Egypt day 1: Exploring Dahab and Diving in the Red Sea Corals
Hi people, we're here in Dahab, about 90km from Sharm el Sheikh. We're going diving today. This is Dahab beachfront. Police station and this is a beachfront shop and diving club is Club Red.
Hi guys, this is the price list for diving in the Red club diving centre in Dahab. Basically if you're a beginner, you can do the Try-Dive, which is 25 or 40 euro per person. 25 is a short dive of about 25 minutes, 25 euros. And 40 euros will give you about 35 to 45 minutes depending on how fit you are.
If you want to do the Blue Hole dive, it needs an advanced diving certificate because there is no limit to the depth really. You can see the price is there. Contact details for the Red club diving centre in Dahab. Ok guys, so there is the Try-Dive and there is the advanced Blue Hole diving. But today is a bit too rough for both of these things. So what you can do is you can go to the Lighthouse Cafe and they have an area where you can sit and drink tea and coffee and also you can leave your things there and go snorkelling.
They have a quiet area there where the waves are not too bad and snorkelling you can see the coral as well. So that's what I'm heading to. Along the way from the Red diving club to the Lighthouse Cafe. This is the street scene you see along the beach. Lots of restaurants and bars.
Selling chicken, seafood, soups, breakfast. Interesting bar there. Nice. Quite a few of them here.
Today is the 30th of April 2023 and the temperature is about 25 right now. People finishing their dives. The mountains there in the distance. That's the scenery you will see all the way from Sharm el Sheikh to Dahab. We took a taxi which was about 700 Egyptian pounds.
And it was a bit scary ride. They don't have speed limits. Well the taxis don't have speed limits in their head. But we got here safely anyway. Interesting place to have.
Must be a good place to hang out. Get the tourists to do the work. Push the trolley to them.
Some souvenirs there. See myself living here. Chill lifestyle.
Egyptian pound is at the moment 38 Egyptian pounds to 1 British pound. So it's quite reasonable the prices here. But you got to haggle quite hard. Salsa.
Things to do at night. Hi. How are you guys? Nice to see you. This is the place where you can see the view. Wow.
Wow. Wow. If you want to go diving or snorkeling or anything around here.
It's best to get a package because they will take you from the hotel, pick you up and they drop you off at the end of the day. And they include everything including the government charges to get you into some of these areas such as the Blue Hole. All in all you can negotiate if you do your own trip and make it up. But in the end you will be paying as much if not more and you lose a lot of time in doing so. So just make it easy for yourself and just go with the package. People have to live somehow.
It's only fair isn't it? They will organise it all. Give a little bit extra for making it easy for you. Diving areas everywhere here. That is the lighthouse, the dive centre and you can come here, leave your things and you will be right next to the water. This area is quite calm even though it's a rough day.
You can snorkel here. It seems they are teaching a few beginners their basics of diving here as well. Nice view of the mountains and the Dahab oceanfront. Nice vibe around here. Very relaxed. Windy enough for windsurfing you see.
So if you want to do a bit of diving around here they can give you diving for a couple of hours including an instructor for 21 euros. From the lighthouse diving club. It's one of the many dive centres here. You can rent stuff out. How much is it to rent snorkel, life jackets and fins? 35 pounds.
35 pounds life jacket, yes. 35 pounds fins, 35 pounds mask and tube. Egyptian pounds.
Egyptian pounds. Ok. Thank you. All day. All day.
Thank you. So we have made up our mind and we are going to go diving here just around this local area and you can pay for an introduction course which is about 30 minutes in the water and about an hour in total. I'm reviewing this thing called Octopus World in Dharhub. They charge 30 euro per session. Lockers for your valuables and it looks pretty well equipped. Not that I know anything about diving but it looks like a lot of kit.
The water is 25 Celsius air temperature. The water feels like 18 19 at this time of year. Not too bad. So this is lunch. We got some kind of bread here. It's very puffy and hot. There is Hain sauce. And there is very different types of sauce.
Looks like some kind of aubergine there. And this is all part of our meal which costs 350 egp including 2 drinks and 2 water. That price initially started at 600 but after some haggling which is involved where you are shown a selection of different fish and you haggle over the type of fish you want and prawns and calamari you want, it came down to this final price of 350. I'll try this sauce first. Hummus. It does taste like hummus to me.
It's also hummus. Both very tasty. That's a kind of cabbage. Slightly sweet. Kind of sour. A little bit sour that sauce. A bit spicy.
This one here. Slightly oily and herb like. This one here.
Lots of flavours there. I can't describe it. It's like aubergine. Very nice. So we have some kind of grouper fish they call it. Calamari and shrimps. All for 350. And heavy haggling.
Ok let's try this. Very fleshy. Not much bones. Hmm.
Rice and chips included. Try this. Hmm. All very flavoursome. Some kind of peri peri sauce like on this fish. Hmm.
Fish is pretty fresh. Got some friends come to visit us. Nice big cat. Hello. What's your name? Hello.
He's waiting for something. Some leftovers on the table probably. So we had our lunch and our man was true to his words. We haggled hard and he agreed to the price and he was good with it when we came to pay. So we gave him a small tip.
So I really recommend this place for diving. If you want to go diving and you want an easy time I think this is the place to come. The places are reasonable and it's quite a pleasant and relaxing place actually.
And people are fair. Unless you are not clear then there's too much room to manoeuvre. But if you're clear and you determine the details of what you want they will generally keep their word to it. Yep, come here for diving. Some nice ponchos it looks like.
Colourful clothing. Getting busy now. So if you don't want to spend 700 Egyptian pounds to get on a taxi you can get a bus here. Apparently there's a bus from Dahab here to Sharm el Sheikh for 50 Egyptian pounds each or about 100 Egyptian pounds. That's one or two, two to three pounds. And it's available on Go Bus at least. There's one of them.
There's no car there. Normally if you know how to dive you just hire a tent and jump in. That's why even lots of Saudis come here for diving. Lots of different music instruments here. Tambourines, guitars.
What do they look like? Vases? Not getting hassled by any of the storekeepers. Generally very laid back. Hey, how are you doing? I'm good. I don't know if those are stray dogs or they belong to anyone but they all look quite plump and healthy, these dogs.
Generally very dog friendly it seems. And the cats too. The cats are much bigger than the average UK house cats. Yes, football. It's everywhere. No wonder why this place is popular with British. Football and football. I'm going to get a coach on the GO bus to Sharm El Sheikh.
After walking around for a while and looking for a bus station, locals are saying there's no buses to Sharm El Sheikh at this time. And they asked us to go on a private minibus. Which is not correct. So you see the mosque over there. On the right is GO bus, the yellow building there. And that's where the bus stop is. But you actually buy your tickets from this office here, GO bus.
They originally said 300 for 2 people to Sharm El Sheikh. And when they came to pay they asked us 230. So not bad. Cheaper than a 700 taxi ride to Sharm El Sheikh. And it takes about the same amount of time, about 1.5 hours. Yeah, all good. See the mountains there. So we're going to go for a little walk around here for a bit.
Until our bus at 6.30pm. Back to Sharm El Sheikh. Relying on taxi services, you can rent yourself a scooter at this place called Crazy Bikes. And you can rent a 125cc scooter for 1,200 Egyptian Pounds per day. Or you can rent it for 3 days for 2,500. A 125cc. Not bad. I just sat down for 10 seconds and we got some hasslers here. Because there's nothing to be asked for.
So I figured out what the dogs are about. Each dog belongs to each storekeeper. And they are actually guard dogs. Security for each dog. That's the job. They're not stray dogs at all. I don't know how you guys are getting your money when you're travelling to Egypt. But I just got to the ATM. Put my WISE card in. Or I got a Revolut card. Probably much the same thing.
And I got 37.3 Egyptian Pounds to the pound. UK Pound. That's a lot better than the exchange you get in the travel companies in the UK. And probably more if you get it off the streets here in Egypt. Just go to the cash machine. Simple. One safe friend, a guard dog, is manning the cash machine here. These dogs all seem to have jobs. I think this guy belongs to Jacky's.
Chinese food is everywhere. Looks like Hong Kong Chinese food. Korean food.
Korean fried chicken. Even better than Kentucky fried chicken. So this is our bus. GO bus. 7 o'clock bus to Shamashek. Heading along the dry mountainous roads in that direction to Shamashek.
And right there, next to the coast, next to the beach, is the Strip of Dahab where the restaurants and dive clubs are. Straight road in that direction. Thank you for watching! Please subscribe!
2023-05-29 14:52
