Jasmine Hotel & Restaurant Dahab

... as a tropical paradise. You can actually see Saudi Arabia across the red sea from our balcony, the sea is so thin at this point. Dahab itself is basically a town for tourists who come for the Red Sea diving and snorkelling, and along the waterfront it has a million restaurants (all serving the same thing basically) and heaps of places to stay with dive schools attached. It started as a hioppie paradise but has now been taken over by tourists like us. Its a loively place ...

... weekend. Fortunately, Ramadan is over so more stores and restaurants will be open during the day for us to enjoy instead of American food. Hooray!


OK, now I must stop writing because it's 11:30PM and I haven't started my paper that is due tomorrow (really, it's their fault for assigning a paper over a holiday weekend when we weren't going to have internet access, but that's our crazy professors for you).

I will talk to you all later!

... We also discovered, as the sun started to rise, that we were sleeping on the edge of a cliff, and one small move would have plummeted us to our deaths. We watched the amazing sunrise over the mountains. After taking in the scenery, we descended down the mountain by the path of 3,000 steps to Saint Katherine's Monastery. We arrived at the monastery at 7am and it did not open until 9am. We were ******. We laid down on a rock pile and soon passed out. We woke up just as the ...

... a delicious fresh breakfast which is served in a shaded courtyard. The snorkelling was excellent both in Dahab itself and from beaches a little further away. On two days we went to Three Pools by Jeep and that wasn't without incident, as the photograph shows. Clutch problem! The driver headed off to find a mechanic and left us in the Jeep (with a Swedish family we had met at the Coachhouse) in the centre of the road, which ...

... t go well - Olly, our instructor was great, but the day was windy and wavy and the area where you practice confined dives (often this is done in the controlled environment of a swimming pool) was not ideal because of this. We were struggling to stay in one place, the visibility was poor, the current was pulling us. I thought I was just being a total goof, but apparently I wasn't helped by the poor conditions. Both Maddie and I were ready to quit day 1 but decided we should give it ...

... person of every nationality that was using his facilities and made lots of jokes to make us feel at home. For example he couldn't understand why NZ had donkey as its PM (John Key). Just before we left to go back into Dahab, Aid showed us his tortoise that had been damaged by a Russian tourist (they had kicked it off the second floor of a building onto the rocks below). Cesca told him about Sonic and we tried the 'waggly bum' trick to no avail - it seems like that is only Sonic's ...

... bus ride to get to the base of the mountain. Arrived at the base around 1am and started the long climb. Mount Sinai has an elevation of 2,285 m, there are 2 ways to get up there, there is the Steps of Repentance and the other way is the camel trail which took us about 2 hours to climb/walk. It was a cold night and I was tired, I spent my time looking at stars and just putting one foot in front of each time. Both the camel trail and the Steps of ...

... mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up. (Exodus 19:18-20) ...And so did we. It was quite a long slog, but we made it to the top in time to see the sun set. We could have used that smoking furnace, though - it was cold up there!

... DollHouse which they have been touring internationally for five years, shipping entire sets and flying the cast (many of them are dwarves) all over the world. After meeting these wonderful people we were itching to see their work, here is a description of their performance:

Mix the stunning absurdity of Alice in Wonderland with the emotional drama of Ibsen's landmark 19th-century play A Dollhouse, and you get Mabou Mines DollHouse. Adapted from the classic by ...

... to what you want and shake your head if you don't want side orders. The staff had great personalities and were joking with you even though they couldn't speak. We then went back to the hotel and up to the roof for some drinks with the group before they all leave tomorrow. It will be really sad to say goodbye to some of them and it will be lonely for the few days that I am in Cairo with no one around, especially as I'm not a big fan of Cairo. Bye!