I was in Egypt in 1992. Aggressive, yes. One trick is the negotiated prices. You may think you have settled on 15 pounds, but we you pull out the wallet, the vendor says 50 pounds, taking advantage of the small phonetic difference between 15 and 50.

I thought the bargaining was part of the adventure. Not that I would want to do it for a long time, but for the short term, it was fun.

I always wanted to go back, maybe spend a month. But I think I'm getting too old for this kind of adventure.