03.16.06
Ma’a Salaama Sharm El Sheikh
And so, after 7 days of sun, sand, sea and stuff, it was time to head on back to the (undoubtedly) freezing, rainy, dull grey weather of pre-springtime England. A word of warning to any would-be travellers to Sharm: if you think the arrivals area of the airport was hectic, you haven’t seen anything yet! First, when our bus pulled up to the airport, it was swarmed by locals desperate to unload our bags (and thus demand money for their services), except some of them don’t even bother unloading the bags before they demand some money, and even those that do unload a bag for you usually don’t pay attention to which bag you’re actually pointing at and just hand you the first bag they can grab (and still expect something for it). Because there were groups heading back to all different areas of the UK on various different flights the bus had to drop us off at the airport a good 4 hours before our flight to BHX, giving us lots of time to stew in the waiting area with several hundred other passengers in similar predicaments. There’s only one place to get water / snacks in the airport, and this monopoly means they’re able to charge ridiculous prices for everything, even by western-prices. For example, a small bottle of water cost nearly £2! And, unlike any other shop in Egypt, you can’t even haggle the price down… not that i’m very good at haggling anyway, as I discovered over the course of the holiday (details of which shall remain unpublished!). Let’s just say that Hanne and I definitely don’t take after our mothers in that department.
Eventually our flight boarded, we returned safely home (where it was indeed around freezing temperature), and as quickly as it had begun our holiday was all over.
Now I have but a few days left to take as holiday between now and the end of December. It’s gonna be a long summer…