It was a quick 2 hour crossing from Hurghada to Sharm on a fast seacat ferry (instead of a possible 12 hour drive), which a ticket price of about 22GBP each for a one way ticket. We can give a tip for when you get off the ferry (and have your bags x-rayyed), in that the main harbour entrance is a 2 minute walk up a hill and the security don't let the tour operators in to pick you up. This then allows for the local bag porters to try and get some money out of you to carry your bags for you... You might think that your pickup hasn't arrived, but check up the hill as it appears to be a local scam, as taxis are allowed down to try and whisk you to your hotel for a very inflated charge!

According to the tv adverts on UK tv and on CNN, this is supposed to be the Red Sea Riviera....Hmmmm clever marketing, but it still has a long way to go with customer service and quite a lot of it still looks like a building site. The nicest area is called Na'ama bay, which is a perpose built tourist trap on one of the bay's. Here is were you can eat, drink and but the same kind of tat everywhere else in Egypt! I wonder if there is an Egyption translation for the word 'kitch'...

Apart from the above, the weather is good and the diving schools are everywhere, offering some very good trips which Kris has been enjoying.

The main beach area's are 99% carved up by the hotels, with only the odd token 'public beach' here and there, so best stay at a botel with a beach!

We are also still baffaled by the currency carry on - everyhere here seems to give prices in US dollars (Hurghada was mainly Euro's). But when you try and get USD's from the banks, they don't stock them (or so they say) and you can only seem to get them from the Thomas Cook main branch. There is also a carry on with the hotels requesting you settle your bill in USD, which they claim has been sanction by the Egyptian Tourist Authority. When we were in Luxor, they claimed the Egyptian Tourist Authority stated that you had to settle your bill in local currency only!!!!!

We can also recommend one of the many touted outings, which is a quadbike trip out into the desert for sunset. We took a two hour trip, which only cost $40 USD for the two of us, and it was the best place to see the sun set behind the moutains and to cross the dessert at dusk with the bike lights on.