The show was us

 

In Egypt we wanted to go to a place to dine and to see an bellydance performance. We went in a pre-Google Maps era, so we walked and walked down the street looking for such a place.

Finally we arrived at a place that had at the entrance a sign in Arabic with some Arab dancers dancing. We assumed it was a place where “Arab dancers” performed. It was two stories, a terrace with tables downstairs and an upper level with tables as well.

We decided to go upstairs and sat at a table. We were 7 people approximately, waiting for them to attend us and with a musical atmosphere of Arabic music, I (Yuliana) decided to get up to dance, my sister Yanelia also did it, although she denies such a thing today.

One of the girls who was in the group with us noticed that there were two women dressed in skirts, very made up and, above all, with their hair uncovered. In Egypt all women walk with their hair covered. We, despite being of Arab descent were born and raised in Venezuela, so seeing women dressed in skirts, blouses, make-up and with their hair uncovered did not trigger our alarms.

After a while we realized we were at a dating place. Thank goodness there were no men, because they would think we were part of the offer.

Not even with pants did they hear us

 

We decided to leave, but we were hungry. So we went downstairs, where there were tables and it looked like a restaurant. When we inquired about prices, the waiter told us fifteen (15 dollars) per person. As fifteen is often confused with fifty (50), I beckined the waiter with my hands and pointed out fifteen, to be sure. He nodded, it was fifteen.

After the meal and at the time of paying, we were told that it was 50 per person. We protested, even a girl in the group cried. We didn’t have that money. But the owner of the premises was adamant.

Finally, the only man in our group who had remained silent the whole time got up and talked to the owner, explaining the situation. The owner agreed to charge 15 per person.

We figured out that the word taken into account in the Arab countries is that of man. It is the one who has the power to negotiate.

Who goes to Turkey with Yanelia?

 

We left for Egypt from Madrid. The plan was to buy tickets to Egypt and Turkey in Madrid. Fly to Egypt, return to Madrid and fly to Turkey.

All very well, except that when we left for Egypt, the suitcases (where the tickets to Turkey were also) never left Spain.

We weren’t just in Egypt without our luggage. It was the worry of not getting them back and losing the tickets to Turkey.

Back in Spain, we were able to retrieve them and saw that our passages were still there…

But with two hours to go to Turkey, we realized that instead of a passage in Yuliana’s name, there was one with another name.

Who goes to Turkey with Yanelia?

We went to the travel agency at the airport to change the ticket, which luckily was open. But we were told that the refund would be after a few days.

We had no choice but to buy another ticket for Yulian to Turkey. An unforeseen expense…

Perhaps if Yuliana had done an Arabic dance performance in the agency as she had done in that cairo den, we would have been reimbursed right away.

The Wall is not here

 

In China, if you are going to visit the Great Wall, you can access it by a lot of roads. After all, the Great Wall stretches for thousands of miles.

So it’s easy to get lost or scammerized.

When we went to visit it, we took a bus from Beijing. We knew we had to get to the Mutianyustop. And we took the precaution of taking a picture of the Chinese characters with the name of that stop.

In addition, we had been warned that at stops before the destination, some men looked out the front and back door of the bus and said the name of the stop in Chinese, as if implying that the destination had been reached. That’s in the hope that the unwary would get off and then find themselves needing to take another bus or taxi and over-pay to get to the Wall.

Indeed, it happened that arriving at the penultimate stop of the route, two men got on the bus saying something in Chinese, but implying that it was the destination. Since we had the image of the characters with the name of the actual destination stop, we compared it to that and it didn’t look like it.

To all of these, the bus driver spoke no English or any other Western language and simply kept quiet.

We decided to wait because we knew that was not our brown, however, we noticed a couple of Australians who were already descending. We stopped them and explained the situation to them. They listened to us and stayed and then we all arrived smoothly at the Wall.

No to knives

 

In China you won’t see knives on restaurant tables. On one occasion we even went into a café to borrow a knife to peel a fruit (the variety of delicious and exotic fruits on offer in China is impressive) and the local workers saw us with surprise… we would even say with fear.

Apparently, they only see knives useful for cooking and for committing murder. With their traditional sticks you don’t need bladed weapons to taste Chinese cuisine.

 

Differences from Rapunzel

 

In the Guangxi ZhuangAutonomous Region, the city of Huanghuo is home to the Yaoethnic group. Women of this ethnic group, for cultural reasons, have the longest hair in China.

They go with their hair collected in elaborate hairstyles but when they release it we talk about several meters in length.

It’s obvious that you want a picture with one of these women. We chose one that seemed friendly and approachable and by signs we asked her to take a picture with her.

She agreed and a friend who was with us took the picture. We thanked him and we were about to leave when the Chinese Rapunzel gave us clear signs that he demanded payment for his service.

My sister and I stood aside and our photographer friend started arguing with her and told her she wouldn’t pay her.

For the woman has set out to persecute our friend through the village demanding her fees.

So we appreciated that the Chinese don’t usually have access to knives.

 

To the Hotel de los Inválidos with invalid tickets

 

 

The architectural complex of The Invalides of Paris is known worldwide not only for its magnificent architecture, but for housing the remains of emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

We were excited and bought our ticket, about 12 euros.

It is a huge complex of buildings, which did not give us time to tour in a single visit. At the end of the day, we could not get to know the whole thing and decided to go back the next day.

The next morning, we show our tickets purchased from the previous day and enter. We were then able to tour what we lacked to visit.

After leaving, we realized that we should have bought another ticket that day to enter. Our ticket from the previous day was “invalid”. However, the doorman did not tell us anything and we, well, entered The Invalides with our invalid entrance.

Conclusions

 

The trips are wonderful both in their preparations, as the trip itself and in the memories they leave us.

Those memories are often not so much those magnificent monuments or places, but small things that happen to us and that are laughable, curious, frightening or simply, remain in our memory without knowing why.

Do you have any anecdotes that recall your travels?

Leave us a comment!