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Congratulations to Charlotte Smith the deserved winner of our recent competition where we asked you to tell us about a ‘witty comment or humorous incident’ that occurred on any On the Go tour.
Charlotte submitted an amusing story below from her Sandblasters tour to Egypt, and wins an exciting 9-day Russia Unplugged tour.
 Stepping from the plane into the Egyptian night, we are immediately struck by the heat and clamour of the airport, noticing with mounting relief our On the Go rep standing only feet away. And he has a sign. With our names on it. As he shepherds us through tumultuous queues, we can barely conceal our smiles. We are in Egypt.
We fly through the empty express highways towards Cairo and are arriving in the city when I feel the all-too familiar feeling of being self-consciously Western begin to creep over me. Men sitting in cafes, on bins, the bins overflowing, bazaars open at four o’ clock in the morning: to my Western eyes, the world becomes a little bigger. The sights, the smells of spices, the heat mingling with the air pollution, intense chaotic clamour with a good heart, Cairo settles in my mind’s eye and makes itself at home.
The next morning, we make the outing to the Egyptian museum. As we get into our air conditioned minibus with our guide, we notice two other people getting in with us, who look decidedly pale and freckly.
‘Hi,’ say the couple.
‘’Hello,’ we reply.
Awkward smiles and British handshakes all round. Once again, we plunge into the Cairo traffic, scooting up and down lanes with our driver beeping and flashing seemingly at random. After a myriad of security barriers, we arrive at the Egyptian museum.
We step out, the five of us, and join a colossal queue tailing back almost to the minibus. Our guide looks at us, smiles, and quips
‘Don’t be so British! This isn’t England!’
And with that, he’s off. Weaving, snaking, dodging, elbowing, knocking, sidling, sneaking; we try to keep up. Within minutes we arrive at the ticket office, then we have tickets, and are marching through to the museum entrance.
An urban legend in Cairo states that the museum is so overcrowded with relics and artefacts that the storerooms have piles of the things stacked up from floor to ceiling. Without a guide, serendipity is your best friend as hardly any of the artefacts are clearly labelled or picked out as important. Luckily, we have a brilliant guide, who highlighted the most important pieces from the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom. We choose not to enter the Royal Mummy room and instead see the animal mummies which are fascinating although the room is extremely hot.
It is then that I hear our companion couple’s conversation,
‘Do you think her head shrunk like that because of the heat in here?’ asks our pale freckled female friend.
‘No, dear,’ replies the husband, ‘I think she was born like that. Being a cat, you see.’
Mortified at thinking she was in the Royal Mummy room, and quite dazed from the heat, she scurried out into the relative cool of the outside courtyard. The mummy cat’s glare followed her all the way out of the room.
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