PART FOUR: 'IT'S THE ALL-INCLUSIVE SHOW... WHERE EVERYTHING IS DISCUSSED...'

So when I'd booked the holiday, I'd booked 'All Inclusive' so let us take a moment to understand
what that means in the context of this particular holiday.
It means we wear a blue wristband that shows us to be all-inclusive clients of the hotel.
It means we get fed three times a day should we wish to be.
It also means that when we are outside the dining area, such as in one of the hotel's
cafe/cum bar areas, even the beach one, we get free tea's and free coffee's and free rum and
cokes and free brandy and cokes and free gin and tonics and free vodka and oranges and
free beers and all the rest...
Which was definitely not how I'd envisioned it when I booked it.
If you wanted something like a Jack Daniels and coke let's say, then you would have to pay
for the Jackie D, but all the rest is homegrown merchandise and not imported with a huge tax
upon it.
They even do homemade Guinness...
I've had the Nigerian variety but prefer the Irish so I think I'll pass on that one, thanks.
I'll tell you what, with the amount of tea and coffee we consume it's been an absolute Godsend.
Plus, if you like to end an evening meal with a brandy in a black coffee (me) then you are totally
sorted...
I definitely like this, and can only recommend it.

So what are the staff like, as when you are staying away from home then you definitely have
to depend upon them, if and when problems should occur ?
I would have to say uniformly good to excellent.
If they are not winning and you are getting a little confused then they call somebody else over
whose command of English (ours) or whatever language, is slightly better than theirs,
so you can't really fault them.
They are definitely doing their best for everyone staying here, and when you are trying to take a
break from life's travails then that means such a lot.
Those whose job includes selling things from the hotel's inbuilt bazaar are a different kettle of fish
however.
Their job is to sell, and they are pretty good at it.
The problem is, there are at least four currencies being used to do so, and it gets a little confusing
sometimes.
So there are Egyptian pounds, British pounds, American dollars and Euro's in operation.
Confused ? Definitely.
And what is worse is that Haddy is what I would describe as a 'New Age' tea drinker' and we have
at least fifteen different varieties back at home, ranging from Mint, Peppermint, Sorrell,
Mango and Coconut and that's not even counting my PG Tips and Mariama's Yorkshire
(Kate Rusby (excellent British Folk Singer) would be proud of her...) and the Decaff' we keep in for those who want or need it for health reasons.
So to discover that the hotel's bazaar shops keep another (Gawd'elp'us) seventeen different types
of tea that she hasn't tried yet, all of which have (apparently) health giving properties, is like a curse
on the purse or wallet.
And that's not even mentioning the potions and powders...
The expression 'Just say No' does not seem to occur.
But they're ok if you do say no, and they are quite helpful in finding stuff that they know they have
but cannot find (key-ring with Egyptian cat motif) which took them from between just after breakfast
to the middle of the afternoon to find for me...
So no complaints really, because they are good at what they are supposed to be doing, which is
SELLING.
I grew up working in a sales environment and did it for forty-odd years, ending up by owning two
shops so I know a little about that sort of thing, and as far as music is concerned, I'm still doing it for
a few friends, but NOT to the rip-off merchants on the internet.
Today, the t-shirts that Haddy bought were a tenner each in British pounds, then they revised that
price into dollars, then it got revised again into Egyptian pounds and you get about four thousand
of those to one hundred British pounds and you've got all the translation calculations going on in
your head at the same time, so confused ?
Totally.
Let's see what occurs tomorrow when we are supposed to be walking about five to ten minutes
down the road outside the hotel's entrance, where apparently there are five or six bazaar like shops.
That's going to be interesting...
Even more so, it's going to be our wedding anniversary... AND I remembered to bring the
anniversary card with me in the luggage.

Now I mention that because it has a bearing on the staff, so get this...
That evening I had gone into the bar to replenish drinks and it was a bit busy so I had to queue.
And a guy comes over, one of the staff with his neck card with name and job description on it
and asks me how are we getting on at the hotel, is everything alright and are we enjoying our
break ?
The job description reads 'Animation Officer' so I enquire what that is, because to be honest,
I'd never heard of one previously, unless he's the guy who allows cartoons to be shown to children ?
He laughed, and told me it's another term for Entertainment Officer and was I enjoying the hotel's
entertainment ?
Well...
'Errr, yeah, everything is fine.  The staff are great and neither my wife or I have any complaints,
the hotel is easy to get round, the food is good, everybody working there has been helpful wherever
we'd been, so yeah, no complaints.'
'And the hotel's entertainment program ?'

'Well, it's a bit too disco-ish and karaoke for me, given my age, background and all, but it's keeping
the thirty to fifty year olds happy, so it must be doing it's job.
I'll tell you something that surprised me though, there is no indigenous Egyptian folk music on the hotel's entertainment program. You can learn a lot from the folkie traditions. Somebody like Hamza El Din (who I've been buying for myself since 1978) as a for-instance.
Artists like that who play their own traditions.'
I think the fact that I knew about Hamza totally flummoxed him, because he actually asked me to clarify that I listened to Hamza's music at home in the UK ?
'Yep ! Got three of his cd's and they seem to get played reasonably regularly, and I'm always on the
lookout for more.  Trouble is, being a pensioner these days doesn't leave a lot of money for buying
from those who love ripping people off on the internet, but enough of my problems, it's our fifteenth
wedding anniversary tomorrow, so give me a suggestion as to what I can buy my wife for an
anniversary present ?'
'You have been married fifteen years ? Congratulations to you both. I'm afraid I'm not very good with
suggestions, but you might try the bazaar's, five minutes walk away...'
'Cool, I'll do that. I'm sure I'll find something...'
And that was the extent of our conversation because I was being served and Haddy was awaiting
her peppermint tea.
Nice bloke.
Seemed interested, and that's about all you can really ask for...

And 'Here Endeth the Lesson' as someone once said.  But don't worry, we will return to it in tomorrow's
missive (so long as I get the time to write it) which just might have a bit about wedding anniversaries in, as well as me having a rant over stupidity, ideology, and hypocrisy, but you'll just have to wait a bit longer for that to appear...

PART THREE: A BIT ABOUT COOL CATS, NOISY BIRDS, AND ALL THAT OTHER BEACH BABY STUFF...

PART THREE:  A BIT ABOUT COOL CATS, NOISY BIRDS, AND ALL THAT OTHER BEACH BABY STUFF...

Another day dawns, and we seem to be racing through them.
Today, the plan is to hit the beach because we haven't been down there to see it yet.
But we have also worked out a better routine after watching the gluttons at breakfast.
We eat, and then we take our coffee's from the bar above instead of the dining room.
We can sit outside, there are a lot less people and we can sit and ruminate, vegetate,
and talk over what we're going to do without the dining room's noise.
It's a much more civilized way of doing things.
Well, that was the plan anyway...

 No sooner have we got our coffee's, found a free table and sat out, than the noise starts up.
But it's not any of the guests, it's a family of crows that seem to live in the rafters of the roof.
And we thought the dining area was noisy ?
Bloody Hell, noisy tourists have nothing on this bunch.
A guest comes out with his drink, finds a free table directly underneath a couple of the crows.
They both look down in seeming amusement, and one just turns around and craps down the
back of the guy's shirt.
Yeuk !
And we're not talking about a gentle dump here, either.
It was more like a fully fledged assault with a deadly guano.
Of course, he feels the weight of it when it hits, and he is off cursing them, and throwing his plastic
beaker full of water at the pair of them.
Not that they seem to give a shit what he thinks...
I'm glad that we decided to sit in the sun and not under the roof...
They definitely think that they're in charge and everyone staying is there for one reason only,
and that's to feed them...

Twenty minutes later, we've drunk up and are ready to get on with the day when the hotel's owner
appears...
You can tell that they own everything in sight and are in charge of everything that goes on by
their absolute regal bearing and the way that they just appear and take over everything that is
happening or going on.
You're sitting in my chair, so I suggest you move. You have five seconds to comply otherwise I shall
be sitting on you.
Sorry. You were too late in moving... And if you so much as try and get me off your lap, I will happily take your face off...
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the hotel's cat seems to have turned up and he or she is not about to
argue with anybody.
It's their way or no-way.
Having had our own cats in the family, we just settle down again and watch with amusement.
'Another coffee dear' ?
'Yes please...'
'Ok, give me a couple of minutes and I'll be back...'
This should be amusing...

So it's just seen off a family of three people with one withering look.
They made to sit at the same table as the cat, and the cat just leaned forward and held up a paw.
Then he released the claw, which looked like one of those old 1950's black and white American
youth gang films when a flick-knife is brought into the action.
They couldn't move fast enough.
Then it stretched, calmly stood up and jumped off the chair, walking disdainfully past us to get
to the path to the swimming pool or the road archway.
Ok, fun's over.
Time to split for the beach.

It's strange how things change over the years, isn't it.
I wonder how many people reading this are doing the same as us, these days ?
Consider. We have been here three days out of seven and we still haven't been to the
beach, paddled in the sea, or any of that stuff.
And yet, probably ten years ago, nothing would have stopped me from charging down to
the beach and dipping my toes in the water on the first day there so long as it wasn't pissing
down and even sometimes when it was.
Things definitely change...
Anyway, although we haven't been there yet, we can see the sea from the hotel and it looks quite
easy to get there, either by a five minute walk downhill, or by waiting for the 'Beach Bus' which stops
in the road that cuts our hotel complex into two parts and appears every ten minutes.
Ok, decision made, we're walking because we can't be arsed to wait and queue.
Apparently, when we get down there, our hotel has a bit of private beach, but I can't help
feeling it's going to be a bit crowded...

The walk down was quite easy, you get to the bottom, cross the coast road and immediately
walk into a beach area with a cafe, then another twenty yards to the sand and the water and you're
on the beach, which I might add, is absolutely packed with humanity and some not even close...
Ye Gods, it's rammed...
Not a single sunlounger free and scarcely a piece of sand left to sit upon.
Oh well, we can always stand around and take photo's...
The 'Private' beach is about 60 metres wide beachfront wise with the cafe/bar at the back right-hand
side and a small shop nearer the water on the other.
That same side holds a basketball court and a boulles pitch (that's a French game of Bowls if you
don't know) so there is not a lot of room to stretch out.
The beach itself holds a couple of jetty's, one where the speedboats moor and one where you can
actually walk above the sea and find your required depth before diving into the briny...
There are signposts everywhere with all the 'do's' and 'don't's' in multiple languages but the beachguards
and lifeguards are still telling off the idiots who ignore them.
It's not that difficult.  Most are put up for people's own safety but idiots abound in any language so they
are definitely the busiest people at the beach.

 

 

The views across the bay are absolutely beautiful and occasionally a container ship passes by right
in front of us, but enough of this waffle.
Haddy has just discovered that we can walk straight across the beach front to the right of us to look for
shells...
It's obviously not part of the hotel's beach because parts of it are sadly covered in litter...
You know, the usual.  Cans, crisp packets, biscuit packets and bits of broken bottle so you have
to be careful where you put your feet, but one inch deep in water seems to do the trick.
And, very few people are on it, so sitting on an upturned rock while she pokes around at the water's
edge is fine by me.
Ok, we're done. Time to get a coffee from the cafe before we head back up the hill to the hotel and
just a snack for lunch.
I think if we are going to be beach bound, then we are going to have to get there by about eight in
the morning for any chance of a pair of sunloungers.
I'm also struck by the pair of carved mermaids in front of the cafe.
They really do look like whoever carved and cast them had a picture of Joni Mitchell in front of them
while they were doing it.

PART TWO: A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS TO START THINGS OFF (WITH MAYBE A BIT OF ROOM TO MANOEUVRE... WHATEVER ?)

 A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS TO START THINGS OFF.
(WITH MAYBE A BIT OF ROOM TO MANOEUVRE... WHATEVER ?)

It's daylight outside...
Better haul ourselves out of bed and see what we've got ourselves into, hadn't we.
First things first, shower and find a few clothes we hadn't travelled in.
Make the first coffee of the day with the accoutrements the staff had left next to the room kettle.
You know the thing, paper tube of coffee, a couple of tubes of sugar and baby sized cartons of milk.
That'll do for now because breakfast is calling, if my stomach is anything to go by, but before we go,
what's the room like ?
Clean for starters, practical as well.
Wardrobes on the right as you come in, with bathroom opposite to the left.
Walk into the main room and the bed is on the left and the television hanging on the wall
to the right above a long bench set with the kettle on top and a refrigerator inset at floor level.
Past the beds and a small round table with two small wooden chairs to the left.
Keep on moving and the patio doors to the balcony are in front of you, and as already noted,
there's a small table and two chairs out there when one wants to take the air.
So I'd definitely describe the room as adequate and functional.
It's definitely big enough for the pair of us for a week, anyway.

Along the corridor and downstairs to the main reception bit and then walk a little further and
down a spiral staircase and we're in the dining room.

Jeezus !  It's rammed with people, all of whom seem to be doing balancing acts with plates
with food on...
Trying to find a table is difficult. We'll definitely have to get here earlier in the future.
Finally we find a two-seater and plonk ourselves into the chairs.
We've got clean cutlery so it's just a question of which of us goes first until we've sussed it out.
Haddy takes the first run...
It's all self service from a large buffet style area with fruit and salad'y things against the wall behind
the buffet table.

There's a guy doing fried eggs and omelettes as you wait, over in the corner and at the
other end of the room is the coffee/hot water machine for tea's and coffee's.
Mine's a 'Flat White' and Haddy's is an 'Expresso' so we're sorted.  

 

There's very little in the way of English being spoken, or so it seems currently.
I have no idea what language seems to be taking precedent at the moment, but spotting
somebody wearing a sweat shirt with CCCP on, it would seem that the Complete Cock-Sucking
Cunt Putin's are taking over...
In other words, most would seem to be Russian.
Haddy's gone for omelette and salad with a bit of fruit and I've gone for the omelette with beef and
chicken sausage, and as we eat, we look around to observe our neighbours...    

I suppose shock is the word that comes to mind most easily.
Complete and utter shock.
Absolute piggery is the phrase I would use to describe what we observed, that and complete
and utter shock that people could be that greedy.
Wherever you looked, people were piling food onto their plates until some would fall off in protest
at having to balance atop something else...
People might have been piling it onto their plates, but they weren't eating it all so you couldn't say it was
because they were starving, as at least a third of it was being left on their plates when they'd get up
to leave, sometimes more...
Christ !  It was horrible to see, and all the restaurant staff could do was bin the leftovers.
Sheer piggery and such a waste.
It made the pair of us feel quite ill, and we were only watching it.
It was horrible to see, given that half the world is starving...
Ugh !  It still makes me so angry just to have witnessed it.
And it's all age groups. Old, young, they were all at it.
It makes you wonder how far down humanity has sunk when you witness it.
Sheer absolute greed, and the winner is the one with the most on their plate.
And you can't even avert your eyes, it's the table next to us on either side,
the table behind us, the table here, the table there...
Definitely not nice to have seen it, and we've got another six days of it to witness...

Finally, we've choked down ours and it's time to leave and do a bit of exploring...
So, where to go first ?
Around the hotel seems to be favourite, but where to start.
We overlook one of them, so we'll start with the swimming pools of which we've seen three
so far, dunno if there are any more, but three will do.

We overlook the 'adult' pool. No children allowed in it.
The children's pool is the other side of the road down to the beach and has slides and heaven
knows what around it. Ours just has sunloungers and a bar area to one side.

The other one we've seen is just outside the dining area and is slightly smaller than the bigger one
that our room overlooks.

And if you can't get a sunlounger, and you seem to have to get up very early to get one,
then you can sit on the bar's terrace which is above the dining room.
It's all quite sprawling in layout, but it seems to be easy to get to where you'd like to go.
I think we're just going to chill by the pool today.
Mainly because we're still both a bit knackered from the flight...

SO, WHAT'S THE HARM IN SHARM' ?

 

Last year was our 15th wedding anniversary, did you know that ?
Well, to be honest, unless you're family there is absolutely no reason why you should.
But because it was, and the Missus had a week off from work because she had to use up some holiday,
we decided to go away somewhere and relax in the sun,and, given the weather in the UK was absolutely bloody abysmal we decided to go to Morocco.
However, what with the floods in Spain, I thought I'd better check the long range weather forecast just to make sure we were going to be safe, Morocco not being that far off the coast of Spain on the other side of the Mediterranean.
Guess what ? The long range was awful. Wet and windy and a high of twenty degrees, so that was off then.
Check the cheap flights again and come up with Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt on the coast of the Red Sea.
The weather looks good on the long range. Twenty Six degrees sounds fine, it's like two am in the morning in the Gambia and we're quite used to that, so we thought we'd give it a go.
Why not. After all, we've never been there before, and it's only a week, so let's do it.

So... It's booked, and the critical phrase is 'All Inclusive' which covers all meals etc, plus, we've booked
the hotel's shuttle taxi/van to get us from the airport to the hotel both ways, in and out.
Two weeks later we're safely esconced at Luton airport awaiting our flight out.

Ok, two things about Egypt which might provide a headache or two if you haven't been there before
(and we hadn't) but I'd looked it up, and checked it out in the two weeks prior to going, and the first
thing is, You can't get any Egyptian pounds as they don't allow it to be taken out of the country.
If you're lucky, you can find a few at the airport (we did) but you can't order it from the bank or Post Office before you go.
The plan is, you exchange money at their end when you fly in.
And...
You need to apply for visas in advance, otherwise you have to do it at the airport when you're trying to get checked in for your boarding pass, and it takes ages and causes the queues to get even longer...
See... It helps if you know all this stuff in advance because when you're booking in at the airport you
certainly don't need any more aggro' than you're already going to get.
(Oh dear, did I set your bloody scanner off again... ?)
Time to hit the duty-free only to find out that those cunts from the Labour Party have decided to raise the price and the tax on tobacco products from £135.00 for ten pouches to £185.00 for ten pouches instead..
I knew it was a mistake to vote for a knight of the realm in charge of a party ostensibly from the working class...
And yes, that goes for the so-called Liberal Demo-twats as well.

 
And then, of course, there is a delay on the flight out...
Brilliant !!!
It's a four hour flight at the best of times, and this certainly isn't going to be one of those...
Mr Cynical seems to have taken over.
He usually appears when I'm at an airport...
Finally, we're allowed onto the aircraft and looking at the time, we are definitely going to get there late.
There's only snacks on board (cheap flights) but apparently they'll sell you an alcoholic beverage or two...
You couldn't make this stuff up, but that seems to be the way of the world these days.

After we've landed and identified our luggage we are given a form to fill in which should, if everything
has not gone tits-up totally, be the same as your visa details that you've already sent them, which come up on their immigration department's screens which you have just queued for forty five minutes to go through...
Made it...
We're through... Hang on, that bloke's got my name on a piece of cardboard...
Yes, I am he, and we are escorted to the back of the room while he finds the other three names on his list, for this is indeed the man with the hotel's shuttle van and he's ready and waiting and we're sorted...
Ok, we're sorted, as are two other couples, but he is missing one and they are definitely on the passenger manifest, so he's taken us all out to the van and gone back inside for another look.
Forty five minutes later, he's found our missing lady who apparently, has had her booked accomodation
changed within the last twenty four hours, so she is now NOT staying where she was actually booked into when Love Holidays accepted her booking.
Good 'ere, innit ?

But at least we're now out of the airport and moving...
By now it's midnight and we're knackered, not to put too fine an expression on it.
Fucked. Cream-Crackered. Exhausted. And bloody hungry too...
But finally, we're dropped off at our hotel which is not in the city centre, more outskirts I would have said, who welcome us profusely, apologising for any delay, and tell us to immediately go through into their restaurant where, now we've got our all inclusive wristbands on, we are going to get fed, because they have saved us a sort of snack because we were expected...
Blimey !   Didn't expect that.  
Yay... We've had a bit of food.  
Hmmm... I'm beginning to like this place already...
Then they take us to our room.
Second floor, overlooking a swimming pool and the odd tree and a few bushes as far as I can tell in the darkness.

 

Balcony, with two chairs and a small table on it outside through the patio doors.
Looks reasonable anyway.
The beds are two singles pushed together, but what the Hell, we can do anything else like unpack
in the morning.
Sleep...