dahab

Everyone's always amazed I haven't been to Dahab, despite being here for 10 months now. It's one of the most popular destinations in Egypt — beautiful Red Sea waters without the tourist traffic of Sharm. So for my long weekend in July, me and two colleagues decided to catch the bus down finally. It was also my first time in the Sinai, which by the way, I discovered has some incredibe landscape — the entire peninsula is just all huge, rugged mountains, lord knows how the Israelis waged a war here.

The bus down was a little grueling. Scratch that, it was a MIND-PUCK. I think we must've been the local bus service for the entire western coastline of the Sinai — we kept stopping to pick up randoms off the road, and halfway through, our bus was up to its neck with people everywhere, people standing, people leaning into me trying to hold on for dear life. And annoyingly, instead of taking the shortcut straight to Taba and then down to Dahab, the bus went to Sharm first. By the time we got to Sharm, we were just tired of the whole thing. We got off and tried to hail a taxi at the bus station. We finally bargained down a ride for 150 LE to Dahab, which wasn't too bad, considering its an hour and a half ride, and if we had to get back on that bus we'd have to kill ourselves.

So we got into the taxi. About ten minutes down the road, we get to a checkpoint, and the guards tell us this taxi isn't allowed to go beyond that point as it didn't have a permit. For a few minutes, we were just like, what do you mean? How can a TAXI not be allowed to go from Sharm to Dahab? And whaddya know, that demonic bus of ours was very patiently waiting by the checkpoint. Suspicious right? Pissed off, we got out of the taxi, got our bags out of the trunk and proceeded towards the bus when the taxi driver asks us for 20 pounds. Are you joking? You give us a 10minute ride, you dont even take us to our destination, and then you ask for money? We ignored him and got on the bus, but then what happened totally convinced us this was a big conspiracy from bus-to-taxi-people-down. The GUARDS got on the bus and started harrassing us for this 20 LE — when we refused, they asked for one of our passports and promptly got off the bus with it. Eventually, we had to give the money to get the passport back. Bastards.

Despite the bad start, the rest of the trip was pretty awesome. We got a room in Octopus for 40 LE a night. I finally snorkelled in the Blue Hole and Lighthouse Reef, ate at the legendary indian restaurant, Nirvana, which by the way to my ecstatic delight, had the most amazing luchis (poori). That just MADE my entire weekend.

Dahab is all about chilling. The corniche is lined with breezy little outdoor cafes with cushions on the floor to laze about on. You sit with your back to one, cold drink in one hand and stare out at the Red Sea, and Saudi Arabia, which is clearly visible from Dahab. It's interesting, at night, when you stare out at Saudi Arabia, all you see from their coast is one tiny light blinkering out at you. Clearly, the Saudi's are not big on banking on the commercial opportunities a Red Sea coast can provide for a country.....I also realised that this part of the Red Sea is where Moses split it! You know the story, he splits the Red Sea and walks down to the other side with his people, and once they're safe, he releases the water, killing the Pharaoh who was coming after him. How awesome that it was probably here. Or to even imagine it being here. :P

Anyway, the entire trip mainly consisted of lots of sleeping, snorkelling and searching for the coldest drink in Dahab. For a hot, summer destination, this place has a serious lack of ice-smoothies. Everytime i ordered a juice or an ice coffee, they'd come out barely cold. Where are the ice-blenders people?! Food was generally mediocre, except for our dinners at Seabride (amazing seabass) and Nirvana. I was also reading the new Harry Potter book on this trip, albeit the pirated internet version, which was awesome until i ran out of pages to read (I only printed out half the book). Bugger.

Watching Saudi Arabia from Dahab. The moon lights up the Red Sea in this incredible way, the light reflecting off the water lights up the entire coast.

Sitting on one of Dahab's 'taxis' i.e a small pickup truck which you hop onto from the back.

One of Dahab's many cushioned restaurants. The ultimate lazy holiday. I can't remember the number of times we fell asleep sitting on these cushions.

A memorial has been erected at the Blue Hole dive site for the many divers who have died doing dangerous things down there. This is the tomb of a guy whom my ex-housemate Alicia know. Apparently, he was an amazing diver, but clearly even the best diver is no match for the sea and its dangerous depths.