No plug sockets!

Now I travel with a six-gang, that is an extension cable with six sockets. This allows me to charge my phone, iPad, camera, headphones and laptop in one go and with minimal disruption to my hotel room.

So I am in a nice ocean front suite on the West coast of Barbados, a huge balcony and the sea just a few feet away, my iPhone decibel app has just recorded a peak of 84 db from the noise of the crashing waves. Anyway, do you think I can find a power socket not already in use? Well I did actually two outside on the balcony... But that's not the point... Nothing inside... Very frustrating.... Had to unplug a lamp.

Unusually for me I have actually spent some time in the room, last night I actually watched TV and this afternoon read and dozed a little on the balcony.... Ok it was only for an hour and half but that is much longer than I normally spend in my bedroom (without sleeping).

And another thing.... The hotel provides a coffee making machine but no fresh milk or a socket to plug the machine onto! No plug sockets!

Peter
10/11/12
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Class act in Chester

Sometimes you come across a group of people who really impress, over the weekend my wife and I had the good fortune to meet the staff who work at the Chester Grosvenor Hotel.

Delivering unsurpassed service matched with a gently assured and natural manner is a delicate art few hoteliers are able to master. These guys were very impressive, rarely have I come across a group of people who not only do their job exceptionally well as well as being so......well human.

A great hotel with wonderful people.

Peter

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We're cheaper than ASDA

The journey back from Alexandria didn't start well.

I thought the agent said 12.30 but could have been one o'clock. I was getting angst at 12.45 but holding my nerve, well at least I thought I was but that bubble was burst when the Four Seasons guy approached me asked a couple of questions and reassured me that the guys picking me up were probably just praying - it was Friday - and because it was Friday was only 15 minutes away.

By ten past one and unable to reach anyone by phone - did I mention it was Friday? I was on edge, just as I was about invoke a Four Seasons service solution when the guys turned up.

After that the journey went well, the train quiet, the trolley man able to speak english, the porter not too greedy and Ahmed on the platform to welcome.

The journey to the relatively new Fairmont Nile City was uneventful. We avoided Tahrir Square which wee due to have demonstrations today - did I mention it was Friday?

Getting checked in was however less straightforward. I think the welcome was warm however I couldn't hear it over the drilling from jack hammers in the lower lobby. My company credit card declined - Laura thought it was amusing that the reception guy enquired if I had sufficient funds in my account. Not a great start.

The Fairmont room itself was great, large, modern, well equipped.

We went next door for a bite to eat before checking out the roof top pool and bar. Unfortunately as it was after 6pm the pool was closed and the roof top destination bar with panoramic views of the city was coming soon.....

Laura wanted to return to Khan el Khalili - the bazaar area of old Cairo to buy some gifts. It was Friday and we didn't fancy the regular taxi's so using the excuse that dinner in the shopping mall restaurant was a lot less expensive than the hotel meal I had initially planned we treated ourselves to a town car for the journey there and back.

The Fairmont staff redeemed themselves from the earlier less auspicious start but sorting the car and changing some cash into small bills.

Now the Khan el Khalili area is like most bazaar areas, wall to wall shops selling stuff from the same wholesalers, guys touting for business, children at your shoulder trying to sell trinkets.

It is generally good natured stuff, the banter friendly and a polite but firm no or shake of the head sufficient for them to stop.. Laura as you would expect received a fair bit of attention, shouts of my angel.... I love you. One guy delivered in jest the immortal line 'how many camels for your daughter sir'. It's fast, intensive and a lot of fun.

In amongst all of the shouts of 1/2 price today, I make you special price two calls made us laugh - they were 'we are cheaper than Tesco' and 'we are cheaper than Asda'. Funny.

Returning to the hotel we had a night cap in the first floor (tiny) bar. The two bar men very friendly and of course the conversation turned to football. It would appear we were in Cairo thousands of miles from their home grounds in the presence of a Liverpool and Man Utd fans. No surprise there then.

Tomorrow we have a half day at the pool and then begin our journey home.

P
Peter Jackson
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A river runs by, the oasis stands tall

The river in question is the six sometimes eight-ten lane highway that runs in front of our oasis which is the Four Seasons hotel. The flow of cars, vans and ambulances seems never ending what ever the time of day or night. If I didn't know better I would say they are the same cars stuck in some kind of horrific loop.

Four Seasons dubbed themselves Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and this is very much a resort hotel. If you were so inclined you could stay on property, observe the world from either the fourth floor infinity pool, the private beach accessed by an equally private tunnel under the sea of cars or from one of the several different restaurants. This is what Four Seasons does best, create an oasis for its guests that allows them to feel safe, comfortable and completely un stressed.

We allowed ourselves to be swallowed up by the hotel today, it was nice.

Tomorrow after three days here at Four Seasons Alexandria and before that three days at the equally pleasant Four Seasons Nile Plaza we start our journey towards home with a train journey back to Cairo.

Night, night world.








Peter Jackson
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The Professor on a mission and the long and winding road part II

I was going to say the professor on a crusade but then I realised what part of the world we were in........

Our half day tour took us to 'The square of Mosque's' which is a square with a number of mosques. Whilst Nancy were doing her thing and ignoring the less well turned out guy beckoning us into the mosque for a quick fleecing of all my coins and low denomination notes a very well turned out guy approach us and introduced us.

He had a gift of a book for which he wanted no money. With the other guy beckoning us over and my new found porter friend from the day before I must say I was busy trying to figure out what angle this guy was working.

It turned his agenda was not financial. He explained that he wanted to explain Islam was not a violent religion and the extremists were not people of true faith and did not represent the vast majority of people. The book he gave me would explain the key elements of the Islam faith. He would also go away and come back for a book for my, he paused whilst I filled in the blank 'daughter' I added which he duly did so. Checking that I still had my wallet and watch I wished well and walked over to the other guy coins and five pound notes to hand.

The trouble with the seaside is that there are lots of fish restaurants, great if you like fish, Laura - not that keen. Time for a trip to the front desk.

A grill restaurant a 20/25 minute walk down the long and winding road, just past the bridge, maybe on the landside - could have been on the beach. Close enough to avoid a mad taxi ride in either direction. The precise location was however in some doubt so the hotel guy agreed a twenty dollar town car ride there and a walk back along the promenade was probably a good solution.

Laura loved the black Audi A6 with blacked out windows and uniformed driver.

The restaurant on the first floor almost overlooking the sea certainly met our needs serving lumps of various meets fresh off the grill.

Behind Laura was a table of 8-9 young women, all in headgear, arms and legs covered enjoying a girls night out. They were having great fun, giggling, laughing and taking lots and lots of pictures. It was nice to see.

After the meal we started our walk back along the prom. The street, the prom and the beach was busy - lots of families enjoying themselves , street vendors waving pieces of cardboard to keep charcoals burning for the corn on the cob they were selling. The road of course was still full of tooting traffic. The place felt wonderfully vibrant. We caught sight of one bride in full white wedding dress walking with her family along the prom heading for a venue and a little further along a limo disgorge another wedding party, this time the bride (we think) all in black and carrying flowers - well we assumed it was a wedding as the awaiting crowd beneath us at a restaurant appeared to be in party mood.

After a chat about differences in the world, personal security when walking out at night and the dangers of various cities around the world I have visited we reached our hotel. It was only when walking through the hotel's private tunnel from one side of the road to the other did we realise that the 20/25 minute journey had actually taken 40.

And so to bed.....well actually a quick drink at the bar. It will be a quick drink as the only other people in the bar are 3 vocal Brit couples......ah well.

Peter Jackson
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The long and winding road and the revolutionary guide

We arrived into Alexandria late afternoon, successfully met, escorted through the much smaller station to our waiting limousine - a Skoda Octavia.

Now Alexandria is on the coast, our hotel we knew to be on the coast, so our driver left the station and headed through narrow streets until we saw the white crested waves of the Med - we had arrived. Well we thought we had.

Alexandria is on the coast, it has a coast road. What we didn't realise it was a very long one.

Nominally a six lane road, three in each direction that quite often descends into six or seven in each direction or randomly down to two it is the city's main artery. Following the coastline the road weaves in huge sweeps revealing headland after headland. It turns out this coast road is over 25km long!

A quiet night, first watching the sun sink slowly beneath the sea, a light meal and so to bed. For my sins I actually watched a movie on my iPad....oh well.

Today we met Nancy who was to be our guide for the morning. She warmly welcomed us to Free Egypt and explained (reasonably) frequently how life was better/going to get better now that the old regime had gone whilst pointing out various buildings that the said regime had taken over for their personal use. The difference in Alex and Cairo is quite marked - it is visibly a 'seaside' town with it's beach side cafe's - the whole place seems much more relaxed than Cairo - the boys and men staring less at Laura.

There was one sad part of our Nancy's story which she quickly skimmed over. This a lady probably in her mid to late twenties with a BA in her pocket was studying for her Masters but it was taking some time because she had had one child which had died but now has a six month old son. She didn't dwell on her loss even for a blink of an eye and outwardly neither did we but both Laura and I felt the pain.

Laura and I discussed later the statement 'travel broadens the mind'. This trip certainly has done that.




Peter Jackson
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Hustled for a £1 on a train

Most railway stations are chaos. Imagine being an outsider and looking down at Waterloo on a Monday. Now imagine that in a half re-built building, the heat and a cacophony of sound that Beethoven would be able to hear and you begin to get the picture.

Our car took a short cut down a crowded path bordered by market stalls to get us a little closer. Our escort grabbed both suitcases and led the way, constantly checking that Laura was behind him and I her. As we entered the station we were stopped by a craggy faced old man who proffered some kind of ID and took the cases, slinging Laura's holdall over his shoulder and my heavy suitcase onto his shoulder. The three of is followed him through the crowds around the end of a line onto a platform. A number of passengers didn't bother with this long route and simply jumped down, crossed the track and climbed up the other side.

Ahmed put us on the train. The crowds on the platform had disappeared into various carriages, but fortunately not ours. We sat in wide comfortable seats or facing forward similar in style to business class seats on flights in Europe. Each row consisted of two seats, an aisle then a single seat. Out fellow travellers consisted of suited and booted business men, the guy in front with the most annoying text notification which said in english 'you have a text message'.

Having missed lunch both Laura and I were hungry. A tunic clad waiter walked through the carriage holding a note pad floating in arabic what I took to be requests for orders. I let it past. About half an hour later he was back with a trolley service - this was going to be easy - I just pointed. To get around my lack of knowledge of arabic the waiter wrote down the price and I gave him the requisite funds nicely rounded up as I was just pleased to have had successfully completed the transaction.

Now when Ahmed put us on the train he has invested care of our cases to the carriage porter - each carriage appeared to have its own porter - who place the bags in a shuttered cupboard with no lock and gestured that he knew that those cases were mine and he knew who I was and where I was sitting. Ahmed explained that the train had just two stops and we should get off at the second one and my new best porter friend would put the bags on the platform.

The journey itself difficult purchases of two cheese rolls and two cans of coke aside was quite pleasant, the carriage nicely air conditioned and the seats being able to recline. The view from the windows didn't amount to too much, fields, donkey's carry men and crops punctuated by small towns of partly built blocks of flats from which washing hung.

On board businessmen greeted friends, colleagues or acquaintances as they walked down the aisle to have a cigarette in the spaces between the carriages. It would appear this was a favoured mode of transport of solid working businessmen.

The train pulled into it's first stop and has predicted by Ahmed the vast majority of people left the train leaving Laura, myself and maybe two or three others.

Our porter friend now sprung into action. Operating a lever he swung each seat around so it was facing the opposite way, ready for the return journey to Cairo. Working down through the carriage he soon reached Laura and me. Gesturing he took us to the back down the carriage past his completed work and through to the shuttered cupboard where our cases lay.

He started up a conversation, him in arabic, me in english, offered me then Laura a cigarette and explained that the train had stopped for a moment before entering the station to wait for another train to depart. He showed me the problem by opening the door and inviting me to lean out and look down the track. My porter friend then lift the cases making a noise indicating that they were heavy and opened his hand into which I placed two five pound notes. Checking that they were fivers and there was only two he gestured again, my protestations that I had no more cash lasted about five seconds and I gave him two more fivers. Satisfied the two one way conversations turned to football and the failure of Manchester United to beat Barcelona - by the time we pulled into the station we were giving each other high fives and waving goodbye like life long friends.

And so to Alexandria....

Peter Jackson
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Cairo Cars

If there is one constant in the city like many of its ilk is the constant toot of car horns that simply do not stop at any time of day or night.

The weight of traffic dominates life in the city, a 10 block journey a major expedition. A car is not so much a mean of transport as a musical weapon of choice.

We walked to Tahrir Square, logic would dictate that in this city devoted to the car, van and lorry that the most sensible place to be is the pavement (sidewalk). Nice idea, however natives of Cairo when not in a virtual car park in the middle of the road manage to park nose to tail taking up every inch of space next to the footpath. When I say nose to tail and every inch I mean just that with cars parked touching each other front and back. The upshot of which is makes walking on pavements very difficult - no gaps to cross roads, so on many of the side roads you join the rest of the locals and walk in the road.

Cairo loves the car.
Peter Jackson
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Following my father to Cairo - 70 years on

It only occurred to me a few moments ago that Dad was almost certainly here in Cairo either in 1940 or 41 - 70 years ago. An amazing thought, I must call him later and talk to him.

For the last three days we have seen the sights you would expect to see - the pyramids, the museum, bazaar etc. Looking around the city, talking to people what has struck me the most has been a sense of awaking. Yes the Egyptian people have a long and spectacular history but they believe they are making history now. Yesterday we saw a small protest, there was a banner which said 'We deserve more'. They do, I am sure my father would agree.

Peter Jackson
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