Sharm el Sheikh 2

We’ve been back for a couple of days now, but I’m behind with the blogging, because there was one casualty of the trip – the screen of my laptop. It must have got bumped or shaken on the flight, but I didn’t notice anything untoward at the time. I haven’t lost the data, so I’m beginning to be mildly pleased at the prospect of a new laptop. Anyway, here’s my second Egyptian instalment.

The Egyptians are obviously aiming at slightly higher end tourism, and they keep this place really clean and well cared for. There’s only a little of the Middle Eastern / Asian failing of building something rather swish and then failing to maintain it in any way. It’s pretty international – we ate teppanyaki one night - but you’re still clearly in Egypt.

It’s been cloudier today so not quite as hot on the beach, but the evening is much warmer and we had a little walk, and I noticed a trend for Egyptian pop songs to use tunes from European classical music – I heard one clearly based on Fur Elise and a real oddity based on Orff’s O Fortuna. There was even a dramatic anthem, with an opening based on Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathrustra. It’s quite a strange sound because the tune is overlaid by Arabic wailing, and so to begin with I thought I was just imagining hearing Beethoven.

The Kobo E readers the children gave us for Christmas are a great success. The only difficulty I’ve encountered was that I couldn’t make out the maps in the copy of Antony Beevor’s  “Stalingrad”, which I borrowed from the library. It really benefited from concentrated reading – at home, reading in short spells, I’d have constantly been having to look back to remind myself who Schmidt or Chuikov was – but the maps would have been a great help, I’m sure.

It felt slightly odd to be reading about Stalingrad while surrounded by Russians, or Ukrainians, I can’t tell the difference. But they are instantly recognisable as one or the other. They’re usually very badly dressed and the women have badly coloured hair. To protect the dyed hair from the sun they wear headscarves, but there’s nothing stylish about them – they all succeed in looking like those statues of “The factory worker (holding hammer aloft) and the collective farm worker (brandishing sickle)” which seemed to be everywhere when we went to Russia in 1972. The pretty women tend to spend a lot of time having their photographs taken in soft porn poses, and all seem to favour thongs, whatever sex or figure. A woman with the figure of a shot putter run to fat, in a diamante thong, will stick in my memory for ever.

One of the tour boats is rigged up to look rather like a Nile barge, curved with thick, heavy posts shaped a little like lotus stems and flowers fore and aft. It makes me think of Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, but there aren’t any rowers, just an engine – a bit disappointing. And it doesn’t seem to have perfumed sails, either.

We’ve got a routine of going into a café for a drink and a sandwich for Phil, otherwise he goes all weak and weedy, and using our phones to check emails and the news. We seem to have missed some bad weather. But the exciting thing was getting an email from our older grandson – how quickly they grow up!  It was nice to hear from him and be able to reply – I always send the postcards, but we usually get home before it arrives.

We came down to earth with a bump, arriving home! Waiting for the minibus to take us to the car, the cold was awful, and by the time I’d scraped the snow off the car, I could have cried at the pain in my hands. Then when we got home, the flat was freezing. But it is nice to be home again and to see everyone.

Sharm el Sheikh

I had a very enjoyable Christmas, but a bit odd because we didn’t have anyone to stay. So I kept feeling at a loss, and that I must have forgotten to do something, because I had so much time to relax. Normally I don’t stop working for several days, except to sleep, and I don’t usually do that well, because I know I have to be first up and try to get things done (say, cleaning the loos or sweeping the kitchen floor) before everyone else gets moving and wanting breakfast, and then coffees, and then lunch………. It sounds as though I don’t enjoy it and of course I do really, but not having it to do is quite a change.

So now the Christmas holidays are over and we are having our first holiday in Sharm el Sheikh. We chose it because it’s the place that’s the shortest flight to guaranteed sunshine, and my husband felt in need of warmth because of his rheumatoid arthritis. I must say we felt some trepidation – it’s not at all our usual type of holiday – but so far it’s a big success. We’re in a big resort hotel, with a lovely large room, with settee and table and chairs so we can be comfortable passing time in the room. There’s a big swimming pool just outside and I had a swim before breakfast, but it is cold (12 degrees according to the blackboard), so I really needed a hot shower when I came back. There are two heated pools, but they are too small for serious swimming.

The gardens are beautifully cared for, with hibiscus and bougainvillea in blossom, all the colours from white to deepest reds, purples and blues, and busy lizzies,  and some other flowers that I can’t identify. There are egrets pottering around the lawns, very bold, and sparrows, and we saw a kestrel (or something pretty much identical to one) sitting on the beach volleyball net. When we got back after breakfast the first day, our room was made up and the duvet was arranged into a heart shape, heavily decorated with fresh bougainvillea flowers. Surely they can’t think we’re a honeymoon couple? Or does everyone get the treatment?

The Hotel garden

Our chamberman is obviously well trained but a bit OCD, if you ask me. He’s always arranging tubes of shaving gel, toothpaste and such in strict size order, and brought a special napkin to arrange the leads of all our electronic gear. He always refolds my pyjamas (evidently I don’t do it neatly enough) and I wish he wouldn’t. I wouldn’t put it past him to tidy our drawers. They could do with it – I tend to work on the principal that if it’s in a drawer, then it’s been tidied, no matter what state the drawer is in.

The beach is great, lots of sunbeds and shade. There were some people with snorkels, so I took my goggles and blow me, there are loads of fish and corals! This is just off the beach, as you get out of your depth in the sea!  Actually you can see fish in water that’s only knee deep. I thought you’d have to get much further away from the busy beach. They aren’t a bit bothered by swimmers. The best was a ray, I suppose about 2 to 3 feet long, sand coloured, but with bright sky blue spots and bright blue stripes on its tail. There are some elegant bronze coloured fish with very fine  yellow/green stripes. Yellow seems to be a popular colour, and stripes are obviously in – horizontal, vertical and even on one fish, chevrons. It was silver white with fine black chevrons and a  brilliant yellow tail. There are spots as well. One fish is all leopard spots in brown/grey, very smart. I’ve even seen a pipefish, pale silver blue and about a foot long. (I know things look bigger underwater, so I am trying hard not to exaggerate.)

The coral isn’t quite as interesting as the fish, but there is quite a variety and it’s really colourful. There’s quite a lot of sulphur yellow, growing up like a fan, and there’s some nubbly purple stuff which reminds me of thyme in flower. There’s some just like boring stones, but with weird sort of lips that are bright blue. There’s red and orange, and I did manage to identify brain coral, not that that’s a great achievement.

There are loads of Russians here, escaping the winter, and the first thing that greeted us at the airport was an extremely drunken Russian, shouting at the top of his voice. The police had got him in a glassed off sort of room, but you could see all that was going on, which was a good arrangement. I have to say the police seemed to be being quite patient, because he was really annoying. The taxi driver we’d arranged to meet us said he’d been yelling like that for about an hour, and of course the flight he should have been on wouldn’t take him, so the Egyptian police were stuck with him.

Possibly a worse Russian offence is that of fat middle aged men with substantial beer bellies, hanging over budgie smuggler swimming trunks. Actually I don’t think any man, other than Olympic swimmers, can get away with that sort of swim wear. There’s an even more revolting version which involves a thong back.  In fact, there are some  truly hideous sights on the beach – I really never imagined that bikinis were obtainable in size 24.  And however slim you are, when you reach a certain age,  remember that your skin is not as it was, and cover up the soft,saggy, crepy bits. Please, have some dignity. Having said that, there are some lovely girls in bikinis and a few nice looking men.

There are lots of Italians here, too, which I didn’t expect, all cheerful and noisy. The one man I’ve seen who is really well dressed is –guess what? Italian. There were some dodgy British types on the plane, but they have disappeared. Why won’t British men grow up? Why do they think behaving like half witted  teenagers  into their thirties is appealing – or even acceptable? And why do they wear those short trousers, which are obviously meant to end mid shin, but because their wearers are fat and have had to buy a big size, end just above the ankles, at half mast? I could have a whole section on shockingly ugly tattoos, but I’ll spare you.

The days are quite short but the middle of the day is really hot. The evenings are comparatively chilly, but we’ve brought jumpers and I have tights and shoes as having cold feet makes me miserable. The first night we ate at an extremely good Lebanese restaurant – the fattoush had pomegranate seeds in it, which I thought was just to look pretty, but it really added to the flavour. So we went back and had the grilled meats. I couldn’t quite name the spice used in the chicken kofta, and it was gorgeous, so maybe we’ll go back again, in the interests of research.

There are lots of shops but they all sell the same stuff that you don’t want. So really, there’s nothing much to do. I expect it’s livelier in the season, whenever that is. Egyptians are very jokey, and it takes a bit of getting used to, but they obviously mean well.

We did try an Egyptian restaurant, but it wasn’t good, either for service or food. There was a large party of Egyptian women and children and they seemed to be complaining, so I don’t think it was just us. It’s a shame, as we’d like to sample good Egyptian food. It was quite entertaining, though, because the TV seemed to be showing a “Strictly Belly Dancing” competition, where the audience seemed to vote for the girl they liked best.  I would have voted for the girl in black – her breasts were amazing – they had a life of their own. Then it switched to MTV or similar with the sound off and Egyptian pop playing on a tape or something. That was quite confusing until we worked out 

that the pictures and sounds weren’t related. - I'm having a lot of trouble with  and apologise for the weird punctuation - it will keep working from right to left.the Arabic