Sharm el Sheik

Sharm is an interesting city, with a curious blend of European and Arab cultures. It’s beautiful here, a bustling, happening, open-all-night resort town where about 99 percent of all visitors are from Europe. You walk around and hear German and Russian (the most), plus Italian, French, Polish, British English, Scottish. It’s wild. It’s more European than Europe is, just because it’s such a mishmash of cultures in one place.

Then, mixed in with all this are the Arab shop owners and business men, endlessly heckling you to come into their stores or restaurants. And when I say "men" I mean it literally. I can probably count on one hand how many Egyptian women I have seen working.

In fact, the only one I have really communicated with at all is a lovely young woman working the front desk at our hotel, the Camel Hotel and Dive Center, who had lived in New Jersey for 13 years with her parents. When we shared our observations with her, she said we were right: Women working in the Sinai is very unusual, and she had experienced a lot of sexual harassment at several previous jobs. This was the main reason she was very satisfied with her job at the Camel Hotel – the owners were very progressive, she said, and they did not tolerate b.s. from male employees.

Outside in the main tourist district of Na’ama Bay, for several blocks leading up to the beach, traffic is barricaded away because of the terror bombings. This makes a lovely place to stroll at night, the smell of hookah pipes and the sound of Arabic music surrounding you, against the backdrop of Western billboards and neon lights. Upper-class Egyptian couples, the women with their hair covered, stroll around next to Russian women who basically are decked out like gaudy Vegas showgirls. What a curious dichotomy the whole place is …

As for the Americans by the way – we are apparently no where to be found. We have met three the entire time we have been in the Sinai. Probably a dozen Egyptians remarked to us that Americans "never come here anymore," and surprise surprise, we haven’t met any Egyptians who have had anything nice to say about good ol’ "Shrub W".

On an amusing note: Look closely at the photo above of Marcus outside the "Sharm Museum" -- which I think was basically a glorified tourist shop. He is flanked by two huge statues, the one on the right carrying a machine gun and looking eerily like a terrorist. Talk about culture clash that in the minds of whoever made it and bought it, it would be interpreted by Western outsiders as "art"!