Egypt

Last week we were on holiday in Egypt. Mainly to go diving in the Red Sea as it's one of the best places to dive in (and alos one of the most accessible ones).

We went to Soma Bay and stayed in one of the three hotels available there. The hotel was billed as one of the Leading Hotels In The World but we beg to differ. Dinner was always buffet and not a la carte and it doesn't cater well for vegetarians. My girlfriend was sick one day with food poisoning - which means one day of our holiday wasted. The front desk people were all clowns. And there were other problems as well.

The diving itself was great although we didn't have much time to do lots of diving because of the food poisoning case. First we wanted to be Rescue Divers but now we're just Emergency First Responders who can dive with Nitrox. Not too bad. We'll become Rescue Divers another time. Saw lots of fish and corals in the Red Sea.

Egypt itself is a weird country. When we flew back home, the plane stopped at Sharm-El-Sheik. There we had to get off during transit. The problem is that it's 02.00am local time. But we stepped off and most shops were still open. I saw a sign for a Burger King upstairs so I thought about getting a midnight snack (a Whopper). Took the escalators up to find a policeman / customs guy waiting. I wasn't going out of the airport so I knew my rights. He asked where I was going. I pointed upwards toward Burger King and said "Burger King" (in fact there was only Burger King upstairs and nothing else. He asked why. I said "to eat". Then he wanted to see my passport. I said "I have my passport" but didn't make any suggestions that I was going to show it to him and started walking off to the next escalator. He approached me, but I knew that I don't have to show him my passport, so I wasn't worried. Then he said "pocket money". I wish I could say "fuck off!" but I said "don't have" instead. I went up and while queueing I heard the boarding call so I decided against waiting for a burger and went down. The same guy was there still and asked me "you have now". I wanted to say "fuck off" again but said "no" instead. What a stupid guy. What annoyed me though is that people behind me were showing him their passports (although not sure whether they gave him any money).

And I lost count how many times I was asked whether I was an Arab by an Egyptian. They seemed to have a game going on called "Guess where the tourist is from" and they lost lots of points with me.

Now back to the fucked up summer here in Europe.