The Friday Photo: The Oldest Mosque In Cairo
The tranquillity of Ahmed Ibn Tulun mosque came as a welcome relief from a city about which, if I’m honest, both of us have profoundly...
Category: Places
The Pyramids 101
The Pyramids are on almost everyone’s travel bucket list, and, with tourist numbers low after the Revolution and Cairo still relatively safe, now is an...
Diving Dahab: The Blue Hole and The Canyon
Besides the kittens, the rooftop bars, the seafood and the fireside lounging, Dahab is about two things: the Red Sea and the Sinai desert. And...
Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 5: The Businessman
A round, amiable man, J is in his 40s, and runs a business in Dahab, Sinai. He has a small son who lives with his...
The Friday Photo: Texting on Mount Sinai
This is a timeless scene. A Bedouin man in traditional scarf and djellaba reclines in the sun on the top of Mount Sinai, the place...
Photo Essay: The Sinai Desert
The Sinai desert is a place of many colours. The green palms of desert oases; the rich gold wind-rippled peaks of sand dunes. The wasteland...
Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 4: The Guide
S is 40, and worked as a dive master before he started guiding tourists: he was married in his 20s but it didn’t last. Compact...
In the Footsteps of Moses
There’s something about Dahab which produces a phenomenon of sloth I like to think of as “mission creep”, but which might better be described as...
Voices from Post-Revolutionary Egypt 3: The Future Soldier
A is 24, with rosy skin and auburn hair, an almost Scottish colouring inherited from a Circassian Turkish ancestor. He graduated recently and is travelling...
The Friday Photo: Bedouin Man, Sinai
Eid is 35, but looks older. As a child he worked in the Sinai desert, tending the family’s goats as they migrated in search of...