Thursday, December 9, 2010

Sharm-El-Sheikh

We had been looking forward to our shore tour to visit the famous St Catherine's monastery - perhaps not so much for the Monastery itself, but for the 3 hour drive into the Sinai desert and the lunch on the shore of the Gulf of Aqaba in a fancy hotel. But it was not to be! Instead, we walked with friends into the town, browsed through the "Old market" and hired a taxi for two hours to drive all through the town and view all the huge 5 star hotels at Na-ama Bay. This resort town is very new - I understand that work here was first started by the Israelis during their occupation of the Sinai - but now, BIG international money has arrived in the form of many, many major luxury hotels along the shores of the beautifully clear waters. The Red Sea is famous for the clarity of it's waters and the snorkelling/diving (and from my brief viewing, I can understand why).
We did not get to see the inside of any of these bigger fancier hotels and their gardens, grounds and private beaches - but I can certainly understand that if you live in Britain or Europe, then this place is easily available to you as a close-by, guaranteed rain-free warm holiday destination. From our observation of the British penchant for laying around sunny swimming pools on this ship - which I think is shared by their European counterparts, I can understand it's popularity. Mind you - we were there in Winter - and the temperature was a delightful 26C, I understand that the summer temperatures can be horrendous. But the fancy hotels are air-conditioned, the water in the pools and sea welcoming and I think the nightlife would be plentiful.
Overall, the visit for many of the ship's passengers was a little disappointing - although those who did get to go on the only shore tour which wasn't canceled (4WD driving and camel riding in the Sinai), all seemed to have a good time. The "old Market" is really just a lot of "tourist tat" - as one British friend described it. There was some interest for us - in the form of many spice shops (which we were surprised at and could not really work out who they were meant for - tourists or locals??) - and the quality of some of the fruit in the fruit shops was really excellent - for example, the largest Pomegranates we have ever seen. I guess we could say that we left with a good idea of what the place is all about - and could imagine a nice week in one of the many resorts. However, the need to "haggle" for EVERYTHING (from a bottle of Coca-Cola upwards) and the constant calls from the hundreds of taxi drivers (TAXI-TAXI) made the place generally unattractive for us. I think we are tiring of Third World countries and we could not place the town anywhere on our "must see" list.

You can view a Youtube video about our visit to Sharm-el-Sheikh here

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