“It must be great for you getting to travel round the world to look at demolition jobs”

Whenever I am leaving the UK to go and look at a demolition job abroad someone always says:-

“It must be great for you getting to travel round the world to look at demolition jobs”

and I must admit that it can be really nice, but as with everything, there can be a down side. Mark Anthony of DemolitionNews found this out recently when he “popped over” to Scandinavia for a day and found that it took him 5 days to get back by trains, boats, automobiles, skis and finally a plane. Things do not always go to plan.

With this in mind I decided that I would record details of my trip to Egypt last weekend to show how great a foreign visit can be.

Having completed a long week in the UK I checked into the hotel at Heathrow on Thursday evening to do some paperwork on Friday before the 16.30 flight from terminal 3. My hotel deal was good and included free parking with the instructions to leave the hotel, drive to terminal 3 and park in the long stay car park. I checked out of the Rennaisance Hotel and drove for about 10 minutes to terminal 3 and then followed the signs from the terminal to terminal 3 long stay which looped me round the airport buildings and straight past the front of the Rennaisance and off towards the end of the runway! 20 minutes wasted already.

To get to Alexandria meant a flight to Istanbul and then a connecting flight at 00.30 on the Sunday to Alexandria. The journey started well with a good Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul, a look round duty free and then on to the 00.30 for, I thought, a sleep for 2 hours. How wrong can you be?

When I checked in online I chose an aisle seat right at the back, good for sleeping as I knew from frequent trips to Glasgow with Paul Mayo of Coleman and Company, but when we boarded I was seated with 2 guys from Libya who wanted to tell me how bad Gadafi was and that they had bought “much food” in Istanbul that they were determined to eat their way through on the flight.
Sleep was just a distant memory.

The plane to Alexandria was 30 minutes late in arriving and then it took another 30 minutes to get a visa and have my passport inspected. When you enter Alexandria there are no signs for the man issuing visas so I was told to “wait in line” which I did until it was my turn to be at the front, which lasted for around 20 seconds until I heard the words “no visa” and was sent back towards the arrivals gate and round the corner to a hole on the wall marked “Bank” to buy my visa for 15 US dollars.

Visa in hand I then stood behind other “no visa” passengers for passport control until the guy in front of me decided to stick his visa into his passport when all hell broke loose and he was carted off to another area by security. I decided that I would not stick my visa in myself!

At the passport control it was jobs for the boys as one guy removed the sticky back from the visa whilst a second guy held the passport open at a page. Guy 2 then passed it, with sticker in place to guy 3 who stamped it and passed it back along the line so 1 and 2 could check it and also stamp it. With two passport booths side by side it felt like I was at a syncronised stamping competition.

Stamping over I walked forward 5 paces and was asked for my passport where it was checked again for a visa, even though he could see the visa being stuck into it from his chair!

A driver was waiting to take me to the hotel and he then proceeded to drive his car like Lewis Hamilton on speed along unlit roads swerving around potholes at 70 miles per hour whilst I cowered in the back, without a seat belt, like a hostage. However he did say sorry when my head banged on the roof at one point when he forgot to slow down for one massive change of level in the road, just before we overtook a lorry on the inside and swerved around a Subaru that had hit the wall at the side of the road and was on fire ( no one appeared to be hurt thank goodness).

An hour later he delivered me safely to the hotel past a mosque calling worshippers to prayer at, what was according to my watch, 4.30am after 12 hours travel from Heathrow.

I checked into my room and set the alarm for 7.00am breakfast as I thought the guys left the hotel for work at 8.00am.

I got up at 7.00, after 2 hours sleep, had a shower and went to the breakfast room and the waiter said "Too early Sir it is only 6.15am".

I hadn't realised that my watch went forward 2 hours at Istanbul but then back 1 hour in Egypt! I now know how "Doctor Who" must feel.

So back up to bed and get up for Egypt 7.00am.

No guys in the breakfast room at 7.15 so sent text to my client who said "We start at 9.00 on Saturday - I emailed you last night to tell you" but I had no email till after I had breakfast that morning!

As I was up and down to bed like a bloody Yo-Yo I stayed up and dealt with emails and I didn't have a bloody clue what time it was in Egypt but I knew that it was 07.47 in the UK.

Alexandria is like Tunisia on a bad day. Roads are awful, rubbish everywhere and HOT.

Breakfast was a strange fruit drink that was supposed to be orange mixed with water I think, with nice pastries and funny wheetybangs type cereal and toast. Alongside the toast area was honey, cheese and a liver sausage sliced thinly. Obviously Gordon Ramsey had not been to the hotel recently.

The waiter was very keen to help me and said that I could have a cooked breakfast if I wanted. When I asked what I could have I was offered an omelet or an omelet so thought I was in Gavin & Stacey for a minute!

When I finally got to the job at 10.30, after another hour of travel, everything was looking good with no issues on the audit so I then only had to wait until 21.30 for the transport back to the hotel. Unfortunately the bus driver overslept as it was Ramadan so our 21.30 pick up turned out to be 22.30 getting us back to the hotel, through nose to tail traffic that drove on which ever side of the road they wanted and sat with their hands on the car horns all the time, for 23.30. Too late for food as we had a 9.00 start again the next day so I went to bed.

Next time that I go for a nice trip abroad on a weekend would you all like to come with me?