Traffic in Egypt

Thought I'd make a general comment about Egyptian traffic and driving because its bonkers and genius at the same time.

I've noticed with only 1 exception that there is no road rage here and I think I've figured out why.

It's a generally accepted principle that no one obeys any of the rules, unless it involves anyone with a gun.

No gun, no rules.

If everyone follows the same rule breaking, then no one gets offended. You can queue jump cos everyone does it. You can pullout into oncoming traffic, cos everyone does it. You can undertake, cos everyone does it. You can toot and flash who you like (your lights that is - anything else is more than frowned upon), cos everyone does it. You can even make 3 or 4 lanes where there are only supposed to be 2, cos everyone does it.

The only saving grace to this madness is that in the civilised areas, there are many deterrents to speeding. There are vicious speed bumps every 100 metres or so in the main Na'ama bay area and most stick to the speed limits.

I said with one exception as one evening as we taxied to the bay, a nutter in a small mini van took offence to some manoeuvre our driver made. He then followed us most of the way to the bay, no more than a few protons between our bumpers. He flashed, tried to undertake and our driver did his best to put the guy off too. So it was a bit like being in a bizarre movie car chase from an Indiana Jones film. Our driver just said he was crazy. We smiled and laughed our tourist smiles all praying the mini van driver wasn't armed. All we could have done is thrown some broken Arabic at him and maybe a few hundred egyptian pounds... Actually we'd probably have been alright then.

Egypt is obviously quite behind the times in certain respects. Music, fashion, internet... Its all coming but its not here yet. So there are many things you may recognise in the way things are done too. If you're from my era (the 70s) then you will remember Frogger. Frogger is how the Egyptian pedestrians cross the roads, however there are no extra lives and no floating tree trunks to hop on.

The traffic does not stop for pedestrians.

Strangely, the pedestrians don't stop for the traffic either.

It's sort of like filling a jar with rocks (the traffic) and then pouring in sand (the pedestrians)

Cheers
Stootz

Day 14 - 12th July - Lazy Day

Day 14 - 12th July - Recover, relax, pack

Planned lazy day...

Relaxing, getting the last of the sun and at some point packing for our return tomorrow.

We woke early today to some almighty banging which Sam is convinced is the neighbours... well, banging. If the neighbours are Mr and Mrs A Fricanelephant, then I'd tend to agree. They'd also need a helluva lot of stamina as it went on for about two hours or so...

Maybe it was Sting.

We never did find out what the noise was before we headed for breakfast. The twins are late risers, Lissa needs approximately 14-16 hours sleep per day (not including sunbathing naps thank you very much). If Connor is awake, he isn't allowed to make any noise, in fact he's not allowed to do much while Lissa is about lol. He wants the air con on all night, she doesn't. Guess who wins?

Brekkie was good, I had cereal and milk for a change (I miss the ice cold milk of home - if I were Irish there'd be a song in that). Sam braved the 'egg station' a rather officiously titled cooking corner, where a bored Egyptian cook effortlessly cracked, broke an poured out an egg into a hot pan with one hand. He did it again with another (egg not hand) and then flipped both ( eggs not hands cos even I could flip my own hands) without even looking at the pan. It made me wonder if they have "Egypt's Got Talent" running yet...

We bagged some beds near the pool and lounged, reading and dipping in the pool at the points where skin began to melt.

I decided to just listen to a few tunes on my iPhone whilst writing up some blog entries. I have a truly bizarre and eclectic collection of music from pop to metal, alternative, classical (modern and the masters), Turkish pop, turkish folk, arabian, irish folk, string quartets, lots of film music. I can't say I like everything, but if I ever want to break into film composing proper, then I need to be well versed in many styles and flavours of music.

Nothing much was happening and then the James Bond theme tune came on... The version by David Arnold from my favourite Bond film, Casino Royale (the recent remake). It's amazing how music can change your perspective on things...

Instantly the scene around me transformed... The drunk Russian we encountered last night, becomes Vladimir Karpov, an ex-FSB agent out for Bond's blood.

The bikini clad women begin emerging from the pool in slow motion, trying to get Bond' attention.

The innocent looking Egyptian waiter, carrying his usual tray of drinks, suddenly has a glint in his eye. He knows which drink to hand to Bond, and where the antidote is to the poison he's slipped in it.

The bartender at the outdoor bar looks more menacing than previously as he slices lemons and oranges for his cocktails... He certainly knows more about handling knives than he's letting on.

I could swear the whole bottom of the pool is sliding open...

Bond lies nonchalantly in the sun, his laser transformed eyes revealing more than any normal person can see. They fix on his target... Even in the 47 degree heat, his target remains cool and icy, staring straight back, daring Bond to make his move.

Bond shifts quickly but smoothly closer to his target, avoiding the admiration of several Bond-type girls along the way. Throwing an Egyptian fiver to the floor he deftly distracts the Egyptian waiter, who bends over so quickly, the money hits him on the back of the head.

Vladimir.

Bond thinks fat. That's not a typo... using two obese German women as cover, he circles behind them, beyond Vladimir's hazy gaze. Unfortunately Bond underestimated the Germans mass, which was sufficiently large to create their own small gravitational pull... Bond struggled hard, before turning and running straight at them, hoping he could slingshot himself out of their pull like a NASA satellite.

He just about managed to escape, but his trajectory put him straight into the path of the bartender... He slammed into the bar, winded and gasping for breath he stared his target in the face. The bartender grinned an evil grin borrowed from some underworld creature. He chopped a lemon into 16 pieces with a single 'scwhip' of his scalpel sharp knife.

Bond righted himself. Stood English-tall and pointed to his target, still icy cold in the withering heat.
"Two of those beers. Shukran!" Bond spoke with perfect Queens Brummie-English.

I swear I haven't had anything other than a few lemonades... Honestly.

Cheers
Stootz

Day 13 - 10th July - Nitrogen

Day 13 - 10th July - Nitrogen

So after 3 x 45 minute dives yesterday we are full to the brim with nitrogen. Ok not full but too much to fly, so our dive computers are telling us. Hence we have a lazy day planned but with a trip back to Oonas to get our hotel room key, which as mentioned in the last post, I left in my dive bag.

Oopsie!

From the dive club, we are going to walk down along the sea front, to the Hard Rock Cafe and try to recapture that first visit atmosphere, by grabbing late lunch there. If it's good I suspect we may just stay there, particularly if they have wifi as the kids are desperate to get on... Lissa is desperate to contact Joe (her boyfriend of 9 months - he has my full sympathy for putting up with her for so long) and Connor, well he probably just wants to post some weird comments on facebook like 'pwned' or 'BFMV' or 'gay'... The future of mankind is in trouble my friends...

Sam relented and despite the extortionate prices, she's letting the twins onto the hotel computers... Hopefully they will get it out of their systems, it's only 4 days til we get home!
...

Inevitably, the hotel computers were pants. Nothing worked as it should and facebook was displaying so weirdly it was unusable. The helpful staff switched them to another computer after about 15 minutes and finally things worked ok. We made sure they reset the timer though...

Later on we decided it was HRC time and so after getting changed, I ordered us a taxi from reception to take us to Oonas dive club... I had to get the forgotten hotel room key as a priority.

Cheers
Stootz

Day 12 - 9th July - Diving

Day 12 - 9th July - Hawkmen!! DIIIIIIVE!

Felt poorly.

Coach to oonas

Filled out forms still not knowing if I should go... Drank loadsa water... Still not decided. Me and sam made up some new dive signals to indicate the need for a toilet 'movement'... Ranging from a simple 'pull the chain' type motion, to a more elaborate 'mushroom cloud from the bottom' motion. We were also trying to figure out if the 'movement'' would float and go up or sink down. Now you may think that's gross and wildly beyond what normal people would discuss. To divers however, the direction things go underwater are important. For example, if you become disoriented, you can check which way your bubbles leave your regulator. They always go up, even in Australia, hence you know which way is up.

Now, for the toilet 'movement', you'd want to know which way it will go, because you'd rather it go down the back of your leg and out the bottom of your wet suit leg, than up the back (or worse the front) of the neck of your wet suit... Ultimately it could even fill your hood... Ewwww!

Decided what the hell and packed my gear for the boat.

We were taught the proper way to pack our boxes, wet suit first, regs, masks / boots / snorkels, BCD on top (back plate out) so the bladder is protected, fin down each side and weight belt thru the crate handles as a single handle to make it easier to carry. 'Job jobbed' as a neighbour of hours likes to say.

3 great dives.

Manta ray!

Totally knackered - left the key in the dive bag!!!

Reception wanted to charge us for it, but eventually understood that we could get it back. Still, they wanted to charge us for a spare key. We said no and so he said ok one of the cleaners will let you in. Good job I'd tipped them earlier in the week, he came promptly and opened the door.

Next problem was electricity - the room's power is circuit-broken, but by using the hotel key fob everything springs to life as you previously left it. We tried using one of the towel tokens as it was a similar size but nothing happened. This worried me as I was fairly convinced the fob had no electronics in it, so I'd kept the key in my pocket whilst in the pool. Hmmm maybe I'd killed it as well as left it in the dive bag.

I tried phoning Oonas... Phoning anywhere abroad where English isn't the first language, is like telling aliens to turn left at Mars... How do they know what left is and how do they know what Mars is?? So, over the phone you are devoid of hand gestures to clarify things, and the usual problems with 's' and 'f', 'm' and 'n' occur (always reminds me when someone asked me "is that m or n?" to which I replied "n as in Nigel Mansell...").

I 'spoke' at 2 or 3 people just asking for Nick or Corrie but they were out or busy, I'm not sure which.

Eventually I spoke to Terry who said we could come down and pick it up, but no one was coming out our way.

Then Sam tried switching a light on and it worked, with a towel token in the circuit breaker. The power goes out at least once per day which resets everything, so putting the towel token enabled the power but everything had reverted to it's off position. Saved! No need to go back to Oonas!!

We were all tired but went out for our pre-booked Italian meal in the hotel's special restaurant.

It was pitch black.

They lit a romantic candle for us that I think mice would struggle to make use of.

We ordered proper food from a proper menu and it was actually good, even though you couldn't see what you were eating. I used my Swiss Army iPhone to light up everyones meal so we could ensure we weren't eating other disgruntled badly behaved hotel guests remains.

It was somebodys birthday so that got sung an odd Egyptian tune that sounded like they were about to make a sacrifice to some ancient god. We joined in as best we could... We were then handed some of the birthday cake which was nice.

Turns out it was someone elses bday too, so the same thing happened... And we got offered more cake but were too stuffed.

I think we went and played cards and them got to bed totally exhausted.

Bye for now!

Cheers
Stootz

Day 11 - 8th July - Lazy People

Planned lazy day after the Bedouin nights session last night and some time to get energy levels up for tomorrows diving.

Got up late about 9.30 went for breakfast.

Met an older couple during breakfast that said they were having a terrible time.

Wrong coach @ airport, given wrong tickets for wrong people and wrong hotel. Eventually reached here after 50 minute drive on communal coach - the airport is less than 10 mins if u go directly.

Nothing for kids to do (but they haven't come with kids). Maybe they meant other people's were causing trouble?

Apparently we missed three fights in the hotel last night... Some girl dragging another girl by her hair out of their room. Some bloke hit a woman... Not interested though as that can happen anywhere. Towels are being moved and dumped off the sunbeds round the pool. They aren't having a good time at all.

We must have blinked and missed it all.

Connor lost his towel (prob stolen by the fighty people) so we were facing a 75 LE fine (about £10 in the Queens dosh). Sam went and blagged a token from the guy that hands them out, saying Connor returned a towel and forgot to get the token. It worked so no more fine lol! She's a star at that kind of thing... And complaining... in the sense of poor service = complaint... We holidayed in Portugal years ago and she was served some seriously undercooked chicken - despite a complete language barrier she complained solidly and didn't pay a penny for it. It's even more dangerous these days what with a law degree, legal practice course and a thorough understanding of all things in the 'sale of goods' act.

Threw Connor in the pool a few times and played piggy in the middle with his Crocs shoe lol.

The Egyptian curse finally struck me this afternoon so plans to go to Soho Square were scuppered. I didn't eat much other than soup and some bread and drank lots of non alcoholic drinks. Sam and the kids tucked into the 'mexican' themed buffet, some parts good some bad. The restaurant is a bit like that, there's lots of choice but I can see what some people are saying when they say its 'samey' and the quality varies. I'd give it 4 out of 5 for choice (especially if you only stay one week) but only 3 out of 5 for quality. You can usually judge the quality by the cut of meat used... Sometimes the dishes described as chicken, beef or lamb, bear only a passing resemblance to a former life as an animal. There are bones for sure, that's what the meat is normally wrapped around.

There should be something for everyone though so I wouldn't want to deter anyone.

I think the kids are enjoying the food the least, the buffet novelty has worn off, at least for Lissa. I think she wants a proper meal served to her on a plate, like in the Hard Rock Cafe. Connor is still like a puppy, bounding up again and again especially for desert.

Early night as we're diving tomorrow
- that'll be fun in this condition lol

Bye for now.

Cheers
Stootz

Day 10 - 7th July - Bedouin Nigh

Lazy day followed by Bedouin nights experience Inc star gazing.

Long coach ride with brief stop to wait for others by some grand peace sign from 1996.

More ppl got on coach then off to starting point.

Bedouin houses have satellite dishes etc cheating really lol.

Just before we got off the coach, the guide said : need to drink water... Sunblock, cover head. Outside temp is 47 deg C. Gawd!

Stopped in front of a lot of camels (40-50).

Brought our own head scarves from quad biking trip. Boy put them on us differently, just covering top of heads not faces.

Vicious sounding camel complaining loudly... It was Connors and he reluctantly approached to get on.

We all got on and up easily. Lissa had to swap for some reason.

Hard wooden knob on front and back of saddle. Not comfortable kept poking all of us in the back. Left bruised.

Ride not painful but very uncomfortable. You can see why a lot ride side saddle or with legs crossed. I tried & it was marginally more comfortable. Tiring on the legs, inner thighs sore.

Not a nice smell, at all...

Riding in a train of about 50 camels.

Videos being shot. Managed some myself but very jerky as there's not a huge amount of rhythm to the camels lolling gait.

Connors tripped over a few stones making him squeal as it dipped suddenly lol.

We trudged on for ages... They told us the ride was 50 minutes long but we could abort early if we wanted to. Suddenly the whole experience turned into Stephen King's "The Long Walk" - no one wanted to be the the first to drop out, so we all marched on. One guy in a blue t-shirt was in agony, I think his man lumps met camel humps in a terribly confined space.

We got off and the boy guiding us demanded money. Not nice but we gave him some anyway.

We were led to a sheltered spot at the foot of a hill. Kin of like converted stables with cushions... We sat and drank water, recovering from the heat of the late afternoon.

We were invited to watch the sunset from the top of the hill, but it had already gone, so was a bit of a let down.

As the sun faded, candles were lit in makeshift holders on the tables in our stall. Only ours wouldn't light because Sam thought it was a bin of some kind and threw a drink away in it, so the candle was soaked lol.

As the light faded further we were invited for dinner at a table outside the stables. It was pretty good considering where we were but it was obviously brought in from outside.

The last light finally dipped away and we were left with a growing camp fire a short distance from where we sat. The Bedouins started singing and playing a makeshift drum... Then they got ppl dancing.. Oh dear!

We avoided the Bedouin shenanigans and were finally herded to a spot somewhere in what I'd call their car park. We looked up and couldn't believe the sight... More stars than any of us had ever seen in our lives... It was like something out of the start of a Hollywood movie. Utterly amazing.

Then an eloquent Egyptian man demonstrated exceptional knowledge of the stars, using a laser pointer that seemed to stretch all the way to each star he pointed at... He told us about the constellations and the star signs (I got called out and shown Virgo... It's on it's side in this part of the world but stands on one leg when viewed in England).

We got to look thru some powerful telescopes at Saturn and a star whose name I forget, but both were immensely small... I know that sounds ungrateful but years ago we bought Adam a half decent telescope in the year of Saturns closest approach, we saw the storm spot on the side it was that close.

We were herded back on the coach and home, bed was welcome as we were all knackered.

Bye for now!

Day 9 - 6th July - Quads

Another planned lazy day followed by quad biking.

4pm pick up in coach then out to the desert.

Lots and lots of ppl on quads and buggies.

Bought headscarves, they tied em on for us - we all looked the part. ;-)

20-30 in our group - must have been 5 or 6 other similar groups. It was more like a small quad-mounted army venturing into the mountains.

Gentle ride out single file - kids hassling us running alongside, tried to grab sam's wedding and engagement ring. Would have been one less Egyptian kid to feed.

Out into the desert - as expected it was painfully hot, more so in parts than others. A few people started to put their legs in odd positions on the bike as they rode on. I felt intense heat in my right leg and despite my initial thoughts of missing a bit with the sun cream, I figured out the engine was getting super hot and venting onto my leg. Now I was riding odd-saddle too.

It got ridiculously bumpy in parts: lots of close spaced deep ruts that rattled your fillings, bingo wings, dangly things and the bags under your eyes. It was reeeeally bad. The mountains were a mix of amazing, breathtaking, forbidding, and scary...

We were in the middle of nowhere.

Then unexpectedly, an outpost appeared. Then some shacks / houses began to occur with more frequency. We eventually came to a small village looking like an oasis in the desert.

So, we stopped off for refreshments - expensive water & tacky picture backdrops: smaller plaster versions of all major monuments like the pyramids, valley of the kings etc. This was the only bit of the trip I didn't like as it was really desperate and extortionate.

Back on quads to starting point - a dozy couple kept swerving and trying to go faster so got told to get out of line & escorted back.

Good fun but not as good as quads in Turkey.

Bye for now.

Cheers
Stootz