Martin's Activity Log

On Egypt

Ok, so I got an email this morning from someone asking me to reword that last sentence of yesterday's blog post and warn people about high criminality in Egypt ...

Well sure, I wasn't saying Egypt is the paradise - crime rates are still very high there and, since our monthly income is so much higher than theirs, we tourists are their prime targets. Of course, these guys try to squeeze as much money as possible out of us - you see that for instance when trying to walk across a Bazar, or at the Pyramids of Giza, they try to sell you all kinds of worthless junk for your precious EUR / USD and they're really obtrusive. Our tour guide told us to never to walk alone and never talk to anyone.

Now I received this link to a german speaking website (www.cibev.de) this morning, which warns about tourists - and especially women - losing all their belongings in real estate deals or marriages. Ok, so I passed along the message ...

However, I also saw the other side - how the country cares about us tourists. All the increased security measures and high police presence to make it safer for us.

Because of this, I'd still recommend Egypt for everyone who's simply looking for a relaxing vacation - and it should be perfectly safe as long as you follow some simple security precautions:

• Book a package holiday in a local travel agency - they'll pick you up at the airport, bring you to your hotel and look after you throughout your entire stay.
• Inside your hotel, you should be perfectly safe - there's security at the entrance, so no locals can get inside. Hotels in Hurghada are huge - they usually have 10+ different buildings with gardens, pools, etc. in between.
• Don't leave your hotel alone, stay together with other tourists or book some guided tours.
• If you want to do some sightseeing, there are plenty of guided tours where you're in a larger group of other tourists together with a tour guide and sometimes even a security guard.

Back from Egypt

Just came back from a wonderful vacation in Hurghada, Egypt :-)

I got really lucky to get some great last minute deal, just on the day prior to departure, and even more lucky that such a great destination as Egypt was about the only thing that was still available.

Had a really great hotel and beautiful weather - warm enough to swim in the Red Sea. This is just the perfect time to travel to Hurghada - it's their winter season; during their long summer it's just too hot in the sun.

They also offered some great daytrips, so I went to Cairo, Luxor and two snorkeling trips in the Red Sea. In Cairo, we visited the Pyramids of Giza - our tourguide was really cool, when we got there in the morning it was so foggy that you couldn't see anything, but then he offered to come back in the afternoon, which was really cool :-) We also visited the Museum of Cairo, had Lunch onboard a ship on Nil, went to a Bazar and a few more things.

In Luxor, we had a smaller group and visited the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Hatshepsut and the Temple of Karnak - I wish I could have spent a lot more time there, the Valley of the Kings alone is worth spending an entire day.

The two snorkeling trips were also really cool, we were on the boat the whole day, stopping at different islands all the time to do snorkeling. They also offered free snorkeling instruction in the hotel pool for beginners like me, and our guide was also very patient with guys like me who weren't that good swimmers - I looked kinda silly in that oversized life jacket ;-)

All in all, it was really a great vacation, very relaxing and a lot of fun. I can really recommend Egypt to everyone.