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Phil’s Travels – Cairo, Egypt (03.25)

Phil’s Travels – Cairo, Egypt (03.25)

The weather was sunny and fine, so my escort and I walked to Paddington, past the former seafood barge from which I collected some 80+ empty bottles a few weeks ago. In the station, we bought and booked our seats for Dawlish (next blog) and separated at the Express gates. My wonderful wife was home long before I left the station. The first Express was cancelled (a blockage on the track) and so had to catch the second some 25 minutes later. This one left on time but took over 30 minutes to reach Heathrow. Not as advertised – ’15 minutes every 15 minutes’. To add insult to injury, at Heathrow Central I walked past a massive Express advert promising a ‘Swooooooosh’ experience. I had very little swooshing and a lot of sloooooow and stationary as the not so express Express stopped and stuttered all the way to the airport.

Fortunately, I had given myself plenty of time to get to Heathrow, having flown African airlines and witnessed their chaotic pre-flight procedures before and their disallowance to check-in online. As it was, at T2 I sped through check-in and security. I barely stood still a moment. Heathrow was very quiet. Lunch was a very decent pub All English. Heston’s place was closed and boarded up. Will it be a new brand? Something that acknowledges that it is perhaps not so perfect after all?

The speedy check-in lady had told me our flight (scheduled for 14.00) was delayed an hour, so I took things slow over lunch and had a boring wander around the dullest terminal in airport history. Even the new Louis Vuitton Café did little to jazz it up in my mind (and not a place I would frequent day or night) and the Vinery’s best efforts would only work on me for an evening flight (wine o’clock).

We boarded at 15.20 (a chaotic process that called for Business passengers first but boarded everyone simultaneously anyway) and at 16.00, ensconced in our seats, were told we were delayed another 40 minutes due to busy skies around Heathrow (clearly not using T2 though). In the end we took off after a three-hour delay and landed in Cairo around 23.30.

For this trip I had to interrupt a terrific weekend of sport with a mixed bag of results for your blogger. Les Bleus won (oui), Lando won (big yeah), Wigan lost (boo) and Liverpool evidently failed to show up in the cup final (big boo). Because of our delay, I had the bonus of watching the first 10 minutes or so of the Liverpool game on my phone before take-off. Liverpool looked nervous and a tired bunch of Red Men, whilst the Toons showed signs of real desire and were as busy as magpies pinching sparkly things.

Flight entertainment was poor. Food very good. At Cairo, I was met by Kerollos, The Angel from Hilton. With his guidance, I bought a visa, had my passport controlled and checked again, zipped through customs, boarded the shuttle bus and was in my hotel room in less than 25 minutes from disembarkation. It was so much quicker than last November that I never had a chance to check on the Liv v New score until I turned on the BBC World News in my room.

In the morning, I was awoken by the haunting screeches of the sentinel peacocks that patrol the hotel grounds. I must have counted a good 10 birds wandering around, including this beauty outside the breakfast room.

It was over breakfast that I realised why the airport and the hotel had been and were so quiet. It was Sunday night / Monday morning during Ramadan. In daylight the hotel was virtually empty and we had the place to ourselves (with over 550 keys and some 250 next door, this was no mean feat in such a hotel complex).

Our first day was day full of meetings into late evening, punctuated by two kamikaze taxi rides to and from the bank’s offices through the torrent of whitewater of vehicles around Heliopolis that was Cairo traffic (even our Moroccan brother was nervous). The second day involved some desk work followed by more meetings, all in the quiet of our quiet hotel – no road risk.

Food in our hotel was more miss than hit. The All-day Dining was limited in scope, the French Bistro very poor and the Lebanese good (including the most delicious flat bread ever). After dinner on our final evening, we popped into our hotel’s adjacent more luxurious brother. The siblings were linked via a restaurant-lined piazza. The luxury brother had an impressive, expansive lobby reaching up to the sky and was peppered with fake palm trees, and yet had very little to offer on the food front – a lounge bar, a bar and an All-day Diner. Low level imagination, especially for luxury.

Based on November’s return to London from Cairo, I caught the 02.00 shuttle to the airport for my 05.05 flight. In November, it took me around two hours to exit the hotel (chased by a receptionist), be driven to the airport, queue for security (whilst ladies jumped the line), queue for check-in (whilst gentlemen fought) and queue for passport control (with a gun toting child). This time: hotel checkout was a waft of the hand, the shuttle ride a breath of wind, security a brisk gust, check-in a whirlwind and passport control the Jet Stream. I was done and at the gate in less than 20 minutes from the wafted hand. The place was more deserted than the nearby Sahara. Ramadan baby!

The outbound aircraft from London had been a B777-300 and I had put up a little prayer. Our return craft was a much more reassuring A320Neo. This combination resonated with those poor astronauts stuck on the International Space Station these past nine months. They had been flown there in a Boeing and returned the same day as me in something else, and like me, landed safe and sound to be reunited with their loving families.

Return left on time and landed early (London was just as sunny as Cairo, but 7C v 33C). The plane docked right opposite passport control and luckily, I chose the fast queue and was out in a puff of air and in good time to buy a cappuccino and croissant and log into a conf call in the arrivals’ Nero (a huge Nero, with loads of seating).

After two and bit days in Cairo, still no sign of Mo, anywhere. A bit like the great man himself on the pitch these recent days. Hopefully the international break will rejuvenate the King and his teammates and lead them to #20. Inshallah!