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Dahab
دهب
20.01.2026 - 01:52 - Dahab
My NS train failed, so when on the brink of Schiphol it decided to turn back to Rotterdam Centraal, Niek had to pick me up at the station and he drove me again to Schiphol. I barely made it to the plane. I still can’t believe it’s possible to get on a plane even after arriving at the airport 20 mins before the gate closes.
On the plane: I read from Niel’s analysis of Rohmer's Conte d’été. Read about Cairo & Egypt too, and had a chat with the elderly woman sitting next to me. She's Polish and married to her Rotterdammer husband for many years. She recommended me places in Egypt.
Close to landing at Sharm El Sheikh, South Sinai landscape almost looked like it was another planet. I'm not used to a sight like this. Jagged ridges of the arid desert looked so sharp. Smooth parts are wadis, as we say vadi in Turkish. Landing into this golden light was beautiful; it was hazy, yellow, orange. The sweet Polish woman saw my excitement and told her husband to move, so that I can make photos from the window of the plane.
Dahab is a seaside town along the bay. It was a small Bedouin coastal settlement, town grew around Al-Assalah. It's about 1,5 hours by taxi from the airport.
Alizé and I were walking around the town in the evening and I gathered my first impressions. Lighthouse area is the main promenade, with cafes, shisha spots with TV mounted on the wall, playing soap operas or football matches, and people are talking and smoking and watching and eating. So many diving centers everywhere. Mashraba is the town area. Lagoon is where the windsurf is.
Now Alizé’s cat Nora is purring on my bed as I am writing this. She curiously leaned on my journal and I almost wanted to stop the cat from reading my private notes.
Pick-up trucks are taxis. In front of Alizé's diving center a handsome young man stopped me, pointing at his friend he said "My friend says you look like Timothée Chalamet." I laughed because I think I look nothing like him. Schools are on a break, so about 7-8 friends came from Cairo to have some fun here. We added each other on instagram and they took a photo with me.
With Mody too, we went for Lebanese for dinner. Soujuk with pomegranate molasses, baba ghanoush, fried kibbeh.
Dahab means gold. Mody says it's because of the golden sands and the golden light. Basically the light I landed into today.
South Sinai is of course exceptionally politically charged. Israel occupied it after the 1967 war. Was returned to Egypt in April 1982. That return happened 10 years before I even existed. Anyway, so I totally feel state presence, state security type of feeling here.
Early 90s it got popular with tourists.
In 2006 there were three bomb attacks here. 24 people were killed, 80 injured.
You can see the outline of the Saudi Arabia hills from the shore.
Sand was probably poured to make a temporary ramp. I see the cement bags. Rebar is sticking out here and there. I like this sight because I fantasize about sand gathering on the steps over time with the wind. It intrigues me how the steps lose meaning to the sand. It also gives me an Escher-esque distance to look at this, yet it's so close; I like the feeling that I can actually just jump a wall and walk those steps.
20.01.2026 - 18:55 - Dahab
Alizé went to get a haircut after breakfast. So I explored the town solo a bit.
Shop owners shout at me and ask me to look at the stuff they sell. A guy says: "Where are you from sir? You look elegant." In my shirt and black pants I am totally overdressed for Dahab. People look ready to swim any minute. Hairs look salty, everyone is tanned; the cafe owner makes a joke to Alizé about how white I look.
I would send so many letters and cards just for the sake of the beauty of this post box.
Alizé and I drive to Nuweibaa. She wants to show me the camp ground where she will throw her 30th birthday party.
The road cuts through stunning mountain landscapes. We pass by multiple check points. Alizé is never stopped, probably because she is so cute.
After an hour of drive, we arrive at the small town. We pass the coptic church next to a mosque.
Finding the camp ground is not easy. Somewhere remote towards the water we stop next to three kids. Alizé asks them the address in Arabic. The girl is a few years older than the two boys, she might be 12 or 13, and she is tightly hugging her sketch book with the drawing of a girl on it. She doesn't speak; the boys tell Alizé where to go.
Hearing them speak in Arabic, I discreetly look at the coloured drawing the little girl made. I wish I had drawing materials in my bag to give her. One of my Faber Castell sets, a good sketch book, some paint. They all look so sweet, why don't I even have chocolate in this bag? Why don't I carry stuff that I can gift to other people at all times? I call for the girl from the lowered car window and gift her one of my Muji pens. I hope she keeps drawing and painting.
Before we arrive at the camp ground, Alizé makes photos of me with the camels.
The camp ground is stunning. Amr left his banking job, bought this land, and built everything. Sinai Mountains on one side, the sea on the other. Vast feeling.
We are offered mountain sage -marmaraya- tea.
Nuweibaa is one of the Egypt-Jordan crossings.
Amr shows us around. I breathe; taking in the smells and the space.
I'm fascinated by the menjomini trees, moraceae, very durable, survives salt water, evergreen.
The drive back home with Alizé in golden hour is so nice.
Omar, Andrea, Fanny, and Khalil join us for dinner. Fanny’s new dog Maya is here too. My first time having mulukhiyah from jute. Everyone seems to have a relation to diving here, and there is a diving lingo with a lot of abbreviations that I don't know anything about, but OWD, IDC, CMAS are flying around in every conversation and I ask Alizé what all these STDs and PTSDs mean.
They recommend me all kinds of places to see when I'm in Cairo, and food to eat, but I am so unfamiliar with the language that I have no chance of even imagining how their recommendations are written. Koshari Abu Tarekh? Wedat Beirut? Khan el kalili? Al muz al azhar?
My kitty Nora sleeps with me, she is cuddly, warm, and purrs all the time.
We will see if we can dive tomorrow. It’s really lovely to be here.
G.H.’s last cover design might be ready soon. I still can’t believe it. Oh and I still need to change things and integrate stuff. And there will be a lot of editing to finalize.
IFFR and Nepal are so soon already.
Early morning we go to Alizé's diving school. We quickly notice that it's too windy today. It wouldn't really be a problem for diving, but since it's my first time, tomorrow's calmer water feels easier.
Alizé gave me the theory lesson. She's an amazing teacher, and she makes Freudian slips while drawing what's supposed to be an ear. There's so much to learn about diving, I try to keep in mind the essentials that are immediately useful to me. There are so many gears and tools, so many diving locations, different depths, different challenges in each spot. A system of certificate authorizes a person to do certain dives. I feel excited, and I totally understand what made Alizé so enthusiastic about diving years ago. I can't wait to dive tomorrow!!!! I thought I was scared, but now I feel impatient because of today's wind.
But it's fine, now there is more time to chill and explore the town.
I find these doors that I want to go through:
On the streets, people are always sweeping the front of their shops. Cleaning the floors, or gardens, foyers; with water or dry.
Boys shout at me on their bikes in Arabic, I don't know if they are telling me to get the fuck out of their way, I just smile back.
Men are tall here, and everyone is so beautiful.
They mostly listen to Arabic/local music. I hear Sabry Aalil - Sherine, Al Bint El Chalabeya - Dorsaf Hamdani.
Nora loves to bite and knead my ass.
After dinner with Jasmine we drop by Andrea's. Then Alizé and I walk by the shore of Eel Garden, and get some juice from the famous Dahab juice guy. We study the coral reefs a bit, and the fish we might see down there.
We start the day super early the next morning.
Alizé gets some coffee, we wake up more by the water, then go to the diving school to gear up and refresh information.
When we begin descending in water, my ears have a bit of a hard time equalizing; we take quite some time to let my ears adapt to each new level of pressure. But once we are 10 meters deep and my ears feel fine, I begin to enjoy it a lot.
The coral reef in the area is beautiful, all the textures and colours of the stony and soft ones, paramuricea, turbinaria, lobophyllia, juncella, acropora. Different types of corals belong to different depths. Some on the reef plate, some on the slope. And the fish: the moray, the goby, toadfish, moustache conger, reef cusk eel, pineapplefish, crown squirrel, spotted shrimpfish, vermilion hind, sixstriped soapfish, crescent-tail bigeye, cardinalfish, butterflyfish, red-striped hogfish.
I didn't notice how tiring diving can be until we resurfaced and walked back to the diving school to clean our gear. I was trying to remember everything I saw.
We went for some food. The quiet, kind man in his 30s seemed to have a permanent frown on his face and a tough attitude. His food was delicious. We sat on pillows on the floor and took our time to relax and eat. We saw some goats on the street on the way back home.
I watched men enjoy the water. At home Alizé and I relaxed, I read on the terrace.
I love doors and archways opening to the sea.
23.01.2026
Mohamed is driving me to Cairo. A six-hour drive through the mountains.
Check points would demand money if they think he is transporting a foreigner. So I am now a colleague of him from Dubai and I am an accountant.
At the check points they look at my Dutch passport for a minute and then ask me where I'm from. I say Turkey, then they see me as a brother. I'm not sure if they can't read the Latin alphabet, just as I can't read the Arabic, or perhaps they know the Netherlands as Holland and can't make sense of what this Netherlands place is written on my passport.
Mohamed says that Suez Canal was built by a Turkish guy called İsmail. He means İsmail Paşa that became the ruler in 1863, who is associated with the canal since it was completed and inaugurated during his time. Egypt was an Ottoman province of course. Egyptians worked in forced labour, and so much digging was done manually. Many people died from cholera and other diseases, and they worked under really brutal conditions. The scale of its human cost is shocking. To build this canal, about 60 to 120 thousand people died.
Mohamed says Indian cinema is really popular in Egypt. They also love American films.
Since we're heading to Cairo, I of course had to think of The Yacoubian Building too.
While he took a toilet break, I saw the news about Egyptians preparing to welcome Amshir, the sixth month of the Coptic calendar, a period of major weather fluctuations. So basically from February 8 on, lasting 30 days, end of the peak cold wave, the month of Tuba ends and brings strong winds and storms. A lot of dust will be raised. Farmers apparently love Amshir, as it makes the crops thrive.
Mohamed is listening to Amr Diab - Inta El Haz, and he is telling me how he didn't do military service because he is the only son in the family. Sisters don't count. In Egypt, only if there is more than one son in the family do they serve in the military.
Ahmad Hamdy North Tunnel under the sea.
Then we exit to the city called Suez.
Under the geneva bridge someone was praying on the ground.
The sun was like an orange hanging in the sky. It looked so soft, docile. I loved this submissive sun. I could stare at it and its gradients all I want, I didn't even flinch. It was massive. Like a warm yellow hole opened up in the sky.
Soon enough we'd arrive in Cairo.
Cairo
القاهرة
That water is the Nile.
Mohamed dropped me at my hotel.
I wanted to enjoy the evening, so I quickly went out after dropping my stuff.
I wasn't aware Friday is the main weekend day here. The streets were packed with people. On each big street there were these places with a TV set outside and tables around it, where people were playing games while watching football.
I passed by a bookshop and loved the cover designs, the variety in Arabic fonts, the ways in which those letters can be used with images, a few of the designs felt effortlessly timeless. I remember really loving that quiet moment I had by the bookshop window just looking in.
Then the intense traffic of Cairo extended its noise and movements from all corners to wrap me up. I lived in Istanbul for many years, yet the traffic of Cairo managed to shock me and make me think this is absolutely crazy.
I was feeling the thrill of unfamiliarity, the scariness of it too, so I was a bit unnerved at first. Crossing the streets felt dangerous, the chaos, the noise was overwhelming. I wasn't feeling sure I was safe; I was alert. I tried to take quieter paths as I made my way for dinner.
I went to the koshary place Abou Tarek. Koshary is like a comfort food. Mix of pasta, fried rice, brown lentils, chickpeas, tomato sauce. They sat me at a table with three high school students first, we talked about the school break and how they are spending it.
Then the waiter proposed me an empty table, so I moved. Soon after my koshary arrived, the waiter sat two handsome guys on my table. They had big travel backpacks and they looked like they just arrived from somewhere far. We smiled at each other as they joined my table. From their accent I figured they were from the US. So we began to chat and that's how I met Gavin and Arion. They've been traveling the world for months now. They've even been to Nepal, so they gave me their recommendations for Kathmandu. They would leave Egypt the next day, we exchanged contacts. Gavin even wanted to pay for my koshary but I objected, although it was very sweet.
This interaction with them, as well as the small chat I had with the high school boys and the funny waiters, made me feel a bit more at ease with where I was. So when I stepped outside I felt less scared, and began exploring more attentively and making photos. I was suddenly able to notice more, especially with architecture, the run-down neoclassical buildings that felt so Cairo-specific in their worn-outness.
Café Riche
مقهى ريش
