My Vacation in Egypt

Written by Rolf

This story is an impression of our (an ex-girlfriend and I) vacation to Hurghada, Egypt in September. We did not visit any pyramids, nor did we ride a camel, we didn't even go diving in the Red Sea, but still had a great time. This page features mainly pictures from Luxor and fish. Between the photographs I will elaborate on our adventures and meanwhile teach some Arabic (I don't know the proper way to write it, but we have learned a few handy words).

September 7

The plane to Hurghada was to leave at 14:00, so we had plenty of time to sleep, get ready, get to Schiphol airport, check in and grab a bite to eat. It was a six hour flight, which was long for our standards, with lots of turbulence. They showed a movie with Robin Williams, Patch Adams, which I watched since I had nothing else to do. Normally I wouldn't watch that kind of movie. There was no sound, but you could buy headphones on the plane, which of course I didn't do. Lunch was okay, considering it was plain plane food.

We landed at 20:45 local time and after a mass check of all the passports we walked to the bus that would take us to our hotel. Already on the way to that bus there were herds of natives who would carry our suitcases for us in exchange for a tip (~bakshees). We had been warned for this, so, no thanks.

At the hotel we were welcomed with a typical Egyptian drink, malfine tea (~karkaddi), but we had been told not to drink tap water, so we happily declined. After that we were led to our room 4408 (~arba arba sefr temenya) by a dude who carried our bags but luckily didn't want bakshees. At 22:30 we ate a bit and then went to bed where it was warm, noisy and windy.

September 8

A cleaner woke us by his knocking at eight o'clock. We had breakfast and walked to the hotel's private beach. We saw some crabs, fish, water plants and an ibis. At ten, there was a meeting with Inez, the travel guide. When that was over we stayed a while at the beach and saw a flight of storks and saw a lot of underwater life, tropically colored fish.

This morning we saw a horse and a donkey, but that wasn't half as strange (to us) as the camel we saw on our way back to the hotel.

September 9

After spending a great deal braindead at the hotel room, we arrived at about 15:00 at the beach and got recognized already by beach boy Mahmoed and waiter Said. We had a cheese sandwich for brunch and freshly squeezed mango juice of 4 bucks per glass. The plan was to go snorkeling, so we did. I had never snorkelled before and I found it so unnatural to breathe under water that it took me a long time before I could remotely relax and breathe. Once underwater, we saw dozens of different fish, some specimens up to 50 cm (yes, we consider that big for a tropical fish). I even noticed a squid and we swam through a shoal (more than 1000) of small fish, which was quite an experience.

September 10

We bought some postcards but didn't get any stamps yet, because we had to pay 1.50 for a 1.15 stamp. Although we are filthy rich compared to the natives, we don't like to be fcuked. At our meeting with Inez we arranged a trip to Luxor, so we'd be going there September 14th. The rest of the morning we did little more than solving crosswords at our balcony. We had a cheese sandwich like the day before and later went to the beach, where we chatted and snorkeled for one and a half hour. An octopus succesfully tried to scare the shit out of us.

At night at dinner a belly dancer tried to lure my ex to the stage, but I prevented that by taking her hand and dragging her along while running away. For the second time that day we headed for the beach, where there was a supposedly 'beach party'. We avoided the 'dance floor' but just sat at the water in a wooden beach chair drinking a couple of fruitpunches. Orange juice with rum, very nice. When the belly dancer showed up here as well, we left.

September 11

After breakfast early morning (11:00) we halted a small old van (local taxi) to take us downtown. Bazaar representatives from every side yelled at us that we really should take a look at their shop, thinking we were just average German, English, Belgian, even Italian or Dutch ("kijken kijken niet kopen!") people. I needed some summer shoes, so I had to try out the typical bargaining. We had been told about this phenomenon by Inez who said that shopkeepers would be insulted if we didn't play the game or only haggled a bit, so I spent the next half hour starting at 100 and driving the price down to 40 pound. I must have made him a happy man. At other stores I bought a few T-shirts.

Then we met shopkeeper (King) George. We bought some postcards and stamps. He told us that it was quite normal to pay 1.50 for 1.15 stamps for the provision that shopkeepers ask. He didn't. He even exchanged U.S. dollars for us, which he told us was not quite legal for him to do. He taught us to write our names in Arabic (Mahmoud taught us that yesterday, so we were able to impress George with our knowledge). We bought a picture book of tropical fish and got a papyrus bookmark for a present. He asked us to promise to revisit later.

We had spaghetti bolognese on a roof of a restaurant and the owner liked us so much that he offered us a sigaret (of the brand Cleopatra) after lunch. An overful taxivan took us back to the hotel, where we wrote our adventures and greetings on the postcards. Of course we had to go to the beach again and at the end of our snorkeling session we saw a blue-spotted stingray (poisonous, similar the kind that killed Steve Irwin) and a territorial lionfish (also poisonous!). Very scary, very cool.. afterwards.

At dinner the cook Mohammed taught us the Arabic words for "thank you" (~shokran) and "lovely/tasty(food)" (~helwa). I made him laugh by saying helwa and pointing to an Italian babe. After dinner the assistant cook Shazly (we expected his name would be something like Shimmy, coz he looked like a Shimmy) came over to our table and asked us if Mohammed could show us Hurghada, tomorrow night at 23:00. Well, okay.

September 12

At night we went into Sekalla, the old town, with cook Mohammed (married, 2 kids, 3 and 4 years old, Ahmed and Yasmin) where we drank coffee (~ahwa) and tea (~chai) in a poor part of town. Mohammed doesn't speak any english but he had an Arabic crib with English pronunciation sentences. Two hours of teaching and learning later, we knew some new words.

~(helwa) geddan	very (good)	~enta / enti	you are (m / v)
~avwan	you're welcome	~nem	tired
~mish ...	not ...	~sahi	awake
~avish mooskala	no problem	~saba algayr	good morning
~gallas	okay, no problem	~messe algayr	goodnight
~li	why	~hagela	bike
~(ana) esseef	(I'm) sorry	~melekki	car
~ana	I am	~arabeeye	minivan (taxi)
~zoebaba	fly (insect)	~salamoo alaykoom	hello
~beezyou	stationwagen	~belana wisheva	bon appetit
~otobees	touringcar	~kweyz	good
~messe lama	bye	~sahala	easy
~orfa	room	~inaha sahala	too easy

He had a funny way of teaching us, which I guess he read in a tutorial: "You speak English: how are you? You speak Arabic: ~seiy elhaal?" After the ride home in a minivan Mohammed accepted the, hidden in a subtle handshake, ten-pound note. "~Hamde allah!" (Good!)

Earlier that day we had said goodbye to our beach boy Mahmoud before we were allowed to swim. We made a photograph of him and each one of us, exchanged addresses and gave him a modest bakshees in spite of the dubious feelings about this matter (should you give your friends bakshees?).

In sea we saw a huge shell of a lobster which must have been about a meter long when it was alive. We also met a big chubby inflatable fish and a kind of dark parrot fish of at least a meter. Impressive.

September 13

We didn't do anything today. We went snorkeling early, about 10:30 but the sight wasn't clear so we lied down on the beach underneath a straw sunscreen where we got extremely red from sunburn.

September 14

This was the day of our trip to Luxor. We left inhumanly early at 5:15. Our hotel had provided us with a sad breakfast box which consisted mostly of dry buns. The way to and from Luxor, the buses had to ride in a convoy which was protected by police escort. This because a few years ago several tourists had been shot.

We had to travel for about four hours, if I remember correctly. The journey went through the desert and the Red Sea Mountains. Once in a while we would spot a herd of goats with its owner wrapped in thick layers of cloth. After the desert, when we approached Luxor, we rode along a canal. On the opposite side were many mudbrick houses, populated with appropriately poor people. The poor people did not seem unhappy, though, with several cans of rich people driving there. The poor kids smiled and waved at the buses. Adult poor men were walking with donkeys or a stick, the length of which indicated their relative wealth.

On our way to the beginning of our tour, we drove through Luxor, already seeing a glimpse of the sights we were going to visit. Throughout Luxor we noticed the remains of a long (I think I remember it was 8 kilometer) row of statues, resembling the ram Amon with a small man in front of them. They were all the same and the little man was Ramses II, the pharaoh who ruled for many years. He didn't go to war that much, so he got to be very old, and had time to let all those statues built to honor him.

The first sight we went to see was at the west coast of the Nile. At the colossi of Memnon, two 19 meter high statues, we were told that we had 10 minutes to take pictures and then we had to be in the bus again. I had the strong feeling that I was a tourist and got treated as such, but when I took one step outside the bus, it was so hot that I didn't care and was glad to be back in the bus after taking the mandatory pictures and taking a leak in a dirty toilet. I casually dropped a few coins in front of the caretaker, suggesting that she should clean the shit up occasionally.

After the colossi we went (or rather, were transported) to the temple of Hatsjepsut (or something). The temple was big and richly painted and modern for the time. It looked to me like another temple from the Discovery channel, but I'm culturally challenged, so I was wrong of course. Not that I cared. The guide made a joke about how she called it hot chicken soup because it was so hot and the valley was filled with tourists. Haha, very funny, I almost forgot to laugh. The truth was, it was extremely hot, over 40 degrees centigrade.

On a more cultural note, Hatsjepsut was one of few female pharaohs and maybe she was really a transsexual, she always depicted herself as a man, with a wig and an Osiris beard. She married her husband's son (?) to prevent that her husband Tutmosis III would not rule during her life. After Hatsjepsut died, Tutmosis cleared many of her images (rm -rf *.jpg).

Did I mention it was extremely hot? Well, it seemed to be even hotter in the Valley of the Kings. We visited three of the tombs there, Ramses I, IV and IX, which all looked the same, one long hallway ending in a square room, all richly painted with hieroglyphs and the well-known egyptian drawings of action figures, depicting all kinds of myths, like the earthgod Geb carrying the skygodess Nut.

The third and last one was a long climb down along steep stairs, but worth seeing according to the guide. Soaking wet from my sweat, I can tell you that it wasn't. Like I said, they all looked the same. The last one was Ramses I, who died after being pharaoh for only two years, so the tomb was not richly decorated. The building of the tomb started when he became pharaoh and had to be finished when he died. If he wasn't dead yet, the tomb would be expanded until he was.

Tutanchamon's tomb, the newest and smallest, had a different and separate entrance fee and was not included in the tour, but our guide said it looked the same and I immediately believed her. Besides, the good stuff, the famous golden statue and other treasures were all in Cairo.

We had a collective lunch in Tutotel. After lunch we visited Karnak Temple, the largest temple complex in the world. Fortunately, it was less hot there, so I actually took the time to look at the ruined statues, pillars and temple walls. I don't know, walking there didn't impress me as much as I had hoped it would, but seeing the pictures now, they suggest that it was beautiful and atmospherically impressive. But in fact, it was hot, bright with burning sunlight, noisy, and completely full of tourists at certain areas.

And always, everywhere you looked were those natives with evil intentions to rid you of the burden of all the bakshees you were carrying along. Any time the guide wasn't looking, a head would pop out of an alley, whispering, beckoning you to see their secret. Once I couldn't contain my curiosity and thought that maybe he was indeed "my special friend". I followed him into the alley and after a few corners he stopped and pointed at an obelisk, offering me a view that I would not have seen had I followed the path. He looked at me like he expected me to be grateful, maybe so much that I would financially compensate him for his efforts. I looked up at the obelisk, turned back to the man and shrugged.

I found it disturbing that not only poor men wrapped in cloth would lure you into an alley, but also military, or at least they were wearing uniforms as if they were military. "Pssssst, nice photo here, come..."

Included in the tour was a visit to a papyrus store (probably the sponsor) where an interesting demonstration was given in only 3 minutes. We then had half an hour or something to buy what we wanted, but of course we didn't, although some paintings were really nice.

At the end of the tour we were taken to Luxor Temple. Not as large as Karnak, but still bigger than any dutch temple. Fortunately there were less bakshees hunters here, and it was getting late so the heat was almost bearable.

At 18:15 we departed back to Hurghada. Waiting for the police escort we got once more confirmed that our travel companions were not very pleasant or even social. My ex successfully tried to not let them irritate her, but I am not that tolerant toward spoilt rich adolescents.

September 15

At night we killed a cockroach.

September 16

My ex was looking for a present for her grandmother, so she let a perfume storekeeper convince her that we should take a look at the inside of his shop, after he asked us this irrelevant question about the weather in Holland.

He poured us a cup of tea, offered us a cigarette and told us about his perfumes. How it was made, where it was made, where it was sold, what kinds he sold, how much alcohol was in it, etc. He let us sniff at several bottles and when my ex admitted that she liked a certain perfume when he asked her if she did, he gave subtle orders to an employee to wrap one up. He then told her to cough up the money. When we said "Har?!" (dutch for WTF?) he said that he couldn't unwrap it, because the bill had already been signed, so the bottle was officially sold and without us paying for it, it would be useless. After all, my ex had said she liked the perfume.

Something snapped and I got utterly pissed at the man and visibly showing my emotions, exclaiming phrases like "fcuk you" in his direction. I was prepared to drag my ex out of the shop, but although she was slightly upset as well, she repeated that she needed a present for her grandmother. She got him to fill a much smaller bottle with the perfume (oh sure, that was no problem?).

September 17

We read, solved a few crossword puzzles and my ex made acquaintance with the hotel pool.

September 18

Early to the beach, this time we did smear sunburn lotion all over ourselves. We went snorkeling twice, during which times we saw types of fish we hadn't seen before, two of which were over 1 meter long.

After dinner we went to town, to King George, whom we had promised to return. We drank some Coke and learned some more Arabic:

~mafeesh	I don't have	~bookra	tomorrow
~marafsh	I don't know	~fousa saida	nice to meet you
~mooshayrif	I don't know	~lana!	shit!
~sefr	0	~wehed / wehda	1
~idneen	2	~teletta	3
~arba	4	~chamsa	5
~setta	6	~sabba	7
~temenya	8	~tessa	9
~asha	10

My ex's photocamera had collapsed. Fortunately we lost only two pictures, both not very interesting, one of a baby, which our roomcleaner has folded from a few towels and one of the hotel with a donkey in front. She now bought an underwater camera, so we could photograph the fish.

We were not sure if he was kidding when George asked us if we would stay overnight. My ex could sleep with his mother and I could sleep in George's room. We kindly refused but promised to return bookra. He promised he would teach us to use a waterpipe and give us a mini English/Arabic dictionary and a real Egyptian pen, not a 'made in Korea' Egyptian pen.

September 19

We didn't get the dictionary, nor did we receive a pen, but we are masters when it comes to sucking the waterpipe. Apple tobacco, strawberry tobacco and Egyptian tobacco... you name it.

We were at George's at 10:30 with the intention to be back on the beach at 13:00, but George dragged us along to a friend of his, also a shopkeeper. He was also very hospitable and offered us malfine tea and a few more waterpipe sessions. This shopkeeper, Midou, showed us his guestbook and told us about his Dutch tourist friends. We were asked to write a bit in the book which we did. We then tried to go home and not hear George begging that we once more returned Tuesday morning, the day we would leave. Midou finally got through to him and convinced him that we wouldn't return. The parting was visibly hard for George. Strange, how one can get so attached to some tourists over a few hours...

~yah homaar!	you donkey!	~sheesha	waterpipe
~karkaddi	malfine tea	~zift!	shit!
~yella	ready

At night we would be drinking coffee again with Mohammed the cook. We totally didn't feel like it as we couldn't understand each other, but we had promised him. We waited till 22:05 in front of the hotel and weren't too sad that he didn't show up. The next day we had the idea that he expected us to meet him at the cafe where we had coffee the first time, because when we saw him, he looked at us like he wanted us to die on the spot.

September 20

For lack of customers, the snorkeling trip to the Giftun Islands organized by the "Two Brothers" was cancelled. Ah well. Considering the condition of my bowels I didn't feel like snorkeling anyway and my ex was reluctant to go without me. I stayed at the hotel and she went snorkeling at the beach.

While I was spending the day on the toilet, my ex was done another offer by the Brothers, namely a trip with a glass-bottom boat. She thought it might be fun and went back to the hotel to inform me. A bit worried I decided to go with her. It was nice to see the deep waters and the colored coral.

One of the crew asked if we would go snorkeling at sea there. Needless to say I wouldn't. But my ex would and she dove in. I don't know what she experienced since I wasn't there, but she told me a 4 meter wide manta scared the shit out of her. Luckily I hadn't joined.

After the trip we sat with one of the Two Brothers, Ramadan, at his shack. He said he'd like to smoke a joint with us the next day, provided that he had a weed supply.

September 21

We didn't smoke anything, but lost an hour waiting for my creditcard being identified as valid. When, after nearly one hour I got so pissed that I yelled at the clerk, using words like 'fcuk' repeatedly, it seemed like we didn't have to wait so long anymore. Maybe it was because I enjoyed the yelling a little bit too much or maybe the test results were just in, but apparently I had scared the clerk, because when we were waiting for our bus to take us to the airport, we were offered a drink (malifine tea) on behalf of the hotel with apologies. Sure, fine, whatever. It's a shame that had to happen on the last day.