Things That Happen When Traveling in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt for a Very Large Political Conference

1. I am cursed with being in the same vicinity as politicians. It seems that any time they are traveling, I am traveling as well and therefore get tangled up in massive amounts of traffic. About three weeks prior to my trip, Kuwait was the host of the World Islamic Economic Forum. The opening sessions were held at one of the palaces, off 5th ring road. I regularly take 5th Ring home from work, and it usually takes about 20-30 minutes. On the night of the opening, they had apparently closed part of the road and, as a result, it took me two and a half hours to get home.

Arrival in Sharm was no exception. I was lucky enough to land at the same time that Egyptian President Mubarak landed. That meant I sat in the parking lot for about 30 minutes, while my cab driver got out of the car, smoked a cigarette and then started playing 50 Cent on his beat-up radio.

2. It is spectacularly cool to see Air Force One land. Following Rule #1, however, means that because President Bush landed in my general vicinity, it would take 20 minutes for a shuttle to arrive at the conference center to take me back to my hotel, and another 15 minutes to actually get to the hotel, making what should have been an hour long excursion into two hours.

3. Egyptian hospitality doesn’t exist. Absolutely no offense to any Egyptians reading this; your people are friendly. But they completely lack customer service. The internet connection in my room died around 3 p.m.; it took them until 10 p.m. to send someone to my room to fix it – this is after I finally had to call and scream at them how I simply did not understand how a supposed 5 star hotel that is one of the chosen hotels for the WEF takes six hours to send an IT person to fix the internet connection. I am not a screamer normally; I believe that the way to get what you want is to smile and ask nicely. But even I have my limits.

4. The Raid air freshener is in my room for a reason. Plug it in or face being bitten all night long.

5. Hearing George W. Bush speak in person is as embarrassing as hearing him speak on TV. It is especially awful to hear him speak after King Abdullah II (a charming and eloquent speaker). Where King Abdullah is dignified, Bush is just a mess. He began his speech mentioning how he and wife Laura were “walking in the land of the pharaohs” and ended it with a long lecture on how the Middle East needs to embrace democracy. Of note: He managed to mention Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Bin Laden all in the same paragraph.

6. President Karzai and I smiled at each other as he passed by me to go to an interview. Therefore, he and I are now best friends forever.

7. I wasn't surprised when my room key randomly decides to stop working. I was annoyed. I had two room keys and both of them stopped working at the same time. I had to get one of the cleaning people to let me into my room. Again, this is a five star hotel that was one of the chosen six by the World Economic Forum.

8. European women have no issues sunbathing topless in a Middle Eastern country.

9. When it came time to finally, finally check in for my flight home, there was a Eurotrash couple in front of me who took about 20 minutes to check in. Why it took so long is unclear; the woman (who looked like a poor man’s Britney Spears) had to take out random bits of paper from her wallet and show it to the people behind the counter. Was Kuwait Airways giving them grief because they aren’t married (doubtful)? Was the man behind the counter morally opposed to her hideous outfit (possible)? At any rate, the woman started clucking at a fussy baby in line behind her, trying to be cute and motherly. She was not cute nor was she motherly. At one point, she took the child’s bottle and pretended like she was drinking from it while making faces at the baby. The baby was not amused, and neither was I.

10. Just because the Sharm El Sheikh airport has a wireless signal doesn’t mean I was able to connect to it. This is not because I had to pay money to surf the web, but rather because it just won’t connect to the wireless signal at all.

11. While I may have thought that Jordanians were some of the most ethnocentric people around, they have nothing on the Egyptians. I was not able to find a single magazine or book for sale at either the hotel or the airport that didn’t have something to do with Egypt.

12. I shouldn’t be surprised when two of the airport employees start taking apart the seating area right in front of me.

13. While waiting to board the plane, Eurotrash Britney started playing with the baby again, while Eurotrash K-Fed looked on warily. The minute they boarded the plane, you know she turned to him and proclaimed that she wanted one, really badly.

14. Just because my boarding card says that boarding time is 6:10 doesn’t mean it is actually going to happen at 6:10. 6:30 will come and go and I wasn’t anywhere closer to boarding. In fact, there wasn’t even a flight attendant at the gate to help us board until 7 p.m. Take off was at 7:10 p.m.

15. There is no announcement of boarding over the speaker system – boarding announcements are made by a man walking through the food court/terminal/duty free screaming “KUWAIT?! KUWAIT?!”

16. I have not flown Kuwait Airways in over ten years. Not much has changed since 1996. There were at least 40 people on the flight; I was one of three women (not counting flight attendants). When I asked for an upgrade to business class, they said that it wasn’t allowed because there were no more meals left. I said I didn’t want a meal, and they said it just wasn’t allowed.

17. Arabs fly their airplanes the same way they drive. They will take obscure roads just because they can. Case in point: Flying from Sharm El Sheikh to Kuwait took the following path: Depart Sharm. Fly west to Luxor, for a quick 20 minute stop. Then fly east to Kuwait. On top of that, at random points during the flight, the pilot would rev the engine, as if he was about to race his friend in the Jazeera Airways plane next to us to see who would be able to reach the airport faster.


Sharm El Sheikh, in summary: Warm, resort-y, but boring when you're traveling by yourself. Bathing suit tops not necessary.