Counting Ships in Suez

There’s nothing to do in Port Tawfiq, Suez, except watching cargo ships sailing by, but this seemingly dull way to kill time is rather entertaining and addictive, so much so that my sister and I sat through an afternoon and then the whole of next morning doing just that. Upon leaving Cairo on our way [...]

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Christmas on Jan 7

Christmas is coming in 5 days; no, I didn’t get it wrong, I know we usually celebrate Christmas before the New Year, but to the Coptic Christian community in Egypt, it falls on Jan 7 according to the ancient Egyptian civil year calculation, which is similar to the older Julian Calender, as opposed to the [...]

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New Year in Sinai

A brand new year starts on a sunny day, at least in Dahab, Egypt, a desert cum beachfront town in the Sinai Peninsular facing the Aqaba Gulf, on a good day like this, one could see the coast of Saudi Arabia on the other bank. Dahab has a strange-mixed feel – foreigners munch on falafel [...]

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