Posts tagged: travel
I’m still alive. Just. It’s been a while, right? I think my last post was something to do with some chap called Adolf and how we really shouldn’t trust him? Yeah, something like that. “I hold in my hand..”, yeah put it down pal, he’s a shitpot and we know it.
I’ve been back to Egypt. Invariably, I got the shits. I didn’t tell Tripadvisor that though, as many do. I also discovered that one of the shoddiest looking airlines were actually quite excellent.
We flew with Jet2, who I have always classed in with the Ryanairs and Easyjets of this world. The thought of 6 hours on a ‘budget’ aircraft, with knees under chin, smelly oiks all around and an evil ginger child climbing on me filled me with dread. To prepare, I loaded my iPod with films, TV shows and as yet unheard albums. This was going to be bad, with a capital bad.
As we stood in line in the tunnel to board the aircraft (the ‘board by your seat number’ technique yet again failing miserably) we found that the staff were pleasant, smiling and quite good looking, in a budget airline kind of way. The female hostesses were even better, a-ha-ha-ha.
Entering the craft, we found leather covered seats the length and breadth of the plane. We sat in large, comfortable, spacious seats. Even the evil ginger child was impressed, and expertly unpacked her toys, crayons and Fisher Price climbing frame.
Much to my surprise, I could even stretch my legs out in front of me, giving unparalleled comfort for a budget airline. As takeoff approached, we discovered that the wife and I would have the luxury of three seats between the two of us, so once in the air we stretched and relaxed as we were whisked off to the land of pharoahs and pyramids.
Until the ginger child had other ideas, scaling the seats in front and plonking herself down with a thump on the spare seat, asking for a go on my iPod. Her parents, now sat in the two-person-three-seat configuration, laughed approvingly. The shits.
I went to Egypt a few weeks ago (it seems like a lifetime) with the wife. We booked all inclusive, and then we made the mistake of reading the reviews. They showed us that we’d either be staying at a perfectly respectable hotel, or staying at the biggest hell hole this side of South Sinai.
In fact, the reviews didn’t vary across the board as you might expect. They seemed to swing between 10/10 and 1/10. How can that be? OK, you might expect to find a swing between 4/5/6, but surely not to those extremes?
Digging deeper, it would appear that the reviewers did indeed fall into two camps; those who got the shits and those that didn’t. Now, I can appreciate that a dose of Delhi Belly would put the brakes on your all inclusive feasting, but you’re here to rate the hotel, not the quality and resilience of your probiotic stomach bacteria.
What it also demonstrated was that the vast majority of people who write things about hotels on the net are fucking simpletons. For example (and all of the spelling is how I found it, I promise):
“Upon arrival we were checked in by a sourly faced limited English clerk” - What you’ve done there, right, is gone to a foreign country. You might find they talk differently there.
“Our room view was lovely untill we watched a very ill and distressed camel die one evening so that was upsetting.” - Er, what? And you stood idly by?
“…a man who held his hand out for a tip per suitcase” - Having carted your no doubt very heavy cases about in 40 degree heat, would it be too much to ask to slip him 5 Egyptian pounds, or 50p as it works out?
“I found the desk staff very unhelpfull and their sourly attitude unpleasant” - Bit rich coming from you, innit?
“I defiantely wouldn’t rate the place worthy of 5 stars and shant go back.” - With this concluding sentence you have marked your review null and void. Go back to school.
Needless to say, none of these things were true. The bad reviews are from people who got tummy bugs and were ill whilst away. This is not the problem of the hotel generally, but the fault of the British people who lie in the 40 degree heat all day, shovel huge amounts of food into themselves and then fling gallons of all-inclusive booze down their necks and wonder why they feel a bit runny the next day (like I did).
Of all the reviews my favourite (which I can’t be bothered to find now) was the one that said, and I shit you not:
“We went to Cairo for the day but is was quite shabby and run down.”
By the way, the quotes above (except the Cairo one) come from one review, the first one on this page. Judging by the date, they were there the same time as me and the wife. There was no dead camel, no collapsing walls, the beer was cold and the food was fine. They are, without a doubt, full of shit. Runny, runny shit.
