An exert from my blog... I found out that if you plan on overnighting in Al 'Alamayn it's best to come prepared with copious amounts of Mosquito repellents!
I came across two security guards at a golf course of all things. I was desperately hot and thirty, so the invitation of some shade and a hot cup of tea were readily taken. Unfortunately they didn’t speak any English. It seemed they hadn’t heard of a place called El-Alamin, and they couldn’t decipher my drawings of a tombstone. After what was starting to become quite frustrating they eventually realised where I wanted to go. I had been dropped off a fair way from where I wanted to be. So, after more waiting Mardi, one of the two guards, offered to take me on a bus there. 10 minutes later I was in the town apparently. I asked to be taken to the only hotel that was recommended in the guidebook. Well apparently that had been shut for a while, it was there, and there was someone sitting in the food stand underneath it, but he wasn’t really friendly or interested in telling me where else I could go. After a couple of minutes, I said to Mardi that I would be fine looking on my own. So just down the road I found a place, it cost £100! It seemed however that their claims to be the only hotel in town were true, so I really had no choice. I entered what I thought was not a bad room (for my standards)
I spent a good few hours roaming round the cemetery taking photos and just absorbing the atmosphere. It was quite strange seeing an immaculately maintained war cemetery in the middle of a dusty almost frontier like town. I saw a few tourists past by, they were on a day trip from Alex most likely, so they (wisely) didn’t hang around long. With the sunset all but over I headed back to my room to pass the night away. Or so I thought.
The two guards came round, very excited to see me and offering to take me to their homes for a cola or tea, I declined saying I was tired. They really were a cute couple. Again, they had a most boring and meaningless job, but seemed so happy and content. I said my goodbyes to them and decided to call it a night. Well that was before I discovered that the room was mosquito invested. I have never been in a room so annoyingly filled with these annoying bugs buzzing around my ears, biting your skin - pests. I honestly spent almost the whole night continuously trying to swat them all and think of new ways to get rid of them. Turning the light on didn’t work, that just made them worse, getting under the blankets didn’t work. It was stinking hot as well, so I couldn’t maintain hiding under there for long. In the end I found a very noisy fan that I had to balance preciously for it to work. That subdued them a bit.
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