1. Weather in Egypt during May-
   Our experience differed from place to place as we travelled within Egypt. May is an offseason for a reason. It is definitely hot. Cairo, though hot during midday, was cool with a pleasant breeze in the mornings and after sun down. Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel were sizzling. Sharm was really pleasant and sometimes had strong winds during the days and especially in the evenings. Ideally, September is the right time to visit Egypt, with milder weather and it being off season (less expensive as well). Anytime of the year, Egypt needs to be visited with proper sun protection – sunblocks, glasses and a hat. And bottles of drinking water.
2. What to wear in Egypt?
   I must have spent days researching what I should wear in Egypt because it is a conservative country and the weather is going to be hot. I wanted to be modest, but not melting in the sun. But guess what? It really did not matter. Basic modesty is expected, which means booty shorts can be frowned upon. But you need not cover yourself fully and be suffocated. I also read about covering the head while visiting a mosque is expected. We visited two mosques, and I did not have to do this. By the way, you can wear anything in Sharm, people normally walk the streets in swimwears and bikinis, with just a coverup on top and noone gets a second glance.
3. Visiting Egypt during Ramadan –
   While we started our travel, this was a concern. Since we went with Mia, we were worried if we will be able to feed her in time. We did not have to struggle with that even for one single meal – hotels are open and functioning, so are supermarkets.
4. Why stay at Abu Simbel?
   Normally Abu Simbel is done as a day trip from Aswan. But it is a 3 (and a half?) hour drive one way. Through the desert! We could not imagine visiting the temple and spending around 2 hours there when the sun would be at the hottest. As we arrived there we thanked our decision to have stayed over. We reached by noon, and did not get out of our rooms till late evening, because it was scortching outside. You could do the day trip when the weather is kinder, definitely avoid it during the hotter months.
5. Nile Cruise –
   I did put up another post on the cruise that we chose. Cruise was a confusing decision for us because of online reviews that told us kids will be bored in them. One review even said they “couldn’t imagine taking a child on a nile cruise because of the danger involved”. Our experience of the cruise was that it was not just luxurious, which made it comfortable, but it was also convenient during the Egypt summers to make short day trips than to travel from Luxor to Aswan by road. Not only would it have been unbearably hot, but while we planned it, it took more number of days to make that trip as well.
6. What to be warned of?
   People expect tips. Keep your luggage right next to you, especially at the airports. The airport staff try to grab them and put them on a trolley for tips. You need to tip for every service, including using the airport toilets. People offer you stuff like free drinks or souvenirs, and then ask you money for it. This was not the case in Sharm, there people leave you alone once you say no. In other places, be firm with your “no” and just keep walking by.
7. Haggling in Egypt –
   You need to haggle everywhere. Not just markets while you shop for souvenirs, even in supermarkets for things we normally see having fixed costs. A cococola can or a bar of chocolate can be priced at the shopkeepers convenience, so make sure you know what they cost in Egypt or you will be duped.
8. Do you need guides to visit the places?
   In my opinion having an Egyptologist while visiting the monuments help a lot. No matter how much you read about the places that you visit, only a guide can explain clearly about the engravings and special structures within each temple or monument. Without a guide all you can do is, look at those cartouches and not know what they mean.
9.  While travelling with kids –
   Egyptians love kids, that initially it was shocking when they would pull Mia’s cheeks or make faces at her every now and then. But this is normal for them (unlike when you travel to other countries where people don’t come too close to your children). As long as you keep a watch, you can relax. They really mean no harm.
   Most of the tours we did had a lot to walk around. The first day tour (giza, memphis and saqqara) was not stroller friendly, but from then we could take the stroller out to most places and it was not very difficult getting around with her at all.
10. Currency –
    1 Egyptian pound (EGP) is 4.16 INR (current rate). Shops accept USDs and Euros, but mostly won’t have change to give you back. So we paid round figures in USD and change in EGP. Forex cards do come in handy to make payments at places of stay. Atms allowed us to withdraw only 2000 EGP at a time (from the same atm) from our HDFC card – we checked at all places we visited.

EDIT:

Janaki aunty this one is at your suggestion. Thanks for telling me what else you needed.

How we got from one place to another.

Cairo to Luxor:
We researched a lot on how to get from Cairo to Luxor. The most common two ways used are rail and air. The best trains are the Watania sleeping trains. These are overnight trains you can take at Cairo/Giza railway stations. But after looking at the videos and photos of these trains, we decided the cabins were going to be too crowded for the three of us. Without a child, this trip is totally doable.
So we flew from Cairo to Luxor by AirCairo, a one hour flight in the morning (8am to 9am) (around 10k per person – the rates are higher for monday morning flights when compared to the others. We think it is because more people fly to Luxor on monday mornings in time for the cruise). The cruise that we took had sent a person with a car to the airport to take us directly to the boat.

Luxor – Aswan Nile Cruise (MS Mayfair) – there are two common types of nile cruises, monday to friday (4 nights and 5 days) from Luxor to Aswan and friday to monday (3 nights and 4 days) from Aswan to Luxor, covering the very same places. The third kind is a 7 day cruise which takes you from Luxor to Aswan and back to Luxor. Do not choose any travel agent to book these cruises. Go to the boat’s website and send them a mail, because that is going to be cheaper cutting the middleman out. Also you can ask for any kind of detail you might be confused about and they answer you promptly. Some boats stop sailing in the summer months, like the one we sailed on had the last trip on the day we went and will only restart in September. Make sure you ask them about this before making the booking.

Aswan to Abu Simbel – We booked this trip through a company called Aswan Individual who provided us transport from Aswan to Abu Simbel, an egyptologist for the temple visit, trip back to aswan, felucca ride and nubian village visit, and finally, drop off at airport. We had booked them through their own website, and had to provide our passport copies for them to book our trip. We took care of the hotel stay at Abu Simbel by booking it ourselves (hotel details in the previous post). The website: http://www.aswan-individual.com/

Aswan to Sharm el Sheikh – We flew using EgyptAir by around 6 pm (not sure of the exact time). It is a one stop flight (stop at Cairo), reaching Sharm at 11.30 pm.
In Sharm, getting around is easy because most resorts provide shuttle services and pick ups and drops. But we figured it gets cheaper when we used a local travels from outside. We used www.sharmexcursions.com and we can vouch for their reliability.

Back home – We flew the morning flight from Sharm to Cairo at 8.45 am (1 hour flight – EgyptAir). The flight back home was at 5.55pm so it surely was a long wait at the airport, but that was the only flight we found giving us enough time, if in case of any delay, to catch out international flight back home.

We booked all our internal flights online, using EgyptAir and AirCairo.