Egypt Travel Nightmare!! Why I’ll Never Go Back!!

this place there is no system here there is no step by step it's pure chaos and hierarchy layers and layers of people no one knows what's going on it's an idea this video was recorded in

egypt

two days after arriving if i sound sick it's because i'm exhausted and I barely slept due to the nighttime interrogation by the Egyptian police. Let's talk about Egypt. One of the problems with making videos like this is that when I come to a country that doesn't have freedom of expression, where there are a lot of authoritarian people. government rule if I speak freely about my experience, those opinions can be taken

back

to the person within the country who helped us shoot in the first place and they could possibly be reprimanded, punished or killed.

I have no idea, it depends on the country. let's talk about Egypt Egypt is confusing because people here tell me there is freedom of speech, I guess as long as it doesn't bother the wrong person, Egypt's slogan should be: leave your camera at home, but bring your money, they don't want you. filming here is very obvious, one of the things I like about filming in Africa in general is that it is a challenge and that I am not going to compete with many other YouTubers or people for content because most people I am not willing to go through for the pain, the hardships and the challenges of filming here, but yes, I'm willing to go through all that, but it's been too much here, let me start from the beginning, where we got it, we were welcomed. a surprise and coveted test that cost the team $265 and took an hour and a half ok we landed at 1am. at 2 30 a.m. we got to the baggage claim area one of our suitcases was missing because ethiopian airlines is a bunch of crap They are still working on delivering it days after we went through customs.

Customs here is intense, literally everyone gets x-rayed and goes through your stuff. Do not care. They asked us if we had a drone. I did not want. I went

back

and forth, so I said yes and I gave it to him voluntarily, which took probably an hour and a half because the system, I mean the system, there is no system, is so disorganized that I went from one guy to another, at least 10 different people involved in some way. They had to take the drone, they had to wrap it somehow, they had to get multiple forms of documentation, even when they said it was over, I needed a receipt or a number or something.

You just hear people shouting at each other in Arabic. because no one knows what's going on so finally our items went through customs it's 4 am we arrived at a hotel around 4 30 something like that the hotels here are very different from other countries the hotel is like an airport the security is super intense and it's not like you went through a metal detector, that's the least of it. They had to re-X-ray all of our suitcases to get into a hotel. Zero customer service. They don't treat you well. They're just like putting your trash in it. X-ray, so we put our suitcases there, one of them sees wires and they get alarmed.

We have cables because we have battery chargers. As far as I know, there is nothing legal about this. We have consumer equipment that anyone who

travel

s as a tourist. Maybe we have a little more, so they demand that we open the bank. Remember we are in a hotel, I open the bay and then what is revealed is a bunch of chargers and sitting on top of them, why do we

travel

with walkie talkies? with walkie talkies because it helps us as a production team. Many times there is poor Wi-Fi or people can't hear their phone ring, but if they have a walkie-talkie here when we film on a busy street, we can communicate quickly about what vaccines are needed or where we need the vaccine to be. people, so the person who saw the walkie-talkies was just a hotel manager and I don't know what's going on with the equipment or certain technology here, but when some people see it, their brain goes back to the stone age they're like? what is this?

Why might you want to have a walkie-talkie unless you're planning to overthrow our government? It literally felt like that, I was told there have been two revolutions in this country in the last 10 years to say there is a bit of paranoia in this country would be an understatement, there is an intense sense of paranoia and control that certain people want to maintain. I want to make a brief comment here to say that we have just been here. "Some days the people have been great, the food has been great and I love the atmosphere of the city.

I just want to film it. The thing is that they are worried that I talk nonsense about the country. We came here to make food videos. I I have given a reason to want to talk trash about the country. From there a police officer came out of the hotel. The hotel also has a competition and they start checking our things one by one. What is this? Okay, so. this has lights like yeah, I'm that deep or shocking, yeah, it's a light stance, so they went through all of our stuff and started selecting certain pieces of equipment that they considered suspicious due to their complete lack of knowledge of everything that everyone They were taking pictures.

It's very dehumanizing at this point because they are going through my personal items picking things up or telling me to pick things up and then saying what is that and I was like, what is this, it's a back roller, why do you need this? I need this, how about I go? I go because I exercise and I like to roll my back and the whole time I had to pretend to be nice because I don't know the consequences if I'm not nice from 4:30 a.m. m. until 4:30 a.m. m. At 10 am. We were outside the lobby in the cold, by the way, it is very cold in Cairo with the police and more and more police come asking us all kinds of questions, treating us like criminals and suspecting something, but I don't know what.

It's like I can show you here there is a YouTube channel seven and a half million subscribers I can't make up those numbers this is a well founded channel I'm clearly in front of the camera at the end they asked us to show proof that they'd been together in different countries , so on this trip with my channel manager and two cameramen from Vietnam and they ask us to show us in their passports the times when they have been together in other countries at the same time and the dates must match. They better match and in my head it's like why does this matter?

Even if we meet today for the first time, I won't bring anything illegal, apparently walkie-talkies are illegal or prohibited, I didn't know that and immediately said. Take it, throw it away, I don't care, but no, that wouldn't be enough, so they took our equipment and said they'll hold it until we can find a permit. I know there are people watching this who think we just arrived. to Egypt randomly and we thought, oh, this will be a fun game. We've been preparing for this trip for 10 weeks, long before we got here, we applied for our permits, we weren't supposed to film for two more days after filming.

It's supposed to start today, guess what we finally got our permit yesterday but now we can't get the police to give us our stuff back. They gave us a receipt, a receipt for the equipment that says we have a weapon, what is the weapon? A walkie. -Talkie, that's a weapon. This is what I mean by stone age, thinking it's not everyone, but it's certain people in authority when they see that you have a piece of equipment, so obviously it's a weapon, so today I'm about to head to the airport where They took my equipment and we have to try to negotiate, show them our permission, we have permission from the press office to film in this country and we have to wait for them to actually give us my stuff back and if not, I'm not sure what the solution is , we have to try to rent equipment, shoot it with a phone, I mean, that's the last thing I want to do, we're going to spend over a hundred thousand dollars on this trip to Africa, it's the most I've ever invested in my life.

With any series, I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I didn't expect to spend that much money and have the option of having to film it on a damn iPhone, so that's still the quick version of the story, that's not all. the little details in between, but that's where we are so far. I have said what is objectively true. What objectively happened. I don't want this to get anyone in trouble and I hope it doesn't. From this point, the story continues. I want to document this because I know this is not the end, even if we get our team, this is not the end, this will be one of the most challenging countries we have been to and I have been to places like Iran, Nigeria.

Iran was a piece of cake compared to this because they had clear instructions: if you want to shoot, these are the hoops you have to jump through, you have to pay for these permits and we did it all and we got there and no problem, no problem, but here I am. No, uh, it's not clear if they have systems, it's not clear if they have regulations, it seems to go up the flagpole, a broad hierarchy of individuals and someone declares an order from somewhere based on what I don't know, gut assumptions, paranoia , so I. I'm heading to the airport right now.

I'm going to bring the phone. I can't bring this microphone because we don't have any other microphones and I don't want them to take this microphone. There are some teams that didn't see or didn't see. I don't consider it appropriate to take it, you already know that we can't shoot because we don't have cameras, so I don't think you care about the rest. Hopefully we can get our equipment and our session doesn't get ruined too much, for sure. It's already costing us more money. What they told me last night is that the police want more money, they want money for an import tax or an import fee.

I'm going to have to show them how much the equipment is worth and they'll charge me a percentage of that ten to thirty percent it'll be a few thousand dollars it sucks but we gotta do what we gotta do the last thing I'm gonna do is leave this country with the tail between my legs, I came here to shoot us. I have the right to shoot and not a right like I'm an American like no, we have this government's right from the press office to record videos, so damn it, that's what we're going to do, let's go to the airport, I need to be a little quiet I'm not supposed to be recording I'm at the airport at customs we've already been here for two and a half hours going back and forth with paperwork I needed a permit just to get back in Customs tons of stupid things I'm finally here.

I handed in my receipt for the equipment. My passport. They made me a fancy badge so I could enter customs. It seems worth having to do, so now I wait. and we have no idea what is going to happen, first they have to locate the equipment and then they will give it to us or not. I have no idea if they are going to ask for money. I have no idea what we'll see. I'm outside the airport now trying to be. A little booked again after four hours, they told me they can't give me my equipment because they have given it to a different department and we need to hire some middleman to work with customs and get our boat back.

This is the place I'm talking about. for the people who said: oh you have to do your due diligence, there is no system here, there is no plan, there is no step by step, it is pure chaos, hierarchy, layers and layers of people like you have

never

seen, no one knows what is happening, nothing is done. It's a

nightmare

after this moment, it was clear that we wouldn't get our equipment back until we left the country, so I went to a store, bought an iPhone and bought some lights. The next day production began. Come on, my God, after filming.

Four episodes and I finally leave the country. I recorded the following video in a hotel in Rwanda while we were filming. Our local producer is making us quite paranoid. He goes on to say that we should try to stay inside, we shouldn't erase any interest in the people around us. and I didn't realize why until the middle of the day we were outside and we were filming a bakery while we were filming that the police stopped us and by the way, it's not like you see them coming, it's just a bald guy in a leather jacket and half a cigarette in his mouth and pulls out a dirty ID card that was from the police, then the police start gathering more, they tell us to get in our van and follow them to the police station, where we probably spent an hour.

In that police station they first talk to all the local people, they talk to our local producer and finally they talk to us after about half an hour, the police officer wanted to see the footage on my phone so I show him the footage. hmm delete that delete that delete that delete that delete that shot by shot a police officer is telling me what to delete based on his feelings oh but what law did I violate any oh but there must be a rule no, no rule, this is what filming is in Egypt and, by the way, it is someone with a permit.

When we asked our local producer what he had permission for, he said: well, we are not in jail, beautiful country, that's why I have an obligation. and I have the responsibility to tell them not to go to Egypt. This country earns 12 percent of its GDP through tourism and they treat tourists like trash. It would be a little different if I went to the Congo. Is the Congo advertised as a tourist destination? no but Egypt does and they are the complete opposite so you might be wondering wow son you deleted an entire session no of course not these guys are so dumb.

What I did was,While we were on our way to the police station, we airdropped. a lot of images from a phone to a dummy phone. I had the fictitious phone number. I showed them the dummy images as soon as she said she had to delete them. I didn't go well. Brilliant. I said: Are you really sure? I mean, is it there? Something different we can do for next time is just we're trying to do the show about food in Egypt and he's like, yeah, sorry, I have to delete it, so I deleted it and we still have all the footage.

The rest of the shooting date was pretty horrible because now I don't enjoy it and I'm always on the lookout for the police and then our local producer makes us more paranoid if we try. Take your phone out the window to shoot. It's like no police officer ever left the phone. We finish the day we get back to the hotel and I feel pretty defeated. The next day we left Cairo and hoped things would improve. We were heading to a cable market and the camel gallery was interesting, it's a cool place, you can see pictures of it right now, very fascinating, but I mean, even on the way there are so many checkpoints in Egypt that we crossed one point control and then the type.

He just looked at us all and said, "No, you can't use this road." There are freedoms in the US that I have taken for granted my entire life, like the freedom to drive from Minnesota to California if you want, but In Egypt, if you go through a checkpoint and they don't want you to go, they don't need to tell you why. there is no rule, there is no law, you just can't go, so we had to go around and around adding hours. to our journey and finally arrived at the camel market at Campbell Market. I bought a camel and after interacting with the different local people there and buying the camel and paying a lot of money, fourteen hundred dollars for a camel, we tried to leave and then there something happened that happened a lot in that country, the local people tried to stop us until we gave them money.

There we took the camel to an oasis, a city very far from Cairo and fortunately we didn't have any problems with the police for a while. For a while, just because we were so far from the epicenter of the population, a lot of our experiences were bad there just because we had a bad local producer, I mean, he got us a terrible hostel that was almost freezing and we didn't feel good anyway , so I don't want to go into every terrible, nitpicky little thing that happened and maybe one day I will and make a big long podcast and you can listen to it, but instead of focusing on it, I want to focus on the big picture. and something that could really have an impact and hopefully create change in Egypt is how badly they treat tourists after our filming.

We return to Cairo. We filmed another video in Cairo without that producer. We filmed it with a different local tour guide who is actually his name was Joe and his company was fantastic and very helpful and luckily meeting Joe was just a completely different side of the country. I thought, oh wait, people like that they can organize and communicate together and that they can be clear and communicate something that I wouldn't do. experienced up to that point, they exist, the last terrible moment happened when we tried to leave the country, we didn't know how to get the equipment back and they

never

explained it to us clearly, they just say when you leave you will get it, so we leave.

At the airport we check in and then I have to go through the process of getting all my things back. The problem is that I have a limited amount of time because our plane is going to take off soon, so they have my drone that is in one terminal and then all the things that they took from me at the hotel are in another terminal, so I'm just walking with a local guy who is really taking his time. No one can clarify what the steps are, what is happening and step by step it's like dropping the I have to follow all these steps again to get my stuff back.

In the end I paid them about 350 for the pleasure of taking my stuff and putting it in a locker, so I finally have all my gear. I'm so relieved because I really thought I would have to go without it and I have big bags, bags full of cameras, big lithium batteries, they have tied and sealed all the bags because they feel like we don't want you to open this bag at all until you're in the plane or in another country because they perceive that the items in that bag are some type of threat, so we have my suitcases and they are fine, you must check them.

I'm fine, I can't register them. it's because it's full of lithium batteries, I can't check, we go back and forth about eight times in this conversation before someone says, oh right, lithium batteries, I say let me just open the bag and take out the batteries, absolutely not I had to do it. I stayed safely and my bags until the moment I boarded the flight. They accompanied me to security. Now the security guy says, "Hey, open these suitcases and I look at security from the airport. I ask them, what am I supposed to do?" you say. I can't open it he says open it then they look at it and say no it doesn't open amazing so he scans it he says okay okay I'll keep your passport go sit down.

I'm going to keep my passport, but from this point on I'm like I'm under arrest. Am I a prisoner? Like what's going on, I'm told to sit near the security guy while he finishes searching everyone else. Eventually everyone is. When I finished going through security, I said, Can I get my passport back? This guy walks me to the front of the line and then at that moment he hands me my passport and I've never felt so relieved in my life to leave a country at the end. Why am I making this video? I want to tell you my story so you can avoid the same situation.

I think a lot of people are naive about Egypt and think it's a tourist country. They have a great tourist attraction that they would probably try. I like a tourist or at least being neutral, but these people were really horrible. I am telling this story because something needs to change in Egypt now. Do I have any hope that Egypt will change? Not at all, but we can change, we can stop. By going there we can stop traveling there we can stop giving them our dollars or any currency you have in your country. The only pressure that most people understand and most countries understand is to lose money until things get better.

I recommend that you do not go to Egypt, yes, you may be. one of the lucky ones maybe you'll get away with it without anything happening and people might say well just don't bring cameras okay but don't take pictures with your iPhone either because that's what we did, people might say oh , you should have known the rules, um. The government gave me a permit. What you are thinking about is a society that makes sense, that has rules and laws that people understand and play with this place. It's a complete mess, maybe someday they'll get better, maybe someday I'll try to restructure or retrain or find a better way to treat people, maybe implement some real systems that make sense and work until that date far, far away. or until they really show some willingness to want to change and improve, don't go to Egypt.

I have been hosting trips professionally for six years. I have filmed in more than 25 countries. This is the first time I recommend that you not go somewhere. That's my story guys, that's all for now. We are also running our Egypt Series on the main channel and you can see some of these crazy moments in real life, plus see all the food, really interesting food anyway, check it out on the main channel. That's it for this one. Thanks so much for looking. see you next time peace