Hurghada - First Visa Extension

Hurghada Marina Looking Towards Mosque

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that actually I had quite a lot of admin work to do.

I had three tasks ahead of me – get my visa extension in the hope that this would get me a reduced price at my next hospital visit, make a doctor’s appointment to remove the plaster from my leg (preferably before Thursday evening, when I wanted to go to the Night of Opera and Ballet by the Beach), and open a bank account. There are other things, but those three will do for starters.

So, Task 1: Visa.

I’d read that I would need to bring along a passport photo, a copy of the picture page of my passport, a copy of my entrance visa in the passport, my actual passport, and some money.

Challenge number one was getting the photocopies and getting a passport photograph. I’d decided one of the local hotels would probably be able to do the photocopying for me (at a price), but I had no idea about how to get the passport photograph. I searched around on the internet, but didn't find anything, although I did eliminate Senzo Mall.

In the end, I decided to ask our receptionist/doorman if he knew how I could get a passport photo. He misunderstood me and proudly showed me that he had a photocopier at reception. I was still delighted and I got the copies of my passport for free, which was even better than the convenience of having it there in my own building.

The doorman (Yasser, I think his name is) gave some thought to my request for a passport photograph once I’d explained what it was I was actually asking for, and he ended up saying that the hotel next door had a photographer and he would phone him and ask him to come and take the photos for me. I was a bit dubious, thinking this would cost me an arm and a leg, but I didn’t like to refuse his kindness, especially as I wasn’t too sure whether passport photo machines even existed in Egypt. Maybe this was the only option? I have no Arabic and Yasser’s English is limited, so I wasn’t going to go into detail, and we agreed he would phone the photographer.

Yasser later came to tell me that the photographer would come to my flat at 19:45. At the appointed time, the photographer arrived, I stood by one of my walls while he took a photo, he showed it to me, and I approved. He asked me whether I wanted 8 photos, so I shrugged my shoulders and suggested four, and then he suggested eight again, so I opted for eight, shrugging my shoulders. He asked me when I wanted it delivered, so I just looked a bit confused as I didn’t know what was within the realms of reasonableness. Obviously not able to cope with my continued lack of decisiveness, he said he would just give them to Yasser, so I nodded agreement, wondering how on earth this was all going to work.

Maybe 90 minutes later, he came back with the photographs. I found it quite astonishing. He charged me 50 EGP, which was less than it would have cost for the taxi to the shopping centre and back. So I ended up being somewhat bemused but happy and very grateful for Yasser’s help. I hadn’t expected that getting my passport photos would be done quite like this.

The next challenge was the old one of getting a taxi. I had to get to the visa office before 10am, or so they recommended on the expat websites, so I would need to book a taxi to be sure of getting there on time. I decided that maybe I should lean on Yasser again for help – I had been told I could ask him to order a taxi for me.

He kindly phoned a taxi guy for me, but informed me that the taxi driver was already booked. Could the taxi driver come at 10am? I thanked Yasser for his effort, but said I would order another taxi myself, since I needed to be at the passport office before 10am. Maybe ten minutes later, Yasser came to my door again and said that the driver had now said that he could make it for 9am after all. I had to laugh to myself – it was as if in Egypt you even have to negotiate to get the taxi to arrive at the time you want. I accepted the offer, although inside I was sceptical that the taxi driver would turn up on time. I was pretty sure the driver had just wanted a lie-in and was now saying he would be there simply in order to get the business but would still turn up late.

As it turned out, I was being completely unfair! The driver turned up early and explained that he had a regular customer at this time, but had managed to postpone it for this once so that he could take me. He gave me the soft sell by flattering me, saying that when Yasser had told him it was a British woman, he’d decided to take me because all his other customers were Russian and he wanted more British. 

He joked that the Russians claimed that Hurghada should be called Russghada – apparently, an astonishing number of Russians work in Hurghada. He dropped into conversation that he always charges a reasonable price because he thinks then people are more likely to employ him on a regular basis and that it’s worked, since now he has only his regular clients.

I was a bit disturbed at first by the number of times he said “inshallah” (God willing) – it was as if every single thing in life was terribly uncertain and you had to keep on qualifying it and reminding yourself that things may turn out otherwise. But I’m guessing that after a while, it just disappears into the background, like a “you know” in English.

I hadn’t really worked out how I was going to manage the day’s events and, as usual, I’d thought I would just take things as they came. We arrived at the passport office and the driver told me not to pay him yet, as he would collect me after I’d finished. For a moment, I was uncertain about committing myself like that, but then I realised that all the taxis there were probably waiting for their own customers to come back out and not waiting for fares, as I’d first assumed. Consequently, what he was suggesting was most likely the best plan. Moreover, with all the army folk around, this wouldn’t be the best place to get stranded.

I was glad I’d been there before as, even with that prior visit, I was still a little uncertain as to where the visa office was (at first I only saw the” Supermarket” sign and not the “Hurghada Passport” one). Apparently, you used to be able to drive right up to the entrance, but it then became a place for demonstrations by the Muslim Brotherhood after Mursi was removed, so now there are lots of security guards and it’s closed off to cars altogether.

As I went in the passport building, there was an old guy with what looked like a visitors' book. I looked at him, but he just pointed inside the building, so in I went. Fortunately, there was hardly any queue, but I had to go up to the counter twice, once for the return visa form and another time for the visa extension form. The return visa form asked me how many re-entries I wanted. I’d read someone saying that if you put two re-entries, your visa becomes invalid on your second re-entry, so I put four just to be on the safe side, although I think I may have had to pay for each one. I’m not convinced it was the right form for me, because I thought it was just a multi-entry visa with no restrictions, but nobody seemed to speak much English so, after repeating the words “multi-entry” and getting no response and writing the words "multi-entry" on the form, I just did as I was told.

What I hadn’t realised was that the multi-entry part and the visa extension part were two separate applications, each part requiring a copy of the passport page and entrance visa. Fortunately, I’d also read on the internet that you should always take spare photocopies with you as there are no photocopiers in the building. Consequently, I had spare copies with me, and I handed the additional copies over as the guy was thrusting my application back at me and telling me there was no copier there. It was satisfying to feel so well-prepared. After I’d paid my money, I was told to come back at 2pm to collect my passport with added visas. I won’t say the guy shouted, but he had a rather loud voice.

The driver asked me where I wanted to go next. I suggested the Marina, as I knew it was close, but he suggested Senzo Mall where I could get a coffee and do some shopping. I agreed since there’s not so much to do at the Marina at midday and, as we were driving along, I realised that Senzo Mall was the better option. It is quite a dusty pedestrian road to get to the Marina and I was going around in my plastered leg with a shopping bag tied round it, so not really what you would call ideal walking gear.

By this time, I’d also resigned myself to the fact it would be an expensive day for taxi fares. Besides, I felt more secure having the one person shuttle me around than having the continual stress of finding different drivers for each part of the journey. I liked the driver, he was friendly and interesting without being flirtatious, and keen to talk without overdoing it. He was also being extremely helpful, no doubt in an attempt to win me as a permanent customer.

I didn’t really have enough money on me to do a full shop, unfortunately, but it was a useful trip for stocking up on water. I spotted another brand of water that was half the price of Nestle, so I bought two experimental bottles of that and thought I would ask someone about the brand before actually drinking it.

As I came out of the mall, one of the unnumbered taxis yelled “Taxi?” at me, so I was relieved to say no and to feel that I had my own person looking after me. I was beginning to appreciate the benefits of having your own, regular driver.

And so we drove back to the passport office. This time, the driver called one of the guards and asked if he could drive through the secure area because of my bad leg (foot). I lifted my long skirt a bit so that the guard could see the plaster and we were waved through, although we were questioned a second time as we drove along. I will miss getting sympathy everywhere I go once the cast comes off!

Getting the passport back was quick. The office looked empty and the guy at the desk seemed to have cheered up considerably from the morning – maybe he’d just had lunch? The stamps took up a whole page of my passport and seemed to have different dates on them, but it’s good to know that I now have six months at least of legal existence with no worries about whether I can go in or out of the country.

We stopped off on the way back to get petrol in a place that seemed to be serving only taxis. Weirdly, the gas is inserted by the sales person in the front of the car rather than at the side (even though there did appear to be a little door in the side of the car for inserting petrol). I’d never seen anything like that before.

The driver was quite taken with me having come over here to write and joked away at how we would both be famous once I, as a famous author, had written about him. He remarked that his own life story as an Egyptian would be interesting with him having lived through a time where both of the last presidents have ended up in jail. He gave me a bit more of a soft sell, his aspiration being to send at least one of his two children to private school – we’d just had a conversation establishing that we both believed education to be very important for the future of Egypt. But I liked the guy!

The driver charged me 150 EGP for the whole time, which I thought was fairly reasonable. I promised to use him when I needed to go to the doctor’s and I’m hoping his prices will be generally moderate enough for me to use him all the time.

El Andalous - First Day With Bandage

My Walk to the Il Gusto/The Beach/The Piazza

Surprisingly, I slept well even with my foot in the bandage. I’d gone to bed two hours earlier than usual because I was shattered and I had no problems falling asleep.

I’d done the internet payment of my medical bill the evening before and sent the hospital the proof in a screen grab, wishing to demonstrate my trustworthiness. However, I reckoned that they would not trust it until the money actually came through, which gave me at least a day to try and change my large notes.

I decided I would go to Il Gusto for a drink. Although the Piazza Restaurant is cheaper, they weren’t able to change my money when I had a note for half the amount, so I didn’t hold out any hope of them having change for the large note I had.

My bandage was already getting quite dirty (I ended up sweeping my floors to minimise the dirt; I’d originally thought I would leave the cleaning until I had the lighter bandage), so I tied a Spinney’s plastic bag around it before going out. It wasn’t the most elegant solution, but it was functional and I’d seen other people with plasters do something similar in the past.

I tried walking with it in the lounge, just to make sure that the plastic didn’t make me slip, but actually I still felt quite steady on my feet, if a bit slow. And then there was a knock on the door.

Yes, it was the guy from the ambulance with my passport. So, very efficient service, but too efficient! Nevertheless, I feigned delight, because it wasn’t his fault that he’d effectively come too early. He kissed my hand as he entered, which I could have done without (a bit too personal for someone performing a professional service), but I still think he was well meaning.

He handed me my passport and asked me to fill out a form with my details on (name, date of birth, etc), which I duly did. He commented that my flat was very nice, which I appreciated and thanked him for, saying that I was very happy here. Inwardly, I was stressing on how to give him a tip to show my sincere thanks when I hadn't yet got the change. In the end, I took it out of my pool for taxi money, but it wasn’t as much as I had really wanted to give. As I handed it over, his eyes widened and shone, and I felt a huge sense of relief. He bowed and thanked me very much. And off he went.

Technically, I now didn’t have to go to Il Gusto, but I thought I may as well, partly to get out of the flat for a little while and also because I now needed to have some smaller notes for taxi fares.

As I went out, I felt like a celebrity.

First of all, I went through our reception area, and our receptionist asked me if I was OK.

Then I stepped out of the door and each of the shopkeepers stepped out to look. One of them asked me how I was, so I said I was doing OK. “Il hamdulilah”, he repeated twice. I nodded and smiled, but was inwardly puzzling to myself that this is what you usually say after someone has asked you how you are, not after you’ve replied, but I hadn’t looked it up to check after my confusion in the supermarket, so I was a bit unsure. It turned out that it was indeed what you say in response to “How are you?” and literally means something like “Thanks be to God”. I’m now confused as to whether he was just basically saying “I’m really pleased you’re OK”, which is what I'd originally assumed, or whether he was trying to teach me how to respond in Arabic to his question as to how I was! But he was very kind and sympathetic, which for me was the most important message.

After that, a guy I’d spoken to before who runs the diving school, walked by, waved at me, raised his eyes and nodded, at which point I greeted him to indicate that I had recognised him and he too asked me what had happened. He smiled and said I needed to be more careful, and went on.

Next, I passed the old guy who sweeps the paths every day outside our block. We exchange words each day, but I think neither of us really has a clue what the other one is saying. Anyway, he said something and gestured in the air and at my foot. I shrugged my shoulders, shook my head, frowned and said “not good!” and then smiled to indicate that I was actually OK. He said something else, I nodded and smiled and went on my way. One of these days, I will understand what’s going on!

I made it to Il Gusto – it took around 15-20 minutes to walk with my bandage on, so it was also useful to get to know how much time to allow to get about – and managed to have my iced coffee there fairly inconspicuously. The guy that had helped me there with the internet said hello as he passed. I felt blessed to be able to be sitting and having a superb view of exotic blue sea and sky and waving palm trees. The plastic bag stayed on my foot and although walking was slow, it wasn’t painful, so I can’t really complain.

So, that was my first day coping with my fully-bandaged foot. Only four more to go!

Hurghada - First Trip to Hospital

Me in Hurghada Hospital

Oh dear, I should have known better than to predict that I will be having a fairly quiet time of it. I’ve told all my readers to go away and now the drama begins!

Well, today was a Saturday. I’d been told they would be switching the electricity off this morning for maintenance work, so I thought I would go to the beach first and then come back later and do the cleaning and maybe some writing.

Off I went, in fact, I plunged straight into the water today for my swim, then returned to my sunbed to read my book on the beach. It was the first time that I’d seen a kite surfer since I’d arrived; there were a few windsurfers as well, and it was good to see people coming to enjoy Sahl Hasheesh.

I got a little bit too hot, so I thought I would go snorkelling and take some more photos. This cooled me down considerably and I went to go back to my sunbed. I usually exit the water by the sandy bit where I get in to swim, but today I thought I would go via the closer but rockier part of the shoreline and just tread carefully. That was my mistake.

Somehow, I managed to tread on a very sharp stone. I got out of the water, looked at my foot, and there was blood. It then got more and more painful by the minute, it swelled and a hard white patch appeared by the wound. I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I sat on my sunbed nursing my foot and said “ouch” rather a lot of times. I was hoping the pain would subside, but it was just getting worse.

Fortunately, a Russian woman across from me, who turned out to be a medical doctor, asked if she could help, so she took a look at it and cleaned it with some fresh water for me. She advised me to disinfect it and get it seen by a doctor just in case something was stuck inside my foot.

I thanked her and said I would be able to get back to my home on my own (she was offering to come with me), but as I started walking, I realised it was too painful. An Egyptian guy was sitting in an electric golf buggy at the side of the path – I think he uses them to provide a taxi service or maybe he rents them out - so I went up to him, pointed at my foot and explained that I needed to get to El Andalous. He very kindly gave me a lift for free (and I feel guilty for not giving him a tip, but I didn’t have any small money with me).

From there, I made it into the building and then the staff at the desk helped me by calling the clinic. Those guys at the desk are great!

I was still saying “ouch!” a lot as it somehow made me feel as if I was doing something. Perhaps by expending energy on saying “ouch!”, I deflected my energy away from the ever-increasing pain. I was convinced the Egyptians were thinking I was just a wimpy foreigner.

Anyway, the clinic guys arrived and decided I needed to go to the main hospital in Hurghada rather than just the local clinic. They asked me to get on the stretcher, but it was rather high up and I wasn’t sure that I was strong enough to be able to yank myself up with my frozen shoulder. In the end they pretty much had to lift me up. They rolled me out on the stretcher and into the ambulance while all the shopkeepers came outside to have a look.

During the journey, they disinfected my foot, took my blood pressure, and gave me an injection (my first ever one in my bum!) that was supposed to help with the pain, but I can’t say I felt any difference whatsoever. The guy was kind enough to keep on distracting me from my foot, but I really just wanted to watch my foot continue swelling and bruising as a justification for me making such a fuss.

There was actually no waiting in the hospital and I was taken straight into X-Ray where they must have taken five or six shots of my foot at various angles. There was a rewarding “ooh!” from the staff as they first saw my foot. I was really cold – I am not sure if it was because of the air conditioning or due to shock. The consultant then came in and said the X Rays had shown that I had a small fissure in one of my bones and that he would bandage my foot.

I was subsequently wheeled into another room, where they gave me an infusion for around an hour. They said it was to take away the pain, but I’m not convinced because I didn’t notice any difference. I was still feeling very cold at this point and eventually managed to get someone to give me a blanket.

Maybe three-quarters of the way through, they came in to put the support and bandaging on my leg and I was surprised (and relieved) to hear it only had to be on for five days, when it would be swapped for something lighter. I’ve never broken a leg or anything and it was only now that I suddenly realised how awkward it will be to sleep with this thing on my leg – sleeping isn’t easy with my dodgy shoulder anyway, and now I had to contend with a bandaged foot as well.

After that, they gave me another injection in my bum to take away the pain. This time, I could feel a distinct difference. The pain was still there, but it was a fairly dull ache rather than something that really hurts.

Finally, they removed the infusion and gave me some crutches, plus several packs of pain killers (“you’ll need them,” the doctor said!). I looked at the crutches and wondered how I would manage relying on my shoulder. However, at the moment, I am sceptical about how much the crutches help. I can walk pretty well with the cast/bandage on (although resting is more comfortable, of course).

Payment was the really tricky issue. I had no cash on me and I didn’t have enough cash at home. They said they would take me to a cash machine, but then I remembered that my card got stolen with my purse that time and I hadn’t replaced it yet.

Also, my credit cards were in a state of confusion, as I had the new PIN of one and the new card of another, but I think the corresponding new card and new PIN, respectively, were both still at Markus’s.

I could have used my UK debit card, which I still have, and had planned on using once my money got low, but I would need to transfer funds over first.

Also, my company health insurance details were in my stolen purse (and I think I will be able to claim off the company insurance), so I didn’t have them with me. What a mess! I had no idea how many far-reaching implications that stolen purse would have.

I suggested electronic transfer, but they were obviously worried I wouldn’t pay, so they held my passport hostage. They will come and return my passport once my payment had gone through. But at least we had a solution everyone was happy with, although Saturday is the Muslim Sunday equivalent and then Sunday, of course, means that banks are closed in Europe. So it would be Monday before my payment could possibly go through.

Another issue is that there are different rates for tourists than for people who live there. However, because I'd been there only just over two weeks so far and hadn’t yet applied for my longer-term visa, I couldn’t be counted as living in Egypt and thus had to be charged in my home currency (GBP) and thus about ten times the Egyptian price, I would guess (or more, going by the extortionate price I was charged for the medications and the lowly price on the packs that I noticed only aftewards!). So, in terms of timing, it was unlucky.

It did not escape my notice that I would not be able to swim now for a while, but I comforted myself with the idea that I could devote that extra time to learning Arabic (how many times have I wished that I could speak Arabic!) and/or getting on with writing my books. A silver lining can usually be found somewhere.

I was taken back home in the ambulance on the stretcher, because this appeared to be the easiest way of transporting me. The guy in the ambulance, who had been there the whole time, from the beginning to the end, was very friendly and was obviously hoping for a tip (or a date!). He claimed he’d got me a big discount on my hospital charges, which I didn’t quite believe, but he had looked after me well and I do believe he tried to fight my corner.

Again, as we arrived and I was taken out on the stretcher, a crowd of shopkeepers was gazing on with great interest. The guy in the ambulance insisted on seeing me right to my door and hung round expectantly. I felt awful for not giving him anything, but I had only fairly large notes which I didn’t want to give or sort through as he watched. I said I would give him a tip when he brought my passport back, but he looked very disappointed and I felt very guilty. I hate all this tipping as I never get it right and always feel bad. I also have no clue how much I should give him as a tip. I don’t want to overdo it, but I don’t want to offend, either.

Also, on reflection, he is probably thinking he may miss me when he drops off my passport. However, I will be staying on my balcony most of the time until I get the lighter bandage, so I hope I do catch him.

It’s also difficult to know whether they overdid the amount of medications, x-rays, infusion, etc to get more money (at least my money will be going to serve the Egyptian hospital, which isn’t a bad thing), but most of the time I was just praying they would be able to get the pain to disappear, even if it meant chopping off my foot!

After taking the tablets with my meal that evening, I was happily and finally completely pain free. And my foot was still more-or-less intact.

Sahl Hasheesh - First Snorkelling

Egyptian Pillar in the Sunken City

Fish at Palm Beach Plaza

 

I waited until I got my confidence up with my swimming before snorkelling. However, I was now swimming at least 1km a day, my arm didn’t even hurt any more as I swam, and my arm was able to move more freely, so I decided to give it a go.

There were several potential dangers with snorkelling – firstly, it’s easy to get absorbed in it and not see what’s coming up ahead of you. This means that you make sudden movements as you frantically try to avoid someone or something at the last minute. Sudden movements generally entail me stretching my arm out in a direction it is not yet able to go, resulting in severe pain and maybe a delayed recovery.

Secondly, if there is a good snorkelling area, there are likely to be several people around. This increases the chance of my arm getting knocked unintentionally by a fellow snorkeler, as they too will be fully absorbed in looking at the fish. This too might cause my arm to take up a bad position – it can be just a subtle shade of difference to be very painful – and adversely affect the healing process.

Thirdly, I wanted to add an extra layer of difficulty (reminiscent of planning a party as I was moving) in that I also wished to attempt underwater photography with my new camera. Unsure how this would work, I suspected it may place extra pressure on my arm as it had to hold the camera in place and keep me afloat. But I wouldn’t know until I tried.

It was with some trepidation that I began and it didn’t help that I originally put the snorkelling equipment together wrongly. Nevertheless, drinking seawater doesn’t seem to have done me any harm.

I began in a small novice area at Palm Beach Plaza, only just out of my depth, and where I didn’t have to snorkel too long a distance. The snorkelling itself ended up being fine. Inevitably, a few times, I swam along only to bang straight into the rope that marked off the next hotel’s section of the water. Shocked, I scrambled to disentangle myself from the rope, my arm twinged, but it was bearable. It wasn’t the searing pain I’d experienced when I tried to grab a falling object whilst moving house. I was suitably encouraged.

The underwater photography was a different matter. I couldn’t see anything on the screen, so I blindly pointed the camera in the general direction and crossed my fingers that I would capture something. When I got home, all the photographs were either blurs or depicted an empty mass of water. Oh dear.

I tried again the next day in the same place. I made a more concentrated effort actually to aim for what I wanted to photograph instead of randomly snapping in the general direction each time I got over-excited at spotting something. This time, although I could make out the shape of some fish on my photographs, they were quite blurry. I decided my next learning was to hold the camera bit steadier, if I could. Since it’s always a bit wavy, and the fish move in any case, I wasn’t sure if this was entirely possible.

The third time in the same place and I finally had the best success yet. Over half of the photographs had fish in them and a number of them were in focus. I decided I could graduate to the “adult” playground of the Sunken City. This is an area in Sahl Hasheesh where they have sunk Egyptian pillars into the sea bed, along with large boxes, and I guess they are hoping this is where coral will grow and it is to be a place expressly for divers and snorkelers.

I took a walk first to see where my point of entry to the water would be. I remembered it as being quite rocky, but this time it was a gentle, sandy slope into the water. I couldn’t think why I thought it was rocky before.

The next morning, off I went and then I realised my mistake. The tide was out in the morning, so the sea only started where the rocks were. When the tide was in, the sea lapped gently on the sandy slope, some way above the rocks. Consequently, I decided to return in the late afternoon.

The sunken city was a larger area, so more difficult to explore, as you had to discover the best spots first. I saw some swordfish and took a few photographs, but without much optimism since they blended into the blue of the sea. I did get a few acceptable photographs of them on a later date, but the degradation of the picture quality when posted here makes the swordfish disappear too much into the background. As a result, I've shown a different photograph.

I finally found a superb spot with many fish and I paddled slowly up to them. I was just taking a photograph when I suddenly realised that they were all swimming round a huge, evil-looking, bloated, brown eel-like fish that was poking its head out of a cavern, like a dragon looking for its prey. I have no idea what it was, and it was probably perfectly benign, but it scared me, so I swam for shore!

I looked at my photos and they were all blurred. I needed to calm down a bit!

To save time looking for where to snorkel, I decided to swim round the Sunken City (the bits sticking out of the water, anyway) and look out for the promising places while I was unhampered by snorkelling gear and my camera. It only occurred to me towards the end to focus my search on areas near the shore because they would be best for photography (the water was less deep there and I would be closer to the fish). It ended up being quite a long swim and I’d overdone it a bit for my arm.

Finally, the next day, I went back to snorkel in the areas I’d identified. I snapped away quite happily, feeling I'd got some great shots, and I was just about to go home when I realised that I’d forgotten to put the camera on underwater mode. Aaargh! Still, it was a good way to experiment what the pictures would be like on automatic mode. I went back for half an hour to take a few more pictures using underwater mode. That way, I could at least compare the two camera modes.

I eagerly downloaded my pictures when I got back and, to my surprise, the automatic mode pictures were just as good, if not better, than the ones taken in underwater mode. I’d also managed to get a fair few pictures that had fish in them and were in focus! I was definitely getting there.

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I am leading a fairly quiet life just now, staying within the resort, working in the morning and swimming in the afternoon (I’ve recently been finishing off the day with a cup of coffee, as we’ve even had a bit of white cloud here and there and temperatures below 30 degrees). So, it’s unlikely I will be posting that much over the next week as there’s not much to tell. If you don’t want to keep on checking back, you can always subscribe by email by filling out the field on the right-hand side of this page. I don’t get to see who has subscribed (or unsubscribed), so it’s really totally anonymous (and I think you may even fall off the “page count” count). I will definitely be posting before 10th November as I need to get my visa before then and I have no doubt that I will have something to tell about that! I should also be going to an event on Thursday, so will be writing about that by next weekend, all going well. So, if you want to just keep checking, please do, and those two bits of information should give you some timelines as to when to expect the next posts. Thank you to everyone for reading – it’s a great encouragement to continue!

Hurghada - Third Trip to Spinneys

Spinneys, Hurghada

I shouldn’t really have much to say on my third trip to the supermarket, but I am still learning at this stage.

I arrived at the Senzo shopping mall feeling fairly pleased with myself. So far, I’d negotiated two successful taxi rides in one day, I'd come out unharmed from a trip to the perfume shop, and I'd resolved my notarisation and courier tasks. This called for my first café latte in celebration. The relief coursed through my body as I drank.

And then off I went shopping. I didn’t have so much money with me this time – mostly because I’d already spent more than I intended with the lawyer (since I asked him to courier my documents as well) and had stopped twice for drinks (and the coffee was my third). After the fiasco with the taxi going home last time, I decided it was good not to be carrying too much money with me, but I would need to watch how much I was spending and leave myself with enough for the taxi.

I finally bought my “Insect Killer”, but I deliberated for ages over whether I should get the cheaper or the more expensive model. The cheaper model said it wasn’t for outdoor use (and I primarily wanted it for my balcony) and the more expensive one said it was for commercial use. Neither was exactly what I wanted. I opted for the more expensive one in the end.

I’ve since put it to use and it is fairly scary. I switched it on and sparks flew! I turned it off, my heart beating fast and panic in my veins!

I decided to put some more distance between it and the source of electricity and brought out the extension cable I’d just bought. This time, it didn’t spark when I turned it on, although the electric bars flickered for a few moments as if deciding whether or not to explode.

I watched it from the safety of my flat and finally plucked up the courage to sit outside. Gradually, I relaxed as I sat there but every now and then the killer gave out this loud sparking sound. I moved my chair further away from it. Eventually, I realised that the sparking sounds weren’t signifying that the machine was malfunctioning, but that each spark signified that insects were being roasted by the electric shock. Ugh.

On top of this, after all that deliberation and stress, I’m not even sure it works. I still got bitten twice on my ankles (but not my arms). I brought out the plug-in mosquito killer to add to my arsenal, but got bitten again on my foot. Finally, I put some insect spray on my ankles (but I was hoping to avoid having to spray myself with smelly stuff each evening) and still got bitten on my feet.

Later, I tried to get some advice from the internet and one site was claiming that these sparky insect killers were a waste of money because they killed only the harmless insects. However, I’m sure I’ve read on the expat sites that these insect killers really do the job. I will need to go back and double-check. My only bit of comfort is that miraculously my bare arms didn’t get bitten, so maybe something was working and maybe my feet were so smelly that they completely overrode the attraction of the killing machine?

I also bought an iron – again, it was a choice between cheaper or more expensive. For the iron, I went for the cheaper option. Although the iron works fine, it turned out that its cable reaches only a couple of metres, so I have to huddle right up to the wall in order to do my ironing.

A bright pink washing up bowl also joined my home as a result of the shopping trip, and I thought of Hye-Youn, who I am sure would like the colour. It fits fairly snugly in my sink and looks quite funky, but is thereby a bit difficult to empty out.

When I got to the till, I made the mistake of saying “Ahlan” (“hello”). As a result, the guy on the checkout teased me by starting to speak in Arabic. I understood that he said “how are you?” but I couldn’t remember what the response should be. I had an idea, but I wasn’t sure, and by the time I’d thought about it, he’d already gone on to say something else that I couldn’t grasp. I laughed and explained I couldn’t understand, so he offered to teach me something. I struggled to think of a phrase, so he suggested “How about ‘I love you’?” and we all laughed (me, him, and the guy packing the bags). In the end, I asked him how to say “I live here” as I thought that could be a useful phrase for me. Interestingly, he pointed out that the word for “live” was the same as the word for “bread”, which has a certain logic to it, since you need bread (ie, food) to live.

He showed me the amount to pay on the till, and I scraped the money together, hoping that the panic wasn’t showing on my face that maybe I didn’t have enough.

And then I had to face the battle of the taxi home.

I was determined not to have the same problem as last time, but when I went to the door and looked at the taxis outside, they were all unnumbered. Aaargh.

I walked to the other exit, went to the door, and I couldn’t see any taxis. Help!

I went back to the first entrance, but again only unnumbered taxis were there. I wondered if I should just call a taxi and sit and wait. I would rather be spontaneous, but if this was how it had to be, then so be it.

I tried once more at the other exit, where a security guy was standing. I wondered if it would look suspicious if I left all my shopping by the door and walked outside to see if I could see any taxis. I decided to risk it. I stepped down towards the road and could see three or four numbered taxis there. Maybe I’d just always gone out the wrong exit for taxis? I grabbed my trolley and rushed out to the taxis before any unnumbered ones appeared.

I'd obviously had beginner’s luck the first time. Either that or all my confidence has gone and I look like a quivering wreck when I go up to the taxi drivers! So, like last time, this time too, the taxi driver asked me how much I wanted to pay. It had been a long day and I didn’t have the energy to negotiate, so after he scorned my offer of 30 EGP saying it was unfair when he had been waiting with no fares all day, I opted for 50 EGP just so that I could get home.

So, I’m not quite there yet with this taxi malarkey, but I do feel that I am at least learning from my past mistakes.

Hurghada - First Trip to the Marina

Me at Hurghada Marina

So, you may recall, I asked my lawyer to drop me off at the Marina. I’d heard it was a great place with lots of good restaurants and cafes and I’d been curious to see it. It was also the place where the expats’ group meets, so I thought I would look around. That way, when I finally went to the expats’ group, I could focus on the people rather than being distracted by my surroundings.

The marina looked beautiful and very new, situated right by the wonderful mosque, which I’d admired when the driver took me past it when I was house hunting. However, it was also desolate. I've since discovered that it's allegedly busier in the evenings, which makes sense, given that there are so many restaurants.

The proprietor of the first café tried to persuade me to drink something; I took a look at the prices and they were cheaper than in Sahl Hasheesh, so I decided to sit down and have something. It had been an eventful day so far and it would be nice to rest.

I then wandered on and a guy standing in another café tried to engage me in conversation. I explained that I’d just had a drink, but he didn’t seem too bothered and I figured he was just bored. We exchanged pleasantries and I prepared my exit, when he asked if I would sign his visitors’ book. I didn’t see the harm in doing this and agreed. Doh! How many times do I fall for this?

It transpired he wasn’t the café owner, but an owner of a perfume shop round the corner. He led the way, unlocked the door and I suddenly found myself alone with this stranger in a small shop in a deserted area. I noticed that he didn’t lock the door behind him, however, which I regarded as a positive sign. 

Mirrors lined every wall of the tiny room and numerous glass shelves ran along the whole length of the mirrors and were adorned with various shapes and sizes of ornate, glass perfume jars in an abundance of colours. Mobiles hung from the ceiling and tinkled in the breeze of the air conditioning. The jars reflected back in the mirrors, providing a feast for the eyes. Along each side of the room, deep red, padded sofas with intervals of cushioned armrests hugged the walls. It was enchanting.

The shop owner assured me that he wasn’t here to sell me anything and that he wished to offer me Egyptian hospitality by giving me a cup of hibiscus tea. I hesitated, but being Egyptian, he insisted that this was the Egyptian custom, and so I gave in. I asked for sugar with it and, again as is typical in Egypt, I got a very sweet tea in return, but the taste was superb.

We started off with small talk again, and then a few awkward silences dominated as actually neither of us really had anything to say. It was a bit strange. Eventually, he launched into telling me about his perfumes and what he had in stock – I am still not sure whether this was what it was all leading up to or whether it was the only thing he had left to talk about!

I finished my tea, thanked him, signed his guest book, and then off I went again.

I wandered along taking photographs with my new phone, but to my frustration it kept on taking three pictures at a time instead of just one. I gazed at the screen to see if I could see any clue as to what to do, but I couldn’t figure it out, so gave up, and just deleted two pictures for each picture I took. It wasn’t exactly efficient, but it did the job.

A couple of guys stopped me and asked me to take their photograph for them (with their mobile phone, I add!). I happily obliged and asked them to check it was OK. I think it took them a few seconds to understand what I meant, they took a quick look and seemed happy. They then asked if I wanted them to take a picture of me. I agreed, but on handing over the phone, I was a bit worried about what they’d make of it taking three pictures. But I didn’t let this deter me.

I stood there for the photo, which they took, and then they gestured to each other in a way that suggested something had gone wrong. My heart sank and I explained that I didn’t know how to work the phone, so I couldn’t help them. They were too embroiled with my phone, though, and I’m not even sure they understood what I was saying. I heard them say the word "video". They did a few things with the phone, and then somehow managed to take just one shot. Wow! They did that and it wasn’t even their phone!

They returned the phone to me and said “Check!”, I took a quick look, smiled and thanked them. I’ve chosen this picture for today’s blog because actually it’s a rare one of me that I actually like.

The marina apparently backs onto the main shopping street in Hurghada, an old street that is very Egyptian. However, by this time I was getting tired, as I’d had a bit too much excitement for one day, so I decided to skip visiting that for now. My next challenge was another taxi ride.

I had brought my Hurghada tourist guide with me which gave price indications for taxis to various places and my plan was to go to Spinneys to do some shopping and then go home.

There was a taxi place right at the end of the marina. A guy came up to me and asked me how much I wanted to pay. He went up to the numbered taxi, presumably gave him my price, and came back to me. This was working out surprisingly well!

Unfortunately, the taxi was already booked. He suggested I wait a while. After a few moments, he wandered off and came back, offering me a lift with his friend if I paid a third extra. I looked at him dubiously and at that moment a numbered taxi pulled up.

To my astonishment, the guy asked me if I wanted the numbered taxi or whether I would prefer the more expensive lift with his friend in a private car. I couldn’t quite believe he was seriously giving me the choice of a higher price in an unmarked car which, for all I knew, was completely dodgy or pay a lower price for a fairly guaranteed safe journey in a numbered taxi. I pointed to the numbered taxi and explained I wanted to go with that.

But to give the guy credit, he made no fuss, went up to the numbered taxi, negotiated the price, I got in, and off I went at the price I wanted. Maybe I will get the hang of this one day after all!

Egypt - My First Phone

Hurghada Mosque - Taken With My New Mobile Phone

You may have noticed in yesterday's blog that I mentioned using a phone to text, so yes, I have finally taken my new mobile out of its box. I can’t really say I’ve got the hang of it yet. Most people would be very excited, no doubt, but I’m tired of reading the instruction booklet umpteen times. I almost wonder if I should have just gone for the basic phone. Having said that, once I’ve got it set up how I want, with easy access to my email and to my share prices, and I’m competent at using the camera, I may warm to it. But I’m some way off that point just now.

The phone, too, has made me feel foreign. Each time it connects to a network, it notifies me in Arabic. At least, that’s what I assume it’s doing when I get various messages in Arabic. I can’t really understand why the mobile doesn’t notify me in English, when I've already told it that my language is English. I’m not convinced the phone is so smart.

By the way, that reminds me, the advertisements on my laptop are now often also in Arabic. And there have been a few times when I’ve bought something and, although there is English on the box, the instructions inside are only in Arabic. I know this shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did!

There’s lots that irritates me about the phone.

It vibrates any time I do something. I wish it would stop.

The screen is very sensitive and as I’m dithering, I will suddenly find myself in a new application, because the phone has interpreted my dithering as a decision. I have finally worked out where the back button and the home button are, so at least now I know how to get back to where I was.

 If I carry the phone around, the screen display orientation changes. For some reason, I find this quite confusing. There’s an old IT joke that goes “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature”. That’s how I feel. For me, it’s not a feature, it’s a bug.

Shall I go on? Yes, let me go on…

I tried for an entire evening to download whatsapp, but each time I ended up with an error message. One of those that explains it’s error 43 or whatever, which means absolutely nothing. Why do they bother with those messages? How many people phone the company and say they have Error 43? Can’t they explain a bit about what's gone wrong rather than just saying Error 43? Again, it’s really not very clever.

 Also, I can’t understand why people are so keen on apps. I tried to get the weather one to work, but instead I downloaded it in triplicate. It’s not even as if I need it – the forecast is always going to be “hot and sunny” – I just thought it would be a cheerful thing to look at. After yet another search through the instructions, I discovered that I should drag the app into the delete icon. Could I see a delete icon? No! I finally realised that you had to move the app before the icon showed. That’s just plain confusing, if you ask me.

There’s this thing called vibrer on my phone too. At first, I thought this was an app to make my phone vibrate, so I wanted to delete it. However, I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it. In the end, I realised that it wasn’t an app to make my phone vibrate at all, it was just a local whatsapp type thing. It kept on asking me to register, so I finally relented. No sooner had I registered then I had a text message from the guy from the phone shop saying “Hello Fiona!” He was probably being nice, but I just felt it was another mistake on my part. I should never have registered…

I did manage to get my email up and running, so that is one thing done. However, the keyboard is a bit frustrating as my fat fingers always hit the wrong letters. I tried to enlarge the keyboard screen by doing the appropriate twanging with my fingers, but nothing happened, so I guess that facility isn’t available for the keyboard. Again, so much for the smart phone.

I followed the instructions and tried placing my hand over the screen to send my mobile to sleep, but instead yet another text message suddenly popped up on my screen. I’d obviously pressed something by mistake. I was too freaked out to study the text message and decided just to shut the phone down before anything else went wrong.

How do people ever learn how to make these things work?

Hurghada - The Moving Process Continues

El Andalous - Looking Towards My Flat



Although I may be here, a lot of my luggage is still en route, so in a way I am still in the process of moving. I had a letter from the removal company on the Egyptian side to ask me to notarise a document stating that I gave them the right to move my goods to Egypt. Without this notarised document, the customs will not release my items. They requested I send it back by courier.

There were two challenges here – how do I get a document notarised in Egypt and how do I courier something in Egypt? This whole removal process was a lot more complicated than I had anticipated.

I contacted the lawyer who had acted for me in the purchase of my flat and he confirmed he could notarise the document. We agreed on an appointment at 10am on Monday morning. I assumed it would just be a matter of him witnessing my signature; the real challenge was getting to his office.

The more I thought about it, the more wound up I got. Just think, I had to phone (help!) and order a taxi (help!) and then somehow I had to get back (help!). Two taxi journeys, what a nightmare, and just for someone to witness my signature. It was all too much.

I procrastinated for ages, dithering between going for a taxi that was more expensive and definitely reliable (either Sara’s recommendation or some English guys who run a taxi company, for example) or continue trying to find cheaper options (either ask the guys at the desk to order me one or try one of the taxi numbers in the Hurghada tourists’ guide). The time of the appointment approached faster and faster and I had to make a decision.

So the night before, I finally texted the guy who works with Sara. At least I knew him, I knew the price already, and he was likely to be reliable. I would then take it from there. I fired off the text message with the desired time and destination and immediately got a message back in Arabic and an “OK” button for me to press as my next step. Weirdly, among all that Arabic, my requested taxi time stood out in the way I’d written it in my original English text message.

I concluded that for some reason the phone had automatically translated my text message into Arabic and wanted me to confirm that the translation was correct before sending it. How on earth could I tell? I clicked OK anyway. I then realised I’d forgotten to put my name at the end of the text, so I sent another message to say “From Fiona”. The same Arabic text came back as before, the one with the taxi time, not the one saying anything that resembled “From Fiona”, so now I worried that it wasn’t a translation of my text at all but something to say that the message was invalid or something. But there wasn’t a lot I could do about it, since I had no idea what was going on. I clicked OK again, even though it wasn’t, and quietly resolved to get back to learning Arabic.

Fortunately, I got a confirmation from the driver and the next morning he was there waiting for me at the allocated time. First hurdle passed!

It was about a half-hour’s drive to the lawyer’s office and the first time I’d been into Hurghada “proper” since I’d arrived.

Since my lawyer had enough connections to be listed on the British Embassy website, and having heard someone say that he drives round in a big Mercedes, I was expecting the office to be in a swanky area of town, maybe in the heart of the business district (wherever that might be).

Instead, the taxi turned down an unremarkable street that appeared to lead to a building site. I wondered if maybe I’d written down the address wrongly. I asked him if this was it, and he nodded. I asked again if the building was here, at which point he explained that his English wasn’t very good. I pointed at the only building I could see, and by which we were parked, and said “di” (“this”) from out of my Arabic vocabulary of around 40 words. He nodded, said the lawyer’s name, looked at me and laughed. My attempt at keeping an emotionless expression obviously wasn’t working.

It was good, though, that I had him as my taxi driver, because he phoned the lawyer, who then appeared from out of nowhere and introduced himself. We went up to his office on the fifth floor. At this point, I was still expecting a huge office with luscious furniture and all mod cons. However, his office was just one room in the building and it didn’t even have wifi, because I spotted the dongle sticking out the back of the tower system of the computer.

He offered me some very tasty biscuits, he showed me the forms, and explained that they were all correct. I was waiting to sign, but to my surprise, he said we needed to go to the passport office and the immigration office. All this just to notarise a document to say that the shipping company had the right to transport my goods!

So, off we went in his car (it was a very nice Mercedes, but had a dent) to the passport office. I asked whether I could get my longer-term visa at the same time, but he said I would need to do that on another day.

He parked and we walked to the passport office, which fortunately said “Passport Office” on it, so I should be able to find it when I have to go there again (that will no doubt be another story). Loads of people were queuing, presumably for visas, as quite a few looked like Westerners. However, we went straight through into a back office. Here, an official looked at the passport, looked at me, and then stamped my passport by the entrance visa. This apparently validated it for customs in Alexandria, who required their own stamp. It was all a bit weird, if you ask me, but that’s what they needed to do.

And then off we went again, this time to the immigration office. We climbed up several flights of narrow and shabby stairs in an unpresuming building and entered a room that was full of people – this time, mainly Arab, to my surprise. At this point, I was glad I’d made the effort to put on a long skirt and to wear a light, long-sleeved jacket. I’d never felt so foreign in my entire life.

I was three weeks in China once and someone asked me whether I found it strange being the only white person and having the Chinese stare at me all the time, but actually I was never really conscious of it.

Maybe I felt self-conscious now because I was in an immigration office (I think it’s a psychological effect of being an immigration office - it’s nothing to do with the officers; when I registered in Germany and in Switzerland, my entire physical being suddenly seemed to ooze Britishness, emphasising my difference as I went into that office). This time, though, it was more extreme. Maybe my feeling of foreignness was amplified by being almost the only woman there (and certainly the only Western woman – there was one Egyptian woman working as an official) and seeing so many people in Arabic dress. I should add that it was in no way threatening – I simply felt foreign.

The room had about five tables with officials sitting behind them. We went to three of the tables in turn, each person writing something on my form to be notarised. The lawyer then indicated that I should sit down with those in the waiting area, while he carried on collecting stamps and signatures.

It was very different from governmental offices in the West, where often officials are behind glass, or stay seated behind their table. Here, a whole group of people would crowd round one of the official’s tables, sometimes even hovering right beside the official. Often, the officials would not remain seated, they would stand up, shake hands, clap someone on the back. Heads would almost bang together as everyone looked at the documentation. It was a good-natured, cooperative enterprise (or so it seemed as an outsider).

Finally, one of the officials, who had already greeted me, called me over. He explained what the form said and asked me to print my name and sign in a ledger. It didn’t seem to matter that it was upside down. And that was it!

We went back outside where, just by the entrance of the building, there was a woman with a photocopier. The lawyer got a copy of everything and handed a copy to me. I had asked him if he could courier the documents for me, since I didn’t know where to go (and, truth be told, I hate sending items via courier even in countries where I speak the language. Somehow, I always get the impression I’m doing it wrong).

Business done, I asked him to drop me off at the Marina, he promised to send the documents today, and that was my major task of the day fulfilled.

First Week

Pharmacy Selling Viagra in Old Town, Sahl Hasheesh

 

Well, I’ve had my first full week here and there are some things that I haven’t managed to bring up in the blog yet, so I thought I would just give you a quick list of what’s different for me, now that I’m here in Egypt:

 

1. It’s dark by 17:30, but is light quite early. I find myself getting up earlier and being tired earlier (not sure yet whether the being tired is due to all the new information I’m having to absorb).
2. A few of the pathways have the occasional broken or missing tile, but I was struck by how much work it must be to keep the resort looking good when I saw a guy sweeping the pathway – there was so much sand! So, for them to keep it so clean is quite an achievement.
3. I haven’t had a single cup of coffee – instead I am forming an addiction to chocolate-flavoured milk (I’m using a French brand of chocolate bought at Spinneys), which I make at home (since a milkshake down the road cost me 4 GBP!). I would quite like to have a coffee, but it’s too hot. Maybe in January…
4. I had a banana boat today – instead of a banana sliced longways in half with three balls of ice cream covered with cream and caramel sauce (it advertised it as caramel rather than chocolate sauce), it was lots of sliced banana drowning in a sea of caramel sauce with a single scoop of ice cream and some apple. Still tasty, though!
5. There are many Russians in Sahl Hasheesh, so a lot of the signposts and shop signs are also in Russian. I thought it was Greek at first, and then I realised…
6. You can buy Viagra over the counter and it’s on special offer at the moment.
7. I still haven’t solved my TV problem yet (no sound), so I’m watching UK TV for free via my laptop. Sometimes the connection is good and sometimes I need to run into my bedroom to jolt it to reconnect. I need to (re-)start learning Arabic!
8. I’m settling into a routine of working in the morning from my balcony, which is quite pleasant, and then going off for a swim once the morning’s work is done. This is not so different from what I did in Switzerland, only the weather was suitable only for about 15 days in the year. I hope my writing routine will run something like this once I’m finished at Novo Nordisk. At the moment, I can’t imagine getting bored of swimming, but let’s see…
9. The water temperature just now is very pleasant – I mentioned that it felt cold when you first went in, but it must actually be around 27-8 degrees. Pencil in October or November for a visit, that would be my current recommendation.
10. I was worried before I came that the wind in Sahl Hasheesh would be annoying and limit my ability to swim. In fact, I barely notice the wind. Although the sea has little waves, they aren’t generally – at this time of year at any rate – choppy enough to hinder my swimming.
11. Apart from going to Spinneys, I haven’t ventured outside of the immediate vicinity of my flat. I will explore the rest of Sahl Hasheesh when it’s too cold to swim (after all, there’s no hurry). Tomorrow, I’m forced to go into town to get a document notarised, so let’s see how that goes…

 

Financially, it’s still too early to say whether I’ve allowed enough to live on, although, of course, it’s easy to adapt spending to your means (to a certain extent). My main worry is that the taxi fares really mount up if you want the freedom to go into town whenever you want; consequently, travel could theoretically end up being a greater expense than my annual travel card would be in Switzerland. If I have a busy social life (not that I have one at all at the moment!), I could find it compromised by the cost of getting to places by taxi. Maybe once I’ve found my way around, it won’t be as much as I think because I will find ways round it; or maybe it’s not an issue because I won’t need to use taxis more than twice a week. Time will tell!

 

  

El Andalous - First Roast Chicken at Home

El Andalous in the Late Afternoon

Chicken doesn’t just come at KFC and, of course, I’d bought a chicken from Spinneys to roast at home. This was going to be my next life challenge – cooking for myself in Egypt.

The first thing I realised was that I’d forgotten to buy potatoes, so it was going to be a roast chicken without roast potatoes, which didn’t seem quite right, but was not exactly fatal. It would just have to be roast chicken and peas. A bit weird, but hey, that’s what today's blog is all about!

I got out the house booklet which I remembered had a description of how to use the oven. The oven is basically just a table-top one that has been put on a shelf in the kitchen. I’m not an overly keen cook, so this didn’t particularly faze me. After all, Sara had said that she’d eaten a Christmas turkey cooked in that oven, so roast chicken must be possible. And that pretty much covers all that I need!

To my complete astonishment, the house booklet informed me that you have to dial the time on the oven and that it has a maximum time of one hour. If you want to cook for more than one hour, you need to reset the timer dial after the initial hour has terminated. How bizarre is that? The rest of the instructions looked fairly self-explanatory.

As directed, I turned on the main switch towards the back of the oven’s shelf. A “beep” rang throughout the room and the microwave lit up. I glanced at the microwave with deep suspicion, but continued.

The next task was to differentiate grill mode from oven mode. In the house booklet, it was perfectly clear which was which, but since the oven is on a shelf in the corner of the kitchen, there’s not much light. All the icons looked pretty much identical in the dark. I fetched my torch keyring and opted for the most likely looking one.

Actually, my torch keyring has been one of the most useful things I brought with me – I’d never used it before. The light in the lounge is quite dim (or it is when you’ve reached 50 years), so if I need to read any instructions at night in small writing, I get it out. I also used it to examine the shower remote control, and the controls on the side of the television, and the setbox. It makes me feel like a bit of a granny, but it’s effective!

I opened the oven door and it flapped right down just like the doors to the letterboxes in Switzerland. Uncertainty waved through me for a moment, as this wasn’t really my concept of an oven door built to keep all the heat in. It seemed downright flimsy to me. After a short pause while I observed and digested this phenomenon, I continued. 

After I’d put the chicken in and shut the door (still with doubts as to its efficacy), the next task was to turn the dial for the timer. Again, my torch came to the rescue. It lit up one manufactured indented line that was pointing to around 5 minutes on the dial and another line scratched on by hand pointing to nil. Obviously, this is Egypt and the manufacturer had got it wrong. Rather tentatively, I turned the dial as far as I guessed it could go and took refuge on the sofa.

After five minutes, curiosity got the better of me. I couldn’t quite believe that this bizarre item could function as an oven and I needed to see if it was heating up. It didn’t seem that warm, but it was definitely working.

An hour later, the sound of an egg timer rang through the flat. I laughed. This oven was so antiquated, I felt as if I was stepping back in time!

I inspected the chicken, but it wasn’t as crispy brown by this time as I would maybe expect, so I wondered if the temperature dial functioned similarly to the timing dial; I had in any case been unsure about what temperature to choose. Consequently, I yanked up the heating setting. I decided I could now put the peas on.

Maybe 40 minutes later, it occurred to me that I still hadn’t heard the peas boiling. I dashed over to the hob and found that all the electricity in that corner was off. I had to turn on the main switch again before anything would work.

I’m still not sure whether the system couldn’t cope with both the oven and the hob being on at the same time, or whether the hour’s time limit on the oven meant that everything automatically switched off. Or had I switched the main switch off when the timer went off as a safety precaution? Either way, my dinner was now behind schedule. Not wishing to have any more drama, I decided to cook the peas only after the chicken was cooked, just to be on the safe side.

Despite all this, the end result looked perfect and tasted divine, as chicken always does. And this is how I came to learn how the oven worked.

El Andalous - First Time Remote Working

Beach at Palm Beach Plaza - The Beach Shared by El Andalous

I bet you all imagine me sitting by the beach as I dial into my teleconferences, with the waves lapping in the distance, an ice cream sundae on the table beside me.

Unfortunately, the reality didn’t match up to the expectation.

I started off sitting on my balcony (in the shade). I got the items I needed together - my work computer, my power cord, the dongle, my adaptor, the SecureID. The power cord only just stretched to the computer in the shade, but “only just” was still enough!

I powered up the laptop, inserted the dongle, and waited. And waited. And waited. No connection.

I tried the repair facility and it said something about needing Network 2 access. From this, I gathered that the IT Dept would need to give permission for the dongle software to be downloaded. My teleconference was at 13:30 and it was now only 09:30, so I wasn’t too worried. I used my blackberry to ask Willem and Jerome for the HelpMeIT number.

I spoke to IT and everything looked hopeful until they told me that I needed a wireless internet connection before they could download the software for my dongle. But without a dongle, I didn’t have internet access. Catch 22! We ended the call with me agreeing to look round the resort for somewhere providing WiFi.

I thought I’d seen a few of the places along the beach offering free internet, so I first tried Palm Beach Plaza – if I had to buy a drink to get access, I would rather they have my business than anyone else. I got there and the window proudly proclaimed “Free Wifi”. I settled myself down and waited to be served. And waited. And waited.

Finally, I decided to go inside and fetch someone, I pushed the door, but to no avail. The bolt sat firmly entrenched in the lock. Palm Beach Plaza was closed. Doh!

I gathered all my stuff and hiked it over to Il Gusto, which I knew also had free Wifi. I sat down and waited to be served. And waited. And waited. At least the sky stretched out blue before me, the sea glittered, and the air gently massaged me with its heat.

Eventually, I received my diet coke and I asked the waiter for the internet code. After a bit of confusion about what he meant when he said that the code was “four ten” (it was 10101010), and after the computer subsequently refused the code, and then after I'd discovered that I needed to connect to Il Gusto and not Il Gusto Restaurant (but no Il Gusto connection was available, so they had to restart the server), I finally got my wifi working.

With a sense of success, I clicked on the VPN connection, went to get my SecureID… I looked in my bag, I looked on the table, I looked on the floor. It was nowhere to be seen. 

So, off I went again, back to Palm Beach Plaza. The table and ground around it were empty.  No SecureID. So, off I went, this time back to El Andalous. I could have kicked myself. The SecureID was sitting there on the table, patiently waiting for me to collect it. Typical!

Finally, I arrived back at Il Gusto. I clicked on the VPN connection, got my SecureID… and, guess what, the SecureID was blank. Not even a flicker of a number. It was unusable. After all that!

I phoned the IT Dept and they gained remote access of my computer. Just as the IT guy was looking around on my computer and deciding what to do, the security patch upgrade flashed up and said it would start in four minutes. The automatic upgrade started, and I had to hang up and wait until that finished.

Ten minutes later, the upgrade completed, and the IT guy phoned me back.

At first he thought the dongle wasn’t working because I’d bought it in Switzerland. Wrong.

Then he thought that the dongle was malfunctioning or tied to an inappropriate network – but it worked without a problem on my private laptop.

I plugged in the dongle so that he could see more details, then we tried the dongle with and without the wifi.

Eventually, we got to the stage where the IT guy downloaded or installed something – I am really not very sure which – but anyway the internet connection circled round and round as if trying to put us to sleep. By now it was about midday and the battery on my blackberry was running low. The longer it took, the more worried I got that my phone would conk out and I would be stranded with no help. I could also sense the IT guy’s frustration as we both just sat there and waited.

Finally, the procedure finished. We checked that the dongle worked, and everything was fine.

Off I went back home. I went to sit on the balcony, but by now the midday sun was beating down, so I dived into my bedroom (the connection is better there than in the lounge, for some reason), turned on the air conditioning, and tried to retrieve the slides for the teleconference that I knew were waiting for me in my inbox.

However, Outlook refused to update, claiming that there was no connection. But if I looked at my VPN, it said it was connected. That annoying Citrix thing kept on popping up every two seconds to tell me that it couldn’t synchronise. Aaargh! I now had only around 45 minutes left until the teleconference.

I stared at my laptop, bewildered. What more could I do? At this point, Microsoft Outlook took pity on me, because emails trickled through and the first ones to pop in were the ones I needed most. There’s that Devil’s luck again!

I quickly downloaded the slides, amended them, sent them back, and asked the agency to send them to the attendees. I now had 20 minutes until the teleconference. I checked a few emails, willed the email to the agency to go through, and opted to set up the teleconference in good time, just to make sure.

And then my air conditioning broke down. I glared at it, but it continued to pump out warm air. I didn’t dare risk going into my lounge with the even weaker internet connection. I would just have to sit there and sweat, if I wasn’t already!

I clicked on the link for the teleconference; the connection dithered for a while and finally decided to send me an error message. I tried again. More dithering from my computer and then the same error message. It was now 10 minutes until the teleconference. I made several additional attempts, but no luck. It was now 5 minutes until the teleconference.

I decided to move to Plan B (I did have one), which was to use my blackberry and just do everything via telephone rather than via WebEx (shared presentation). But when I dialled in on my blackberry, the teleconference facility refused my conference code. It was now 2 minutes until the teleconference.

As explained, I’m not really a phone person, so I was a bit confused as to whether I needed to press Alt on my blackberry to get the numbers rather than letters or whether the system would automatically recognise them as numbers if I was using it as a phone. I tried both ways multiple times.  Still it wouldn't accept the conference code.

I now wished that I hadn’t left my new phone in its box. At least with that one I would have presumably been able to see which numbers I was typing (or maybe not). Meanwhile, the teleconference should have started five minutes ago.

I eventually went to email Willem to inform him what was happening, when he replied to say that he was cancelling the teleconference. People (management) were just hanging on the line and no-one could enter the teleconference unless I started it .

So after all that, after 4.5 hours of chasing an internet connection, it was Mission Failed.

I remember Liliana saying to me “It’s not easy to live your dream”. She was right!

Hurghada - My First KFC

Ha! I hope this title made you laugh, if you know me. Yes, it finally happened. I had my first KFC.

But that title was just to get your attention – today’s topic is my latest adventures with taxi drivers to and from Senzo Mall. I’m sure I can collect enough of these stories to make a book.

I decided I needed to do a big shop on Monday so that I had a week’s food. This would save me the bother of getting taxis too often and my taxi fare would become a smaller proportion of my total spend.

Sara had said that it’s sometimes possible just to go up to the road and see a taxi, so I thought I would try this (previously Sahl Hasheesh had been too quiet for taxis to bother scouting here for business, but it’s getting busier).

 I started walking up the road when, to my delight, I spotted a taxi. He stopped and said I should get in while he dropped his passenger just along the road and then he’d take me to Senzo Mall. I hopped in and as I was halfway in, I suddenly realised the taxi didn’t have a number. Momentarily, I wondered if I should refuse, but being British, this seemed rather impolite once I'd already accepted, so I decided to risk it.

It was interesting as I was able to listen to a bit of Egyptian Arabic and when we got to the drop-off point for the existing passenger, the passenger had problems establishing he was entitled to visit (he was speaking half in English, half in Arabic; I understood the very occasional word). Then a woman came along. The driver explained he had to drop me off at Senzo Mall (at least, I guess that’s what he was saying), and then the woman got in, so I assumed she was a friend and he’d give her a lift after dropping me off. Not really quite how it should be, of course, but I was fairly relaxed about it and was enjoying watching all the activity.

I watched the road carefully, since I keep on thinking it would be a fairly easy drive. But the next thing I knew, the car was shooting right past Senzo Mall. I pointed to it receding in the distance and reminded the driver that I was going to Senzo Mall. The woman looked at me and repeated my words as if she didn’t understand what I meant. A rush of panic came over me. Fortunately, the driver just said “oh yes!”, turned the car round and took me there. I actually think he would have let me not pay, but I felt I had got there and so I gave him the money (this time, I’d got the money ready in advance). He looked at it, grinned, gave me a big thank you, tooted his horn in a friendly manner and off he went into the distance.

And it all worked out very well, because he took me to a different entrance. And there, right at the front, was a KFC! I don’t know how I missed it last time, but I guess I didn’t really look outside of the mall beyond where I’d been left off last time. It was all meant to be!

My first task was to buy myself an Egyptian phone. I was torn between something fancy and one that was very minimal. In the end I decided I only really used my work Blackberry as a means for checking emails, texting, and as a camera, so it might be a waste to buy a simple phone that I would just avoid using (although my hatred of using the phone may have to be laid to rest now that I’m here).

Every time I buy a phone – which isn’t often – the assistant always looks at me as if I’m still living in the dark ages. I tried to ask whether I had to have a monthly subscription and whether bills would be sent to me (I have no idea how these things work!) and he patiently explained that this phone was not a landline. I played along and replied that I was a bit old-fashioned and wasn’t really up on these things, which he seemed to find quite amusing.

It turned out that, for the phone that I’d chosen, the one on display was their last one, so he asked if I minded. I said I didn’t mind, but would I get a discount (I am in Egypt after all). He seemed to find this extremely funny and he giggled to himself and politely said “No, madam, there’s no discount”. Incidentally, today I tried to give my doorman a tip for all his help over this past week and he refused it. I really don’t know how all this bartering and tipping stuff works. I seem to get it wrong every time.

Anyway, the telephone guy managed to get everything sorted for me (although the phone is still in the box at the moment) and then put his phone number in it! I didn’t like to say that I’m probably old enough to be his mother. But he was harmless enough.

I rewarded myself with a KFC, which was delicious and fairly uneventful. A haven in the madness that is my life!

I then returned to Spinneys. It seemed different on my second visit. The brand of milk had changed and I discovered a whole range of breakfast cereals that I hadn’t seen before. This time, I was struck by the inordinate amount of cheese, rows and rows of it all over the place. I guess it will take me a while to find my way around. There was no packer available today, although the guy on the till helped me, possibly because I was being a bit slow.

I then braced myself for my taxi journey back and got the money ready from my purse so that I wouldn’t be faffing when I arrived. Prepared, I looked at my shopping and realised that my handbag had disappeared. It only had my key in it and my purse was in my hand, but it was annoying. I went back to Spinneys, and fortunately, the bag was still there. Phew.

I trundled with my laden trolley to the taxi rank and headed for the only taxi with a number on it. The driver got out and started negotiating a price, so it wasn’t quite going to plan, as I’d hoped just to get in, like I did last time. A second guy came up and also started to negotiate. We agreed on 50 EGP this time and I was puzzled that both men were directing me to the unnumbered taxi. I guess I should have refused, but they were insistent that it’s always the one who was first who takes the next customer.

I got in the unnumbered cab and then a guy claiming to manage the taxi rank argued that I needed to pay him upfront. I said this didn’t happen the last time I was here, but he claimed that my last taxi wasn’t a Senzo Mall taxi. I was unhappy, but in the end gave in because I wanted to go home and no other taxis were there (apart from the numbered one who had refused me).

The “manager” then insisted that I give him a single note and not two twenties and a ten. I argued loudly that this was rubbish. He then tried to tell me that I had given him a 50 piaster note. I said I knew absolutely that I had given him the right money and that I knew all about the 50 piaster trick, at which point he backed off and said he was just showing me that he needed one note only. I should have got out at this point (I’d already said I was getting out on several occasions, but they kept arguing, and so I got sidetracked into responding, as is their ploy, of course – I am hoping my stay in Egypt will eventually increase my ability to stick to my opinion rather than sidetrack myself to looking at other viewpoints all the time!).

The manager guy showed me that he had only 50 EGP notes in his wallet to demonstrate that he took only single notes. I told him he was very lucky to have only large notes and that my small money should do as it was just the same, but he insisted and asked what the problem was. I told him I didn’t trust him. To cut a long story short, in the end, just to try to stop the arguing, I looked for a 50 EGP note, at which point he snatched some of the money out of my purse, and I snatched at least some of it back. At this point I demanded to get out of the car. Weirdly, he helped me take all my shopping out, while still arguing he had done nothing wrong.

I then ended up in the numbered taxi (the only numbered one there). I asked the driver angrily why he had let me go in that unnumbered taxi, but he retained the excuse that it was because that other taxi was there first and it always worked on a first-come, first-served basis. He asked me why I didn’t just phone my own taxi driver.

I didn’t want to say I’d only just bought a phone (since it was an expensive item that I didn’t want to advertise), so I just replied that I didn’t have a driver, which he was angling for, of course. He promptly gave me his number so that I could use him in future. He also gave me the name of someone at El Andalous who uses him (and I knew the name from the owners’ website).

However, I’m a bit suspicious that he was in cahoots with the other driver and I’m still a bit annoyed that he never said that it was dreadful that they stole money from me (instead, suspiciously, he kept on asking me how much they had taken – was there some self-interest there?). He must have knowingly let me get into a dodgy cab, despite him claiming to be a man who knew Allah. I may even email the taxi police (yes, they exist) to explain what happened and to find out whether he should have discouraged me, rather than encouraged me, to enter the unnumbered taxi.

It’s clear, of course, that everyone who comes to Egypt has a story like this to tell; it’s not a surprise and this experience is just part of learning how to navigate life in this new culture.

So, what’s the moral of the story? Firstly, never get in an unnumbered taxi, even if the numbered taxi driver says you should. Secondly, if you are suspicious, just get out and don’t let anything distract you from that. Thirdly, maybe it’s best to order taxis in advance, pay a bit over the odds, but have less hassle. I’ve been trying to do it the cheapest way, but maybe it doesn’t work out that way in the end. Live and learn!

Sahl Hasheesh - First Impressions

The Entrance Piazza, Sahl Hasheesh

Pillars outside El Andalous

(Photographs on this page may be re-used freely) 

 

It’s hard to remember what you first thought of a place after you’ve been there a while, so I thought I would jot down my initial impressions, which actually are fairly fluid.

I spent quite a lot of time on my first day just wandering around and trying to find out what was where. Some new shops were just opening up in El Andalous – a perfume shop and a papyrus shop. I hope they do well, but at the moment there don’t seem to be so many people around and I wonder how they will survive. I’ve resolved to spend at least some of my money within Sahl Hasheesh so as to encourage the shop owners. It must be hard for them.

Having said that, I’m happy to say that each day more and more people seem to be around. Or maybe there aren’t more people and it’s just that I’ve just adjusted my expectations.

The people renting out the electric golf buggies seem to be doing quite well, as I see many of these small vehicles zipping about. They look like a lot of fun.

The inner part of the old town was empty. The guys at the Brazilian coffee shop called out to me, presumably wanting business, and another guy wanted me to look at his perfume shop. They are just trying to drum up a living and there’s no forcing you to do anything.

A new hotel was being built, can’t remember its name now; another building is going up next to El Andalous and a few others along the beach as well. I am guessing that all of these will be hotels, since I believe the only beachfront properties for individual owners (of which El Andalous is one) have all already been built. Not much works seems to be going on with the new buildings, though, so maybe everything has been put on hold – due to either the political or economic climate.

On my first day, the Pyramisa (left as you leave El Andalous) seemed to be the busiest hotel and that was where I first swam (illicitly, as it turned out, as it was for guests only). The Pyramisa is right by the sunken city and I’m still working out how to snorkel there, now that my confidence in swimming has increased. The beach is quite stony until you get to the bit for the Pyramisa guests, so it’s hard to swim out to the sunken city without first infringing on Pyramisa’s grounds. Or maybe I just haven’t worked it out yet.

I was surprised that I hadn’t noticed the variety of sunbeds at the various hotels when I came here on my property search. The Premier Romance (right of El Andalous) has beautiful four-poster sunbeds, the Old Town beach has funky beanbags along with some thickly mattressed sunbeds.

Walking on the grass was a huge surprise – it was really springy as if the grass was piled inches deep and I felt I was walking on a mattress. It’s a lovely feeling. If you come, you must try it. Flowers form a hedge in beautiful colours – these are what I noticed on my last visit, the beautiful pink flowers that seem to last all year long.

The Espresso place that I’d seen on the El Andalous facebook site seemed to be closed – another sign of the times, maybe.

I ordered a soft drink several times at the Premier Romance until I realised that the restaurant at Palm Beach Plaza sells them for half the price. When I went to the Palm Beach Plaza the first time, I was embarrassed and amazed to find that they could not change a 100 EGP note and, astonishingly, they were happy for me to bring the money for my drink next time instead. I am now a sworn loyal customer.

The Entrance Piazza, where various events take place, is what everyone is supposed to see when first entering Sahl Hasheesh, so I eagerly investigated. It was pretty hot as it was lunchtime, so after wandering by the huge water feature in the middle, I kept myself cool by walking under the columned arcade, admiring the ornate woodwork.

On my return, I ended up walking under and over the pier, just by El Andalous. Walking under the pier, I spotted in the shallow water a light-blue-coloured ray (my name for it, no idea what it actually was!), which eyed me with suspicion as I followed it along the coastline.  When I strolled along the pier itself, a couple were feeding bread to the fish; swordfish predominated. On the other side, a vast shoal of small fish were right by the glass-bottomed boat, making the water look like a patchwork. I’d never seen so many fish in one place. It would have made a good photo, but I hadn’t figured out how to use my new camera at that point. There will be other times.

On my first night, I decided to treat myself to a meal out. I was really in the mood for a curry and went to the Premier Romance where they have an Indian restaurant. Unfortunately, none of the restaurants opened until 7pm (it was 1830 when I asked). So that was a lesson learned – I must not get hungry before 7pm! I ended up at the El Gusto where I got a curry for a reasonable price, overlooking the beautiful sea.

I guess my initial impressions were that Sahl Hasheesh felt fairly empty; many shop owners were sitting outside their shops all day with no customers. I really hope that things pick up. Sahl Hasheesh isn’t really Egypt, or maybe it’s the Egypt of the future. I look forward to staying here and hopefully seeing it develop into the resort it promised to be and I pray for the Egyptians that the tourist industry now picks up again. It will be interesting to see the resort grow as hopefully I too grow and learn.