Advertisement
Published: January 3rd 2009
Our second time to Egypt, this time we decided we wanted to go to Taba on the Sinai peninsula rather than the 100mph of Sharm as we hoped it would be a little quieter and less hassle from the locals.
Our arrival was at Taba airport which is a military airport was interesting to say the least, long queues to obtain your visa stamp ( £15.00 ) which is a large stamp put in your passport and then you move on to the next box where another chap then stamps your passport with either a stamp to allow travel throughout Egypt or a local stamp which only allows you to stay within the Sinai area. Mine was stamped with the right stamp on my visa sticker and KT's was stamped with the local one as he failed to see the visa stamp in her passport. This turned out to be a bit of a problem later on when we were going to Cairo.
The luggage carousel was immediately next to passport control and in typical British fashion everyone surrounded it to find their spot to retrieve their luggage only to see 4 chaps dressed in bright orange overalls start
pulling your luggage off as soon as it started to come out and pile it up next to them. The idea behind this was you then had to go and ask for your bag to be met with an attempt for him to exchange it for money. chaos was an understatement as everyone coming out of passport control and everyone trying to get their bags met in a huge bottle neck. Fortunately our bags were easy to recognise and a swift sneaky arm through the crowd managed to grab it with out the attention of the luggage handlers.
Not a great way to start the blog i know but it does get better so stick with me on this.
A convoy of buses have to leave the airport so you have to wait for everyone to leave which can take a while, they say this is for safety reasons and things are still tense after the terrorist bombing of the Hilton 4 years ago. 30 Mins later we arrived at our hotel. We stayed at the Movenpick resort in Taba which is pretty much next to the border of Israel.
The Movenpick is very plush inside marble
floors, immaculately dressed staff, chap in the corner playing the flute all very relaxing and easy. Lots of facilites as well, internet , shops , gym, indoor pool etc. There is a choice of places to eat with the main dining area being self service buffet and then a choice of other restaurants where you pay extra for the a la carte. Outside there is a huge pool and a very short walk to the beach. For anyone like us who like diving they have a dive center too which offer all the padi courses and both beach and boat dives. One down side is the "Animation Team" who are employed by the hotel to organise daily activities such as french bowls, volley ball, darts etc. nice enough people but don't take the hint when you say your not interested. On several occasions I was asked to come and join in and when i declined I was not to be miserable and lazy. I dont loose my temper very often but I came close when telling him that when you work hard all year its perfectly alright to be lazy.... he finally left me alone!
On a plus note
about 10m off the beach there are a few coral reefs which make it excellent for snorkeling. The marine life is really healthy and you would expect to see lots of different fish including Indian Lionfish, Common Porcupine Fish, Bullethead Parrot Fish, crocodlie Fish ( If you look carefully) and loads of smaller fish like dacylus, sergant fish, butterfly fish etc.
There was a huge presence of Russian tourists here also and as i experienced in sharm a few years ago there are some that still dont give a toss about the coral reef in Egypt and are quite content to stand on it, rip pieces of it off despite the signs everywhere asking you not to do it.
Anyway, first few days we spent just chilling out eating, sleeping and snorkeling but we had an itinerary of places we wanted to go and see and do, there are a lot of places within easy reach of Taba such as cairo , Luxor, Elat in Israel, Jordan , Jerusalem which are quite reasonably priced. Its advisable to go on an organised tour as there are so many military control points and passport controls that may cause you a
problem if you go alone. This is more so when you go to Israel. If you intend on going to other countries in the near future that are in the middle east ask the Isralie passport control to stamp your entry visa on a sheet of paper as there are a lot of countries that wont let you in to their country if you have an Israeli Stamp in your passport.
We decided to go to Cairo for the day which was via bus and meant leaving the hotel at 3am. It was a 6 hour drive to Cairo
As I mentioned earlier the first passport check we nearly were not allowed through as kat didnt have the right passport stamp but out guide convinced them to allow us through as she did have the visa sticker in her passport. There is'nt a great deal to see between Taba and airo as its mostly desert and rocks but it does make for a good sunrise and creates some amazing shadows on the landscape. You pass under the Suez Canal about 4 hours in to your journey and pass through some very remote villages and shanti shacks which i would
S6300324
Tomb of Mohammed Aliassume Bedouins live in.
On arrival in Cairo first impressions are of the extreme poverty that the vast amounts of people here live in. It is a mass jungle of high rise buildings and blocks of apartments, the streets and shops are all very bland and dusty from the desert with hundreds of people all bustling about trying to make a living. A way of life to the locals im sure and all seem to be happy and smiling which again brings a humble feeling back to you when you realise the luxuries you have back home.
Our first vist was to the Citadel of Salah Al-Din with a tour around the mosque of Mohammed Ali. There were literally hundreds of what looked like school trips there as well with lots of kids being kept in line by a few school teachers. ( some with big sticks!) The nice part about that was that the kids must have learnt some english in school and would come up to you and ask you phrases such as "hello how are you" and "are you enjoying your time in Egypt". Most people would ignore them but if you were to answer
them back the look of pleasure that they gave you was priceless.
Similarly to when we were in Oman the Mosque was huge and beautiful inside with the amount of detail and history. Mohammed Ali's tomb is also there in a crypt which you can peek at through a huge lattice style doorway.
From there we moved on to Giza to see the Pyramids. The Great Pyramid of Giza, also called Khufu's Pyramid or the Pyramid of Khufu, and Pyramid of Cheops, is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in Giza.
It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian King Khufu and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years. Originally the Great Pyramid was covered by casing stones that formed a smooth outer surface, and what is seen today is the underlying core structure.
There is a huge amount of people milling around the pyramids all wanting to take your photo or asking if you want a camel ride. Be aware of you let someone take your picture they will want
some money from you in return for this. This includes the police!!
Originally I wanted to ask Katharine to marry me watching the sunrise over Mt Sinai, however we didnt get to do that particular trip so whilst we were sat at the base of the great pyramid I dropped to one knee and asked her if she would marry me. Thankfully the answer was what I was hoping for ( yes) and all being well we now hope to get married in Jan 2010.
From the Pyramid we went to the Sphinx which was awesome. I never thought it would be as big as what it was. It faces due east and is thought to be a guardian of the tombs. The head of the Great Sphinx now is believed to be that of the pharaoh Khafra.
On from the sphinx the next stop was the Egyptian Museum which is host to the incredible tomb of Tutankhamun.
It as a bit of a whistle stop tour around the museum with our guide but he was on form with his knowledge of all the ancient artifacts, but after he had finished we had 25 mins to
S6300329
view over cairo from the Citadel go back and see the things that interested us most. Kat and i went to have a proper look at Tutankhamuns area. Its well worth seeing if you get a chance especially when you see the splendor associated with the mask and tombs all for a king who wasnt really that famous in the history books! The mask alone weighs 14kg and is of solid gold.
So apart from a quick lunch on a huge floating boat on the banks of the river nile that was pretty much it and we headed back to Taba. It was a long day but also really worth it, I hope next time we can get time to go to the valley if the kings.
The following day we had booked to do a few Boat dives and we all met at 9am at the neighboring Hotel the Hilton. The two hoels share the dive center facilities. Our Dive instructor for that day was Khalym and we set off to the first of our dive sites which was called Ras Amira. There were only 4 of us Diving including the Instructor and kat and I were joined by a really smashing guy
from St Louis Called Ron Goosen. Ron was annoyed by the dive center when I spoke to him as he said he has been diving for 30 years and no longer keeps a log book, to which the dive center said that he would have to do a refresher dive. Anyway Ron faxed his dive club back in the USA and they confirmed that he had recently completed a working cave dive. This guy was so full of knowledge and had met the founder of modern day diving Jaques Cousto.
Our second dive was at Coral Island. we did see a Yellow Indian Frogfish a red sea Octopus and a Corcodile fish which stood out from the rest but I would say the marine life was nothing like that in Sharm or other areas. It seemed a bit bleak in comparison to other places we have dived.
Still it was a good day and we stopped for some food anchored up next to an old castle which i have since found out was built by Salah El-din (Saladin) in 1170 AD. The Castle played a major rule in the crusades, Mamluk and Ottoman eras.
Also the Instructor Khalym
Mentioned after the dives that he runs a small Sheesha and Coffee bar just down the road from the MovenPick so later that night we thought we would pop down and see him. It seems that hardly anyone who goes to either the Hilton or Movenpick resort actually leaves the complex. We arrived to what essentially is a small park area dotted with some table and chairs, found Khalym and chilled out there with him and the locals for the rest of the evening. If your ever diving at the Hilton with Khalym ask him for directions to his bar, he is a fantastic guy, very friendly and speaks excellent English. He also has a friend who has a bar about half an hour away where you can sit and eat on a secluded beach under the moonlight, something we would have liked to have done if we had more time on our side.
So apart from a bit more relaxation that was pretty much our quick week in Egypt. Roll on Christmas and the ski Season!
Catch up with you all soon
Advertisement
Tot: 0.118s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 15; qc: 67; dbt: 0.0697s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
