A Day Out in Dahab

One hundred years ago, when Western tourists began flocking to Egypt's ancient Pharaonic sites (an 1898 postcard referred to Cairo as "a winter suburb of London"), the Sinai was a draw only for devout Christians making the dangerous pilgrimage to Mount Sinai. When a British army officer named R.A. Bagnold became the first person to drive a car to the tip of the Sinai in 1927, he reported that the place featured little more than empty desert and a few wandering Bedouin.

To a large extent, the Sinai remained that way for the next 40 years. Now Sharm el-Sheikh has transformed into a full-fledged resort town, complete with golf courses, casinos and discos. And the beach evolution for Dahab found its identity as the laid-back anti-resort. Just 50 miles to the north of Sharm, this sleepy, inexpensive town is an alternative to Sharm el-Sheikh.

Assalah, the town centre, still retains its Bedouin character, even as tourist guest houses and dive shops crowd both its southern and northern boundaries. Camels here are still tethered to rough cinderblock homes, goats still wander the streets and naked Bedouin children still frolic in the deep-blue gulf waters. The landscape is very striking and severe: Dry desert basins, jagged brown mountains, long black shadows.

Conservationists declared the waters around the Sinai to be one of the "Seven Underwater Wonders of the World," and scores of divers make their way north to Dahab's reefs. As the Middle Eastern backpacker circuit grows in popularity, the Sinai has also become an overland way station between Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Syria. Laid-back Dahab is where weary travellers can put aside their itineraries for a few hours, days, weeks and chill out.