TripSay blog

You know about the terrorist attacks against tourists in Egypt? They pretty much devastated the tourism industry in Egypt. I didn’t think the attacks in the distant past would affect my travels in Egypt at all…

But I was wrong. Traveling between towns in Egypt was like stepping into a cold war spy movie. The roads are blocked with many many checkpoints. At each checkpoint there are a number of policemen with AK-47’s checking the bus. I don’t even remember how many times we had to stop on the 160 miles trip from Hurghada to Luxor. And you are required to have a police escort when driving from town to town. Usually tourists are escorted in a caravan of buses, having one police car leading and another trailing the caravan. If you rent a car on your own, you’re supposed to join such a caravan to drive from a city to another.

The police state feeling continues in the towns. The (heavily) armed tourism police are everywhere: standing on street corners, sitting by the attraction entrances, guarding at the beaches, etc. All hotels have metal detectors at their front door and a number of surveillance cameras.

I don’t feel comfortable seeing so many automatic guns around me. I understand the Egyptian ministry of tourism wants to make travelers feel safe but being stopped multiple times by armed men at shabby road blocks / checkpoints doesn’t quite do the trick for me…

Despite the “protection”, I think the biggest risks for a traveler in  Egypt nowadays is to forget to drink enough water on a hot day or having slow feet when crossing a busy street! It is definitely worthwhile to visit other towns on your trip, as they are quite different. See for example the tips about Luxor.

Posted by jussi

Date: Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 13:53 | Category: travel | RSS Feed: RSS 2.0 feed.
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