Gold, silver, souvenirs, etc etc - you ll find plenty of choice and prices to match your bargaining skills.

Don t bother with towels as all hotels do provide them. Clothes are plentiful and cheap though you ll have a much better selection and lower prices in Cairo.

In Naama Bay you ll find all sorts of international style restuarants. Prices range from LE 30 - 100 per person per meal. Beer LE 15 - 20 each. One quid = about LE 11. At Maya Bay you ll see smaller more localised and cheaper restaurants.

I've just bought the cheapest sandals i could find (£15), but i've just realised they're probably cheaper in Sharm, aren't they?

Hiya summers,

Do you really want to know the answer to that question

MrsMac

Come on then pick yourself off the floor and tell me how muh cheaper!

Hi Summers

Try a pair of flip flops for £2 out of Asda !!!!

Angela

What's all this business about shops in Sharm? Do they really lock customers in and offer you a cup of tea?

I been to sharm 4 times, i never been lock in a shop if you dont want to go into a shop just say la shokran = no thank you

i buy 2 pair of shoes from sharm 1 pair leather £7 and other slip on flat shoes £3
but old sharm is cheaper then in namma bay

Yes it is true they can take you to a shop, me and my husband got lead into one from the bazaar near Mcdonalds, avoid if you dont want to spend money on purfume!

A young lad came up to us just chatting, and told us he wanted us to sign his book in English, so he could learn more. We said ok, basically because we didnt want to be rude and we had only been there 3 days or so. He lead us deep in to the Bazaar into a large shop with sofas. Several ladies and gents were in there, yes they shut the shop, but not locked.

We sat down, and an older guy came over, and spoke for an hour about Egypt, where he came from, his wife etc, he did say come back and that he would cook a meal for us, i believed he would, but i didnt want to do that as i felt a wee bit uncomfortable.

We were given a drink, which was Egyptian mint tea, which i love in a glass. I made the mistake of asking what the pretty bottle were all around the room. Of course then he jumped at the chance of showing all the perfume and letting us smell it. We bought massage oil and perfume, it is sold by the gram and i spent £2400 Egyptian pounds(about £200 sterling) on the stuff.

I didnt have to have it, but i do love perfume and one bottle of the stuff i use regually back in the UK cost me £80 quid. Before we could ask how much though, the other guy had already wrapped it up.

When it came to paying i was gob smacked how much because i didnt have that kind of money actually on me. Only had about £40 Egyptian left from dinner that night).......The old man said dont worry we will come back to your hotel to get it from the safe i thought, you wont

I said i had my credit card with me, next minute this nice looking bloke took me on my own out of their shop and escorted me to the middle of the drag of Naama Bay, up the street where you watch football on the screen and i used the hole in the wall. It wouldn't except my card to start with, but the most awful situation to be in was it would only let me take out £2000 Egyptian pounds. I said i couldn't get enough, the man said we will try another, i told him that it wouldn't matter that obviously in Egypt you cannot take out of the hole in the wall £350 per day as we do in other countries. I felt sick by this time and wanted to get back to my husband. I dashed back in the shop and gave him the money, then asked Sam for the extra £40 Egyptian, which he had. By this time we just wanted to go, nearly 3 hours and 2am and we were just going.

Although we felt uncomfortable, we did have a good chat, but the business of leaving my husband to go and get money from the middle of Naama bay on my own with a stranger i felt nervous. But he was a chatty bloke, which of course he would be , as we are giving them a sale, and we did want the perfume, so nothing was forced upon us, but i shall not be going back. We avoided the tiny bazaars like the plague.

That sounds really scarey! Are the markets etc the same in old Sharm? And how far is old Sharm from Namma Bay?

Old Sharm is a 10 min taxi drive and 50 times worse, i didnt like that kind of hassle to be quite truthful, they were very desperate for you to go into their shops, i just stuck to Naama Bay. Apart from the perfume experience, i enjoyed haggling and met lots of friends.

I never had any problems i speak little arabic and have few friends work in sharm maybe that why i not had any problems dont be scared you be fine just tell them stright no sign books

Ok, all, had been tooooooo excited about my trip to Egypt...here are the good things and bad things, and VERY bad things that happened in the short space of time there...

Firstly I booked thru Thomas Cook a hotel called the Sheraton Sharm Spa Hotel and Resort - I phoned TC regularly to ensure I was in the hotel and NOT in a Villa on the resort....upon arrival we were guided to a villa room on the resort - no rep around until the next day to change it - and when he did arrive the next day, he proceeded to tell me to change would cost me £200...fortunately the part we were staying at was as lovely as the hotel, but I still would have preferred the hotel.

I was fortunate enough to find this site before my holiday and make notes etc etc.... so I had prior knowledge in a sense of what to expect but....

I drank bottled water, the hotel food appeared to be of a high standard watched what I ate, and still managed to have 3 very ill days out of seven.

The real downside to this holiday was being locked in a shop in Naama Bay on our first night out...until we bought something.

IF anyone approaches you and they will (guaranteed) and you are polite with a firm no (as advised by others on this very site) do not then try and be polite to the point that you are offered to come and get a business card!!! We thought it was genuine and ended up being locked in a shop. And it wasn't a pleasant chat about his perfume, it was pretty threatening...The whole experience changed my attitude completely, they offer you hospitality to the point where it will "offend" them if you don't have a drink with them etc...in my opinion this is just part of the sales pitch. Say no thanks and keep walking.

I met very few people who appeared to genuinely like us or any other tourist...anyway, be warned, if you don't want to buy anything, just keep walking. At Cairo, locals that spot you with a camera had a habit of just grabbing your camera off you and offering to take pics, nice if you want that but again, they don't care about your holiday pics they just want paying for it.

When we landed at Sharm airport, over 7 men approached us and took our suitcases, and again wouldn't give them back until we paid them even though we still held onto them and kept saying no thank you...

But, my resort was beautiful, very clean and the staff were very lovely and deserved all the tips they received. It was extremely safe to be out on our resort at any time of the day or night, but not outside, oh and the Blue and White Peugeot's, avoid them if you can, they are death traps, we saw plenty late at night with too many people in them, driving with no lights etc. and if you do need to use one, agree a price before hand - best to use your hotel taxi or shuttle.

Just please be warned, I felt lucky to be with my boyfriend the night I went to Naama Bay, who knows how it would have turned out otherwise.

Oh, and the first day on our beach, a whale shark just happened to swim into the bay which was just amazing.

I would definatley go back to Sharm it was a stunning place, won't ever go back to Cairo (unless the government do something to help its people) again, I wasn't prepared to see the things I saw and it was depressing.

Bunnigirl was this Cairo itself or around the pyramids at Giza that you had problems ?

Also have you any idea if you were so careful what could have caused your stomach problems ?

Around the Pyramids just always being asked for money, to have photos taken, to camel ride etc etc - which is what you expect to be honest...some friendly and some just too in your face and when you try to say no they don't accept it - BUT there are so many other people there they do move onto the next....so no way as bad as Naama Bay!

The hotel manager suggested that even showering, brushing teeth in the tap water and swallowing it is enough to set a tummy upset off...not sure if I agree with that but it might have been that, and just too much heat maybe.

Cairo, was awful - I apologise to those of you who love it, but hassle and the state of the place, the children playing with dead animals, the endless bags of rubbish pile high in the river steaming with creatures running in and out of it, turned my stomach.

The state of the children, the state of the animals, the attitude towards tourists....I actually gave alot of money to any children I saw because they obviously have nothing... problems everywhere to be honest.

Folks

Im just back from Taba Heights and like Bunnigirl, I was very careful not to drink cold drinks etc, watched what I ate ( but our hotel used purified water for ice cubes and washing food) and I still became ill. I have the constitution of a ox but I was ill for 6 days. The doctor said it was too much heat in the sun and then being in the airconditioned rooms. I have no idea what it was but my son drank lots of ice cold drinks with ice etc and he was fine!

I was fine all week.

Until i went quad biking in the desert and had some of the bedouin tea in the desert. Should have thought really.

Spoke to alot of people who had drunk the bedoiun tea in the desert and come down with it.

Really panicking now.

Sorry but I cannot accept it is to do with coming from high temps to air conditioning. We have been in temps in high 90's/low 100's in Orlando, Las Vegas & LA & running in & out of air conditioned shops, some that are like ice boxes & we have never had any stomach probs.

Seriously thinking of taking a suitcase with nothing but Evian out with us !!

A friend has suggested that we do not wash our faces in tap water but use bottled for that as well.

We are staying in 5* hotels in both Cairo & Luxor. Is it problems with hotels not being careful enough with food preparation do you think? I would certainly hope with the money we are paying out that we would not have that kind of problem.

Oh well at least I will lose some weight as I can see myself eating hardly anything whilst I am there.

I am not sure about the aircon blame, but alot of people say it does affect the body - and in fairness we were out all day in 102 and to walk into a fridge might have something to do with it.

Could have been something in the pool, could literally have been what we ate, I had chicken one night and did comment that it looked more like a pigeon! Guess we will never know! Next year I am taking a kettle, a toaster and like you a suitcase full of bottle water!

Use bottled water for everything from washing face to brushing teeth and don't drink the shower water if poss!

But on the plus side of it, I lost a dress size and look tanned and healthy now! Just drink loads and you'll be fine! Oh and i don't care what anyone says about ice cubes being made from bottled water - we know and have proof that on the beach, they were made from tap water - OH and while I think, avoid fruit unless peeled...some kind of chemical on the skin which is bad for tummies too.

Dee