Haig and Kar's Tourism Rant

Yes, I know. We just posted an update but since the Internet is super fast here, we figured we would share with you some of our philosophical thoughts. As you all know, Haig and I try to be responsible tourists. This includes making sure our activities don't have adverse impacts on the environment or the locals. We also make sure that our money goes to directly benefit the locals. The latter has been really hard to do on the Sinai peninsula. We spent 3 hours in Sharm el-Sheikh trying to find an Egyptian run dive shop without any luck. We finally had to get a tour set up by the owner of an equipment rental shop who knew an Egyptian dive master. All the shops were owned by Europeans and even the prices were in Euros! The sad thing was, most of them didn't even hire Egyptians to help run the shop! In Dahab we had to go through a shop that was run by westerners but at least all their staff were Egyptian. Talking to some locals, you can tell they resent the Europeans and one of them made a comment that they come, earn some money, and just leave. This has a major effect on the local economy. For one, it drives up the prices. This is also true for big hotels like the Hilton etc coming in and all the fancy restaurants. Most of the locals can't even afford to live in the tourist towns anymore. That's why we stayed at the very nice Bedouin Lodge Hotel right on the waterfront for $7 a night and actually ate at Egyptian restaurants :) Anyways, just thought we would share our perspective.

On a lighter note, since we ran out of chocolate to bet and can't play poker or black jack anymore, we are stuck playing 11 and speed. We are getting bored and would greatly appreciate any card game suggestions you have. Please explain the rules because apparently, our minds are on vacation too and we can't remember any of the rules for any of the games we know.

Ma Salama (bye in Arabic)