Giza

The pyramid plateau outside Cairo, in Egypt, and the place Harry has been told is scam central. He goes specifically to test it.

Tickets

The thing nobody tells you, and he finds out at the gate:

• You need two tickets. An area ticket to get onto the plateau — about $10 — and then a separate ticket per pyramid to go inside.
• Khufu’s interior is 900 Egyptian pounds, nearly $20. He picks it as the oldest and most famous.
• The pyramid ticket alone does not get you in; without the area ticket it is worthless.
• The site closes at 4pm.

The plateau

Nine pyramids in total, as his camel man explains it: three large ones — Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure — and six small ones for the queens, three to Khufu and three to Menkaure, plus the Sphinx.

On construction, the answer he gets is the simple one: no machines, only men and stone.

Camels and horses

The single most useful fact on this page, given to him unprompted at the gate by a man who is himself selling rides:

The government price is 500 Egyptian pounds an hour. So if anyone asks, 500 is the maximum.

Everything else follows from knowing that.

• They are the taxis of the plateau, and the reason is that vehicles would damage the desert.
• A camel costs $3,000 to buy for a young one, up to $8,000–10,000 for a big one.
• Harry takes a short ride — about ten minutes, one way, to a restaurant. He pays 400 against his own estimate that it was worth 200, having been told to pay whatever he liked. The seller then asks for another 100, then 600. Harry holds at 400 and they part on good terms.
• The horse to the exit was quoted at 500. He walked away, was called back, and paid 200. His own observation afterwards: because he negotiated hard, they gave him the slow horse — and he says he doesn’t blame them, and that he was being tight over about $2.

Inside Khufu

Worth knowing before you buy the ticket:

• A tight, steep, exhausting climb through a low passage. He says he thought he was going to pass out and that it is not for the fainthearted.
• There is no view at the top and nothing in the chamber. An empty tomb.
• His verdict: not worth $20.

The scarf

A short, complete haggle, recorded because the shape of it is the lesson.

• Asked 400, immediately dropped to 300.
• Harry offers 200 and says out loud that he thinks it cost the seller around 50 and that the seller would take 100.
• He pays 200 anyway, and both of them are happy.

The dropped phone

Harry drops his phone in the sand on the way out. He notices, says he assumed it was gone, and the men around him turn round, drive back and search for it — and a group comes running with it.

He pays the man who helped double what he had agreed. It is the note the video ends on: he expected the pyramids to be the one place a dropped phone disappears, and Egyptians handed it back.

The verdict on the reputation

Not as scammy as he was told. He expected to be swarmed at the gates and wasn’t. His honest caveats: he is experienced at this, and he was quoted high prices throughout — but no more so, he says, than at any heavily touristed site in the world.

Harry’s tips

• Buy both tickets. Area plus pyramid, or you don’t get in.
• 500 an hour is the government price for a camel or horse. Treat it as a ceiling.
• Skip the inside of Khufu unless you want to say you’ve done it. It’s a hard climb to an empty room.
• Don’t grind someone down over two dollars. He did, and got the slow horse, and says so.
• Say what you think something costs. He does it out loud during the scarf haggle and it closes the deal.

Source

• Rawdogging the Scam Capital of the World 🇪🇬 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRS4cYl0e9s