How's this for a "Travel Advisory?"

[onager]

I'm currently working in Egypt, and often receive these cheery little items from the State Department. The latest report on Egypt is pretty grim overall, but this bit is just icing on the cake.

In addition, travelers should be aware that land mines have caused many casualties, including deaths of Americans, in Egypt.

All travelers should check with local authorities before embarking on off-road travel. Known minefields are not reliably marked by signs, but are sometimes enclosed by barbed wire. After heavy rains, which can cause flooding and the consequent shifting of land mines, travelers should take care driving through build-ups of sand on roadways.

Though mines are found in other parts of Egypt, the highest concentrations are in World War II battlefields along the Mediterranean coast west of Alexandria, the Eastern Desert between Cairo and the Suez Canal, and much of the Sinai Peninsula. Travelers are urged to be especially prudent in these areas.

They ain't kidding, either. I stay in Alexandria, and the El Alamein battlefield is only about 100 km away. The local press has run several stories in the past year about people getting hurt or killed with live explosives that are still lying around.

And those minefields in the Sinai? According to the authorities here, they furnish the explosives used in some of the terrorist bombings Egypt has suffered over the past year.


http://www.travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1108.html

[babylonsister]

1. You're still there? When are you due to leave? Stay safe! nt

[MadHound]

2. Stay safe, but enjoy Egypt while you're there

It's a wonderful place to explore, all of the ancient historical sites.

And sadly, Egypt isn't the only country that is suffering from leftover landmines and unexploded ordinance. I was just watching a program on Laos the other evening, talking about how a hundred plus people a year or either killed or wounded from unexploded ordinace that America rained down in the sixties and seventies. Tragic, how many countries that are suffering from this.

[bikebloke]

3. Plenty of land mines in Israel, too.

When I was working in the Negev desert, we were surrounded by mines. Part of it was due to inadvertant mine laying by nature. The mines were made out of plastic to avoid detection. So they had a big rain storm, with mines floating everywhere.

For a few months, while working on our far, far fields, I would walk over to a cluster of brush to irrigate, so to speak. One day the army came along and fenced the area off with danger signs abound. I guess I'm lucky I wasn't blowd to pizzas.

[onager]

4. Thanks, y'all!

:hi:

I'll stay safe. The insane traffic is more likely to kill me than anything else.

Babylon: yes, still here. I'm on "indefinite short-term assignment," I think it's called. Translation: I don't know when I'm going home.

Alexandria is a great place to go poking around, which I will do tomorrow (Friday and Saturday are my weekend, sometimes.) I've been here quite a few months, but it seems like there's always more stuff to see. And places like the Graeco-Roman Museum deserve more than one visit.

I even ride the trams and pretend I'm E.M. Forster! (Or Lawrence Durrell.)

Working in the Negev Desert seems a lot more dangerous than my assignment. (I'm a Field Engineer in the aerospace biz, for the curious.)