We thought it was about time we updated Six Go Mad!
Sharm El Sheikh.
We
stayed at the Coral Beach Tiran hotel. Its a very smart, new hotel but the Winter Palace it ain't! Its not
really Egypt, that just happens to be the country its located in. Sharm el Sheikh
is a huge development purely for tourists. There is no pretence at it being
anything but that. The hotels, food and the shops are dedicated to an
international cliental who want the sun, sea and/or diving. There is nothing
wrong with this, one of my sons stayed at the Movenpick & loved it, plus Kath's
sister stayed at an all inclusive hotel that sounded much better than ours. I
guess its my personal choice of missing the real people & history of Luxor.
This is real desert, no Nile, no farms, even the fruit juice at the hotel was
not fresh. It's miles from Luxor on another peninsular and then four hours across the desert and
its even further from
Cairo. This is a world of new buildings, the Hard Rock Cafe and a hint of an old
fishing village in the Old Sharm town, near a harbour.
Everything
is shipped in. There are no local Egyptians, no families, no children, no
donkeys, no real souks for buying things you need to keep your family alive.
There isn't an Egyptian quarter as all the staff are on contract, without their
families, to earn a living. I think the theory is, the money is good servicing
this kind of tourist but I also think the cost of living is high, as its all
brought from somewhere else. The food in the area was almost without
exception, very good. You can choose from KFC, Pizzahut, Indian, Chinese even
Egyptian. This was certainly not the same in the hotel. Except for
breakfast, which was good, this rest was poor. A very nice guy in the Mocha cafe
had the Egyptian food cooked especially for us, which was a saving grace. There
were many places to eat in the hotel, but they all had the same choice of menu under another
cafe name.
Everyone
we met was really nice, the staff at the hotel were excellent, very good service
and very willing. I realise that who ever you meet, would tell you that you were
their favourite nationality but the invasion of the Russians has soured their
attitude to them. I had a conversation with a very nice, very westernised
Russian who told me that Russians only wanted fast, accurate service and had no
need for smiles or pleasantries and they found the concept of "Egyptian time"
intolerable. This was why they didn't tip & were very irritated by the laidback
style of the Egyptian waiters!
I made a couple of mistakes with the
choice of this hotel. First were the number of steps from the main hotel area to
your apartment or the beach area. It was very steep and it's only advantage
seemed to be, you were very fit at the end of the holiday. The second was the
distance from Sharm or the Old Sharm town. Although there was a free bus twice a day, the
timing was somewhat inconvenient and it only took you to the main area of Sharm
el Sheikh. This meant a reliance on the taxi. Not that expensive and the
cars were much newer but it
added to the costs, especially if you needed to get to Old Sharm. Once you had
been to either town a couple of times you knew it well. There was a pleasant walk
along a road that separated the hotels from the beach at Sharm. There were few "normal"
shops and at least I found a place selling Ritter chocolate! Obviously to
satisfy the cravings of our German friends. Although the centre of Luxor is
designed for tourists; furniture shops, plumbers & dress shops for Egyptians,
are scattered all around. Here in Sharm its 100% tourism.
Which
brings us to the reason to go to Sharm ... the snorkelling and the sunshine.
Well the sun is there all the time! We went in January & the wind can be chilly
and it can be overcast but its great. As for the swimming you are actively
discouraged from swimming in the swallow water. I guess this was because of the
sharp coral. Whistles were blown if you tried. You were expected to swim off the
floating pontoons that took you to the reef's edge, where there were
lifeguards ... and the chance to sell you deep water diving, which was another
source of revenue. The shallow water was OK but we were spoilt by Fort
Arabesque. There were very few fish in comparison. Pleasant enough, bits of
coral and stuff to see. Maybe another hotel would have been much better.