Michael Batson

Someone once said you never really recapture the first level of enchantment you found with a place after the first few visits. That invariably things change, and that while you hope those changes mean local people see improvements in life, that for you, things are never the same again. If I look back on the places I’ve been, I think that’s true.Dahab was a sleepy Bedouin village on the east coast of the Sinai Peninsula. It’s a prime spot. There’s a permanent onshore breeze blowing. Natural air-conditioning in a place that had no electricity, not back then. I was even told the name means “cool” though in Arabic it’s “gold”. The peninsula lies between the Suez Canal and forms the Gulf of Aqaba, part of the Red Sea. You can complete the aquatic trifecta swimming in the Med, the Dead, and the Red seas. In the mid-80s Sinai had just been handed back to Egypt by the Israelis, not that the Arabs that lived there cared much about that. They were just doing their own thing and didn’t consider themselves part of any political entity or subject to arbitrary borders imposed by outsiders.The Bedouin had lived there for centuries. Their homes were rough breeze-block structures topped off with corrugated iron. They drove about in brand new brightly coloured Japanese pick-ups. Their kids played with whatever came to hand. Tourism was a few backpackers staying in rudimentary lodgings on the beach. There was no floor just sand, and the walls and roof were made from local materials