Travels With My Hat: A Lifetime on the Road. Christine Osborne
a tiny kitchen in hope of heating it up, I found the youth in the flying helmet peeling potatoes into an overflowing bin, and a fish on the sink was crawling with little black flies.
Backing out, I suggested to Aileen that we might go to see the Sheraton—the purpose of my visit—but we arrived to find the hotel at that stage when it was impossible to make a complimentary remark. Wires protruded from the plaster, workmen were laying tiles, and there were holes in the corridors through which one could fall and end up in Melbourne. Ankle-deep in building rubble and cigarette ends, I tried my best to imagine it filled with sun-tanned guests enjoying candle-lit seafood dinners, gentle music, and the pat of tennis balls, as notebook poised, I tramped about, trying hard to appear awestruck.
When the weather lifted a little, the boys suggested the swim for which I was hoping. Aileen who did not so much as put a toe in water (she claimed to have nearly drowned during a stopover in Sri Lanka), would find a sheltered spot to sit on the beach, however, excrement dotted the sand wherever we looked. Deciding one of the bunkers might be a good spot out of the wind, she disappeared inside only to emerge foul-mouthed and ashen-faced: it seemed the entire Egyptian Army had been stationed in Hurghada during the Six-Day War.
With sunbathing out, we were taken to the Hurghada Museum where I found the same specimens looking older and dustier. A few bones had detached from the dugong skeleton and the coiled womb of a stingray and young floated in a jar of milky-coloured fluid. Opening the comments book with a flourish, the caretaker asked us to sign our names and flicking back a page, I saw R. Bicknell and C. Osborne 25.8.64, with precisely twenty signatures between then and now.
Dogs and the banging shutter disturbed our sleep on night two and with no prospect of a flight out of Hurghada for another day, we discussed possible escape routes.
‘There’s a new road link to Luxor, but it’s 500 kilometres (310 miles), so a taxi will cost a fortune,’ I said. Leaving early would also offend our Sheraton hosts, so how could I most effectively spend my time? One day Hurghada might be a fantastic resort, but right now it was a dump.
‘What about a feature on how the locals feel about impending tourism?’ suggested Aileen. Would it corrupt their Muslim moral values? Would Hurghada become another Limassol or Torrelmolinos?
‘Good idea,’ I replied, endeavouring to ratchet up our mood.
Next morning, we drove into town where I pounced on a man selling shells on an up-turned oil-drum. What would he likely be doing when Hurghada was crawling with tourists? Might he open a crafts shop or shrewdly switch to Dunkin’ Donuts? Raising my camera to take his picture, I was stopped by one of the men from the Hurghada Town Council.
‘No pickchiz. Hurghada military zone.’ He slapped a hand across the lens.
Since there was no point in arguing with such a mentality, I suggested a fishing expedition. Provided we caught some fish, Aileen could pose as a photographic model, as I had in Hurghada all those years ago.
We set sail in a small launch, Aileen, the future sports monitor of the Sheraton and our two minders. At first choppy, the sea soon grew rough, and the smaller minder leant over the rail and vomited. Seated downwind Aileen turned pale again, but the boatman, averted a potentially ugly situation by landing a large Spanish mackerel.
‘Hold it up while I take your picture,’ I said.
‘No pickchiz,’ said the security man who had not succumbed to mal-de-mer.
Frustrated and depressed, we decided to wait for our afternoon flight in a café below the plateau. With torn parasols flapping against a slate coloured sky and shabby cane chairs stacked around us, the setting was grim and hardly surprised that it did not sell alcohol, we managed to convey the message that we wanted two Sprites.
THE BOATMAN, AILEEN AND OUR MINDER, HURGHADA, 1977
‘T’nin Sprite,’ I held up two fingers, emphasising the Arabic word.
A child aged about ten, eventually brought out two lukewarm bottles with straws. Wiping our table with his sleeve, he set them down and stood back looking at us. Were we the first Western women he had ever seen? Overhead the sun disappeared and from being simply melancholy, Hurghada assumed a sinister air, but happily our flight arrived on time, and I left the Red Sea again, my cocktail dress unpacked, without a tan, and without the slightest regret.
Landing in Cairo for a final night in Egypt, we noticed that police were still milling around the airport and a uniformed official carefully recorded the licence plate of our taxi. But what bliss to be back in civilisation. Checking into the Sheraton, we poured ourselves huge gin and tonics from the mini-bar and ran a bath. While Aileen soaked off Hurghada, I went downstairs to buy an airmail copy of the Daily Telegraph whose main article highlighted the continuing investigations into the death of David Holden, the chief foreign correspondent of the Sunday Times.
Reading down, I learnt he was a passenger on RJ503, that had landed ahead of Aileen’s flight on 6 December. He’d had his passport stamped at immigration, collected his Samsonite off the carousel, cashed $200 in traveller’s cheques and strode out of the airport to catch a taxi. Eight hours later, his body was discovered by the road near al-Azhar university, not far from the City of the Dead—the labels had been cut off his jacket, and a single bullet had entered his back.
Who killed David Holden? Referring to the murder in his book My Paper Chase, Harold Evans—then editor of the Sunday Times—advances several theories. That Holden, whose own book Farewell to Arabia I’d read, was a case of mistaken identity. Had he been confused with David Hirst, the Guardian correspondent whose articles about the extravagant lifestyles of the Sadats had infuriated the Egyptian president? Was the fifty-three year old journalist who had known Kim Philby, the homosexual KGB agent in the blurred world of spy and counterspy in Beirut, an undercover agent? Like other shootings, notably that of Lee Harvey Oswald, suspected assassin of President John F. Kennedy on 22 November, 1963, it is unlikely we shall ever know.
***
In December 2008, seeking an escape from Arctic winds sweeping England, I surfed the web for a winter sunshine break. Turkey wouldn’t be warm enough, Zanzibar was too far away, and while Aswan was ideal, getting there involved several changes of aircraft. Suddenly my eyes hit upon Hurghada. Dare I return? Due to the credit crunch, the fare was half the normal price and I was suddenly curious as to what may have happened to Dishdaba.
By extraordinary coincidence, it was exactly thirty years to the day when the captain switched on the seatbelt sign for landing. Peering out of the window, I saw winking turquoise swimming pools and a string of lights stretching all the way down the coast. Was this the same Hurghada where I slept in a shack all those years ago?
On this occasion, I was to stay at the exclusive Oberoi, which had been voted The World’s Best All Suite Hotel. Its VIP list included Arab sheikhs, prime ministers, and fashion designers, but indecision was kicking in. Suite 119 which I was allocated, didn’t feel quite right. Even I couldn’t believe it.
‘Which direction is sunrise?’ I asked Ibrahim, the gangly front office porter anxious to please, but thrown into a state of confusion by the question. He revolved, rather like a slowly whirling dervish.
‘Out there,’ he said, pointing vaguely into the night.
I attempted to explain feng shui: how I prefer to sleep in an end room and with my head aligned to the rising sun. And please, not next to any Saudis, or Kuwaiti families (I remembered an Arab who had beaten his wife, in the room next to mine in Dubai). Or indeed any children, of any nationality.
We eyed each other across the beautiful tiled suite with its Arabic-style arches, Egyptian wall-hangings, private courtyard, two televisions and elegant furniture imported from Mumbai, the headquarters of the Oberoi chain. Then retrieving my suitcase, Ibrahim replaced it on the golf buggy and we motored back to reception, a domed edifice with a huge display of Strelitzia reginae—Bird of Paradise—flowers by the fountain.
Bounding