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2025/10/29

Before how, let’s ask WHY? Why would you like to go to Cairo?

Possible good reason are:

• To go to see the Pyramids!!!
• To go to see the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM). This is the biggest museum in the world based on the space.
• To go and take a “safari” to desert. Yes, there are many people who like to get the experience. The weather in Cairo is pretty much always good, so the sunset and sunrise in the desert are very beautiful.
• Visiting mosques or bazaars…
• … or if you are like me, and have been told by a channeler that I have spent many of my previous lives in Egypt, and I should go check out my “connection” to the Egypt.

Btw, the Great Pyramid of Giza is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the world. So there are many other people in the world, who have gotten the idea to visit Cairo as well… and Cairo is well prepared for the tourists.

With the why considered, let’s turn back to the how.

In case of Japan there is ocean all around, so pretty much the only choice is to fly to Cairo. Unless you are ready to spend a month on a cruise around almost the whole world.

For flights I like to use skyscanner.com to check the available options.

• if you plan a bit ahead, then you can get there with China Eastern airline, which takes about 21h and costs only 56000 JPY one way.
• I did plan only 1 week ahead and used Sichuan Airlines, which took also about 21h and cost around 70000 JPY one way.
• There is also option to use Emirates or Qatar Airways, which are very famous good quality airlines, but in that case the one-way ticket price will rise above 100000 JPY.

(prices are based on 2025 Oct analysis)

The flight with Sichuan Airlines is in 3 parts:

• First a 6-hour flight from Tokyo Narita to Chengdu
• Then about 4 hours free time in Chengdu to wait for the transfer flight
• And then 10-hour flight from Chengdu to Cairo

I found that the Sichuan Airlines was very efficient and the flight was quite well organized.

The 6-hour flight was a bit smaller plane and did not include any “entertainment system” display nor mobile phone charging port (at least I did not notice it).

But food was quite good and nice (with lots of rice). I would say that Chengdu specialty was that with every food there was option to get “extra chilly sauce” to get the food to be extra spicy. (For example Finnair has never tried to offer me extra spices…)

Wait in Chengdu happened at night… between 22:00 and 01:40 local time… But the Chengdu Airport is super big and various shops were totally open at that time.

• One thing I learned in Chengdu was that if you want to buy just water or something from the machine, then you need to use Alipay (which I did not have). But the shops accepted credit cards. So I found a 7-Eleven shop, which had all I needed. Although also note that there is free water available for drinking next to the toilets as well, so not necessarily need to buy it at all.
• Second thing was that normal sitting chairs do not have phone charging ports… but there are special “work table” style tables, which have charging ports. They are quite busy, but if charging is needed, then you need to grab a spot at one of these.
• Third thing to note is that I did not get WiFi working there at all (with my Rakuten mobile). There was free WiFi, but in order to use it you needed to get a code over sms (which I could not get) or go to a kiosk in T1 which issues these codes (and I was not sure how far this is, it was probably not near to the area where I was walking around).

What I totally liked in Chengdu Airport was that they had a souvenir shop, which had a large section of vacuumed and also raw-like pork and veil meat🙂 I totally understand the reasoning that there can not be a better souvenir than a big bag of pork meat🙂 But just to remind everybody that arabic customs are not looking good at earing pork at all. So maybe best not to buy it when going to Egypt (but good to consider when going back to Japan).

Now, the legroom is not that great at the Sichuan Airlines flight, so I was a bit worried about legs cramping at the next 10-hour flight. Because at the end of 6-hour flight I had some small craps already.

But it turned out that there was no problems at all. The 10-hour flight was overnight and when body is at sleep, then it kind of goes to another mode and does get tired differently than in waking mode. So I did not experience any cramping at all.

• Interesting experience was that before the sleep we were given a food which was “rice porridge”. It was mostly rice cooked into watery porridge with a tiny bit of veggies (like 1 slice of carrot per my portion). I’m not sure, but probably according to Chinese medicine eating such a porridge will give you a good sleep. It worked and I spent the night very well. Even though the porridge was very tasteless and kind of difficult to get down… but luckily I have had enough training in Asia eating rice over the years, so I got it eaten.

This time we actually got to Cairo a whole hour earlier than planned I think.

Thanks to that I had enough time in Cairo to do:

1. Getting Egypt Visa on arrival. There is a stand before passport check, which is named “National Bank of Egypt” or smth like that. When you pay 25 USD (preferably you need to have 25 USD in cash, which I had… although I saw them also doing credit card payments, which took only a tiny bit longer), then they give you a visa sticker, which you need to bring to passport check. Easy and quickly done.
   1. Note: There is a website where you can do the same before going to Egypt, but you need to apply sufficiently early (preferably 1 week before the trip)… But in my experience, this site never worked without errors and was just waste of time (probably due to low ping to Japan, might be different for other countries).
2. Taking out cash from ATM. Local currency EGP came nicely out in relatively small nominations (100 EGP and 200 EGP notes).
   1. Note: In my research before the trip it seemed to me that around 800 EGP should be very reasonable for budget or mid-range daily spend… But my actual experience is that at least in downtown area and in 2025 Oct the cost is much higher. Maybe it is my ignorance and paying too much for things. There are YouTube videos which teach about exact price levels and how to haggle in right situations… but I just don’t have the patience to learn so many details. So the people with patience can maybe win here… but I feel that it is just way too easy to spend more money.
3. Buying a sim card and getting it installed. I got an Orange sim-card for about 500 EGP with 30GB data limit. Probably a total overkill for my trip, but the lower tier was about 350 EGP for 12GB and the price difference felt minimal…
   1. Note: I don’t know why but at first I did not get good connectivity with the new card at all. Maybe my phone had a bad reception at the airport. Later in the downtown area the reception was much better.

Every YouTube video was recommending to use Uber to get to hotel. Now I have never used Uber, so I was scared to try it first time in a foreign country. So I used “Airport Limousine”, which was bunch of sweet talking salesmen with suits in the airport. But the 25 USD to my hotel was not way too much I felt.

The google map was showing my tiny hotel’s location a little bit wrong, so it took a bit time to find it. But by using the house numbers and after consulting a helpful local person… I got to my hotel and the “getting there” travel part of the trip was done🙂