From Luxor took a 18 hour bus to Sharm El Sheikh, as I had heard great things about diving in Red Sea. Many people I met had mentioned Sharm to be a great place. The town of Sharm El Sheikh is built for the European package tourists, and prices are extremely high. I first checked the budge hostel recommended by LP but it was bit too dirty -- even for my taste ;) so went around few hotels in Nama bay and found one hotel which was not completely open but still had good rooms, swimming pool right in the center. I paid $25/night which is high by Egyptian backpacker standard but most rooms in Sharm start at $40.

Next booked a two day dive package with Camel dive for 120 euros. I was more interested in diving at the wreck of Thistlegorm. On first day did two local dives along Naama bay, the visibility itself was excellent and lots interesting fish, but there were just too many people and too much of boat traffic to enjoy diving. However it was good to do local dive first as in Aus/Thailand I had dived with weight belt of 4.5 Kg but here it took me about 7Kg as water in Red Sea is lot more salty. Next day went diving at the wreck of the Thistlegorm it was very exciting dive but there was strong current. I had never dived in so strong current so it was interesting dive for me.

Town of Sharm is all about diving, or frying your skin in the Sun. In the evening you can have beer, chai and smoke away shisha.

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The night life was "fine", lot of Russians come here from Israel to enjoy the holidays. One chick even proposed to me saying marry me and take me to America, I want to become American citizen!! I guess there first for everything. But during diving met a guy who works for UN in Darfur, Sudan he gave me lot of interesting information about Jerusalem and suggested very interesting place to stay.

Anyway after having visited Aqaba in Jordan I would highly recommend against going to Sharm unless you are looking for lot of package tourists. If you are interested in diving Red Sea head to Jordan. People say Dahab is better didn't have time to check it out.

After four dives decided to take a bus to Taba crossing into Israel. I took the 9.00AM bus from Sharm after about two hour journey from Sharm, the bus broke down in the middle of no where. So lot of locals hopped on to passing trucks and few green tourists ;) paid 100 LE for ride to Dahab, they should have only paid 10 LE as it was only 45 min away. However the driver had sent message in both direction to Dahab and Sharm about break down and said a replacement bus will be here in 1-2 hours if you want to wait. The driver also offered us some "rotis" as we waited, not something that would happen in many countries. People really are nice in Egypt. I decided to wait, we were only about 6 people left that had all the time in the world. The replacement bus showed up in about 90 minutes and we resumed our journey. However my 10 month golden rule of always taking few fruits, Snickers bar and large bottle of water before any bus journey proved prudent this time, of course shared those with remaing people. After few bus changes, we finally arrived at a nightmare called Taba crossing, along with couple of Swiss girls, polish girl, couple from NZ and a guy with US passport but muslim name.