I left my heart in Dahab – with the Bedouin lounges and the Red Sea
After 3 months of marathon traveling, we landed in Dahab, a laid back little beachtown right on the Egyptian shores of the Red Sea known for the spectacular dive sites and a great place to kick-back and recharge you batteries, which is exactly what we did for a week.
One of the characters in a book that I read recently pondered incessantly about how he always rushes through whatever he’s doing at the moment only to be able to move onto the next thing – frankly, this notion feels pretty familiar for myself and I imagine for many of us when we get caught up in the ‘everyday’.
For our last 3 months, we’ve been traveling at a pretty fast pace and have had the lot of different travel companions too. We’ve hit 9 countries in 12 weeks during which we spent 2 weeks with my parents to see 2 of those countries, met up and traveled with friends in 2 others, spent 2 weeks with my relatives, AND we haven’t stayed in one city for more than 4 nights at one time (if you exclude Taiwan, which was with family)….all in all, its been incredible, but until we arrived in Dahab, we didn’t realize how exhausted we were.
Looking back on the last 3 months, that feeling of rushing through the present only to move onto the next thing, that the character in the book ponders, feels a little familiar once again. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade the last 3 months in for the world and wouldn’t have done it any differently. But I think the lesson that we will take from it moving forward is to take a little more time to “sit back and smell the coffee”, as opposed to “getting-it-to-go”, if you will 😉
We arrived in Dahab and checked into the Auski Camp, a little beach-side compound in the middle of town, which earned bonus points for: being super cheap ($3.50/night), having a little collection of used books for swapping, a gang of friendly cats who were affection-nuts, and having it’s own Bedouin lounge right on the water. Bedouin lounges are essentially little sitting areas made up of lots of cushions around a low coffee table, all on top of heavy colorful carpets thrown down on the sand or floor. We’ve found them most everwhere we’ve been in Egypt (and I expect we will in much of the Middle East) and they were EVERYWHERE in Dahab as every restaurant and cafe had one. During the day, they are great places to chill out with a book and have a cup of tea or smoke a sheeshah/hookah/water pipe (whatever you want to call it) by the sea. Usually at night, there’s great low lighting from lanterns or candles at night which add to the ambiance. We made much use of these, catching up on reading and writing and just relaxing. One of the restaurant/bars in town played a pretty good selection of popular (and pretty recent) movies outdoors on a huge projection screen every night and, to Anthony’s delight, televised all major international soccer matches. We were thrilled to find out there were going to show “The Davinci Code ‘w/Tom Hanks'” one night, so we, along with half of the other tourists in town excitedly and anxiously packed into the outdoor viewing area (after all, with pirating these days it wouldn’t be the craziest thing for them to get their hands on it before it came out in the theaters in the U.S). We stayed long enough only to see the opening credits to the “Origins of the Davinci Code” documentary on the screen before we left 🙁
So besides reading voraciously and watching lots of soccer matches and outdoor movies, we also spent 2 days getting our Advanced Scuba certification and doing some of the best diving we have done yet. We also took a day trip to St. Catherine’s Monastary and hiked up Mount Sinai to see the sunset (and had a bit of adventure hiking back down afterwards as well). All in all, it was a great week for us and we set a new record of staying in the same place for 7 nights! Though we were sad to leave Dahab, we were also re-energized and ready to get moving again and make our way into Jordan…..but don’t worry Dahab, we’ll be back someday for sure.
-Shan
Tags: Dahab, Egypt, Middle East, Travel
Shan
April 24th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Hey guys! I see you’ve left Dehab, but with the recent news about the explosions, I just want to make sure that you’re okay! You’re probably fine, but hopefully, your next destination is far enough away!
April 26th, 2006 at 11:05 am
yes. your very lucky that u left Dahab a few days after that horrible incident…but to think of it, Dahab wont be the same atmosphere 🙁
April 27th, 2006 at 2:18 am
Dear Family and Friends – Thank you for your concern and all your emails. We are safe and sound as we left Dahab a few weeks ago. Our thoughts condolences are with those affected by the bombing.
– Shan & Anthony
May 4th, 2006 at 12:23 am
Saludos Anthony and Shan
Me alegra mucho saber que estan bien y de compartir sus experiencias en esta pagina. Cuidense mucho y sigan disfrutando.. Un abrazo . Mauricio
May 13th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
anthony, shan,
you discovered my favorite part of egypt – dahab….oh so wonderfully laid back…i don’t think even the bombings will take that away from it…
travel onwards, friends!