resume service
i am back from eygpt. there are many things i want to say about this trip, but feel free to skip this post if you're not particularly bothered by holiday/foregine shenanagins. and i promise i will try to only use words i can spel in future.
eygpt is hot and sunny. i have a bit of an all over freckling, and a good dose of colour. but my back is very well tanned. this is because i spent most of my holiday, in the water swimming about snorkling. (i also had a pair of rather fecthing bright red go-faster stripes on my bum, but lets not talk about that.)
so, hot and sunny, and to be honest, i talk my brain perfers scotlands cooler climes.
the second thing is that i didn't actually go to eygpt. where i went is a place called sharm in shake (possible spelt different), which is an eygpt flavoured disneyland. not that there's anything wrong which a blossoming tourist economy, but i can hardly call it 'real' eygpt. so yeah, very touristy.
except that around about the time of the london bombings, there were 3 bombings in sharm el sheikh (there we go, real spelling applied), at the time the biggest holiday spot in the world.
the fallout, apart from the loss of life and obvious fear, was that the industry, built almost solely around tourism, took a beating. so the culture which at first seems excessively bent of being oh so friendly makes a bit more sense in retrospect.
the shopping. ah the shopping.... there are five shops in sharm el sheikh, parpyrus shops, spice shops, perfume shops and cheap tat shops. then a mix of all four with some swimming gear or clothes thrown in. the shops seem to have a cloneish quality, which is repeating throughout the hotel complex, to the tourist markets and beyond. which makes souviner buying souless and difficult, because you have to try and find items that you can actually be bothered cartin back to scotland and presenting to your friends. and buying treats for yourself is... well, i don't think i bought anything for myself on the holiday, apart for edibles and a headscarf (which i nearly strangled mysel with.) but again, there is nothing per say wrong with tourist shops selling touristy things.
its the way they go about selling things (again, taking into account the country's collapsed economy (we'll talk about that in a moment, after my rant), it makes a sort of sense). the first shop we reached imediantly pulled us in for a cup of tea, while we (myself ben and little sister mhairi) sat there looking confused and suspisous. we were given free gifts, which was a nice touch, and tea, and chatted at (there is, along with the how to set up a shop manual, a guide of references to use for originating countries to establish realationships with customers handbook. it says that scotish people like being said the words 'william wallace' and 'braveheart'. repeatedly.
the sales pitch pressure is something that took a lot of getting used to, and they use their culture and 'bad luck if you don't buy something/ drink tea with me etc' quite loudly. again, if its the way that the shops round there run, i don't see anything desperately bad about that, its just that it did start to get highly irksome after the second shop. i don't enjoy feeling like a fish in a pool of sharks, whichi more than often did. and the haggling felt empty, given that the prices were tourist prices anyway. plus, i did genuinely not mind paying a bit extra, given the low averenge income of the locals at the hotel and surrounding area.
because of the slump in touriss visiting the area (which is now,two years laters on the increase, pulling sharm back to slot 3/4 in the top holiday destinations) the money is rather silly. there are 5p notes. and no coins that i could see. beause of this, the locals were far more keen to get their hands on euros or american dollars or sterling, understandably so. where this becomes annoying is that the cash machnes will only give out eygptian pounds, the banks refuse to exchange eygptian pounds and that some places refuse to take eypgtian pounds, ie, the casinos which me and ben visited (i lost my money on blackjack, but lasted a while before doing so, and ben made a profit.) again, proof that i actually didn't go to eypgt.
all the above things however, are completely overshadowed by the snorkling.
it was amazing.
the number of fish, the varity and the sheer beauty was incredible. all my holiday picutres are of fish and sealife, by the way. it was like swimming in a disney film, akin to little mermaid or finding nemo. photos to come as soon as possible. so that was all fab, and then we went of a boat trip, out to some of the other reefs out in the sea. they were jam-packed with life and colour and fish and coral and again, i was left wowed.
this would have been even more cool and groovy, if i had been allowed to go SCUBA diving, but aparently, being on high doses on antidepressants renders your eyes likely to drop out and your face melt and your legs turn green under high amounts of pressure. which sucked, especially as i had already started the training, which consisted of watching a lot of SCUBA divings having fun, being told how wonderful a hobby it is and being punned at relentlessly ("SCUBA divers are 'under' achievers" oh hardy-fucking har har). for a whole afternoon. on my holiday. but yeah, disapointed, but would much rather have my eyeballs in thankyou. and did i mention that the snorkling was amazing?
i did like eygpt, and enjoy my holiday lots. but i am so glad to be back home. i would maybe go again, now more wise to the culture and money insanities, but there are other places i want to visit before planning a return trip.
as a side note, ben did really well coping with my family in close promimity for two weeks, but the hero of the holiay was ewan, who has developed some real skills in coping with change and new exsperiences, and who seemed to also have a fun holiday.
eygpt is hot and sunny. i have a bit of an all over freckling, and a good dose of colour. but my back is very well tanned. this is because i spent most of my holiday, in the water swimming about snorkling. (i also had a pair of rather fecthing bright red go-faster stripes on my bum, but lets not talk about that.)
so, hot and sunny, and to be honest, i talk my brain perfers scotlands cooler climes.
the second thing is that i didn't actually go to eygpt. where i went is a place called sharm in shake (possible spelt different), which is an eygpt flavoured disneyland. not that there's anything wrong which a blossoming tourist economy, but i can hardly call it 'real' eygpt. so yeah, very touristy.
except that around about the time of the london bombings, there were 3 bombings in sharm el sheikh (there we go, real spelling applied), at the time the biggest holiday spot in the world.
the fallout, apart from the loss of life and obvious fear, was that the industry, built almost solely around tourism, took a beating. so the culture which at first seems excessively bent of being oh so friendly makes a bit more sense in retrospect.
the shopping. ah the shopping.... there are five shops in sharm el sheikh, parpyrus shops, spice shops, perfume shops and cheap tat shops. then a mix of all four with some swimming gear or clothes thrown in. the shops seem to have a cloneish quality, which is repeating throughout the hotel complex, to the tourist markets and beyond. which makes souviner buying souless and difficult, because you have to try and find items that you can actually be bothered cartin back to scotland and presenting to your friends. and buying treats for yourself is... well, i don't think i bought anything for myself on the holiday, apart for edibles and a headscarf (which i nearly strangled mysel with.) but again, there is nothing per say wrong with tourist shops selling touristy things.
its the way they go about selling things (again, taking into account the country's collapsed economy (we'll talk about that in a moment, after my rant), it makes a sort of sense). the first shop we reached imediantly pulled us in for a cup of tea, while we (myself ben and little sister mhairi) sat there looking confused and suspisous. we were given free gifts, which was a nice touch, and tea, and chatted at (there is, along with the how to set up a shop manual, a guide of references to use for originating countries to establish realationships with customers handbook. it says that scotish people like being said the words 'william wallace' and 'braveheart'. repeatedly.
the sales pitch pressure is something that took a lot of getting used to, and they use their culture and 'bad luck if you don't buy something/ drink tea with me etc' quite loudly. again, if its the way that the shops round there run, i don't see anything desperately bad about that, its just that it did start to get highly irksome after the second shop. i don't enjoy feeling like a fish in a pool of sharks, whichi more than often did. and the haggling felt empty, given that the prices were tourist prices anyway. plus, i did genuinely not mind paying a bit extra, given the low averenge income of the locals at the hotel and surrounding area.
because of the slump in touriss visiting the area (which is now,two years laters on the increase, pulling sharm back to slot 3/4 in the top holiday destinations) the money is rather silly. there are 5p notes. and no coins that i could see. beause of this, the locals were far more keen to get their hands on euros or american dollars or sterling, understandably so. where this becomes annoying is that the cash machnes will only give out eygptian pounds, the banks refuse to exchange eygptian pounds and that some places refuse to take eypgtian pounds, ie, the casinos which me and ben visited (i lost my money on blackjack, but lasted a while before doing so, and ben made a profit.) again, proof that i actually didn't go to eypgt.
all the above things however, are completely overshadowed by the snorkling.
it was amazing.
the number of fish, the varity and the sheer beauty was incredible. all my holiday picutres are of fish and sealife, by the way. it was like swimming in a disney film, akin to little mermaid or finding nemo. photos to come as soon as possible. so that was all fab, and then we went of a boat trip, out to some of the other reefs out in the sea. they were jam-packed with life and colour and fish and coral and again, i was left wowed.
this would have been even more cool and groovy, if i had been allowed to go SCUBA diving, but aparently, being on high doses on antidepressants renders your eyes likely to drop out and your face melt and your legs turn green under high amounts of pressure. which sucked, especially as i had already started the training, which consisted of watching a lot of SCUBA divings having fun, being told how wonderful a hobby it is and being punned at relentlessly ("SCUBA divers are 'under' achievers" oh hardy-fucking har har). for a whole afternoon. on my holiday. but yeah, disapointed, but would much rather have my eyeballs in thankyou. and did i mention that the snorkling was amazing?
i did like eygpt, and enjoy my holiday lots. but i am so glad to be back home. i would maybe go again, now more wise to the culture and money insanities, but there are other places i want to visit before planning a return trip.
as a side note, ben did really well coping with my family in close promimity for two weeks, but the hero of the holiay was ewan, who has developed some real skills in coping with change and new exsperiences, and who seemed to also have a fun holiday.