Hurghada and worms

Yes, it’s a bright, neon, Russian infested tourist resort town.

No, it doesn’t feel like you're in Egypt anymore, it feels more like you’re in Moscow in year 2098 and global warming has warped the climate completely. People are dressed like they’re from a bad 80s flick, and there are more white faces than brown. It’s refreshing in a depressing way, after all that pent up frustration from life in comparatively super-conservative Cairo.

We find an ‘apartment’, for 100 LE a night, for four of us. Now, if that sounds dodgy to you, and has you thinking, “Hmm, that can’t be right…” — you’re right, it wasn’t. I express my doubts on the apartment upon entering — the bathroom has some 5 year old faeces swimming in the bowl, and the sheets don’t look washed — but seeing as how all my friends are pretty broke, I decide not to make too much of a fuss. We notice some tiny red wormy looking things in the bathtub, but we figure they crawled out of the drain, and hey, we’re soldiers.

The next day, after going diving all day (more on that later), I get in the shower to wash my hair. I do what I always do, I flip my hair down, place my head below the tap and let the water soak my strands.

Suddenly, I notice a little red worm on my hand. And like a really bad, slow-motion horror film, I swivel my head to look at the floor of the bathtub — and it has like a 100 little red worms all over it. Worms that were not there before I turned the water on.

All hell breaks lose. I start hyperventilating, and my mate has to come into the bathroom, and only after getting me to calm down to the point where my screams become an occasional whimper and shudder, proceeds to pick each and every worm out of my hair, one by one. Every time one drops onto my skin, I go crazy and have to be calmed down all over again.

All clean and worm-free, I get out of the bathroom and give my friends the dirtiest, nastiest look possible and go into my room. That's it, I am getting out of this shit-hole and getting a hotel for the night. Somehow they convince me not to, of course, and for the rest of the 1.5 days we are there, I buy bottled mineral water for everything: showering, brushing my teeth, number ones, twos, everything.

Next time, I am not going cheap. Next time, if I can’t afford to get a decent hotel, I’m not bloody going. I don’t care if you think I’m being a princess, you can bloody go stick those little red worms up your arse and we’ll see how you feel!

Ok fine, it's kinda funny when you look back on it afterwards.