Our overnight Cairo to Dahab bus is stopped several times throughout the night for police to check our passports, of course that's all after we spend an hour walking around trying to find the right bus stop (we ended up at the local bus terminal which is several kilometres from the airconditioned tourist bus terminal).
Dahab is predominantly inhabited by Bedouin people, a formerly nomadic people who roamed the deserts with their herds of goats or camels. It's also a tourist town, and as such, my sister and I have our guard up for dodgy scammers around every corner.
We get off the bus and spend ten minutes negotiating the taxi to our hotel. Hilarity ensues when the driver drops us off at the main strip (but not at our guesthouse) and we take our time paying him, ensuring he's too late to rip off tourists coming in from the next bus.
Dahab, and all of the Red Sea and Sinai Peninsula are renowned for their diving (take a look at this flickr gallery to see why) and so we decide to join in the fun and book a couple of dives. Problem is, I've only dived once, when I was 13, at the Great Barrier Reef, and there was no way I was going to spend the time doing a diving course or to stick to the 5m diving limit for unlicensed divers, so we explain this to the diving guys that take us.
Long story short, we go on an "assisted/introductory" dive, though the dive master quickly sees how comfortable I am in the water and so lets me explore to my heart's content.
The most amazing thing about scuba diving in Dahab is that from the surface, it doesn't look like much, the coast is nothing but desert and mountains, but once you wade out into the water, you are immersed in the amazing coral life.
Snorkelling is also good around the Blue Hole, where you can find an underwater arch 55m underwater, a popular freediving location.
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Great post. We're heading to Egypt in June and we're interested in visiting Dahab. How were the prices compared to Cairo? Any difference? Where did you stay, what other activities did you partake in?
Ryan & Liz,
Much cheaper in Dahab than Cairo. We stayed in a place called Dolphin Camp +20 69 3640081 that we found through wikitravel it's next door to a night club so it's pretty loud, but we were there for new years anyway so we didn't have intentions for sleep.
My absolute first suggestion is to Snorkel the Blue Hole, there's also a few good spots around Sharm. We did a trip out to Mount Sinai - a must do, it's a beautiful hike, we went out for the sunset
If you prefer a really relaxing spot with few tourists, you might want to skip Dahab in favour of Nuweiba, (half way between Taba - border town with Israel, and Dahab).
Hi Ivan, Can you remember who you did the trip out to Mt Sinai with? We are heading to Dahab for snorkelling and like you - we wish to head to St Katherines and see Mt Sinai for sunset. Hope you can help, thanks.
(Great to read your stories of using local transport - was it really that easy to use the microbuses and not have anyone hassle you because you weren't a local and not meant to be on those buses or trains?)
Cheers
Michelle