Just got back from Hurgadha on the Red Sea, Egypt is a great place to visit and a fantastic experience the locals are really friendly and welcoming, our hotel was in Hurgardha which is a busy vibrant town with loads of shops bars and clubs that keep going all night.
WE had planned to go to the valley of the kings at Luxor but decided against it as I would rather go back in to Egypt and spend a week in Luxor to do the Valley of the Kings and Queens and the Karnak Temple, we did a few local tours that we booked through a local travel shop these was less than half price of the holiday company especially if you haggle, haggling is a way of life going shopping and booking taxis all take a bit of time.
Traveling around Egypt is safe as security is taken seriously there are army checkpoints around the town and these guys are seriously armed, tourist coach trips to Luxor and Cairo are taken in convoy by army escort, and around the town there are tourist police and one on the door of every hotel with a metal detector which went of every time we went through it, the cop just laughed and waved us through, Egyptians don't get into the hotels without a good reason and they get the full search.
Egypt is a poor country and capitalism is at it's worst, the workers are paid around £30 a month and rely on tips as they have to pay for everything a visit to the Doctors cost £50, there are a lot of Russians as it is cheap for them to travel from what we saw of them we was not impressed with there behavior and neither are the locals.
We have made many friends and plan to go back in a couple of years and on the way out picked up a few bottles of Havana Club Anejo Blanco at $10 a litre at the Airport when we were leaving.
