Dahab

Dahab is an interesting Egyptian beach town. Dahab was once a Bedouin fishing village that today is a focus of tourism development, with swaying palms, fine sand, excellent hotel accommodations, unique on-the-ground Bedouin style restaurants,and wonderful Scuba Diving and snorkeling opportunities.Like all the beach resorts in poor countries (e.g. Mexico or Zanzibar, Tanzania), Dahab is laid out with the same concept where all the tourist stuff is lined up along the shore with water front settings and the native folks and their lives were withdrawn to inland a few streets away. A few streets away, a world apart! Egyptian men enthusiastically run or serve water front resorts and restaurants. There are all kinds of touts here- restaurant touts, tour tours, hotel tours, tourist shop touts, and sex/companion touts. All the tours target foreign tourists (mainly white tourists). Sex/companion touts love European women (mainly Brit or German). There are high competitions among these touts in the business. Sex touts also need to compete with white boy tourists for their potential customers. They are apparently not afraid to do so. A couple of American men looking for "Fun" in a bar at Dahab complained to me about their failure in the competition for lady's favor with a group of Egyptian studs. Egyptian men like to ask where you are from to assess how well being you are. They think European are richer than American and white are richer than Asian. With my Asian looking, I was luckily able to avoid some attentions from some racist touts. Egyptian men like to talk about their ties to the West. Everyone seems to either have lived in Europe or America some point or have family members living in the West. Contrary to blatant Egyptian men, Egyptian women are quiet. You don't see locals hanging out on the beach during the day. In the evening, some local families come down to beach for a little family fun. Egyptian women don't mingle with tourists and live their lives in their own world a few streets away.
Dahab has laid-back charm. I stayed in Dahab for one week for my scuba driving lessons. It was surprisingly quiet. Local businesses blame it for recession or the weather. One thing worth mentioning in Dahab is the superb cozy Bedouin styles water front restaurants/bars. Large cushions and low tables are placed next to the sea, and decorated with colorful cloths. Most of these restaurants have fish stalls in front, where one can pick the fish of one's choice and have it prepared according to one's wishes.I spent several afternoons hanging out at an empty restaurant like this sipping my beer, fighting off cats (there are many many cats in Dahab), feeling the mist from the ocean and napping.