A Week-In-The-Life of Stephanie Lee: Tales of the Unexpected in Egypt

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Travel doesn’t always go as planned. That’s what Stephanie Lee discovered in Egypt. Stephanie Lee was born in Malaysia, and has lived in three different countries. She spent her childhood in Kuala Lumpur, and later moved to San Francisco during her teenage years. She then went on to study architecture at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

After completing her degree, she worked in several architectural firms designing residential buildings. After six years of full-time work, Stephanie caught the travel bug and left everything behind to embark on a solo open-ended journey taking her all around the world. To date she has been to approximately 30 countries, most of which were by herself. While travelling she documented her experiences extensively and started a nomadic career as a travel writer.
(See also: 7 Surefire Ways to Make Money While Traveling)

Please enjoy this week-in-the-life of Stephanie as she enjoys solo travel in Egypt.

This post was originally published in 2010. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

Day 1: Arriving in Egypt

I arrived in Egypt at Cairo Airport full of anticipation and excitement. Those feelings quickly vanished when a madhouse-like scene immediately greeted me. People were yelling and fighting, mainly because for some strange reason that day, we were all part of what seemed like the worldā€™s longest customs queue.  However, still filled with a travelerā€™s optimism, I joined the line at a civilized 2:45am.

After 30 minutes of waiting in the un-budging line, my enthusiasm faltered.  I noticed a few foreigners sneaking past the line at the side, and caught a glimpse of them flashing their Australian passport.  I managed to convince them to give me the same express treatment, and off I went to look for the driver that my couchsurfing host had sent for me.

I searched over and hour for the driver but couldnā€™t find him. I called my couchsurfing host but couldnā€™t reach him. In the end, after fighting off all the taxi touts, l hitched a ride with an American who was coincidentally picking his friends up from the airport and was going to the same suburb I intended to go.

Day 2

My couchsurfing host David was still unreachable. I crashed at the Americanā€™s flat for a couple of hours and managed to get in touch with another couchsurfer who lived in the same area. Sarah, an English expat, kindly offered me a room for a couple of nights until I figured out what happened to David.  Sarah lived in a gorgeous 3-bedroom flat on a street which was oddly filled with AK-47 carrying guards in front of almost every building.  Iā€™m not sure if I felt safe or threatened.

Note to self: They do not like having their pictures taken.

After some frantic emails, I located David.  He had only moved to Cairo recently himself and gave me the wrong address and phone number by mistake. All was sorted out and David, Sarah and I all met up for a night out in Maadi. I later moved my stuff to Davidā€™s place and was presented my own room for the night.

Egyptian architecture

Day 3

David had a busy teaching job which required him to wake up very early and go to bed equally early, so he didnā€™t have much time to hang out with me. As it turned out, Sarah and I got along really well, and we spent a lot of time together. Today we met up and explored downtown Cairo, Egypt.  I noticed the Nile River was very dirty, much like the rest of the city. It was hard to walk down the road without passing a mountain of rubbish. Locals seemed nonchalant to the stench.

The whole time we were continually pestered by kids wanting to take pictures with Sarah as well as get her autograph. Sarah later explained to me that this happens to all the expats in Cairo, especially the ones with blonde hair. On top of being a curiosity, we also got taxis honking at us left, right, and center.  It got slightly annoying after a while.

Day 4

Meeting Sarah was the best thing that had happened to me in Cairo. When I crashed at her flat for two nights, not only did I get to sleep on a queen-sized bed with gorgeous brand new silk sheets, I also got my washing done by her personal maid. I learned from the maid that she makes US$5 an hour, which was considered a high wage in Cairo.

On top of her generosity, Sarah has kindly loaned me her driver Tarek for the day while she was at work. Am I in a dream? I was feeling incredibly surreal and lucky.

Tarek patiently spent the day bringing me around all the sights of Cairo and more. First stop: The Egyptian Museum. It was amazing, and after two hours at the museum, I was mummied out. The next destination was the el-Khalili markets to shop and sample some local Egyptian food. Tarekā€™s command of English was excellent and in the car he told me he used to be an accountant.

Day 5

I decided to be brave today and take the long train-ride to Alexandria to visit the Alexandria Library by myself. It was a must-see for an architecture nerd like me.  I had a comfortable ride in the women-only carriage. Upon arrival at the train station I was immediately approached by a few men who offered to be my ā€˜personal driverā€™ for the day. When I refused, nobody seemed to be interested to help me find the Library. In the end, I bit the bullet and took a taxi to my destination. Non-Egyptians have to pay to enter the building, but it was a small fee, and I spent a good amount of time taking lots of photos of this architectural wonder.

The Library is located at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, and its surroundings are magnificent. I diced with danger crossing 8-lane traffic to cross over to the other side to gaze at the sparkling water. Later on I calmed my nerves sipping fancy hot chocolate at the Libraryā€™s cafĆ©.

Day 6

Finally, the day had arrived to see the pyramids of Egypt! Sarah had a day off to spend the day with Katie, her mate from UK, so trusty Tarek zoomed us three girls there first thing in the morning. On the way I observed camel upon camel taking tourists up instead of cars. I learned they pay an exorbitant price for this, and I had already had my fill of camel-riding in a desert safari in Dubai. We also had to pay to take photos of the camel, so I sneaked a few free shots when no one noticed.

Stephanie in front of the pyramids of Egypt

The Grand Pyramid was closed, so we had no choice but to visit the Second Pyramid.  After buying tickets, we were almost fooled into paying extra to ā€˜enterā€™ the vicinity of the Second Pyramid. Luckily Tarek was around to chase the touts away. We ooh-ed and aah-ed at the mighty Sphinx, which was a lot smaller than I imagined, and hardly spent more than 10 minutes in the Second Pyramid when I realized that we had to crawl down a tiny hole no bigger than 2m in diameter to the heart of the pyramid. For some reason I always thought it was one great space within. Myth busted, and I got out of there pronto due to being claustrophobic. They were enjoyed more externally.

The Sphinx in Egypt

After the pyramids we had a scrumptious Egyptian lunch, and later that night we hung out at the one and only Rugby Club in Maadi, watching elderly expats conjugate on the dance floor gyrating to 80s music. Also might have drunk too much beer.

Day 7

I was going to spend two more days in Egypt but decided to cut my trip short and leave the next day. The night before had not been too agreeable and I was feeling ill. I spent the rest of the day sleeping and hanging around at Davidā€™s place in Maadi. My flight was at the ungodly hour of 2am. Tarek had offered to drive me to the airport at 11pm. As 11pm approached I rang him when he didnā€™t turn up. He had thought it was the next day, but hastily sent his son to drive me to the airport instead. What a cool guy.  I waited three hours at the airport to fly to Abu Dhabi and get a connecting flight to Paris.  Egyptian odyssey over, hello Europe!

Since getting into travel writing, Stephanie has had articles published online in Brave New Traveler and Indie Travel Podcast. When not traveling or writing, she works as a freelance designer and currently lives in Sydney.

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5 thoughts on “A Week-In-The-Life of Stephanie Lee: Tales of the Unexpected in Egypt”

  1. Great article Stephanie. I love the experiences couchsurfing have given me. I always go into it expecting something pretty cool and it never fails, I always meet someone amazing and have the best time.

    Enjoy your travels!

    Reply
  2. Great article, nice to know you Stephanie! (Thanks to Nora for this series!)
    I haven’t done CS yet, but read many good experience about it. Maybe I should do that myself at some point.

    Reply

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