I'm back.

LOL a good class of tourist writes back from foreign climes about how good the American international chain fast food junk outlets are :)

I remember asking a bloke who'd just come back from Tasmania what it was like. The response "It was alright, had a McDonalds and a KFC"

Question is, why would you want to?

Because while I'm not a fussy eater and have a cast iron constitution, some people had trouble finding something liked that was hot enough to eat on the all inclusive buffet.

Plus, the standards of the fast food joints over there was far superior to the s**te we get here. Even if the product itself was the same generic crap, the "food" was actually reasonably presented, instead of being slammed together by a bored teenager, and the meals were actually bigger as well as looking better, and cheaper than here.

I ate in the hotel buffet restaurant each night, but I'm not a fussy=20 eater. My one concern was while it was tasty, but had some unorthadox=20 combinations, it wasn't hot enough. The trays were on heated tiles,=20 under heated lights and were bubbling away, and the plates were warmed,=20 but as soon as you served yourself, it was only just warm.

I was fine until the last day when I got the rampant squits, and felt=20 sweaty and clammy the night before. So probably something I ate. It even=20 put me off the paint stripper "local" Fineland and Vat Landia Egyptian=20 Vodka.

I think if I had gone for two weeks, I would have hit the take-aways=20 too. They were 10-15 minutes walk. A taxi seemed to very between the=20 "Don't pay more the 25 egyptian" as quoted on the travel website to at=20 least 60 egyptian after haggling for a one way journey. Centre of Naama=20 Bay was about 1 hours walk at least (I walked for 45 minutes in the=20 right direction to get to a Vodafone shop for a local PAYG sim and was=20 nowhere near the town).

So 120 egyptian for a return taxi, roughly 300 egyptian for a half=20 decent restaurant, add in about 200 egyptian for some beers and if you=20 ended up in the hubble bubble bar afterwards. Not a cheap night out for=20 what I was told was a cheap country.

I got 800 egyptian for =A3100 before I left, but it was about 9 to 1GBP in= =20 resort. But you either paid commission in the hotel exchange machine=20 (never been to a hotel that didn't do exchange over the reception desk=20 or had a real exchange counter in house before), or again paid for a=20 taxi into the centre to find a bank, which was more than the commission.

--=20 Carl Robson Get cashback on your purchases Topcashback

So, the food is still shit, just cheaper, more of it and looks a little nicer?

I think my question still stands :-)

I once ended up in a McDs in Sao Paulo airport, simply because I had a

3 hour wait and there was nothing else open so late. I was amazed that a big Mac there actually appeared to really be made of meat!

That's cos we are too British and don't like to complain. We'll just put up with it, then bitch to our mates later ;-)

Mike P

A very good question. Even the ropiest of fast food joints I ate from on the road from Porto Alegre to Sao Paulo years ago, which were full of drugged up Brazilian truckers had food far better, and far cheaper than McDs. They don't even have KFC over there...

Mike P

That is only the same difference as shopping at M&S/Waitrose and Tescos though. Except you don't get cheaper and looks better in the same option.

I never tried it, so I can't say if it was the same crap, It looked a well presented burger, with a large portion of fries. I said even if it was the same generic crap. It may have been much better, the people who ate there certainly enjoyed it better than the home ones. I just saw that it looked better when they opened their substantially larger burger boxes and actually got something that looked like the promotional posters even after being bounced arround on the back of the delivery moped.

Ah yeah but Sharm isn't Egypt, it's somewhere to go and get some sun and sand but nothing more. Bit like Northern Goa in that respect (ie rip off tourists to the max but you're promised the "culture" is out there somewhere) but a much shorter flight and you don't have to get a visa in advance.

I only went for the sun, but the prices were so much more than I expected, even by tourist standard though it was pricey.

I had planned to do a couple of evenings in the bars, seems to have shot up during the last year. Some of the popular bars were charging close to scandinavian prices. In the end, decided to drink the hotel AI, because I knew one night out would blow all I taken in egyption if I went for it, then I would be looking at either credit carding, or debit carding more forex and getting stung either way.

Did get mugged by a shop keeper for 450egyptian for an oil burner and two bottle of scented oils as a gift, until I showed them to one of the other guests, but she said that last time she haggled for that type of stuff if cost her 390 egyptian just for one bottle of oil that size so I had done well. He started at 900egyptian based on him tapping random numbers into his calculator, and as he had his assistant lock the door after I went in, I was pretty screwed what ever happened, and it was going to cost me. I've faced pushy sellers in Turkey and Morocco, sometimes having to get quite verbally forceful to get through the door to get out, but it is first time I've heard a door lock behind me and the key get taken out.

Just remind me, who the f*ck are you?

Result then, other than the cars...

KFC doing delivery? I'd have had a heart attack by now if they did that over here lol

KFC were running this advert on Dubai one (english and Arabic versions of the same add).

Haven't been to a KFC for years. Do we have these yet?

Nope. Is that an advert for quality ford suspension?

I've eaten McDonalds in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Australia and Fiji. I'm not sure I ate for the entire time we were in Malaysia and we had Wendy's in the USA.

(c:

I ate in a Wendies in London, at the time the Homefries were fantastic.

Mmmm Wendy's. I had one of their triple-deck squareburger things when I left Daytona at about 12:30am. Calorie overload...

I had a smoked turkey leg in Daytona while watching the NASCAR, wearing a NASCAR pit shirt and cap. I felt like a redneck until I saw a guy with a mullet, topless, couple of front teeth missing and he was draped in a Rebel flag. *that* was a redneck lol

Foot long KFC? Probably banned under some European health ruling :D