YOUPOST 4

About two weeks ago I blogged about traveling and talked about a place I want to visit in the future. In contrast to that, today I want to tell you something about a place I have already been to in the past. The place I want to talk about is Egypt. When I was thirteen, my parents, my sisters and I went to Hurghada, a city at the Red Sea Coast, during the summer holidays. It was the first time for me to travel by plane (which I was very excited about, but then I realized that flying was actually quite boring) and Egypt was the first country I visited that was completely different to my home country Austria – even though Hurghada is a tourist destination packed with hotels and therefore we didn’t experience too much of the everyday Egyptian lifestyle, I still noticed a big cultural difference. 

 One of the first things my family and I noticed was the fact that we didn’t see many females in the hotel staff. Nearly everyone working there – even the cleaning staff – was male, which was definitely something we hadn’t seen at any other place we stayed before. But all of them were exceptionally friendly and open. One night when we walked over the square in front of the hotel, people were singing and dancing. We stood by to watch and it didn’t take long until someone asked us to join in! But – and here a warning – there is a small line between friendliness and obtrusiveness. While the people in the hotel were all very nice, the people who worked on the beach were annoying for the most part. There were so many salesmen and all of them talked to us – no matter if we pretended to sleep or not. There were, however, also nice people amongst them, for example a guy who taught me how to write my name in Arabic. 

The Red Sea is such a beautiful place. Yes, the beaches were kind of crowded – though it wasn’t nearly as bad as in Italy – but the water itself was great. Only a few meters in, where we still could stand on the ground, there were already coral reefs and we didn’t have to dive very far to see colorful fish. My sisters and I had so much fun with diving and swimming, it was great. 

The Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

But my highlight of the vacation wasn’t the beach or the friendly people, it was my trip to the Valley of the Kings. I’ve always been really interested in history, even back then, so I really looked forward to that. Although I hate early mornings, I voluntary got up at four in the morning for the trip. A tip we got from the hotel staff was to wear reasonable clothing. It was extremely hot in the desert and of course the first instinct of many people would be to wear as little clothing as possible – which is the worst thing one could do! It’s actually recommended to cover much skin, but stick to light colors, white at best. Also wear some kind of headgear to avoid sunstroke and drink much water. 

Entrance of the Luxor Temple

The Valley of the Kings was impressive for me. It’s an area where over sixty tombs of Egyptian pharaohs are located. It fascinated me that you can still see the original colors and drawings made thousands of years ago on the walls. We also saw the Valley of the Queens (were wives and other relatives of pharaohs – not only queens – were buried), the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut (which was really impressive because of its architecture and height), the Colossi of Memnon (again very impressive because of their size) and Luxor (which is a modern city, but ruins of the temples of Karnak and Luxor are still to see). In Luxor we also took a boat trip on the Nile, which was much fun.

I enjoyed my holiday to Egypt very much, as I thought it was great to learn something about the country, but also to relax at the same time. However, it’s important to mention that my vacation took place in summer 2007 and a lot has changed since then. As most of you probably know, there has been much rioting, political change and instability throughout the country in the last years. The security risk is very high right now, even in the tourist regions in the south of the country and I don’t know how similar a vacation there now would be to my fantastic trip nearly seven years ago.

Anyways, my experience of the country back then was very positive. As long as you can handle the annoying salesmen on the beach, put on enough sunscreen and a hat and are a little bit interested in old monuments, it’s a great destination to visit.