So here I’m.. Back to our fine home in Eindhoven after spending a lot of time in the hot sun in Egypt! It feels good to be back, I mean they don’t say: “Home sweet home” without a reason!

So let me tell you something about our holiday in El Gouna! This is going to be a very long post, so don’t say I didn’t warn you!

She Said: YES!
Yep.. Jannie said yes to my proposal! So we’re engaged now! She was very surprised when I asked her. If you want to know how I asked her, here’s what I did: On the night of 17th August there was a beautiful full moon in El Gouna. The moon shined on the ocean and it gave the ocean and the beach a very nice and bright look. After our diner I asked Jannie if she wanted to walk with me on the beach. After some minutes she wanted to sit and then I showed her the ring and asked her: “Will you marry me, Honey?” and she answered: “YES!”. Romantic right!? Everything was just perfect about the moment; It was the right time, the right place…

The Flight To Egypt
Our Holiday started when we left our house about 8 o’clock. As our flight took off from Schiphol (Amsterdam) we had to get there first, luckily we already had checked in (online) so we knew that we could sit next to each other. All we had to do was to drop our luggage’s at the airport.
During the flight you could buy sandwiches, drinks and a lot more so we didn’t starve to death!
The flight to Egypt was very long, it took us 6.30 hours (with a stop in Luxor) and it was around 21:30 when we arrived to Hurghada. From there on we had to get to El Gouna, which took another hour by bus! So we were a “bit” tired and we were glad that we had reached our destination!

The Hotel: The Three Corners Ocean View
We had booked a 4 star hotel which should be a very modern and luxury hotel. One of our “demands” was that the hotel room should face the sea OR the swimming pool and guess what… We got a room which didn’t face the sea or the swimming pool, but it did face to a back ally where people put there garbages at! So not exactly what we had in mind but we decided to leave it alone cause we knew that we weren’t going to spend a lot of time in the hotel room.
Another thing which we didn’t like were the beds in the hotel room. Why? They had two one person beds in it. Beds which you just can’t put next to each other cause they had wheels underneath it and they just moved away from each other! Nope, not really romantic indeed!
Everything else in the hotel was OK. The hotel has two large swimming pools. We have had a great time swimming in those pools. It was really nice and a good place to cool off in!

The Food:
As we had read in a brochure which was giving to us by the tour organization, Egypt hasn’t got an own kitchen. The kitchen is actually a mix of Greece, Persian (Iranian), Moroccan and some more countries. When I read this I was a bit happy! I mean I’m born in Iran and I like the food very much and now I could eat Iranian food in Egypt. So I couldn’t wait to see what kind of food they had.

At our first night in El Gouna the hotel restaurant was closed. We arrived about 22:45 and the restaurant closes at 22:00, so we went to search for a nice restaurant and we found a Moroccan restaurant where we had eaten Tajin. Jannie has some Moroccan friends so she had eaten it before but I have never eaten it but I liked it very much!

For the following days we stayed in our hotel and enjoyed the food over there. The food was good and luckily they had Iranian food. Ok the food was slightly different then what Jannie or my mom cooks, but it wasn’t that bad.
Unfortunately Jannie and me got sick from the food, which we still are. Something which the tour organization had warned us about.

The weather:
The tour organization had told us that the temperature is very high but we really should take some jackets and/or sweater with us, because it could get very cold at nights. But it never got cold at nights! During the nights it was as hot as the days so no difference!
Anyway, the sun was pretty hot and Jannie and me got burned from the sun even though we stayed in the shadow all the time!

El Gouna:
Well, El Gouna is a “small” town with a lot of hotels. You can’t get into El Gouna unless you’re a tourist or working in El Gouna. The city is very good protected; As a Egyptian you can’t get into a hotel before you walk through a metal detector and hading over your ID. So you’ll get a very secure feeling over there.

El Gouna is filled with small shops and when you walk pass a shop, the owner of the shop will do EVERYTHING to get you in his shop.
In El Gouna you’ll find a lot of restaurants for each taste: Moroccan, Italian, French, Chinese etc.

The Beach:
Our hotel was located at the beach where you can swim in an area only. There’s was a bigger beach called “See Beach” which belonged to the hotel. To get there you could take a shuttle bus which leaves 4 times a hour. The “funny” thing about this shuttle bus is that it carries more people then the car can handle. For example when we wanted to go to this beach the driver let 15 people get in the car. The car was so overfull that the main door couldn’t close. At this  point you would think that the driver wouldn’t drive that fast, but he did. He drove really fast on a way which wasn’t even asphalted! A bit dangerous? Yep I totally agree!

The sea was a bit low on water. I mean; you could only walk in it, not swim. This was a bit disappointing, so we decided that the pool was a better and nicer option for us.

Mahmeya Island:
During our holiday we had booked a excursion to an island called Mahmeya. Mahmeya Island is a protected bounty island with a white beach and a blue see. This island is really beautiful, we spend a day on this island where you actually could snorkel. We have seen some very nice and beautiful fishes, something which you don’t get to see that often.  So if you get the chance to see this island just do it. The only “bad” thing about this island is that you can’t get there on your own. You have to book a trip and therefor you’re bound to the schedule of the organization, something which we don’t like. We like to decide things like when we want to eat and when we want to leave ourself.

Boat Trip:
We also booked a snorkeling trip. In this trip you go to several snorkeling points in the Red See by boat. This trip we didn’t enjoy that much. During the trip the boat crew had very loud Arabic song on, which made us crazy after a while. Beside that it was very hot on the boot, the boot was overfull so there weren’t enough seats for everybody. Snorkeling wasn’t such a success for Jannie and me. It was our first time and we aren’t experienced enough to snorkel in very deep water for a long time.

Our Flight Back To Amsterdam:
On our last day we had to get out of the room at 12:00 and at 17:30 we should be picked up by a bus which would drive us to the airport. From 12.00 till around 16.00 we spend our time doing our favorite thing; swimming in one of the swimming pools of our hotel!

The Hurghada airport was a very nasty airport. In this airport smoking is not forbidden and therefor when you enter the airport you’ll see that the airport is filled with smoke. Jannie and me have smoked for a couple of years but we both have quite smoking for more then 2 years, so it was really horrible!

Conclusion:
The mentality of the people who worked at the hotel and at some other places was really rude. It seems that they had this “F*ck off, I do whatever I want to do” mentality, I have never experienced something like this.

Egypt is a beautiful country, I mean just look at the picture we’ve taken, but it’s not our favorite place. To tell you the truth we will never go back to Egypt again, but it was certainly an experience we will never forget and off course we got engaged there! So we will remember that forever!

PS: I have taken more pictures. You can find them by visiting the El Gouna Pictures.