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Sadly, absolutely nothing and no one in Egypt can be trusted. It is even worse that the former Soviet Bloc where I grew up, and where you always had to divide your expectations of competence, functionality, compliance etc. by, say, three. (Nowadays, two.)

This story is still better than it could be - I would expect the life rafts to be completely unmaintained and to sink immediately. Perhaps they were sturdy enough to survive years of neglect.

You can expect that the investigation will be an exercise in bureaucratic hush-up, too. If losing face is worse than death, death is the preferred outcome. Especially if it is someone else's death.

The Red Sea is beautiful, but caveat emptor. Ironically, Saudi Arabia may outcompete Egypt soon when it comes to seaside tourism. Saudis are a lot more competent when it comes to providing Western levels of service, and the current prince is ditching Islamic limitations real fast.






Saudis are a lot more competent when it comes to providing Western levels of service, and the current prince is ditching Islamic limitations real fast.

Only because they mostly don't do the work themselves ;)


True, a lot is done by foreigners; but even organizing someone else to provide reliable service to you is a nontrivial competence.

Plenty of rich places work like that. Already ancient Athens had their metoics.




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