My solo adventure in Sharm Al Sheikh.
Trip Start
Sep 21, 2005
1
14
314
Trip End
Ongoing
Sharm el Shaikh, Egypt
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
My solo adventure in Sharm Al Sheikh.
I had my own little adventure, as I parted company with Romain today.
Getting up this morning was a proper struggle, even though we had a wake up call. We caught the Fast Ferry to Sharm Al Sheikh. It was fast and very unstable, the most amount of people were sick, even Romain was felling a bit icky at one point. When we got to Sharm port Romain was being picked up and taken to the diving camp at Dahab, we said our goodbyes and off I went. From now on it was me, my back AND front pack (see pic). I had to get to the bus station to book my ticket to Cairo before anything else. I shared a taxi with this Columbian couple who were here for work/holiday, yeah he was working and she was on holiday! They said I must visit Columbia it's a wonderful place. They are moving to the UK in a few weeks for 5 months work, I told them the UK is not as wonderful as Columbia or Egypt. I got a ticket for the 4.30pm bus so I had time to kill, I had zero info on this place so asked a local, he told me to take a minibus to the Old Market, this cost me 1 LE where a taxi to the station was 30 LE for the same distance. This is why all the locals use the minibus! I have seen these minibuses all over Egypt but this was the first one I had used, it was cool, and cheap, cheap is good! The driver tried to rip me off though, he said it was 5 LE when it should only be 1 LE, I told him where to go! A freaky thing happened when I got out, the minibus drove off and about 10 seconds later was rear-ended by another minibus, it was quite a bad collision but I didn't wait around to get the details. I had a walk around the Market for an hour, yep with my heavy back/front pack. I got harassed by everyone and one guy was even angry at me for not buying something from his shop. I stopped in the market for lunch, and as I was about to leave went into this jewellers store, the owner was very nice and the prices were cheap, yep that magic word again, anyway he pointed me in the direction of Maya Bay. Now my back/front pack was getting heavier by the second, I will definitely need to loose some stuff soon. It took about 20 minutes to walk round to the free beach, all the others charge about 70LE just to lie on a sun bed. I eventually got to free beach to find they still charge for sun beds, only its 10 LE instead of 70. The water was an amazing colour and crystal clear, so in I went. The guys who rent the sun beds were very friendly and pointed me in the direction of Naama Bay, this was supposed to have the best beaches. I took a minibus there and found some locals who helped me get there. When I got there I wished I had stayed at the first beach, this place was for the package holiday maker, tourist heaven. It was full of bars restaurants and BIG hotels. The beach at Maya Bay was nice, small and there were only 10 or 12 people there. Any way I chilled at Naama Bay for a bit and then made my way to the bus station with 30 minutes to spare. I got my bus for 4.30pm, even though I was the first person there I was the last to get on! It took 7 hours to get back to Cairo. There was this weird guy sitting next to me on the bus, he was about 20, short, had a big time BO problem and had this weird thing about him. He could not speak a word of English, but that did not stop him annoying me, I had to move in the end...
By the way Ramadan started today, the month of fasting for all Muslims. They eat before sunrise and then are not allowed to eat or drink until after sunset. This means most of the people you meet or talk to have smelly breath! The bus was full of men and they all stunk, apart from me, of course!
I got a taxi back to the hostel, coming back here was like coming back home. It's been a mad few days, I have a guided tour of Cairo planned for tomorrow, it starts at 10am so I'm looking forward to a good nights sleep and a bit of a lie-in.
