Taken From The Autobiography of a Head
In 2002, Lesley and I thought we could maybe get a cheap holiday in Luxor. There was a notice for one in a travel agent’s window in Norwich, so we went in to ask about it. Unfortunately they had sold out, but they offered us a cheap holiday in Hammamet in Tunisia, flight and accommodation in a three star hotel. We booked it.
A few weeks later we were standing in the immigration passport queue at the airport. I heard a voice behind us saying “Alun!”.
I turned around and saw my old mate Tommy and his wife Georgie, whom I had not seen for probably twenty years, even though we lived in the same city. It turned out that they had been in the same travel agents and bought the same holiday probably an hour after us! They were in a different hotel but we did meet up on a couple of trips, one to an evening of food and belly dancing and another for along bus ride to a show, a meal and half an hour in a casino.
The casino trip was strange. First there was show with a juggler, a magician and a Robbie Williams lookalike, followed by a chicken and chips meal, then ten pounds each free chips for the casino (not bad considering the whole evening was just fifteen pounds each). They told us that we could only stay there for half an hour so we did not have to risk losing too much money.
We went in to the bright, glittery place and were given tokens for the bandit machines. I rapidly lost all of mine. Lesley won quite a few tokens. She changed her tokens for chips to try roulette. She immediately put one chip on a number and lost it. I said try betting on a block or odds and evens, or black and red. No, she put another chip on another number. Now she only had one chip left. She put it on a colour and won. Then she put the now two chips on the same colour and lost.
So that was that. Then we found out that the chips were two at twenty pounds each and one at ten!
When we were back on the bus, the tour guide asked if anyone had won. One chap at the back of the bus said yes, he and his wife had won ten pounds each. They had taken the tokens and cashed them in. They had not played anything.
One day when we woke up, Lesley’s arm was black and blue. It looked really bad, so I called for a doctor.
The doctor said she would have to go into hospital in case she was damaged inside her body. So they took her off in an ambulance. She was kept in overnight and they did X-rays. Holiday insurance covered the cost. I went a couple of times by taxi, the next day, then she was back in the hotel.
There was some English girls there and they asked if she was OK. I said yes but they did X-rays in case she was damaged inside, but I had wondered why. They said that they thought the doctor may have thought I’d beaten her, which was, they said, normal in Tunisia and not a crime!
One day, whilst sitting round the hotel swimming pool, we met a lady who chatted to us and asked Lesley if I had hit her. She said no and the lady said that I did not look that type. She told us she was there after a month in Egypt and was about to go on a cruise. A week after we were back in Norwich we happened to see her on TV in a programme about lottery winners.
Hammemet was out of season so not many tourists about, so when we went to the tourist Medina, all the salesmen wanted to sell us something. It was not actually a pleasant experience at all.
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