The resort we visited was Taba, quite possibly the strangest place I have ever visited. It's difficult to determine whether it really is a place at all. Or merely just a collection of hotels. And a disparate collection, at that. In Taba Heights were three; we stayed at the the Radisson Taba Paradise Resort, about twenty minutes from Taba borders, which comprises mainly the Hilton, which is currently closed, as a result of being bombed for Succoth. Oh, and the small matter of a border crossing. Not just any border crossing, but one from an Arab Republic to Israel, and one that is more than a mere international boundary, marking the divide between Africa and Asia.
Despite Camp David, which returned Sinai to Egypt, Taba remained under dispute. It only began to be developed after the Sharm El Sheikh peace talks in 1999. I dare say in ten years it will be entirely unrecognisable.
The airport is undoubtedly the smallest and most boring I have ever been to. That's nice on arrival because the bags are already unloaded once you've been through a painless immigration process. Not so much fun on departure when you realise that the only smoking area is groundside of passport control and the second metal detector, and you find this out after you have passed through an hour before scheduled take-off. It's only when you retire to the loos and find a whole crowd smoking there that you realise that the flight has been delayed two hours. The only food is crisps and chocolate, the only drink water, fizzy pop, Nescafe, or tea with powdered milk, and the only shopping is tat. Such is life!
The Hilton at Taba Borders was bombed in October, and security is very tight. We left the airport in a convoy of buses with police escort. As we passed through the mountains on the open road all the lights on the coach were dimmed - to deter snipers, I suppose. There was a checkpoint at the major junction where passports were subject to examination. The Tourist Police (cushy number, if you ask me...) are well in evidence and, in places, so are the UN Peacekeepers, MFO. Every time we walked into hotel reception we went through a metal detector. Each time a coach or minibus entered the compound, its undercarriage was examined with a mirror on wheels. I suspect that much of this was for reassurance, show, PR, rather than as an effective remedy to an actual threat.
Our hotel, the SAS Radisson Taba Paradise Resort was most fine. Supposedly five star. I think more African five star than European/American/Middle Eastern business centre. It was absolutely scrupulously clean, and the food was more than adequate. Indeed, in some respects it was very good. We went all-inclusive, which kind of goes against our instincts, but actually it only cost £30 more each than halfboard at the nearby Hyatt. That more than covers the price of water, coffee and lunch, let alone local alcohol, which is actually not very cheap.
Part of the problem with All-Inclusive is that it attracts the type of person, or induces the mentality in others, who are determined to get the full whack and will not shift from the place. But we knew that. We went away for R&R, we booked at the last minute, and there you go. Our room was plenty large enough, with sufficient storage space, plenty of cat-swinging room, a separate area to sit, and a sheltered balcony looking out over the garden and the Gulf of Aqaba to Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Although the main bar was small, there were plenty of places to sit in the lobby and lounge, and on the less cold evenings, outside. During the day, we lay on the private beach attached to the hotel, but whilst many gathered round the pool, plenty more found relative solitude on loungers in the amphitheatre or dotted round the garden.
