Sharm El Sheik

To get to Sharm El Sheik, or better know as 'Sharm' by the locals, we took a quick flight from Cairo.  It was a one hour flight that got us to Sharm and it was a 20 minute ride to the hotel.  We arrived on Christmas Eve so after we checked in we got ready for the Christmas Dinner.

Christmas Day we started off with traditional festivities, the kids opened presents.  Jig took the lead and got a bit of goodies for the kids and some stockings and we packed them up with a bunch of little things.  We did not want to get too much b/c we would have to lug it around with us.  Mira and Milan got the Zhou-Zhou pet hamsters.  I had never heard of them before, but apparently, they are the big thing back home.

After Christmas Morning, we decided to venture off 4-wheeling in the dessert.  OK, not quite as adventurous as it sounds, since we were in a group and not able to really 'let-loose'.  Milan was the lucky one to ride with me.  Whenever I would speed up, he would get scared and tell me to slow down!!  It was cute!!  We were all bundled up to keep the sand from creeping into ever crevice of our body, surprisingly, we were still so dusty when we were done.  We had to clean our selves with a 2-step process.  First the pool, then the shower!!

The next day started off with a little snorkeling off the beach from the hotel.  It was very nice.....  Then we took a boat ride into the Red Sea, the boat had windows below the water.  They called it a 'submarine ride', however the boat never went under water.  It was a bit misleading...  The view was nice, the fishes and the reef were really pretty.

The last day (Dec 27), we took off for the next stop in the journey to Istanbul.  This was a flight back to Cairo, a lay over, and then a flight to Istanbul, it basically took the whole day in traveling.

To sum it up, Sharm was great.  A nice relaxing break in the middle of the trip.  Some people say that Sharm is better than Maldives wrt to the reef and the fishes, however, I think Maldives is much better.  But, don't just take my word for it...  go experience both and tell me what you think!  : )