Summer Palace Hotel Suez

... and Bob, Ray and Gail. Went to the dining room for dinner where Mel, our waiter gave us our belated birthday cakes, because we hadn't been there for our birthdays, and a few waiters sang happy birthday to us. Very nice, but we don't enjoy the dining room very much although we like Cheryl and Bob who are on our table with us. It is too rushed. We prefer to go to Horizon Court where you can choose what and when you eat.
We are almost on the homeward stretch now.
Bye for now.

... with Harriet. The ship arrived in Port Said at 7:00PM and we were released to go ashore for a couple of hours. We took full advantage of the early port call and went out in the local area around the ship's dock. It was an easy walk in the evening. Like all deserts, the temperature was nice and cool for the evening. So we spend the day resting up from the long tour in Safaga and resting for the equally long tour in Port Said. It was a needed rest ...

... beach with or without a family, whilst planning adventures in Egypt. St Catherine's Monastery (extremely important Christian place of pilgrimage) is a couple of hours trip into the desert, you can have trips out into the desert with the Bedouin, or organize some awesome treks that have hardly been trod by tourists before. Failing that, it is easy to sort a day trip to Cairo to see the pyramids. This place has it all, go before the crowds do.

... low on the other, decorated with hieroglyph-like figures. Most of the stops were just a minute to pop out of the taxi and take a picture. We finished with tea at a local shop we'd seen on our way out. I had noticed the Tikka Grill across the highway and thought it might be good. I suddenly noticed 3 busloads of tourists filing in. On the way back we saw a street of Egyptian shops of an ...

We stopped in Suez to see the namesake canal. This wasn't a tourist town to begin with, and it was low season and summer. The town was dead. We caught a taxi to the port and got a room at an overpriced hotel. The upside was that our room was on the sixth floor and you could see the boats going through the canal from our balcony. We wandered down to ...

... from Alexandria last night were, we were told, "full" or "complete" which was weird, not to mention unlikely, considering Suez itself looks like a rather uninteresting place with little going for it (The Rough Guide to Egypt describes it as 'grim' but goes on to say it is a 'vital transport nexus between Cairo, Sinai and the Red Sea Coast'). No such problems however at the Red Sea Hotel in Port Tawfiq, an area of Suez overlooking the canal and full of boating ...

... when you have no idea what the bus driver is saying if he makes that kind of announcement. Plus it is a well known fact that most men pee quicker than women, what if the driver didn't take this into consideration and left without me?! The point is I was anxious to find a toilet in the bus station to delay the onset of "when is this driver going to stop so I can get off the bus and pee" stress. One guy sent me to a bathroom that was still under construction and had four workmen on ...

Tried to do the 'right' thing and take the bus from Sharm to Cairo. Turns out my face (the only white one on the bus!) causes all sorts of pain in the neck for the locals. The police at Suez spot my face, gather there it poses an opportunity for 'dangerous western drug smuggler caught red handed', or alternative 'stupid tourist thought they could get away with exporting illegal goods out of Egypt', (potentially with a suitable fee attached), frogmarch the entire contents off the bus ...

... take us to the terminal. We were stubborn in our money saving way and declined each and every one of them, walking the full distance with both of our large bags a small day bag each in about 15 minutes. As we got closer, we could see many people milling about. We knew that at the very least we were at the right place. I guarded the backpacks and Tamalyn took the tickets with her (that we hoped were valid as they purchased by our trusty hostel manager in Cairo ...

... a service station and bought a bunch of bananas, scoffing them down with understandable gusto.

The familiar surroundings of the Happyton Hotel beckoned. Wearily I put my bags in my recently repainted room and had a shower in the bizarre small bathroom. The shower head, toilet and wash basin were all in the same close proximity, and it was impossible to avoid getting all these wet and flooding the tiny bathroom ...