The Sofitel Le Sphinx worked out to be a great hotel. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a great deal on a very nice hotel with excellent service. It is located right next to the Pyramids. Our first room had a balcony that overlooked a cement wall, however, I spoke to the concierge and at no additional cost he moved us the next day to a larger room with a perfect view of the pyramids. It was simply incredible. The staff was very attentive and helped us on a number of occasions. Kathryn and I both fell somewhat sick during the trip and they were more than happy to have someone from a nearby pharmacy pick up some medicine and at very reasonable rate. The room service was excellent and we both highly recommend the in-house pastry shop’s chocolate cake. The gift shop stocked some forgotten necessities and was also helpful. Breakfast was complimentary and they had a full buffet of excellent choices. The location of the hotel was nice for us because it is much quieter than noisy downtown Cairo and the street noise around the pyramids is much better, although not silent. Taking a taxi into downtown Cairo only cost about 25 pounds (less than $5USD) which was great.
The sites, the experiences, and memories were great. During our short stay, Kathryn and I saw many sites. Of course, we saw the pyramids and the Sphinx. We walked over to the pyramids and took a tour by camel of the pyramids. The pyramids were just incredible. They took us all the way up to the base and we took many excellent photos. Unfortunately, I ended up getting food poisoning about half way through the ride (which Kathryn later caught too) and part of my memory includes puking in the Sahara – which is pretty funny now. We cut the trip somewhat short and I walked to a nearby shop to use the bathroom. We both had cramps the rest of the trip but nothing that prevented us from going out and exploring.
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After a change of heart, Kathryn and I decided it would be a fun trip to meet up in Cairo. She has been studying in Madrid this past semester but we have kept in touch through Skype and mobile minutes for the past two months. Cairo happens to be nearly midway between Madrid and Mumbai and home to some fantastic history and sites. We were both interested in seeing them and each other so we booked flights to Cairo. She left Spain early and had to rebook her flight to Chicago and I took off three days of work and took a bus from Pune to Mumbai’s airport.
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I realized yesterday while shopping around I don’t know all the rules of bargaining. Shopping in the US is a very different experience. We walk into the store, see something that we like, flip the price tag, and if it’s acceptable, we purchase it. In many ways, this is much less hassle. In fact, it’s much more efficient for both the consumer and the supplier which should lower cost. Here in the markets in Pune, India and many parts of the world, everything is debatable.
I decided to search around for a good guide, and I recommend reading this page over:
http://www.beijingtraveltips.com/tips/shopping_1/bargaining_howto.htm
My bargaining skills have improved immensely after reading that.
My room mates in India aren’t into going out at night. They’re happy to go to bed early, watch a cricket game, or read up on “The Design of the Unix Operating System.” I asked Harish how much that book cost. He opened the cover and showed me the price he bought it used at – Rs. 195, or about $4.15. Granted, this was used, but the book clearly showed it was the “low priced edition” on the front cover and was only to be sold in select regions of the world. The price of the newest edition of this book on Amazon.com is $69.66, which Amazon claims is a savings of $3.67 off the list price. Amazon has a number of sellers offering to sell used copies as low as $10.95.
Comparing apples to apples, is it really fair that people in the US should have to pay over twice as much for the same book? As any student will tell you, many teachers will ask students to purchase the newest edition of the book, often times which contains a few new questions and a switched chapter or two. These new editions will have no used copies available and students who purchase older copies run the unknown risk of missing questions or entire chapters which might be tested on. At the very least, the page numbers are out of whack for no good reason other than to encourage teachers to insist on the newest version.
As the US falls farther and farther behind in engineering, could the cost of entry into the field be one of the larger factors? I don’t know all the facts, but I’m curious if anyone else has thoughts on the matter. In the mean time, thank god for half.com where I can get my hands on these “illegal” low priced editions.
At night, I open up the bottle of Off and bathe in it. It doesn’t matter because each morning I wake up with 5-10 new bug bites. My Indian friends living with me don’t get a single bite and the caretaker has tried his best to seal the apartment. Just minutes ago, I discovered that while I was watching TV a mosquito managed to bite me on the palm of my hand without me noticing. I’m watching it slowly swell up.
Bug bites aren’t going to stop me from heading out. I’m feeling awake and restless so I’m going to see if I can find some night life in this town. My suite mates aren’t the going out type and I can’t seem to convince them to come along. They said maybe tomorrow.
Harish and I accomplished a lot this week with the project. We have been busy coding away. I worked on creating some PHP scripts that communicate via XML-RPC to some Second Life objects Harish coded in the Linden Scripting Language. It was very easy but the proof of concept for our project is complete. The rest of our team is coming next week and we’ll need to bring them up to speed. I won’t be heading to Cairo to see Kathryn next week. Things didn’t work out but perhaps that’s best for both of us.