The winter holiday trip plan to Egypt was almost impossible at first since most of the us were busy struggling our mind physically & emotionally for opeha. Alhamdulillah, some of us passed with flying colours while I was lucky enough to get Zarinskaya that chopped me off that day. There's always a silver lining behind every cloud, ain't it?
Put that aside yeah. ;D

Everything was no more a fantasy. Our departure date, 26th of January with Egypt Air took off around 6pm and the 4 hour flight had put us into excitement upon reaching Cairo International Airport at around 8.50pm local time. 'Ustad' Khidzir or widely known as Idil and his junior, Syuk, that looks like the chubbier version of Faizal Tahir picked us up and we were brought to Safarah Malaysia, namely Rumah Melaka at Section 7 of the Cairo @ Kaherah City. They are student of Al-Azhar University doing a ( part-time job ) to survive in the sand-land of Mesir.

We booked a VIP room at the ground floor that gave us a 2 spacious rooms, plus a toilet and a kitchen and also a hall. That's for us, girls. The guys got an extremely satisfied condition of the guest room in front of the main hall.

Stomach was filled with the infamous 24hour of My Queen menu meals. I stuffed in Fatta & Mouza which cost me almost 25 LE while others tried the King Jumbo Burger that were deliciously prepared. Getting used with the shisha-sphere restaurant, we got to know each other better and I tell you, Idil and Syuk is someone you really want to bring along for your holiday. They are never without jokes and idea that could make us chuckle all the way till the end of the memorable trip ever.

The night ended around 3am after we were chocked-full and bed is the best place to relax and let the gastro-process do its work.

27.01.09
Woke up after hearing the azan Subuh from the surau around 5.30am. Had tomiya & the pita bread for breakfast, the cheapest and fastest breakfast for the student of Al-Azhar University. By 8.30am, we made a move to ( Al-Fayyoum ) to see the Qarun Lake and his castle. We also saw the first windmill made by Nabi Yusouf AS during his time. Then, we had our lunch at a restaurant around that Fayyoum city. Forgotten what was it called but we had zinger burgers, firash-mashwi and steaks. Yummy!!

As we were on our way home, the city was flooded with cars and caused a massive traffic jam. So, before the night got us carried away, we stopped at Nile Restaurant, a Kelantanese-based foods and had the not-so-spicy-expected tomyam. huhu..

28.01.09
The International Book Expo was held at the city center. Most of us, being an avid book reader, wanted to stop by and see if there is any interesting books that caught our attention. Well, being in an Arabic country, 80% of the books are definitely in Arabics. I got myself a book entitled 'The World's Worst Atrocities' while others got their hands on some other book genre.

It was quite a journey to mausoleums of ( Imam Syafie ), Imam Waqi', Imam Syafie's teacher and one of his students. We passed through the villagers of the poor Egyptians where the children were running in bare-foots while their parents were in front of their house, selling things to make sure they could survive in the emergency country. I am truly blessed that I can still come to Egypt and spend my time enjoying the scenery and understand other people's culture. Zuhr was approaching, and so, we stopped at Amri Al-As Mosque, applying the qasar & jamak ta'dim prayer together with Asr.

Being in Egypt, no one would want to escape seeing one of the greatest Seven Wonders of the World. At Giza, ( 3 pyramids, namely Khufu, Khafa and Makarah ) has their own story behind every pyramids built back in the olden days. Riding horses and camels are one of the main attractions for the tourist. All of us had the chance of riding both animals back and forth. I guess that would be the last time I ride the camel! Horse, there's still a chance. I can't imagine how could people ride on the camel, sitting between the bumps and seriously, it ain't a smooth ride all the way!!

One of the tourist guide package included was to see how Egyptian silk carpet was made. Some of us tried to test the unknown skill on the hand-made machine and yeah, they did it. The sky was almost dark when we reached Grand Hyatt Hotel's Hard Rock Cafe. For the HRC's stuff collector, some pins and t-shirts collection series were bought to fill up their collection.

The memorable night we spend having dinner on a cruise along the Nile River. We had a buffet dinner at Aquarius with a belly-dancer performance shaking her thing that even the Japanese and Chinese tourists can't take their eyes off from that lady. Same goes to the guys of our group trip-lah. Nobody is an exception! haha.. There's also a puak Badwi performances that made us laugh through out their acts.

29.01.09
A trip to Alexandria was 5 hours and it was worth it. The condition are better than Cairo, in terms of cleanliness, peoples and structure of buildings. We went visiting the Qaitbey Fortress, mausoleum of Imam Abi Darda', the Colosseum Roman Theater, Maktabah Iskandariah (Iskandariah Library; claimed to be the biggest in the world), and Malik Farouk's castle.

Everyone was hungry. So, we had nasi beriyani at Ya Halla Restaurant and some delicious ice-cream that are made different from the normal ones we had. At night, we were back in Cairo. The guys were shisha-ing while us girls, drank sahlab with chocolates, a milk-like drink that are usually taken after having shisha.

30.01.09
I can't remember what time we slept that night but we knew we had to wake up early and make a move to Sinnai by 3.30am. Around 8.30am, we stopped by at Eilat, about 200km from the border of Rafah-Palestine. We saw trucks of the Red Crescent bringing medical aids for the Palestenians. Around 9.45am, we were passing the Batillion Columbia guard post and reached range of Taba Mountains. In the history, this area was where Bani Israel was lost for 40years during some war I'm not sure of. Soon, we reached Gulf of Aqaba where Jordan, Parsi and Israel can be seen in one line.

After snapping a few pics at the border of Mesir-Israel, near Taba Hilton Hotel that was once bombed a few years ago, we went to the Fortress of Saladdin Al-Ayubi. By late afternoon, we head to Dahab City, checked-in a motel and had lunch+dinner at Quickly Restaurant, which ain't that quick!

31.01.09
Early morning feeling quite refreshed wanting to quad-biking at the range of mountains and along the beach for almost 2 hours. By 2pm, we are already out from the small city and off we go to St. Catherine where we visited mausoleums of Nabi Salleh AS, and Nabi Haron AS. Before reaching Fox Camp, we went to see the 12 mata air of Nabi Musa.

By 8pm, all of us were already sleeping soundlessly like the dwarfs in their hut waiting to recharge all our energy for the exciting activity the following morning.

01.02.09
We were awake around 12am to get ready to hike the ( Mount Sinai ) or known as Jabal Musa. Hiking the stony mountains was one of my wishlist that I should do before I die and Alhamdulillah, as soon as we reached the peak, tayammum ablution and Subuh berjemaah were performed and we waited for the sunrise. Jabal Musa is where Nabi Musa AS hermitaged to see Allah Al-Mighty. The sun rised approximately 6.15am and between the minutes of waiting, incantations from different religions were heard and it was as if, there are some nasyid competiton was held at the peak. The Catholics, the Orthodox, the Japanese and Christians, and other religious activities were done up above at the peak.

Around 7am, we walked down the mountain and saw the village of Nabi Ilyas AS. By 10.30am, we went south of Sinai to see Firaun's so-called jacuzzi bath place. As we were heading back to Cairo, we passed through the left traces of Israel's army fortress. We ride through the Tunnel of Suez with length almost 1km that stretches along the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

In Cairo, we had ala nasi beriyani at Hadarotul-Mout.

02.02.09
Around 9.45am, we went to Embassy of Malaysia to meet Encik Puat Yusof, the Education Atashe for Malaysian students in Egypt. Then, we went to Pharaoh's Museum and till almost 12am middle of the night, we spent hours of shopping at Bazaar Hussein for souvenirs and Attaba Bazaar searching for perfumes.

03.02.09
As we were suppose to depart from Cairo airport around 11.15am, the stupid Aeroservice made some stupid mistakes that made u,s look stupid in front of the stupid Egypt Air officer. Yes, seriously!

At least we had the chance to extend another 2 days in Egypt and luckily, Idil, Din and Syuk waited for us at the airport area.

Terlalu banyak hikmah kenapa flight kami delay.
Hanya Tuhan yang tahu. :D

04.02.09
We went to the famous Darus-Salam bookstore and bought Prophet's Medicine book and Fatwa regarding Muslim women. I fond these books interesting and everything can be apply in our daily life.

Lunch were served at Restoren Arau at Rumah Perlis. Malaysian students that lives there took part time jobs to cook Malaysian food and we, the Muscoviches were excited to get appetizing dishes and yup, kami teramat menghayati makanan tuh sumer. haha...

Since we extended our trip, we went extra shopping at Bazaar Hussein and Kak Yat cooked for us ayam masak merah while Idil claiming that he cooked them all. Yeah, right.

05.02.09
Early morning right after the Subuh prayer, the bell rang and Din knosking the door, telling us that breakfast was all right ready. He cooked nasi lemak specially for us since we were a little bit ran out of our budget. heh..

Confirmly, our flight scheduled at 11.15am took off from the airport and we reached Domodedova Airport at 6pm local time.

Home sweet home.
Definitely, not Moscow.