KL to Cairo

Flying with Egypt Air through Mumbai, nothing much to do, nothing much to observe, I’m expecting to see beautiful Egyptian stewardess (jeles la tuh, no offence ok), but lucky I am not, there were only old steward and stewardess deserved to be called uncle and aunty on board, pity me, in the cramped seat I decided to sleep

After a long and sleepy 12 hours flight, finally arrived at Cairo International Airport, still dark and early in the morning, cold and frosty, it was winter in Egypt, the temperature was 12 degrees celcius, I had never thought a country like Egypt will be colder than what we have in Cameron Highlands or UTP’s Chancellor Hall, misinterpretation

At the immigration counter, being asked questions in Arabic which I am speechless to answer, at last the officer said to me in English with a grin on his face, “You’re Muslim and you should be able to speak in Arabic”, yeah I agreed, shame on me, but to be truth the officer was actually speaking to me in ammi Arabic, (bahasa arab pasar), which differ from what being recite in Quran or prayer..So nothing to be shame aite (saja bagi sedap hati, padahal arab baku pun bukannya phm sgt pun, nk ckp lagi laa kantoi)

The sun starting to rise, the location to go was Malaysian Hall in Abbasiyah, decided to take a taxi, witnessed the ‘deal or no deal’ situation with the taxi driver which is very common in Egypt, negotiation for the taxi fare beforehand is a must or else you will end up paying ridiculous amount of money, finally at 50 gernih (kira rm50 duit arab la tu) we proceed to Abassiyah (tambang asal 70 gernih, last2 turun jd 50 gernih, senang2 je arab ni kencing nk ambik kesempatan, cet)

Arrived at the Malaysian Hall or commonly known as ARMA (Asrama Malaysia), ARMA is a place where some of Malaysian students studying in Cairo live, actually outsiders like us are not allowed to stay there but there’ll always a way beb, hahaha, initial plan was to pass the guard by walking ‘slumberly’, pretend to be just like other students walking in and out of the hostel, but damn ‘kantoi’ (sorg2 beg besaq gerabak sapa suruh, for sure tak nmpk cam student yg bwk buku seketul dua je kepit celah ketiak), at first, we’re still saying that we’re students there and just went back from a vacation at somewhere far away, “Show me your student card”, the Arabian guy said to us like a school teacher scolding his students, still not satisfied eh, my brother confidently replied speaking in Arabic which the translation sounded something like this, “the truth is we’re not students here in Cairo but we’re all students from Alexandria and we’re really sorry for lying in the first place, unfortunately we had left our student cards back in Alexandria since we’re coming here just to visit our friends here in ARMA, something like ziarah-ziarah qudwah fiisabilillah kind of thing", huh, this is what I called ‘tipu dalam tipu’, (tipu menipu nih mmg menjadi amalan arab pun)

At last mission accomplished, I’m relieved to be eventually able to lay my back and take a proper nap at this so-called Asrama Malaysia

To be continued...

tengah negotiate ngan pak arab teksi

kelibat wira emas dari dalam teksi