At the Egyptian Museum, determined to get *some* culture on this trip.

Scarriott

I was really excited about the hotel my company was putting me in -- the Cairo Marriott Zamalek. It's on an island in the Nile. It's built around a 19th century palace (i.e. two big towers were tacked onto the ends of the palace). The facilities are nice, in spite of the construction going on.

However...

Internet costs $18 for an hour. And if you're sap enough to use the cable they supply in the room (i.e. run it through the telephone) rather than use wi-fi, you get to pay an additional $1/minute!

The small plastic bottles of water in my room are $4 each.

I expect these sorts of shenanigans in the Khan-el-Khalili bazaar. I go to an international hotel to avoid this garbage.

So I went out and bought an entire case of large water bottles for $4. The bellman whined about having to wheel them up to my room (via the elevator) on his little cart, and I regret having tipped the son-of-a-pharoah at all.

Typical Egypt? The Cairo Marriott is managed by Europeans.