Week in Sinai, Egypt

Just spent the week in Sinai.. flew into Sharm from Warsaw and a transfer up to near by Taba. Took 12 hours to get there including arseing around at the airport etc, the mini van going up to Dahab was full of some rich drunk Polish guys being wankers but the trip up to Taba was good fun, hehe the driver even decided to mollest Sylwia's leg... how's that for service.

The hotel that was part of the deal was empty and in the about 6km south of Taba, opposite the famous Pharaoh's Island, absolutely nothing around there.. it was all good, until I discovered that beer cost the insane price of 20 EGP (that's 2 quid or 12zl).. usually in Egypt it costs about 5-7 EGP (a more reasonable price of 50p/70p, 2.75zl/3.75zl).. anyway despite the price it's good to be drinking Stella again.. it's a nice beer, especially to drink by the sea when you can see Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia and a big fuck off fort on an island!

Have a bit of a walk around, some food, some Cleopatra's and a Stella or two then off for a kip. Woke up the next day with the intention of putting thing's right.. we head off to Taba in search of beer. Taba is the Israeli border crossing and there is a high military/police presence (even more so than usual). Anyway, there are banks in Taba.. but I couldn't find an ATM machine, and after a mooch around the shops we also found out that there is no beer in Taba.. only in Nuweiba (about 70km south) and in Israel (but I don't really want to risk the israeli stamp in my passport for a few beers).. so it looks like we'll either have to buy expensive beer or drink less.

A day or two later, it was off to Dahab.. the idea was to get the bus which had been told we were waiting on the road... well it didn't stop, so we began flagging cars down. Hitching in Egypt is easy, however similarly to Albania, almost all cars are taxis and you will get nowhere waiting for a free lift. Anyway, we flag down this 9 seater van - the driver Majdy Al Prince (002 010 10 17 804) tells us he'll take us there and back, with a bit of sightseeing for the reasonable price of a 100 pounds egyptian. He's taking four old English tourists from Leeds down there for a bit of shopping and they're paying twice the price than we are.. they're amusing and harmless, one of them learnt a bit of Polish from a girl she used to work with, they were however.. highly dangerous if you were a fly.

We stopped at a place called Diana Beach on the way down, Diana Beach is part of "Beer Sweer" a bedouin camp that's 20km north of Nuweiba and has cheap huts on a very very nice beach. A nice atmosphere, with a few backpackers, hammocks, tasty bedouin tea, hashish, great snorkelling opportunities and a camel visiting.

After that it's direct to Dahab, with a small stop to look at "Camel Mountain" and "Sinai", two mountains which supposedly look like their names. What were they thinking? One looks like a dinosaur and the other a splodge! Oh well never mind - you can see photos on my Sinai page (which will be added shortly).

Into Dahab and finally some shops.. oh yes, Dahab is a windy little town with a lot of backpackers in, good for windsurfing, the two ATM machines were not working when I was in town, lots of bars by the beach with cheap beer, reggae music, sheesha and good grub. It's a pretty nice place for relaxing or simply getting pissed. We were hanging out in Yum Yum's because the beer was reasonably priced (6 EGP) and the food cheap (potato wedges come highly recommended - you get loads plus a lot of tasty dips and bread for 10 EGP, sheesh kebab costs about 25EGP), plus they were playing good reggae and it was in a nice location but in fairness, none of the places are too different from each other. Had a bit of an argument with a cat about him trying to eat my dinner, the legendary waiter gets a squeezy water bottle and has a water fight with him, top banana.

Off to Adam's bar after that - beer there is 5 EGP and they have a good variety. Stella, Stella Premium, Luxor, Luxor Special, Luxor 10%, Saqqara, Saqqara Gold and Meister.

Luxor is a tasty beer that is a wee bit stronger than Stella and a pound or two more expensive, Luxor 10% does what it says on the bottle. Luxor is my no.1 beer, closely followed by Stella.

So after a few beers, it's time to get back to the car.. we bring back 20 bottles, bloody heavy - traipsing through Dahab in a rush with them. The others have bought a few things and are sitting with Majdy, who is having a sheesha and says he will take us to his mates alcohol shop in Nuweiba for a few more beers.

Nuweiba is a shit hole really, a poor Egyptian town with a few children asking for money, nothing there at all - Nuweiba Port and Nuweiba City are seperated, anyway the alcohol shop is pretty standardly ugly, similar to the ones in Cairo and not dissimilar from some legendary drinking holes in Portugal. Load up with a few more beers and a bottle of wine... decide to stay away from the Racardi, I used to drink a lot of the Egyptian brandy Vat 69 and it is not good for you in anyway or form.. I'd stay away from all the spirits. Whether it's Chavs Regal, Racardi or Stolichnova. The Arak looks deadly.

Ok, now we're sorted! The grub in the hotel which is included is the same stuff everyday, it's not bad but the beef is a bit dodgy.

Spend the next day relaxing in the sun, got these bastard sea urchin things in my feet.. that hurt. I popped back to the room and bumped into the beach cleaner/helper (virtually useless) guy who gets out a big newspaper filled with Bongo (an Egyptian blend of Marijuana.. bloody good stuff) and rolls up a joint or two, legendary fella.

I'm smiling for the next couple of the hours, not realising the sun is burning me like hell. I come back red, have a huge meal, already had enough beers..play table tennis, go to bed, visit the toilet a few times and then fill the sink up with puke.. lovely.

A day or two after, it's off to Pharaoh's Island, just across the way.. it's only 200m but it costs 8 dollars to get there and visit it, crikey. Oh well.. this is the island where the King of Jordan has his birthday parties, such stars as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Whitney Houston have visited and of course the Egyptian president Hosny Mubarek likes it, and we have it to ourselves. Snorkelling there is superb, the fort is reasonable (supposedly as grand as the citadel in Cairo and the fort in Alexandria) they're all nice but I can't get overly worked up about them. The fish though, were stunning.

Be a bit careful, there's a few dangerous things.. namely jellyfish (that can kill if not treated), a grumpy black sausage that stings you when you stand on it (1. don't stand on it, 2. if you do, don't worry it will only hurt for a while) , sea urchins (the spikes hurt when you get them in you, so try to avoid them, they don't do any real harm, don't try and take the needles out, just put a bit of lemon juice on them) and of course some wanker from the Hilton speeding through and hitting you on your chops with his flippers.. CUNT!

Off to Diana Beach for the last day, the plan was to try and get a camel to ride unfortunately it passed us while we were snorkelling. Delicious grub, spectaculr snorkelling, lovely beach with relaxed atmoshphere... a room there - which is warm and comfortable in a hut with a tele (ran by generator) costs 60 EGP for double.. but I reckon you can get it a touch cheaper. Hashish smoking was superb.. I'd had a few joints rolled by the guy who runs the place - Ali but they weren't up to much then Majdy and this guy dressed like Yasser Arafat invite me into a room with some fat Egyptian girl, they get into a "Who can roll the meanest, biggest, strongest joint" competition, I can't work out who lost but I couldn't stand up after smoking them, they were all excellent and I had been sitting on one of my legs.. thus the inability to walk for about 2 hours after that.

Good, good fun.. I'm not sure what went on after that.. we came back, met some Polish woman in the restaurant who invited us to hers to use a shower, apparently some guys gave us some strawberries but I don't really remember this very well. I slept off my state on the way to the airport, where we arrived 4 hours before the flight, thanks to our insane driver and the unorganised receptionist, we have no egyptian money or euros at this point, so just try and have a bit of a kip, when they finally let us through baggage to the check in desk, I discover.. I've lost my ticket. Bollox, eventually some guy turned up and wrote me a new one for free.. lucky that. We clear immigration, wait, the flight run by Central Wings was distinctly shit with no space to move at all and no food available to buy on the way back.

My Rant!!! Postman Pat Ran Over His Cat!

Thinking about it, he's a bit of a legend really.. if you are not familiar with him do a google search>image, his cat Jess is pretty well known and in the UK, we made tunes in the playground about the postie running him over (I'm not sure if kids still do that or they're too busy shooting each other and what ever else the little rascals get up to these days)

Anyway basically the lyrics to theme tune are as here>

http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/p/postmanpat.shtml

We sang: postman pat, postman pat,postman pat ran over his cat,all the guts went flying,postman pat was crying,never seen a cat as flat as that,splat!

or

Postman Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat ran over his cat, all the guts went flying, all the children were crying, now pat's a very happy man.

and a few years later....

Postman Pat, Postman Pat,Postman Pat was done for screwing his cat, Pat was feeling randy,Jess was sitting handy, So Pat just had his pussy there and now Pat's a very happy man!

Basically my point is.. changing the lyrics of popular songs was fun and I'm sure possibly helped you in an educational way (though I'm not 100% sure of that) and now the little kids in England just go around shooting up heroin and killing each other, and they're not even "hard", they whinge about everything. Give me a Thai kid any day, when I was over there - they were well behaved, happy and playing as kids (the ones that weren't part of the sex trade that is), Polish children are quite reasonable - though there's not a lot of kids around in Warsaw - I don't think the pope's message about condoms is working and as for Meditarranean children - Italians, Greeks, Egyptians, Portuguese (well it's Atlantic officially but same mentality).. forget them, they are spoilt little metrosexuals walking around with mobile phones from the age of 4? 4? 4?! The cunts can barely speak? What are they doing, organising drug deals of baby food or something! Go and play football with a tin can, a ball of wool or an empty bottle (not glass, you'll kill your mate when he heads it)

BAH, you watch how messed up people are going to become in this century! Geronimo knew what he was talking about.

Sorry for the swearing, hope it doesn't offend any girls reading or any of the 4 year olds who are reading it when they're not on their bloody telephones.

I've not done a lot this weekend, mainly been having a few beers, working and listening to music. Found out one of my old mates from Portugal has died of diabetes, that's a shame... he owned a bar which did a stunning beans on toast (I know it's hard to go wrong with beans on toast.. but they had a belarussian waitress once and she had no idea what was going on, I think she was trying to make them look like kidney beans or something)

For the non-british readers - Beans on toast look like this... http://www.fotosearch.com/comp/ITS/ITS185/ITF085009.jpg

They're beans with a sweet tomato sauce on, a delicacy in the UK - said to make little boys grow strong. Goes down well with some Daddies Brown Sauce:

http://www.plugger.info/elite/Product_images/daddiesbrownsauce4.jpg

When you eat some beans with daddies, as a young boy - it makes you feel two years older ;), it's to be blamed for missing panties from washing lines, I'm sure of it.

I've decided.. there's no way I will ever stop travelling, true I've been a bit stationary recently but even after you've been to every single country in the world.. there's parts of those countries you haven't visited. There's islands and islands and islands! The only way, a true traveller could stop.. would surely be by death!

Hey, I look forward to the day.. I'll be able to visit a safe Baghdad, it will mean the USA, UK and and all the other hangers on.. i.e. Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland..pulled out. (They are just as bad, arse licking Bush for a bit of money rather than doing the good thing and pulling out (or better still not joiing in the first place).. Co-Allition forces, Co-Allition bollox. It's corrupt rubbish and now here in Warsaw we have police walking around and people thinking the place is going to get bombed, there is no need for that threat to be created, just for a few dollars)

Not only that but the people of Iraq would have to have calmed down a lot, I don't see it happening though, it seems to be escalating into a bit of a Somali scene. What happened there... peace keepers involved, they escalate the war, kill thousands of people, bomb the shit out of Mogadishu, make people hungrier and poorer and now it's in absolute state and shows very little sign of recovery.. The Somalian flag is great to look at by the way - not sure what it symbolises.

Check out the The Tuamotus (they're a group of islands that cover the span of Western Europe in the Pacific Ocean..), The Paracels (disputed islands by Vietnam and China), The Aleutians (that's the pointy finger of islands spanning from Alaska over towards Russia) and of course in the UK, the island with cult status "Rockall".. (check out www.therockalltimes.com ) to mention islands in the middle of nowhere off the coast of Africa such as St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha and Ascension Island where some bloody bizarre expats must live. Hey, I've even got to go to The Falklands.. I hear they do a good fish and chips there.

While I'm chunnering, I'm getting a bit bored of hearing about people going on and on about British Comedy being funny, that stuff like Fawlty Towers and Monty Python, granted it's good stuff.. some of the best and I'm glad you like it.. but download or ask me for some more up to date stuff, if you think we didn't laugh since the 1970's, you probablywear trousers like John Cleese!

Ok so here's a list of stuff you should look out for.. old and new, download or ask me for some copies

Little Britain
The League of Gentleman
The Office (Most people like it, I'm personally not a fan.. make sure you don't get the American version)
Bottom
Billy Connolly Live
Alan Partridge (He looks like djdirect only better looking)
The Young Ones
Only Fools and Horses
Dinnerladies
Goodness Gracious Me
The Fast Show
Blackadder
Father Ted (it's Irish but we seem to steal it, not sure why?)
Dave Spikey Live, Peter Kay Live, Max & Paddy's Road to Nowhere, Phoenix Nights, That Peter Kay Thing (you'll have to brush up on northern slang and be quick though to understand what's going on)

Well that will be enough to keep you going, let me know what you think and come back for more.

P.S. You can't beat a bit of Dangerman either!!

Sleep at last

Slept like a baby last night, 14 hours.. wahey. Everything is good in the household ;-), hey if you like chocolate and skulls - check this out.. http://www.chocolateskulls.com/ bit pricey that isn't it!? Wonder whose noggins' they are using as a mould. Try downloading or buying The Bloody Hollies album "If Footmen Tire You".. they're a nice little garage punk band. Off to Egypt still on Tuesday, well I've got it all booked and paid for, so bar the dog eating.. the passport, bank card or all of my trousers, I should make it to the airport OK. Not sure where I'm going from there, I'll just sit down with a Stella (legendary Egyptian brew) and have a week relaxing.

Recently got an unexplained taste to go to Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome e Principe and yet at the same time learn how to snowboard in Uzbekistan. Strange how these things happen, maybe some people would class it as alcohol abuse. It's my girlfriend's brother's birthday tomorrow so should be back on the beers, hopefully not too many.. can't be doing with the itchy skin malarchy again for a while. Still not found a partner for the hitching race ( in JULY.. it's getting close, a girl is preferred for getting speedy rides.. preferably polish, lithuanian or latvian but I'll take pretty much anyone along happily.

Still on the beers!

Bit of a break on Tuesday, just watched the football.. Barcelona v Chelsea, Ronaldinho a genius as usual. Wednesday and I'm expecting my mate Radek from Poznan (Heinz Meenz Beans) to arrive for a few beers as he's got a few hours to kill in Warsaw between flight time and the train to Poznan... his flight gets delayed for three hours in Paris though and I'm already on the beers with the aussie lad anyway.. I found out half way through the day that it's International Women's Day, bah I didn't know it existed, it's virtually unheard of outside of Russia and the former communist satellite countries.... but it turns out to be a big thing over here.. I kinda under-estimated it and went out on the piss for 3am, getting into no end of trouble on my return with Sylwia, which I guess was deserved.

Anyway enough of that, it was a good night out. I'm trying to keep readers informed of up to date bar news in Warsaw, so that you don't end up in the crappy metrosexual filled bollocks in the centre of Warsaw which is known as "one of the best nightlifes in Europe" - yes, if you wear a pink shirt with a collar bigger than nelson's column, go to the solarium three times a day, act like a complete cunt and have three telephones...

We started off by going to Champions as Martyna wanted to buy us a meal to say cheers for buying her a few beers, great food there - Chicken Buffalo Wings come highly recommended from me! All the stuff is bloody expensive, beer is reasonable during happy hour (Zywiec for 6zl) which happens around 17:00 on weekdays and lasts the whole weekend including Friday night.

Full of business men, irritating after a while, especially if a match isn't on... so we head across to the other side of the station and into the old Bar Ania, if you want to visit a dirty, small place by the central station with 80% losers and 100% psychos in, this is the place. It's not too bad in the summer, terrible if a football match is on and shit in the winter. It does however offer cheap beer - Cans of Wojak, Faxe and possibly the legendary Karpackie for about 3zl, a beer on draught (they have the choice between Herman Miller or Brok.. both pretty crap beers) but for 4zl, you can't complain and if your American or Italian, the chance is you wouldn't know a good beer if your wife through it all over your face, which to be fair would probably happen if you were italian, quite regularly.

Move on again, passed the Marriot again and up Emili Plater to Bar Piekna on Ul.Piekna, they offer cheap internet, and Tyskie for 5,5zl, not too bad but it used to be better.. no life at all and yupee customers. Then down to Cztery Katy on Ulica Wilcza... this is personally one of my favourite bars in Warsaw.. been going there on and off for a couple of years now, beer is 6,5zl now (Lech), used to be 5,5zl but it's easily one of the best bars in Warsaw, with comfortable seating, good classic rock music and usually a mixture of young up for fun, down to earth students (not the snobby type) and older eccentrics.

The aussie guy, Michael (Godwinistravelling), eats a hell of a lot.. so we head for more food from A-Petit... then catch a tram to Biker's/Club Rock.. it's basically any tram except for erm.. 19 i think. The place is quiet as it's a Wednesday and even then most of the couples seem to be somewhere else.. there is still the cheap beer (6zl - Krolewskie), nice company, table football, unbeatable music and a tight little reggae band playing some of their songs. By the time we left, we're well into the double figures on the beers and ended up losing 2-1 to two really pissed guys (one really pissed guy with dreadlocks who wanted 100 euros for winning), they stop serving beer, we leave and it turns out we missed the night bus by 3 minutes... so try hitching for a bit but there's not a lot of traffic, end up getting a cheap taxi ride to the centre.

Good fun but I've got to get off the beers for a while now, the skin is as itchy as hell from the insane beer consumption.. it is really irritating. I'm still off to Egypt next week, not sure what after that.. we'll see. I've got to try and have fun going away and keep the business(es) going.

Music Part 1 - gonna include some decent tracks/bands over the next few days.

If your into Rock, you better download some Wolfmother, really decent Aussie rock outfit (yes, I can't believe I said that either).. I'd download/buy the first album (I think it's called Wolfmother too) if I were you, my favourite songs are Dimension and Where Eagles Have Been, but there's not a lot wrong with any of them to be fair!!

Also Stahlhammer are a quality Austrian metal band with interesting twists, download the Feind Hort Mit off the internet or buy it off e-bay...DAN'S CHOICE OF LEGENDARY ANTHEMS.. would be the songs.. Jeanny and Der Mann Mit Dem Koks (sounds a bit kinky to me)

The old roots reggae, apart from Bob (Marley) and Pete (Tosh).. you can't really beat Abja.. the album Inna Red I Hour is top banana.

Current Brit bands.. I am Kloot and the Arctic Monkeys (from Sheffield woohoo) are pretty damn good.

Big fan of Katedras (Lithuanian metal), The Bambi Molesters (Croatian surf music), trusty Alice Cooper's most recent album is Dirty Diamonds and that gets played quite a bit in this house. STEAL THAT CAR!!

Off to bed now and don't want to see a beer until Easter, after all it is Lent.

Weekend fun :)

We had a great HC meeting on Friday night, a party in Indeks Club, small labrinyth of tables and chairs in a smokey little pub with really friendly and helpful staff. The music varies from crap hip hop and rnb to reasonably good reggae but the best thing about the place is that it's one of the few bars which serves my favourite beer - Tyskie! At only 6zl, it's not too pricey either.

Most of the regulars (agak, kriti, natjv, cynamon, meglok etc) stayed away for some reason, might have something to do with Adam, bloody hell he was retarded. Toniwalia (owner of the best Indian restaurant in Warsaw - The Tandoor Palace) and Marcin, two relatively new active Warsaw members were present and Toni brought a group of girls with him who wanted to leave quite rapidly thanks to Adam's disgraceful mollestation and bullshit loudness.

A few visitors there including, a chap from Australia and a girl from Austria. Lots of beers and some mad dogs (vodka and tobasco).. resulted in a good night, almost killed Adam though, he started complaining that he hadn't had 5 beers but had 4, either way he was totally smashed and so were some glasses around him. Bloody stupid American/Mexican/Iowan/Chuck Norris guy bah.

We got to the Central Station around 3 am, I get on the bus 604 which flies past my house, the problem is there are two 604's that sit next to each other and go to the opposite parts of town, I get in the wrong one, fortunately manage to jump out just as the doors are closing, leg it into the other one and get home. Not good running around after drinking so much though.. makes the heart race like an OAP watching Baywatch.

Woke up with a mild hangover on the Saturday but veins full of alcohol, so decided to stay off the beers for the weekend.

Met up again with the aussie and martyna on Monday, to show him around town and have a few beers. Culminating in us getting a bit tipsy around Kino Femina/Diver's etc and me hitching a car which turned out to be an Egyptian guy who owns my favourite kebab place by Rotunda. He gets the wrong night bus home in the end and ends up in Stare Bemowo haha.

Was gonna go out for a meal tonight and along to Club Rock for the live metal gig but decided to stay off the beers, concentrate on working and have a "quiet evening in" ;-). Reserved a package deal to Egypt today - 250 quid for a return flight and 8 days in good accomodation in Taba.. tried to stay from Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh because they are corrupt bollox resorts that are full of northern europeans and russians that fucked the coral reefs up and got rid of the local bedouin.

Trying to work out exactly what to do after that - a bit of hitching in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon etc or maybe up to the Caucasus, also Africa-Argentina is still a possibility.. ah we will see.

Change of plan

There's been a change of plan.. looking at my finances and considering the savings I'm trying to keep.. it will be a whole lot cheaper for me to travel Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Poland.. all of the countries (apart from Turkmenistan) have active HC members willing to host me, which will save nicely on the accomodation, plus the visas for the mentioned countries aren't too pricey and the hitching is supposedly pretty easy.

Will try to make this eclipse malarchy HC meeting in Turkey too. Not too sure it's viable though, and I could probably watch it on the TV anyway!

Glitter in the Shitter!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4769164.stm

Could get out by christmas? That's ridiculously soon, he should be in prison until christmas just for having that beard! Dirty bastards, a lot of the expats in S.E. Asia, governments should do a bit more about it.

Nic Nac Paddy Wag..

Eating some "nic nac's" right now - they have to be the best snack in the world. Made by Lorenzo, I've only ever come accross them in Germany, Poland and Lithuania. If you know where I can get them in your city or elsewhere - please let me know, I am a bit addicted to them.

Last night was another good night, had 4 or 5 beers which warmed me up for a good evening out with some HC members.. I chose Cztery Kąty on Ulica Wilcza 31, it's a good place to go, I've always liked it, it's very close to Nathan's Villa hostel so good for pub crawls. They play good music, normally either classic rock or popular 80s-now tunes.. that people tend to go a bit insane too.. I LIKE THE WAY YOU MOVE!!! Plus they always show the football (England 2 Uruguay 1 hahaha) and unless it's the weekend it's not normally too busy, especially since they've expanded the place... beer is only 5,5zl (10 are still 55 though :-(), the chicken salad apparently lacks in chicken according to Jason (natjv) but it's just aswell really.. no one should be getting bird flu.

The usual hc members natjv (jason) and buzi (martyna) were there, plus the turkish chap cinarugur (ugur) who is studying here and becoming a regular local member :-), a greek cypriot guy who lived 12 years in London.. not a bad lad either, plus Martyna's guest this finnish girl who arrived half way through the old party.

Strange thing in Poland... even the biggest beer swilling of the blokes are nambies when it comes to weather, there always dressed in about 5 coats and a scarf and people look at you mad when your walking around in a t-shirt, it's -3.. almost summer for fuck sake. My girlfriend insisted on me buying a coat over the winter.. I think she had had enough of the old leather jacket and so I gave in and bought one but I'd rather have spent the money on beer, food and travelling.

Missed the night bus on the way home so had a kebab on the way home, for any muslim chaps reading or people who prefer halal meat... according to the guy cutting the meat, Dubai kebab below the central station serve halal style meat, much to the satisfaction of Ugur who enjoyed his first meat whilst in Poland. It could be halal but whether it was chicken is debateable, not the best kebab in Warsaw that's for sure. Missed my stop on the bus and ended up walking quite a bit in the snow, it's good though - walks off the beer.

There's another party on Friday but it's 50/50 whether I'll be there, as I'm off on Saturday, the plan is down to Cairo, probably via Serbia and Istanbul because I have 100 euros in serbian dinars still. After that I want to make it across to Argentina through Africa. We'll see how it goes.