Day 11 Train, Khan Al-Khalili Market

 

Day 11 Train, Khan Kalili Market

No surprise the train was late getting in so we arrived at 11:00 AM instead of 9:00 AM.  I think I have now change my recommendation to plane flight and skip the train altogether.  As we pulled into the station the porter showed up in our cabin stating that we had extra rooming during the train ride because he put another passenger in another cabin and we should now tip the passenger who was displaced.  I ignored him and continued packing our bags and getting ready to depart the train.  Well at least he told us when to get off the train and I did end up tip him for helping us with the luggage.  As we exited the train our Cairo based guide (Mohammad) was standing on the platform with a big smile and a welcome back to Cairo.  We exited the training station in record time to find our Cairo based driver also welcoming us back to Cairo.  As we have done many time before we jumped into the crazy Cairo traffic where no rule apply and stop light are just pretty Christmas light adding to the Cairo skyline.  

We check into the Hotel and everyone went down for a much need nap and then it was off to Khan Al-Khalili Market.  

 As I have mentioned before this market was founded back in the 14^th century and is frequented by tourist and locals alike.   Being that we are at the end of our trip it was time to pick up those last minute souvenirs. 

 I found this really cool turquoise and silver scarab.  In Hollywood movie The Mummy the scarab is something that crawls up your body and penetrates your skin. Needless to say you don’t fair very well when this happens.   The Egyptians see the scarab as a good luck symbol and often carry one in their pocket.  For me I just thought it was a cool and picked it up to remind me of Egypt.  

The market sells almost anything you can think of and all with the Egyptian flare.  Everything starts at double the price that they will take, so you start off at 1/2 of the total price quoted. 

Another set of Egyptian men who offered me a number of camel for Titaina's hand in marrage.  This was the running joke in all the markets as she received proposals for marrage over and over again. All in good fun we made jokes about it with everyone. 

An Egyptian shop keeper have some fun with us.  Grace and Ti are getting ready for next Halloween so he was modeling some Egyption wear for them.