Dahab - Sun, sand, sea

The air is debilitating dry and when the hot desert wind blows, you feel particles of moisture being carried away from your skin, and a coating of thin light dust seem to always shroud and crust your entire body. It hasn’t rained for three years.

I am in Egypt for five weeks – first of all to cheer Kathryn on for the Triple Deep Freediving competition (for those of you that remember my last encounter with Kathryn’s sport in Slovenia) do a bit of tripping around Egypt, and hopefully I will do a refresher on my Open Water scuba license and do a few dives at the end of September.

I’m staying with Kathryn in her apartment she got there on and off during my time in Egypt, my rent for the month is a whopping 40 Great Britain Pounds. We share this with an English girl from North Hampton and a Finnish girl (but she only speaks Swedish) from Aland Island (which I know because we sailed past there a couple of weeks ago!!) To get to my base for the next four weeks - Round the corner from the main road, turning left from the pharmacy, at the ugly spray painting and the pile of rubbish turn left, walk past the spacious but dull empty looking one story dwellings, you will find the pink repetitive arch shaped wall, turn left again till you reach the ultimate land mark – a giant dried fish head in the middle of the street, about two steps away from an almost disintegrated carcass of an ill fated goat. Turn left again here and it’s the newly painted white wall, open the already rusted gate, you will find a brand new (though it doesn’t look it) apartment building housing a bunch of foreigners. Fridge full of bottled water, western style seated toilet, aircon in the main room and running fan in the others, canned food, wet-wipes, hippy deck out, and laptop equipment everywhere. It does remind me a little bit of the bizarre expat lifestyle in Bangladesh, this kinda jade pagoda kind of existence, everything a little makeshift, but nevertheless however much of the ‘first world’ one can try and implant into middle-of-no where, ie. the real world out there. Your meager income at home suddenly gives you the power to live like a queen, as you battle through local bureaucracy, and start planning where you will get your next beer.

Dahab is wedged between a magnificent mountain range and pristine coral ocean, the town is a small beach holiday town where its pretty much entirely dependant on tourism, mainly attracting the hippy backpackers and independent divers looking for a bit of peace and quiet, more or less a sanctuary away from the large scale resort towns of Sharm El Shiek or Hurgharda (package tourist towns on the Red Sea that shows absolutely no hint of its ancient civilization, just a modern catastrophe of an over-development of sterile environmentally-destructive resorts full of beer-bellied European tourists looking for their next holiday fling in casinos drenched in cheap beer and perfume). Dahab started life as a Bedouin settlement, and only grew to the size of today because of the popularity of the coral reefs and the Blue Hole – a big 90 meter drop in the ocean that attracts freedivers world over to test their strength and endurance. The atmosphere here is relaxed, chilled, and while still commercial to an extent, everything is small scale and slow paced. The locals are always keen to make a good buck out of the visitors, but nothing like the pushy Thais or Moroccans that I’ve encountered, and they are so used to tourists of every colour and creed (even tolerating bikini clad tourists in the main stretch) that I am rather immuned so far from being starred at or being yelled “Japan! Japan!” at.

The living standards and economic welfare of this town seems very good compared to a lot of other developing communities I’ve traveled to. While the buildings look very makeshift and as if they are made out of cardboard boxes, but nevertheless uncrowded and well-kept, and the rubbish situation a little concerning, but there is very little sign of extreme poverty. I am not sure if being here during the middle of Ramadan has something to do with it, it would be interesting to see whether this changes later on. I have seen absolutely no homeless people or beggars, the kids all look pretty well-looked after, and there is a very happy and content vibe amongst the locals. The gender divide is a little bit more wider than I originally thought, it could be because this is such a remote and isolated town, conservatism seem to maintain as the norm. Women are of course clad in their burkas, and don’t generally venture out more than 500m from their door. I thought they would at least be a little bit more visible on the streets even if they don’t ‘formally’ work on the shop fronts etc, but the only time we see women are after sunset (and this again, could be the affect of Ramadan) where they hover around their front doors in the dark with their young children and exchange a few words of gossip with the neighbours. They are very friendly to me, probably because I operate more or less alone and without any male companions, they will converse with me in Arabic and let me touch their babies and say hello to their younger children.

Its interesting observing Ramadan in full swing. As I described before, the temperature in the middle of the desert is unbearably hot, even in September. Without a drop of water from sunrise to sunset, the locals mope around lethargically in the heat. The streets are bare and empty during the day, almost resembling a ghost town, except for the herds of goats without minders that rummage through the rubbish that clogs every corner. Unfortunately, by the esplanade’s beach café area, the locals still have to work for the tourists that eat and drink normally during the day, I can see how tiring it is, and how tormenting it is to be around water and food all day. ‘Breakfast time’ at sunset is quite amusing to watch. Kat and I were talking to Massage-Mo (ie. the Mohammad that runs the massage-beauty clinic) just before sunset on the strand, he had his cigarette already clutched in his sweaty hands ready to be lit up as soon as the call from the Mosque breaks out. As soon as the prayer rang out, men would emerge from the shops carrying trays of drinks (milky smoothy type stuff) and cartons of water, and offer it all round, even to us. The men would guzzle them down like drain pipes, and then settle down in circles on tables or on the ground where pre-prepared food would be unwrapped and wolfed down in minutes. Then more food would come out in platters, and then they settle down for cigarettes and shisha. The town becomes a lot more livelier in the evening, but not by much. The touts do become just slightly more boisterous, as the paper lanterns and fairy lights glisten in the bay. Little girl on inline skates rolling about giggling on the esplanade and young men play hand-bat tennis. Beach town lifestyle; roll on the days.