Hazia’s Reflections

Gulf Air touched down at KLIA at 9.40am just now. It all happened so fast and I was so stressed prior to departure that I still couldn’t believe that I’d been to Egypt. The experience and exposure was exceptional. Once in a lifetime!

Before I took off, people told me a lot of things about the country, unpleasant encounters to be wary off. But, I had a very different experience.

They said dealing with Arabs would be tough, hence I was taking a big risk by working with a local contractor to build our pavillion for the international exhibition in Cairo. I had no choice, it was too late to use a Malaysian contractor. However, what turned out was very different. The contractor was amazing, she bend over backwards and did beyond her role to assist us and make the exhibition a success. I was glad that I’d formed initial contact with her prior to the event.

They said the staffs at our country’s trade offices abroad are useless. They just sat around doing nothing, so don’t rely on them to promote our event. My experience - they had very up-to-date database and even got Al-Ahram (no 1 newspaper) not to collect payment in advance for our advertisement. In short, they stopped at nothing to make our lives easier.

They said taxi drivers in Egypt are rude and rough. Well, the traffic was congested and cars were in bad shapes, the bodies were all dented. Black & white taxis had no air-condition, it was 40 degrees. I took off on local taxis alone several time during my 9-day stay, but surprisingly all the drivers were polite, more pleasant than in Malaysia. Yeah. Though many people, including locals who assured me that Cairo was safe for a woman to walk alone anytime anywhere, were shocked that I dared ventured the city on my own:)

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