 | Aswan Shopping | Tips 1 - 10 of 24 |  |
Popular Shopping | Miscellaneous Shopping Tips | All Tips (24) After we checked out of the cruise ship at about 1pm at Aswan, we put up at Marhaba Hotel for a few hours as our flight to Cairo were at 10pm at night! So we wandered around the streets of Aswan and Bingo! We came across this colourful bazaar at Saad Zaghlool St.
This bazaar sells everything, silver, cartouches, vegetables ( gosh, their cabbages are HUGE!), perfume bottles, scarves, all sorts of souvenirs and the colourful sand bottles, bags, spices of course! & tea leaves.
We paid - 3 of us paid 40 Egyptian Pound each for a silver cartouche, with our names engraved. - 5 of us paid 40 egyptian pound for a box of 5 large perfume bottles - 2 of us paid 15 Egyptian pound for a A4 size bag od peppermint tea leaves. Leave a Comment Theme: Local CraftAddress: Saad Zaghlool StDirections: About 2 streets behind Marhaba Hotel & the Tourism Ministry
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For tea lovers, remember to buy back some tea leaves from Aswan, if you happen to be at the bazaar that was mentioned in my shopping tip. The peppermint and hibiscus tea leaves i brought back are fantastic! The flavour is very strong and it's simple the best! My mum love it and is lamenting that how could i buy so few!!! It cost me 15 EP for one big bag of peppermint tea leaves, but i paid more for hibiscus at 45 EP. A big Bag too. A tip though, for peppermint tea leaves, try to ask the shop owner not to give you those with too many stems. Leave a Comment Theme: Food and Drink
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The street for shopping in Aswan is as-Souq Saad Zaghlou, going south from the square in front of the train station. Here you can find shops selling typical Egyptian and Nubian souvenirs like T-shirts, painted papyrus (or banana leaves), sheeshas, jewellery and baskets. There are also shops with a big choice of spices. For the water in Aswan I paid 2 pounds for 1,5 litres (in Dahab I had paid 1,5 pounds and later I paid 1,25 pounds in Siwa). Couldn’t find it cheaper anywhere, but many shops sold it for more. On as-Souq Saad Zaghlou I bought nice falafels for 50 piasters. They are quite small so two can be good to buy if you are very hungry. Leave a Comment Theme: Other
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 | |  |  | Many throughout Aswan: Spice Market | Tip Rating:    |  |  | |  |
Aswan is known for it's spice markets. Originally, settled by Nubians, spices, textiles and wonderful crafts is what they are known for. In fact, many of the items you purchase on the ship (if you're cruising from Luxor towards Aswan) are actually called ahead and readied for the ship's store vendor to pick up once you dock. You may save a couple of dollars by buying direct if you make the time for shopping. For instance, I had a cartouche made based on a sample that the jeweler on ship had to show. He took the order then, when we were docked in Aswan over night, he went to his "contacts" jewelry store to pick up. Whala, I had it that night. We saw plenty of shops offering the same cartouches and, using computerized machines, they are simple to make and relatively fast. Next time, I would wait and bargain for a slightly better price in town, plus it's part of the fun!
Silk, spices, teas, oils and jewelry. I love my cartouche and get many compliments on it. It is Silver set against black and with a simple black neck chain.
Bargain, bargain, bargain. Stand firm on a price - usually begining on 1/4 of whatever they initially quote you. If they act like NO way, go up but only slightly..then say thank you and walk away. I guarantee, they will follow you! Stand firm but, realize, you're eventually going to end up paying approximately 1/2 to 1/3 of their initial asking price. Also, realize that you are always taking a risk on items such as soapstone, and gold Leave a Comment Theme: Other
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| | | | Througout the Market place in Aswan: Tea Shops | Tip Rating: | | | | |
Again, this is one of the places your guide will gently "nudge" you towards.. You will soon start to read your guide and get to know when he's out to make a buck on your expense by getting a kick back from friends and family who have him working for them on the side. In egypt, everyone is out to make an easy buck and, your entrusted guide will be NO different! Ours was a jovial, very good chap. His knowledge, as a guide was priceless and he added so much to the trip. By the same token, he was easy to read and you could tell that, as an Egyptologyst, he almost seemed to feel that this part of the job (touting to clients) was almost below him but, expected by the shop keepers non-the-less. We cut him some slack, went along with the game but, busted him on it every time which made for some personal satisfaction in so far as letting him know I was aware of his tricks!
We loved the teas. naturals and medicinal. BE CAREFUL - some are very nasty concoctions, not necessarily exotics we, as westerners may be used to. My favorite was the mint tea! Very refreshing and I bought a large bag to bring home This is also a good place to smoke shisha but, please note the warnings about smoking shisha in public and, the risk for TB Leave a Comment Theme: Food and Drink
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