Egypt Tips (June 2002).
Don't change too much money. The changers will swear themselves blue in the face that it can be changed back at the airport to US$. When we were exiting at the Egypt Air Terminal they refused to change to anything except US$ travellers cheques and then charged an additional US $5 for each US$50 cheque. There was one person stuck with thousands of Egyptian pounds who had an extreme amount of trouble changing money back - and only eventually managed to do so because he was Egyptian and threatened to go to the appropriate authorities (and he knew the right names).