Best and Worst

[Nick Pendrell]

For those of you already living in Egypt - what are the best and worst things about living there?

[Malak]

Best things are the people, the weather, the 24hr get anything you want at any time, children can go everywhere, the fresh food. In Cairo, the Shoubra markets, bartering,family.
Worst things are the constant baksheesh (or expected tipping), costs of living are high against the standard salaries, as a women, the constant hassle and not just for forigen women for all.

[alottogive]

i was out there twice last year with 2 different woman, one was touched up by a shop owner and the other one by a taxi driver whilst i was in their prescents.

[Malak]

Unfortunately it happens, but it seems to be getting worse. Depends where you live, but if your in Hurghada it may be more so as its a tourist area, alot of guys come from the Luxor Quena area's to work and are not used to seeing scantly clad girls. Cairo on the other hand has too many people, with too much time on there hands and just hang about. You should have said to them, would they be happy if you man handled their mother/sister/daughter/wife? I bet you would get a totally different reaction

[Nick Pendrell]

It definitely is a problem.

I had a Japanese girlfriend in the mid-nineties (that was the decade by the way, not her age!) who had just finished a two year stint in Cairo and absolutely loathed all the attention she got as it was neverending.

While my sort of current girlfriend was there in October, she ended up getting attemptedly raped and ended up spending the nest day in hospital as she had to fight him to get away.

It was partly her own fault for being so naive and over-friendly and having too much to drink, but even so, women really do have to watch themselves over there.

[alottogive]

the 1st time was in a antique shop with one and the shop person asked if she wanted to look at some things on the 2nd floor he put a necklace around her neck and started rubbing him self up and down her leg saying Cleopatra and sorry lady sorry lady she had to call me to get him to stop


and last November was with a different person and was in a taxi with two people from the hotel was on the roof of hurghada village with the man and the driver got in the back with the two girls saying he was cold putting his hands on her breasts and crutch


i am now thinking of going with my mum next time she is in her 70 and has not had any attention from men for years

[Nick Pendrell]

You're right - it happens all the time.

It was the same in Turkey. My girlfriend was a professional dancer and likes to dance and within seconds she'd have a huge crowd around her. I've never come so close to clocking someone in all my life.

Fortunately at 6' 3", I towered over them all and so they backed off when they saw the look on my face which said that I wasn't going to put up with much more of this.

Which is a good job as I'm a complete softy really and if it had come to a rumble, I'd have ended up getting beaten to a pulp!

Being the jealous type though, I can imagine that this is going to be a constant source of immense irritation to me.

[CMChris]

Is there some sort of phrase that would make these 'brave men' back off? Or is that to much to expect that they would take any notice. 1 thing I would say is that if you do get man handled then kick them in the shins good and hard, dont bother going for the ghoulies as that kick has to be higher and takes longer, by which time they've moved out of reach. If they're behind you just heel them down the front of their shin and as all of you have probably wacked your own shins in the past you'll know how much that hurts. You could follow that up with a knee in the face when they collapse with the pain and voila summary justice

[Nick Pendrell]

I don't think that Egyptian men are intrinsically bad, it's just that they jump to conclusions easily.

To them a friendly returned smile mean 'I want to sleep with you'. I think women just have to be friendly but firm with them straight from the get-go and there won't be any problems.

I certainly don't think that Egypt is a dangerous country. I think that the guys realize that if the police ever got involved, then the local would be the one getting into trouble.

[lyndsay552]

Maybe I can help here. I currently work as a Police Trainer in the UK and one of my areas of speciality is personal safety training (PST) I cover everything from un-armed defence to pepper spray and eventually batons. I will be moving to Hurghada within the next 6 months, so ladies, I may start up an expat self defence class, if there would be a market for it???