Travels With My Hat: A Lifetime on the Road. Christine Osborne
the twelve Grand Suites each of which has a private swimming pool. But all face the same direction,’ he assured me.
We were now standing outside suite 110, an end suite as I had requested. Ibrahim inserted the key in the lock and flung open the door. Televisions were switched on, minibar doors were opened and the procedures for locking my valuables in the safe were explained in detail.
‘The swimming pool, gym and restaurants are just across there,’ he said, swinging an arm like a weather-vane. ‘Or if madam prefers suite 222, she can then simply walk down to the beach.’ He wrung his hands in desperation.
It was now 8 pm. We had been motoring around the Oberoi site for nearly an hour and pulling up outside suite 222, I observed that Ibrahim had developed a rictus smile.
‘This will be fine,’ I said, feeling a burden lift from my shoulders. And I should think so, I told myself. The bed was heavenly and after a swig of Scotch, I was sound asleep, ready to renew my acquaintance with Hurghada next day.
I had steeled myself for change, but the humongous hotels ranged along the road into town left me speechless. The Mamoluk (sic) Palace, the Aladdin Beach, Jasmine Village, Pick Albatross and the Aqua Blue Resort—apparently modelled on the sixteenth century Mughal fort of Fatehpur Sikri—were an architectural soup of Pharaonic, Indian and Islamic-style elements in gut-wrenching colours: turmeric yellow, ox-blood, biscuit, vanilla and Sea Island sauce pink. But there was no sign of the Sheraton Hurghada.
‘I want to find the Funduq Sheraton,’ I told my taxi-driver, a young man wearing designer stubble and a red number 7 David Beckham football shirt. ‘Road closed.’ His brow knitted in the rear vision mirror.
‘Izmi Hurghada thirty years ago,’ I tapped my chest with a certain pride since I had clearly graced Hurghada before he was born. But he was right. The old road was blocked by a rusty, corrugated-iron fence plastered with posters advertising an ‘Eid Concert’ at the Ministry of Sound, and other extravaganzas for Eid el-Fitr, the imminent Muslim feast of sacrifice.
‘Funduq Sheraton,’ he suddenly exclaimed as we pulled up beside a crumbling circular building surrounded by leaning lamp posts and dusty trees. Grey, shabby and clearly unloved, I recognised it as the old Red Sea Tours Hotel, a large Marriott that had risen beside it being one of 160 new hotels.
Hurghada’s long main street was still known as Sharia Sheraton, even though a new Sheraton had re-located to Soma Bay, far away from bungee jumping, kite-surfing, glass-bottom boat rides, submarine tours and other entertainments for holidaymakers flocking to the Red Sea resort. Wherever I looked there were hotels, cafés and shops selling tourist tat, but a sign, ‘Harrads Hurghada’, captured my attention.
On the pavement outside, glass water pipes, brass trays, wooden animals, leather pouffes, and camel-shaped backpacks were displayed beside baskets of karkady, the dried red hibiscus flowers that Egyptians make into tea. As I raised my camera to take a photo, an intense-looking man who clearly hadn’t shaved for days, got up from a dirty plastic chair.
‘Everything inside 1 GBP,’ he said, holding up a finger.
Going into his shop, I picked up a fish from a display of onyx marine life. ‘Fish 4 GBP,’ he corrected himself.
Removing the stopper, I sniffed one of the pee-coloured flagons of perfume.
‘Perfume 10 GBP for 100 grams.’ He cleared his throat. Then all of a sudden he flew into a rage.
‘Tourist just lookin’. No buy anythin’. Flecks of spit appeared in the corners of his mouth as he shouted. ‘Every tourist fuggin’ Russhin’. Old woman wantin’ sex. Fuggin’ rubbish. Only lookin’. Pay nothin’. Russhin’ fuggin’! Fuggin’! Fuggin’! Oh Allah. What we do?’ He clasped his hands together and concerned my presence might bring on a seizure, I left him shouting to continue my walk along the Sharia Sheraton.
Every second shop was stuffed with souvenirs. In the window of a leathergoods store, a lizard skin handbag, including the head, half-chewed away by insects, was marked 145 Egyptian pounds. I wanted to buy a plain white T-shirt, but everything had either a shark or a pyramid on it. There were hotels that looked like mosques and mosques that looked like hotels. Hundreds of vacant tables and chairs stood on the forecourt of a pink edifice called La Pacha. Cafés were also empty; the only tourists in sight were two old babushkas dragging cheap orange suitcases across the road.
Halfway along, I came to a tiny public garden where faux-Pharaonic statues, including a replica of Ramses II’s broken feet from Luxor, lay among the weeds. Sitting down on a concrete bench, I took out my plastic bottle for a drink of water; it was at least 20° Celsius (68°F) warmer than the temperature in London.
‘The last time it rained in Hurghada was 1966,’ said a man seated on the bench opposite me.
Abdul Rashid was a former diving instructor who had injured his back and could no longer wear a heavy SCUBA tank. ‘But the fish have gone,’ he said. ‘Too many divers and the Russians break off coral. They are stupid people. I go to collect them at seven o’clock and they are drinking vodka. Good for diving. They tell me.’
‘Is the old fishing wharf still here?’ I asked hesitantly.
‘Now we have new Hurghada Marina. Come. I show.’
Turning off Sharia Sheraton, we followed a lane covered with flattened soft drink cans, fish backbones and used phone cards, where mournful sheep awaiting slaughter, stood tied up outside the shops. Before leaving London, I’d asked Aileen whether she would like to return to Hurghada. I was thankful she had decided not to come.
But Hurghada did have a new marina, crammed with yachts registered in ports such as Guernsey and Bermuda, and designer shops and restaurants, where the cost of a grilled sea bass would feed a local family for several days. We passed Timberland, Inter Moda, Jackie B. and a dive shop where Abdul Rashid stopped to stare at the window display.
‘We never had such things in old days,’ he said, refusing my offer of a coffee as he obviously felt uncomfortable in such surroundings.
Back at the Oberoi, I decided that Dishdaba must be further down the coast in the area now known as Sahl Hasheesh. Hasheesh is rather confusing. It’s Arabic for grass, rare green grass, beloved of a wee grey-and-white bird known as Abu Fasad, which scurried about the hotel lawns like a winged mouse.
With no transport this far from Hurghada I had started walking when a small silver sedan, driven by a bespectacled man wearing a suit and tie, pulled out of the hotel gates.
‘Where are you going?’ I called across.
‘Sahl Hasheesh Resort,’ he replied, and without being asked, I ran over and jumped in beside him.
Forty-four years on and I was hitchhiking to Dishdaba again, but this time we were driving along a tarmac road lined with street lights and date palms.
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ the driver asked.
‘No of course not,’ I said, noticing his top lip had beads of perspiration. ‘This is a small community and I have a very jealous wife,’ he said, nervously ashing his Marlboro out the window.
‘You must promise not to tell anyone I have given you a lift.’
‘I won’t breathe a word,’ I said, aghast at causing such anxiety.
There was a tense moment as a security guard checked his ID card at the entrance to Sahl Hasheesh, but waved in, we pulled up in the parking lot of the Pyramisa Hotel, 28 kilometres (17 miles) south of Hurghada.
‘I work in the hotel bank,’ said the nervous man. ‘Do you mind if we don’t go in together?’
‘Not at all, thank you so much for the lift.’ I moved to shake his hand, but he hurried up the steps.
If Hurghada’s hotels were frogs, the Pyramisa Sahl Hasheesh was a cane toad. Its 815 rooms overlooked swimming pools, water slides, children’s pools and poolside bars, all interconnected by tiled walkways