ConnedswiftyisNOTevil writes, "I have recently become obsessed with the BBC Three show 'The Real Hustle' - personally, I think of it as a 'How To' show for aspiring con artists."
Have you carried out a successful con? Perhaps you hustled a few quid off a stranger, or defrauded a multi-national company. Or have you been taken for the wide-eyed, naive rube that you are?
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chthonic, Thu 18 Oct 2007, 13:02)
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I just want to see the damn PYRAMIDS!!...So, university is over and myself and four other souls are off travelling for a year. First stop, Egypt. We alight from the plane, and are queuing for immigration, when a nice man says "Follow me". He has an outfit, so we do, breezing past the long lines and through a little door which leads to a dingy alley. Hmmm. This man is no airport official, in fact he seems to want most of our money for a "travel plan". Somehow, he gets some, and we find ourselves bundled into a taxi (it's about midnight and VERY dark), destination who knows where. Fortuitously passing a hotel that has a mention in the Lonely Planet, we wave money so that the driver stops, and bail thinking phew! close one. Still we are seasoned travellers now, and will be suspicious. We "won't get fooled again".
It is the following morning. We work out which bus is going to the Pyramids and climb on, to be followed by a little chap. He has a word with the driver, and the few locals who are already on the bus. He pays something to each and the locals immediately get off. The bus departs. To the Pyramids? No - I can see them, Mr Driver! look! they are over there...where are you taking us??? We arrive at a camel emporium, where the aformentioned little chap informs us that the only true way to see the Pyramids is on the back of the noble beast. Fortuitously, he has some as he is the owner of said emporium (Dromodrome??). And it's a long walk back to civilisation. That'll be five camels then.
We set off. I can't help but notice that we are going in the general direction of "Away from the Pyramids" again, stopping at some featureless part of the desert, where we are invited to give as much English or US (not Egyptian, oh no) currency as we can afford to our cheerful guides, otherwise, it's a long, thirsty walk back. We pay.
We are next deposited at "the official entrance to the Pyramids". It looks like a 7x7 shed from B&Q. We pay some more. Quite a bit, I think. Colour me stupid if that perhaps wasn't the official entrance to the Pyramids after all, but some bloke in a shed with a roll of raffle tickets. I wondered where the guidebooks were.
By this time, I'm about £60 down (total annual budget £2000/365days = £5.45 day) and it's only day one.
Pyramids were crap. Luxor's much better. Karnak. Now there's a tourist attraction.
(, Fri 19 Oct 2007, 22:35, Reply)
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