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Communications: Post, phones and the media
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Post office hours are generally daily except Fri 8am-2pm (Ramadan 9am-3pm), though central offices may stay open until 8pm. Almost invariably, offices are closed on Fridays. Airmail letters between Western Europe and Egypt generally take around a week to ten days, two to three weeks to North America or Australasia. Sending mail from Egypt, it speeds up the delivery if you get someone to write the name of the country in Arabic. As a rule, around fifteen percent of one's correspondence (in either direction) never arrives; letters containing photos or other items are especially prone to go astray.
It's best to send letters from a major city or hotel; blue mailboxes are for overseas airmail, red ones for domestic post. Airmail ( bariid gawwi) stamps can be purchased at post offices, hotel shops and postcard stands, which may charge 5pt above the normal rate (80pt for a postcard/letter to anywhere in the world). Registered mail , costing 15-30pt extra, can be sent from any post office. Selected post offices in the main cities also offer an Express Mail Service (48hr to Europe or the US, which costs ?E37-48 for letters under 100 grammes). Private courier firms such as Federal Express or DHL are limited to a few cities, and a lot more expensive.
To
send a parcel
, take it unsealed to a major post office for customs inspection, weighing and wrapping. The procedure - explained in detail in the Cairo section - is much the same throughout Egypt. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Egypt |