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Re: Prices & Paying in Egypt - Advice sought
Prices I paid for future reference...
(I may have overpaid in some cases)
About 35$ American for a melaya with sparklies on it..
About 40$ American for a turquoise velvet beledi dress with elaborate sequins on it.
About 200$ American for a full dress costume at Mahmoud's.
About 6$ each for hip scarves in Mahmoud's
costumes at Yasser's ranged from 100-400 - didn't buy any as as soon as I got there, the shop attendant left for Friday prayers and didn't come back.
14$ for a pashmina (though a lot of people in my group paid as little as 4$ - better bargainers!)
22$ for a Nancy Ajram style galabaya (striped, with spanglies on the sleeves & hem) - this was the price when I bought 2, so I was able to bargain him down a bit.
40$ for an embroidered Egyptian cotton galabeya, covered all over with Pharaonic scenes. Overpaid again I'm sure but loved the family and spent over an hour in their shop, as my mom & dad were buying galabeyas for the cruises' galabeya party and we were getting my mom dressed up like Fifi Abdo, and the grandmother of the shopkeepers was talking to me in my limited Arabic, and etc.
Finally, cds and videos were cheap but of varying quality. For 7 cds and 5 videos, I paid a little under 100$usd.
Finally theft is not an issue in Egypt afaik. I did not have to worry too much about my things. The people were incredibly honest to a fault. One story - a tourmate had left her wallet/passport/etc in her pillowcase to keep it safe. She about it and the cleaner who changed the sheets (who make less than LE20 per day!) found it, replaced the pillow-case with a clean one, and reinserted the wallet untouched! Or when my stepdad gave a moneychanger too much money to change (he said he was giving 100$ and gave over 120$) - and the moneychanger returned the extra explaining the mistake. Overall, no one experienced any pickpocketing or theft or cheating. Yes you have to bargain hard but when the bargain is struck, it's done. (unlike in some other countries where you get cheated when it is packaged up or when change is made).
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