Egypt 14.4.2008
Lähtöpäivänä hotellista soitettiin herätys 03.30, jotta olisi 04.00 aulassa, jotta olisi 4.20 bussissa, jotta olisi 4.30 kentällä, jotta saisi lipun ennen 5.00, jotta voisi aloittaa koneeseen nousun 6.00, jotta kone lähtisi 7.15. Itse matkaan hotellilta ei mene edes kymmentä minuuttia ja kolmessa ja puolessa tunnissa oltaisiin jo puoli välissä Suomeen. Lentomatkailu on kyllä aika älytöntä. Egyptissä turvatarkastuksia oli kolme, joista ensimmäinen jo ennen lipun saamista. Se palvelu mitä kaipaisin törkyhintaisten virvokkoiden sijaan on sähkö, mutta pistorasioita ei penkkien lähimailta tietenkään löydy. Lähtöportti on ruudussa eri kuin lipussa ja lentoyhtiön henkilökunta, joka on itse väärällä portilla sanoo että kannattaa noudattaa monitoria. Sähköongelma kuitenkin ratkesi kun sain turvamieheltä pyynnön tulla niiden penkille portin eteen. Sattuupa jotain positiivistakin, harmi että ei ole antaa tippiä hyvästä palvelusta. On tietysti hieman vaivaannuttavaa yrittää kirjoittaa kun joku tuijoittaa ruutua vierestä vaikka lienee selvää että kielitaito ei taida kantaa näiden harakanvarpaiden kääntämiseen. Viikon loma on nyt tosiaan takana päin ja on ollut hieno reissu. Yöelämä ja bailaaminen jäi sukelluskurssin takia vähemmällä, mutta enpä usko että olisin täkäläisissä klubeissa koko viikkoa jaksanutkaan pyöriä. Headkandi oli aivan kiva mesta. En varmaan ole aiemmin hiekkarantabilepaikassa käynytkään. Viiteen asti juhlittiin ja eilinen meni tosiaan hieman krapuloissa ja lopulta turnauskestävyys loppui. Mitään yleiskatsausta Hurghadasta on vaikea antaa oman reissun perusteella, koska lähinnä aika kului kaukana itse kaupungista ja vielä veden alla. Kuulemma El-Darra, eli vanha kaupunki on mukavampi miljöö kuin uusi hotellikatu, mutta sikäläiset basaarit yms jäivät näkemättä. Ei ollut yksinkertaisesti intoa alkaa tinkaamaan. Noh meressä riittää näkemistä, mutta yhtä hyvin seuraavalla kerralla punaiseen mereen voi tutustua Sharm-El Sheikistä käsin. .
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Hurghada Day 5
Egypt 13.4.2008 Lähtötunnelmia päivän kääntyessä seuraavan puolelle. Tavarat täytyy kuulemma kantaa aulaan jo 4:00, joten montaa tuntia unia ei ole luvassa tällekään yölle. Vika päivä oli ehkä pienoinen antikliimaksi, kun tuli vain löhöiltyä rannalla ja altaalla ilman kummempia sattumuksia suuntaan tai toiseen. Ilta huipentui Hardrock cafe Hurghadassa, jossa kokeneemmat sukeltajat jutustutelivat viikon sukelluksista ja aiemmista kokomuksistaan. Kuvittelin että BBQ hotellin rannalla olisi jatkunut pidempään, joten oli pienoinen pettymys huomata että hotellilla olikin aika kuollutta jo kymmen aikoihin ja keskustan ei vaan jaksanut enää lähteä. Väsyttää ja tulin sitten nukkumaan pariksi tunniksi.
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Hurghada Day 4
Egypt 12.4.2008
I am now qualified PADI open water diver, hurraah. The last two days have been busy with the diving course. Yesterday there was my first dive from a boat and also the exam for the qualification. and do I hate exams, but the coral reefs were great. The exam was not too difficult although I did not do too well with the dive charts. As for my work letting a computer to do the number crunching would be the thing. From tv it is difficult if not impossible to grasp the diving experience; submersion, weightlessness, scale and variety of surrouding corals and discovery of all kinds of fish just minding their business when you float by. The visibility of the water was not as good you'd expect from the tv documentaries. I guess they shoot them when the conditions are just right. When you add little bit of salt water within the mask, being slightly cold and having your ears do weird things you start to approach the real scuba diving experience. I am writing this early in the morning as I have been too excited/nervous to sleep after about 5.30 when a loud group of Finns woke me up. Maybe they were the two Finnish guys Mika and Jukka from the diving course, returning to the hotel. They will not be diving today and I need to find myself a new diving buddy. Hopefully, somebody who can use compass better than I do. I went out with them last night. (At the time of writing) for people who are tired of hotel lounge bars in Hurghada, I could point out Papas bar. According to our instructor it is a place where diver's go to have a pint or two, and the atmosphere indeed was relaxed. Today if all goes well I will clubbing in Headkandi. Less than five hours of sleep last night might require few of hours of sleep during the day though. Tomorrow, there will be no diving as the flight on Monday is so early, that the precautionary time between flying and diving is not quite enough for a meaningful diving day. but I am getting ahead of myself. .
I am now qualified PADI open water diver, hurraah. The last two days have been busy with the diving course. Yesterday there was my first dive from a boat and also the exam for the qualification. and do I hate exams, but the coral reefs were great. The exam was not too difficult although I did not do too well with the dive charts. As for my work letting a computer to do the number crunching would be the thing. From tv it is difficult if not impossible to grasp the diving experience; submersion, weightlessness, scale and variety of surrouding corals and discovery of all kinds of fish just minding their business when you float by. The visibility of the water was not as good you'd expect from the tv documentaries. I guess they shoot them when the conditions are just right. When you add little bit of salt water within the mask, being slightly cold and having your ears do weird things you start to approach the real scuba diving experience. I am writing this early in the morning as I have been too excited/nervous to sleep after about 5.30 when a loud group of Finns woke me up. Maybe they were the two Finnish guys Mika and Jukka from the diving course, returning to the hotel. They will not be diving today and I need to find myself a new diving buddy. Hopefully, somebody who can use compass better than I do. I went out with them last night. (At the time of writing) for people who are tired of hotel lounge bars in Hurghada, I could point out Papas bar. According to our instructor it is a place where diver's go to have a pint or two, and the atmosphere indeed was relaxed. Today if all goes well I will clubbing in Headkandi. Less than five hours of sleep last night might require few of hours of sleep during the day though. Tomorrow, there will be no diving as the flight on Monday is so early, that the precautionary time between flying and diving is not quite enough for a meaningful diving day. but I am getting ahead of myself. .
Hurghada Day 3
Egypt 9.4.2008
The risk of traveling alone is that at some point you will get bored. I am not quite sure if this problem is universal or not, but for me there is point where I am too tired to actively find myself some company, for whom I would not feel too pushy to approach. It might have something to with my own social inhibitions, but then again people who attach themselves to strangers do risk of just being annoying and avoided anyway. It does not really help if you happen to be non russian speaker in a hotel where majority of people speak russian and maybe a bit of english too. Following from the same problem comes another one; there is lot to admire as a virile Finnish bloke, but practically nothing that you could do besides “devouring by looking” ;) I could imagine that all the good looking girls will get tired from the attention they get just by walking along the street paved with the Egyptian gigolos. Maybe it is only lone guys that get bored and the girls rather find themselves tired?
So much for the social frustration, the main attraction today was diving or learning how to dive. I am quite happy with my own performance. For some reason the first ten intakes though through the regulator where much heavier than I would have expected and it even crossed my mind that this is it; there will be diving for me, but after a while I managed to shrug of the feeling of not able to get enough air and was quite comfortable under water since then. We did the PADI confined water dives 1 & 2 and started with 3, but where not able to finish as one of the guys in the group had problems in finding the right buoyancy and with the no air, grab your buddy's extra regulator exercise. Hence we run out of the time. Although, part of the problem was that the scuba boats returned and our insructor Juha Nissinen decided to call it a day. It was fun to look at the ship wreck and I could have stayed at the site for longer. Well tomorrow there will be more of diving.
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The risk of traveling alone is that at some point you will get bored. I am not quite sure if this problem is universal or not, but for me there is point where I am too tired to actively find myself some company, for whom I would not feel too pushy to approach. It might have something to with my own social inhibitions, but then again people who attach themselves to strangers do risk of just being annoying and avoided anyway. It does not really help if you happen to be non russian speaker in a hotel where majority of people speak russian and maybe a bit of english too. Following from the same problem comes another one; there is lot to admire as a virile Finnish bloke, but practically nothing that you could do besides “devouring by looking” ;) I could imagine that all the good looking girls will get tired from the attention they get just by walking along the street paved with the Egyptian gigolos. Maybe it is only lone guys that get bored and the girls rather find themselves tired?
So much for the social frustration, the main attraction today was diving or learning how to dive. I am quite happy with my own performance. For some reason the first ten intakes though through the regulator where much heavier than I would have expected and it even crossed my mind that this is it; there will be diving for me, but after a while I managed to shrug of the feeling of not able to get enough air and was quite comfortable under water since then. We did the PADI confined water dives 1 & 2 and started with 3, but where not able to finish as one of the guys in the group had problems in finding the right buoyancy and with the no air, grab your buddy's extra regulator exercise. Hence we run out of the time. Although, part of the problem was that the scuba boats returned and our insructor Juha Nissinen decided to call it a day. It was fun to look at the ship wreck and I could have stayed at the site for longer. Well tomorrow there will be more of diving.
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Hurgahada Day 2
Egypt 8.4.2008
Did not get to write anymore as was talking for the rest of the trip with the people seated behind me. As I suspected the women were nurse, to be more specific nurses working with mentally ill. They went to another, more expensive hotel, all inclusive. There goes the salary increase which the nurses in Finland managed to get with a strike in the last fall.
After landing last night I exchanged some money and indeed the rate was much better than in Finland, about 8.5 egyptian pounds for an euro. We took the arranged transport to the hotel and I walked around the hotel gardens for a while until joining another lone Finnish guy for quest of finding a meal. It tells something about the Finns, that we had a meal, but did not introduce our names at any point. The meal turned out be a factor which makes me write this entry at 6.00-> as my stomach is keeping me from sleeping. Maybe it was the extremely salty Napolitan pizza or the slightly shady Luxor bier, but I managed to only sleep for four to five hours. When returning to the hotel I should have followed the hunch for finding some non alcoholic to drink. At the moment I only have a bottle rum in the fridge, which makes terrible noise every 5-10 ten minutes. So I am writing this blog instead of getting the needed sleep in HOR hotel. Who ever came up with the name did not seem to mind or was not aware of vocal similarities between whore hotel and HOR hotel. The hotel is a mixture of various low buildings connected by rather well kept garden. There is an entrance, a metal detector, a lobby, a restaurant and a bar in the building facing the streets. At the other end there is a pool and the sea. My room is located in one the middle rows of 3 store apartment buildings. On my both sides there are these hotel buildings, which I presume is a good thing as some Finns ended up in a room over looking the hotel waste dump instead. The room I got is modest, painted with orange and has two beds, which have not served their purposes tonight very well, as I am awake and sitting in a comfort chair at the corner of the room. There is no safety locker in the room, which makes me nervous of leaving the laptop and my money behind. Well if this machine will be stolen these words will never end up in the internet so you would not know. It's seven o'clock and the breakfast is being served so I will try get something down and hope that it stays there too. The wind is blowing hard, but the sun is shining.
When you wake up before six the day seems lot longer. It is only half past ten, but I am nacked already. I did not get to dive today or even try any of the equipment, instead we, me and two Finns from Joensuu watched PADI videos all day long. If you are ever considering a diving course keep in mind that they will ask plenty of questions about your health and ticking any yes answers leads you to consult a doctor before you can be approved to participate. This meant that no diving for us today because of my pneumo thorax (collapsed lung) ten years ago, which I admitted in the form. Fortunately, I was not the only one with medical issues and hence not the only to take the blame for change in the schedule. The videos were educational, but without hands on experience with the equipment or the water lots of the stuff did not imprint to my memory. Well, the most important thing in diving is to keep breathing constantly (oppose to holding your breath). That much I learned for sure in theory, rest of the stuff such as the use of dive tables, remain rather obscure. What struck me as slightly annoying in the PADI material was the constant advertising of scuba gear and underling the need to buy buy buy.
There would have been some irony in getting hit by a car in front of the medical centre, some of the local drivers have annoying habit of driving with out lights and I completely failed to spot a car which really halted just two meters away. The bill for the medical check in Hypermed was 40€ and probably it would not have been any cheaper to take care of the health check in Finland. It's a shame I did not bring camera with me as there was a pressure chamber for divers suffering from divers disease. I am little by little recovering from the dinner at the hotel restaurant (including liver prepared in a way I actually managed to eat it), so could pop out for some fresh air before going to bed. It is a early morning tomorrow too..
Did not get to write anymore as was talking for the rest of the trip with the people seated behind me. As I suspected the women were nurse, to be more specific nurses working with mentally ill. They went to another, more expensive hotel, all inclusive. There goes the salary increase which the nurses in Finland managed to get with a strike in the last fall.
After landing last night I exchanged some money and indeed the rate was much better than in Finland, about 8.5 egyptian pounds for an euro. We took the arranged transport to the hotel and I walked around the hotel gardens for a while until joining another lone Finnish guy for quest of finding a meal. It tells something about the Finns, that we had a meal, but did not introduce our names at any point. The meal turned out be a factor which makes me write this entry at 6.00-> as my stomach is keeping me from sleeping. Maybe it was the extremely salty Napolitan pizza or the slightly shady Luxor bier, but I managed to only sleep for four to five hours. When returning to the hotel I should have followed the hunch for finding some non alcoholic to drink. At the moment I only have a bottle rum in the fridge, which makes terrible noise every 5-10 ten minutes. So I am writing this blog instead of getting the needed sleep in HOR hotel. Who ever came up with the name did not seem to mind or was not aware of vocal similarities between whore hotel and HOR hotel. The hotel is a mixture of various low buildings connected by rather well kept garden. There is an entrance, a metal detector, a lobby, a restaurant and a bar in the building facing the streets. At the other end there is a pool and the sea. My room is located in one the middle rows of 3 store apartment buildings. On my both sides there are these hotel buildings, which I presume is a good thing as some Finns ended up in a room over looking the hotel waste dump instead. The room I got is modest, painted with orange and has two beds, which have not served their purposes tonight very well, as I am awake and sitting in a comfort chair at the corner of the room. There is no safety locker in the room, which makes me nervous of leaving the laptop and my money behind. Well if this machine will be stolen these words will never end up in the internet so you would not know. It's seven o'clock and the breakfast is being served so I will try get something down and hope that it stays there too. The wind is blowing hard, but the sun is shining.
When you wake up before six the day seems lot longer. It is only half past ten, but I am nacked already. I did not get to dive today or even try any of the equipment, instead we, me and two Finns from Joensuu watched PADI videos all day long. If you are ever considering a diving course keep in mind that they will ask plenty of questions about your health and ticking any yes answers leads you to consult a doctor before you can be approved to participate. This meant that no diving for us today because of my pneumo thorax (collapsed lung) ten years ago, which I admitted in the form. Fortunately, I was not the only one with medical issues and hence not the only to take the blame for change in the schedule. The videos were educational, but without hands on experience with the equipment or the water lots of the stuff did not imprint to my memory. Well, the most important thing in diving is to keep breathing constantly (oppose to holding your breath). That much I learned for sure in theory, rest of the stuff such as the use of dive tables, remain rather obscure. What struck me as slightly annoying in the PADI material was the constant advertising of scuba gear and underling the need to buy buy buy.
There would have been some irony in getting hit by a car in front of the medical centre, some of the local drivers have annoying habit of driving with out lights and I completely failed to spot a car which really halted just two meters away. The bill for the medical check in Hypermed was 40€ and probably it would not have been any cheaper to take care of the health check in Finland. It's a shame I did not bring camera with me as there was a pressure chamber for divers suffering from divers disease. I am little by little recovering from the dinner at the hotel restaurant (including liver prepared in a way I actually managed to eat it), so could pop out for some fresh air before going to bed. It is a early morning tomorrow too..
Hurghada Day 1
It seems that copy-pasting to this window does not work any more and I cannot add my older posts which I could not upload in Egypt. 7.4.2008
Despite all the traveling I've done, I still get nervous about dragging my bones to another country. This time I've got no idea where I am going to stay, although the travel agency (domina travels) will announce some hotel as soon as I reach the international airport of hurghada.
It's almost ten years, since I last participated packet holiday, but it seems that things have not really changed a lot. Most people onboard are elderly, although not all that much older as time has passed. There are kids which cause lots of hassle and almost led to my precious macbook pro in getting drenched in coke. Then there are middle aged finns (almost my age, goodness gracious me) drinking their own tax free spirits in the plain and just behind me a nurse who had too much and is shouting behind me. I dread for the hang over, which is bound to hit in the buss to the hotels...The amc flight does not have movies so I watched a movie on the laptop and now wish for a spare a battery. I only took one book with me which might prove to be a mistake.
I guess I should have picked some less provocative background music than the music videos, which keep the boys lurking next to me at the corridor. I've tried to concentrate in reading for a while, but the background noise is too much for me to handle any intellectual ideas of computing an alternative universe, which is the theme of the excellent book, Permutation city by Gregg Egan.
Enough of the external factors, I have not been writing about my thoughts for quite some time as work, hobbies and a cohab have been keeping me busy. I do envy people who manage to write something intellectual every week, for example Soininvaara. Then again as a writer I would assume you can dedicate much more time for such activities. Well so much for the deep thoughts as we are approaching Luxor and I need to have a break in writing for the obscure airplane safety rulings.
Despite all the traveling I've done, I still get nervous about dragging my bones to another country. This time I've got no idea where I am going to stay, although the travel agency (domina travels) will announce some hotel as soon as I reach the international airport of hurghada.
It's almost ten years, since I last participated packet holiday, but it seems that things have not really changed a lot. Most people onboard are elderly, although not all that much older as time has passed. There are kids which cause lots of hassle and almost led to my precious macbook pro in getting drenched in coke. Then there are middle aged finns (almost my age, goodness gracious me) drinking their own tax free spirits in the plain and just behind me a nurse who had too much and is shouting behind me. I dread for the hang over, which is bound to hit in the buss to the hotels...The amc flight does not have movies so I watched a movie on the laptop and now wish for a spare a battery. I only took one book with me which might prove to be a mistake.
I guess I should have picked some less provocative background music than the music videos, which keep the boys lurking next to me at the corridor. I've tried to concentrate in reading for a while, but the background noise is too much for me to handle any intellectual ideas of computing an alternative universe, which is the theme of the excellent book, Permutation city by Gregg Egan.
Enough of the external factors, I have not been writing about my thoughts for quite some time as work, hobbies and a cohab have been keeping me busy. I do envy people who manage to write something intellectual every week, for example Soininvaara. Then again as a writer I would assume you can dedicate much more time for such activities. Well so much for the deep thoughts as we are approaching Luxor and I need to have a break in writing for the obscure airplane safety rulings.
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