnes2al leh el seya7a 3andena 7alha wa2ef, yakhy 2a.... walla balash di 3ala ra2y fareed shaw2y
last weekend i went out with friends and there we met a couple of their friends that i met for the 1st time, they are married german couple around 30, very nice couple actually.
we had dinner and a few drinks and we talked and laughed a lot, then suddenly the wife tells me:
u know, u r really a nice guy, actually although...
i asked: although what?
she: sorry to say this, although u r egyptian!!
i was shocked of course and asked: why? whats wrong with egyptians
she: well, we were in egypt few years ago and we didnt have the best experience
i thought, probably the usual things like getting annoyed by sha77ateen, or getting fooled by nassabeen khan el khaleely or mo3aksat el sha3b el wesekh who thinks any european woman is a whore, but what she told me was really far beyond my imagination!!!!
she: well u know, tourists have to pay "baksheesh" for the tour guide
i said b montaha el seqa: well maybe its common to do this but its surely not a must
they laughed: well its written in every tourist guide about egypt but we thought its not correct to do it so we didnt pay
me: wow, is it really written in tourist guides?
she: yeah yeah and the first thing u have to do when u arrive at the hotel is that the tour guide introduces himself and tells the amount of money u have to pay and he starts collecting the money.
me (tab3an weshy ebtada yetlawwen b alwan el teef): and what happened when u didnt pay?
she: that was actually the problem, he started insulting us, talkin to us very badly and he was even threatening us all the time
me: what?????? threatening????
she: yes, it really got very dangerous and i was never so afraid in my whole life
ana tab3an mesh ba2eet f noss hdoomy, ana ba2eet men gehr hdoom khales, of course i was so sad that i couldnt ask about more details and they felt this so they changed the subject
men sa3etha wana 3ammal afakkar ma32ool el kalam da?? is this the image we give tourists about our country????? ya3ni mesh bass she7ata w mo3aksa w nasb la2 kaman ferda w baltaga w tahdeed, w men meen??? mel tour guide, elli howa mafrood yeb2a 3aref en el nas di lamma terga3 t2ool l as7abhom: di balad weskha ew3o troo7ooha, hayo33od f bethom!!!!!!! w ba3d keda bnes2al leh el seya7a 3andena 7alha wa2ef, yakhy 2a.... walla balash di 3ala ra2y fareed shaw2y
posted by mizo at 11:17 AM
4 Comments:
Hello Mizo,
I just stumbled upon your blog and let me tell that I completely identify with the poor tourist. Last May, my sister, a friend and I decided to go to Luxor and Aswan for a four day break. Allow me relate SOME of the tips-related incidents we had that shocked me to death:
1. We arrive at the hotel and meet our tour guide who has all the nerve to tell me how much tips to give him, when he doesnt even have a touring plan! Then, when I get pissed off, he tells me he's been drinking all night and cant do what we've planned. Finally, we both calm down and we end up in the bus. Then, he stands up and I figured he was acutally going to start 'touring' but the first thing he mentions is the bus driver's tip!!!Finally, we do the tour and apparently because we didnt tip him 'before' the tour, he insulted my friend and said so much crap to us. Thats when I trashed him and called the agency to get rid of him.
2) We get another tour guide whom we tip from the start (we're learning here) and who then decides its 'too hot' to take us anywhere! He was only 'nice' after I called his manager and threatened to go back to Dubai and sue them.
3) We ride a horse cart with another tour guide to see the Temple of Hatshepsuit. After we're done, he tells us we need to pay him 2O L.E. in tips for the cart driver (the message is obviously 1) Please tip me as well 2) Please ensure its more than 20 L.E.). For goodness sake, the cart ride itself would not have cost us more than L.E. 5! Secondly, in no country in the word have I ever been told HOW MUCH to tip - I threw him the tips and walked off.
4) I get very sick on the boat and I faint. The boat staff is frantic because we were at sea with no doctor on board. Finally, we arrive at the port and a pissed off doctor walks in and says: 'I thought you were a foreigner!' I am obviously dead tired, cant talk, so He starts arguing with the boat manager on why he didnt tell him I was egyptian. His logic was he simply wouldnt have made it because as an egyptian I wouldnt have paid him any tips! It didn't matter that I was unconscious for the past 12 hours. It didn't matter that I desperatly needed any form of medication. It didn't matter that he was probably the only doctor I would see throughout the trip. The only thing that mattered were his freaking tips. At that point, I asked him to FIRST CHECK ME OUT. ITS ONLY HUMANE TO DO THIS TO SOMEBODY WHO LOOKS HALF DEAD. When he was done, he asked for 200 L.E. -I gave him 100 and told him to bug off. I was really ready to bite his head off if I wasn't too sick.
I have so much to say and so much frustration to express - but Mizo, I guess you see my point. Please do not be surprised. This, unfortunately, is Egypt. I went there so excited to see the culture and history I missed out on. All I saw were beautiful architectural remains, based on a massively impressive history, in the backdrop of a people, a majority of which, could not care less.
hi Amy,
thanks for ur comment!
its really unbelievable, not that this is happening, khalas i am not surprised anymore about anything i hear about egypt, whats unbelievable is that some tourists still come to egypt!!!!!
back to ur comment, ana mafeesh 7aga betfawwar dammi zayy mawdoo3 calling a doctor or an ambulance and they ask: howa masry walla agnaby!!!!!!!! begad 7aga tgeeb el daght, in our own country e7na mwatneen daraga tanya!!!! and still ppl wonder why we are living abroad and dont want to come back "home"
thank you for your offer
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