Egypt

 View from our window

“It's not the years, honey. It's the milage...”

Our move from Albania to here was a pretty gruelling journey. First our bus to Athens from Albania got stuck at the border for ages and so we got into Athens late. So we could only sleep a few hours before getting to the airport and on our early morning flight to Cairo...

We didn't linger in Cairo: I was expecting it to be like a big city like Delhi which is just dusty, hot and sprawling with a lot of hassle. And that is essentially how it was, just on a even huger scale, with close to 30,000,000 people making it both the biggest city in both Africa and Europe...

But I really should point out here that Erin actually handles countries and travelling in general a lot better than I do now. So when it comes to “hassle” - even if it's just taxi following you beeping at you when you are just trying to walk to places - I think she both notices it much less than I do and isn't phased or annoyed by it..

I don't know if it is an age thing or what, or maybe it was too much travelling when I was younger, or maybe Erin is just really just is that good at this whole travelling thing than I am...Probably it's a mix of the 3...But I really understand what Indiana Jones meant now in Raiders of the Lost Ark when he was told that he looks terrible: “It ain't the years, honey. It's the mileage.”


Cairo just munches it's way through other cities...

My impressions of Cairo after 3 hours of getting a taxi from the airport to the bus station and then waiting 3 hours at the bus station are that is that yes, Cairo is by far the biggest city I have ever been too, and yes, is probably the most intimidating too. It is chaotic, polluted and 1 in 3 cars have some sort of damage from a knock or slightly more serious crash.

Flying in from Athens all I could see was the cityscape, with an occasional spot of green from a park or palace gardens. At least with big cities like Delhi, Bangkok and so forth, you can usually can see rice paddies in the distance, or often some hills, or perhaps some forests. Not in Cairo. It is just a constant urban jungle in every direction, where they are building new city suburbs all the time because within only a couple of years these suburbs get completely swallowed up by the rest of Cairo.
So it took about 2 hours to really properly get out of the city when we were getting the bus to here.


Cairo is on the verge of swallowing up another 2 of these suburbs right now...
But actually, in retrospect me and Erin both agreed that Cairo looked interesting: Solely because it's sheer size and overall constant chaos seemed like it could actually be quite fun. Perhaps it's a bit like a car crash where you just can't look away although you really want too!

Of course there is always the pyramids too, but we have become a bit disenchanted with those large attractions in recent years: It's like the Parthenon in Athens. We are not willing to pay 30 Euros each to see it even though we have been to Athens now 3 times in transit. It's a bit silly and it's occasionally disappointing.


15 checkpoints and tragedy on the North Sinai...

We were lucky in that we arrived 24 hours before the attack on the northern Sinai happened that killed around 350 people at a mosque...
The journey here to Dahab from Cairo was a gruelling end to a pretty epic journey, and this final sprint to the finish took about 10 hours by bus. We had to stop 15+ times at military checkpoints to be questioned and have our bags searched a few times

But I can only imagine how worse the journey and the checkpoints would have been if we had gotten here 24 hours later, so that is what I mean by "lucky".
To be fair, most the time the soldiers were friendly, but there was something a bit sinister about many checkpoints having snipers in towers, sandbagged bunkers with huge machine guns and the occasional tank or APC.

Russians and Mojitos...


Well, Dahab is a fun and pretty beautiful place: On the South Sinai it is only an hour north of Sharm-El-Shiek the coastal resort town. But unfortunately in recent years both Dahab and Sharm are really struggling with it's crumbling tourist industry that is really hurting people here, and it's all down to mainly imagined fears bought up by media...As normal.

Russians and Ukrainians are the most common tourists, backpackers and expats, so strangely the de-facto languages here are Arabic, Russian and English. The reason for the demise of tourism though is because there has been a very serious armed insurgency by jihadists and now it seems ISIS too in the northern Sinai bordering the Gaza Strip: Weapons smuggling and people trafficking to and from the middle east and into Africa is common place, and attacks on the Sufi branch of Islam (which is basically Islamic Mysticism, so think of Islam with a a dash of Hinduism or Buddhism) has been common place.

But the attack a few days ago was by far the biggest in all of Egyptian history and unprecedented. Unfortunately this has made people and government travel advisories wrongly lump in Southern Sinai with the North, even though they are a good 15 hour drive away through some of the harshest desert and mountain network in the world.

Unfortunately people don't see it like this when looking at a map, and naturally some family and friends at home were a bit scared for us after the attack happened.
Sadly, now even more people are going to be put off coming here, especially since the UK has banned all flights to and from Sharm El Shiek.

However, it seems the Israeli resort city of Eilat (just a couple hours north from Dahab) is becoming the new gateway to this part of the Red Sea, with a new airport that has flights from all the budget airlines such as Easyjet, Ryanair and Wizzair back to London, often direct, or via Jerusalem. So, thankfully, no backtracking 12 hours to Cairo via the “checkpoint road”.

But anyway, you wouldn't realise there is anything wrong here when you go down to the main strip, which is a bit like the more low-key Thai islands with their waterfront bars and restaurants, you can get everything from Mojitos to a Full English Breakfast..


Cheapest country in the world? Probably...

Prices are insanely cheap here as Egypt has actually become the cheapest country to travel or live in. I'll try to show how cheap it is by breaking it down below.
Now we know the very good local places to eat by the town square- away from the beaches and the main strip which is by the old lighthouse - we only spend about 8 Euros each per day for food, drink and general household goods such as cleaning equipment, washing up liquid etc. That is about 160 Egyptian Pounds (being 20 to the Euro) 

Price Breakdown:

- 40 Egyptian Pounds for: x6 Pita breads stuffed with spicy aubergine and vegetables with chillies, fava beans and falafel, with falafel and 'chickpea' nuggets with freshly fried potato chips.
- 60 Egyptian Pounds for an Italian baguette (mozzarella, basil, etc.) and a huge chocolate browny from the 'German bakery'.
- 10 Egyptian Pounds for drinks, typically coca cola, or fruit juice (50 Euro cents). Beer is 20 Pounds (1 Euro) but I don't really drink that much anymore and will often go for ice coffee if out instead, which is never more than 20 Pounds (1 Euro).

Total: 110-120 Pounds per day (5.50-6.00 Euros). Plus 3.50 Euros per day for utilities and rent. = 9.00-10 Euros for everything per person per day..Cheap by anyone's standards.

In fact, I haven't found anywhere as cheap as this: Even back when the UK pound was £1.00 to US $2.10 and I went travelling the first time in my early 20's, countries like Nepal and India still costed me about 12 Euros a day, watching what I eat and where I stayed.


Snorkelling and diving is world-class...


The snorkelling is definitely world class and there are something like 120 sites around here to explore. The only comparison I can make that I have been too is Indonesia, as both countries beat places like Thailand and Zanzibar hands down. And most the time the snorkelling is right off the beach, which means the beaches are rocky.

I have learnt over the years that rocky or pebbly beaches (especially made from dead coral) have the best snorkelling, and therefore in my opinion the best beaches in the world. Sand just makes the visibility worse and usually indicates there is no coral reefs. Sand is also a nightmare after a couple of weeks as it just gets absolutely everywhere no matter what you do or how much you clean.

What is there to see under the waves? Lionfish for one, which I had never seen before, was a real treat seeing them in their natural habitat. Bannerfish is another one that I loved, who are like Butterfly fish but with these brilliant white tails on their dorsal fin and slightly larger. But really at times me and Erin would just float with our face pointed down and would be surrounded by hundreds of fish who would completely surround us and some and check us out.

It really is like the new BBC Blue Planet 2, which I absolutely love because they have finally captured what it is really like snorkelling and diving on coral reefs: It is not CGI, it really is that crystal clear and colourful. So colourful in fact that it does give you a bit of motion sickness afterwards and is hard to walk!

Later in the evening in bed when we closed our eyes we could almost kind of see the multi-coloured psychedelic coral gardens and fish in the darkness still! We were also swaying every time we say down... I've only ever experienced snorkelling this good in Indonesia.


Bedouin culture, Jerusalem and desert excursions...

Other things to do are mainly desert based activities: St. Catherine's Monastery is on Mount Sinai not far from here (and in the "safe zone"), it has the tree where God came down and spoke to Moses, so is very sacred for people following one of the Abrahamic religions.

Sandboarding, kite-surfing, and all sorts of treks into the desert with the Bedouin tribesmen are on offer and no doubt we will do one or two of these since our experience in Morocco of spending a night in the Sahara with Bedouin was fantastic. Other excursions on offer are day trips to Petra in Jordan, but it is something like 50 Euros entry and another 20 Euros for a return bus, so we won't be able to drop that kind of money on it anytime soon.
Weekend trips to Jerusalem are also on offer and we actually think that might make a good visa run to do over Christmas. But again, Israel is a pricey country so we'll wait and see if that materialises anytime soon...

Welcome to Egypt...!


Egyptian people have been genuinely very friendly and it just isn't because they are desperate for their businesses to survive, though I am sure that is motivation for the minority.

But everywhere we go we just get very warmly welcomed: For example, if someone says to you "Hey you want to look in my shop?" and you say "no." they say "Okay fine, welcome to Egypt! Hope you have a nice time!".

I cannot remember the amount of people who have just said hello on the street and asked where I was from, always followed by a warm greeting such as “welcome, I hope you have a good time here!”.

At first it was always off-putting because I assumed they were going to sell me something, but I have realised now that simply is not the case. Everyone from shop workers to taxi drivers to kids playing on the street has said this several times.

As I said, it really threw me off at first as I was going into it thinking if I said no I'd get hassled like in places like India, but no, this is not the case.
Of course, haggling is pretty hardcore here but it's nothing worse than places like Thailand or Cambodia, in fact it is more friendly and is actually enjoyable.


Egyptian Food and mandatory Ouzo..

Food can be very hit and miss...For instance, the third day in here we went to a questionable local place. We got really sick with some horrendous food poisoning. I was only sick for 2 or 3 days but Erin was closer to a week and she had a fever which started concerning me. But luckily it has responded to over the counter antibiotics which were specifically for bacterial gut infections. Thankfully she responded to that and is almost back to her normal self!

So, our first impressions of the food were not so good! However, now we known where the best local places are on the town square, we have found some tasty food: Pita bread here comes with the little pockets that you can place all types of food in.

My favourite combination so far is this amazing aubergine and Mediterranean vegetable mix with a decent amount of chillies that give it a very nice kick, with 'fava beans', which are pretty identical to Mexican pinto/refried beans. And lately I will ask them to stuff some falafel in there too.

So, Egypt is - quite by accident - a bit of a paradise for vegetarians, which is just so tasty and so filling that I have accidentally become a vegetarian without actually realising it! I think this way – like in countries like India – it just makes sense to avoid the meat (which me and Erin blame solely for our food poisoning woes!) and go for all the tasty pulses and falafel.

Finally, we have noticed that all the Russians here seem to take a swig of vodka or any other hard alcohol if eating in local places, just in case it was a bit dodgy.
I remember doing this using schnapps way back in India and I didn't have another problem in my whole time there. I think we may get a little bottle of Ouzo (Greek liquor that tastes like aniseed) to take around and do the same thing.

So it's mandatory Ouzo from now on after meals...!