Egypt, October 2025

The pyramids of Giza in a hazy sky, a line of camels crossing the sand below

And suddenly, there they were.

Me in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza — Giza

The pyramids, right in front of me.

I knew they were enormous. Of course I did. I'd seen enough pictures to know what to expect.

Or so I thought.

Nothing quite prepares you for standing at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza and looking up.

From a distance, its shape is so familiar that you almost forget what you're looking at. But up close, you begin to notice the individual stone blocks, each one astonishingly large, stacked one above another until they disappear into that impossible triangular silhouette.

I kept looking up, wondering how on earth people had managed to build something like this thousands of years ago.

How did they move those enormous stones?

How did they lift them?

How did anyone even begin to imagine a structure on this scale?

There are archaeological explanations, of course.

But knowing that people built the pyramids and actually standing beside them are two very different things.

The Great Sphinx with the Pyramid of Khafre behind it

Fig. — The Great Sphinx of Giza, as I knew it from textbooks

The same went for the Sphinx.

I'd seen its face so many times in textbooks that I almost felt I knew it already.

And yet there I was,

standing in front of the real thing, looking at something that had survived thousands of years before I was even born.

Me in front of the Sphinx — Really there

The Sphinxc. 2500 BC

MeOctober 2025

I think what overwhelmed me most was the sudden sense of distance collapsing.

Something that had always belonged to the distant past was now part of my own present.

I could hardly believe I was there.

The Cairo I hadn't imagined

Of course, there is much more to Egypt than ancient monuments.

A worn, crowded Cairo street of tall brick buildings

Cairo was busy, noisy, and full of contrasts. Some streets felt worn and crowded, with motorbikes, cars, market stalls, and little shops all competing for space.

At times, parts of the city reminded me of older neighbourhoods back in China.

Before arriving, I'd heard plenty of warnings about travelling in Egypt. Overcharging, persistent sellers, tourist scams — the usual stories that make you a little more cautious than you might otherwise be.

We were lucky not to encounter too much trouble.

What surprised me instead was how many friendly people we met.

أهلاً

Ahlan · hello

Walking down the street, we'd sometimes hear someone calling out a greeting. People would ask where we were from, smile at us, and occasionally even ask for a photo together.

Me at the Cave Church — Cave Church, Cairo

Cave Church · Manshiyat Naser

The Cave Church: rows of seats carved into a huge rock hollow — The Cave Church

One of my favourite encounters happened on our way to the Cave Church in Cairo.

To get there, we passed through Manshiyat Naser, an area often referred to as Garbage City. It's home to a long-established community of waste collectors and recyclers, many of whom are Coptic Christians.

Looking out from inside the Cave Church at the sky and a church dome — Carved into the hill

It was unlike anywhere I'd been before. Recycling and sorting were part of everyday life here, and the streets offered a glimpse into a way of living very different from my own.

Along the way, we met a few young girls who came over to say hello.

They were wonderfully cheerful, greeting us enthusiastically and telling us how pretty we looked. It was such an unexpected little interaction that we ended up stopping to chat and take pictures together.

The Polaroids we took together, held in my hand — A pocketful of film

I'd brought a lot of Polaroid film with me on this trip, for a reason.

I love the idea of being able to give someone a photograph right there and then. Not just taking a picture on my phone and promising to send it later, but handing them something real — a little photograph they can keep.

I'd thought it might be nice to do that whenever I met someone special along the way.

Press the red shutter to take a Polaroid↓

INSTANT

Press

Me with the young girls we met on the way to the Cave Church — The first Polaroid I gave away

And these girls became the first people I shared them with.

We took a few pictures together and handed them over as little souvenirs of our meeting.

There was something lovely about it.

We had been strangers just minutes earlier. We happened to cross paths on a street in Cairo, spent a little time together, and then went our separate ways.

Chances are, we'll never meet again.

But somewhere, perhaps, there's still a little Polaroid from that afternoon.

We met other people along the way, too. Some told us about their families and showed us photographs on their phones. We shared a few small gifts we'd brought with us.

I didn't always know what to say, and we didn't always have a language in common. But there were plenty of smiles, curious questions, and moments of mutual amusement.

I had come to Egypt expecting to be fascinated by its history.

I hadn't expected to enjoy these little encounters quite so much.

A city of a thousand lights

Me sitting among hundreds of glowing coloured-glass lamps in Khan el-Khalili

Move to light the lamps

Another place I loved exploring was Khan el-Khalili, Cairo's famous old bazaar.

I remember the lamps most vividly.

There were so many of them, hanging at different heights, their coloured glass and intricate metalwork casting warm, patterned light everywhere.

Some shops seemed to be glowing from the inside out.

It was the kind of place where I wanted to stop every few steps, look up, and take another picture.

Naturally, the shopkeepers knew just how photogenic their shops were.

One of them made it clear that taking pictures meant buying something first. A little bit of shopping, a little negotiation, and eventually even a photo with the shopkeeper himself.

Us with the shopkeeper among his lamps — With the shopkeeper

Our Polaroids with the shopkeeper, laid on a pile of scarab carvings — And the Polaroids

It was all part of the experience.

The lamps were beautiful, the streets were lively, and there was always something happening around the next corner.

Cairo certainly wasn't the neat, polished sort of city that appears on a travel postcard.

But I liked that it kept surprising me.

A felucca sailing on the Nile under an orange sunset

Somewhere between the busy streets and ancient monuments, there was a quieter moment I still think about.

We were on a boat, sailing along the Nile at sunset.

The afternoon light was beginning to soften. The sky gradually turned warmer, and the river caught the last of the sunlight in little ripples of gold.

Buildings and trees slipped slowly past along the banks. The boat moved gently across the water, and for a while, there was nothing much to do except sit and watch.

Me in a pink dress on the launch field, balloons inflating behind me

Looking down from the balloon at green fields and other balloons

The sun rising over the valley, a single balloon silhouetted against it

Me in the balloon basket with a flower in my hair — Up there

In Luxor, we traded a sunset on the water for a sunrise in the sky.

We went up in a hot-air balloon.

As the balloon rose, the world below began to change. Buildings and roads grew smaller, the landscape opened up, and what had seemed like separate pieces of scenery gradually became one enormous view.

The morning light spread across the Nile Valley.

Below us were stretches of green farmland, the river, patches of desert, and traces of a civilisation that had existed here for thousands of years.

Other balloons drifted across the sky, some higher than ours, others floating quietly in the distance.

It was almost absurdly beautiful.

I loved seeing the contrast between the green land and the desert beyond it, and watching the sunlight slowly reach different parts of the landscape.

Everything looked so peaceful from up there.

I kept looking around, trying to take it all in.

There was something extraordinary about floating above a place so full of history, watching the beginning of an entirely ordinary new day.

The ancient world was still there beneath us.

And the sun was rising, just as it had every morning for thousands of years.

Everything
was blue.

Not just one shade of blue, either. Near the shore, the water was so clear and turquoise that you could hardly believe it was real. Further out, it deepened into a rich, brilliant blue, stretching all the way towards the horizon.

Me on a garden path at the resort, palms and sunshine around me, shot on film — Marsa Alam, on film

We stayed at an all-inclusive resort by the sea, where life suddenly became wonderfully simple.

No rushing from one attraction to another. No complicated plans for the day.

Just the sea, the sunshine, good food, and plenty of time to enjoy it all.

One day, we joined a boat trip to look for dolphins.

I'd never done anything quite like it before.

We sailed out into the open water, surrounded by that incredible blue. The boat rocked gently beneath us, and the coastline slowly became more distant.

And then we saw them.

Real dolphins, swimming freely in the sea.

They would appear above the surface for a moment, moving through the water, and then disappear again.

I was ridiculously excited.

There's something different about seeing an animal in the wild, in the place where it actually lives. No glass between you, no enclosure — just a vast stretch of ocean, and the incredible luck of happening to be there at the same time.

I could have stayed on that boat for hours.

Marsa Alam · that evening

But one of my happiest memories from Marsa Alam actually happened back at the hotel.

One evening, there was music, drinks, and a little party.

People were enjoying themselves, listening to jazz, chatting, and eventually getting up to dance.

Now, I'm not usually the person who gets up and starts dancing in front of a crowd.

I'm much more likely to sit somewhere comfortable, enjoy the music, and watch everyone else having fun.

But one of my friends had other ideas.

She's the kind of person who can walk into a room full of strangers and somehow make herself completely at home.

When people started dancing, she immediately wanted to join them.

And, of course, she wanted me to come along.

I hesitated.

She insisted.

Eventually, I gave in.

At first, I felt a little awkward. I wasn't entirely sure what to do with myself, or whether I looked completely ridiculous.

But after a while, I stopped worrying about it.

Everyone was just moving to the music, laughing, enjoying themselves. Nobody seemed particularly concerned with getting the steps right.

More than I came for

When I think back to Egypt, I'm amazed by how many different memories I brought home.

I remember standing beneath the pyramids, unable to comprehend how something so enormous could have been built so long ago.

I remember the girls we met on our way to the Cave Church, and the little Polaroids we left behind.

I remember the warm glow of the lanterns in Cairo, the sun setting over the Nile, and the balloons floating above Luxor in the early morning.

I remember the impossibly blue sea, the dolphins, and dancing at a hotel by the Red Sea.

Before this trip, Egypt had mostly been a place I knew through other people's stories. Through textbooks, photographs, films, and documentaries.

Now, I have my own stories from there.

And I love that not all of them are about the famous places.

Some are about people whose names I never learned. Some are about a beautiful view I happened to be there to see. And some are simply about having a really good time with my friends.

Me on an empty road at sunset — Egypt, October

I went to Egypt wanting to see the wonders of an ancient civilisation.

I did.

But I also came home with a camera full of photographs, a head full of memories, and a few dance moves that probably weren't very good.

I wouldn't change a thing.

Egypt

The Cairo I hadn't imagined

A city of a thousand lights

From Cairo, south along the Nile

Sunset on the Nile

A morning above Luxor

A different shade of Egypt

East, across the desert

More than I came for