I thought I would never say this, but after spending my first weekend in Sharm El-Sheikh for over three years, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is not such a bad place after all.
Once upon a time I found it all too tacky. A soulless artificial environment, occupied by aimless tourists and annoying street hustlers.
Maybe I am in crisis and maybe Sharm is also going through a mid-life crisis.
I am sure most readers are familiar with what really is Na’ama Bay, even though the strip of resort hotels, souvenir souks and dive shops is commonly known to all by its moniker of Sharm. And I wonder what Cairenes make of this Disneyland on the Red Sea?
What are all these questions I am pondering? For heaven’s sakes, it’s just another beach hub within a few hours of a string of European airports.
But I don’t think it is. I think it is iconic, as a destination and a state of mind. This is what I missed in the past, as I traveled through on the way to Dahab, the swaggering youth punching above its weight.
Sharm is iconic. Juxtaposed against the pyramids, it is an island of modernity. Not only are its pedestrian streets littered with garbage bins, at the Hard Rock Café the customers dance to the gay anthem, YMCA.
The doorman outside the Pacha nightclub tells me you can get anything along King Bahrain Street. Did he mean drugs, prostitutes? No surprise there. Any modern nightclub district around the world sells such products.
The hotel’s tourist theme bars and restaurants are still tacky, but the streets are clean and there are signs warning against the honking of cars horns. That is surely a sign of modernity.
Apparently, Nile water is on the way too. I hear the plan of the European Union is to run a water pipe approximately 500 km from the River Nile to feed the insatiable appetite of five-star hotels to provide endless soft water showers for their guests. Plans are afoot also to send the Nile’s water through six pumping stations up the hill to St. Catherine’s Monastery.
No modern playground would be without stretch limos and I spotted one rolling along the side streets. It had a grill that looked something like that of a Rolls Royce, the iconic ride of the British aristocracy.
Sharm has a street festival feel. In the evenings the promenading workers of Europe flow along the sea front and past the shisha lounges on King Bahrain Street, without a care in the world, happy to engage in a tête-à-tête with the restaurateurs or souvenir traders.
The place could do with some modern buskers or a few of those annoying mimes that have appeared across Europe, being the Statue of Liberty, Mona Lisa or a constipated businessmen sitting on a toilet. Post-modernism may be Sharm’s next phase.
Much of Sharm’s heart is occupied by the Kanabesh Hotel. Not that you would notice walking along King Bahrain Street, as shop fronts and hookah pipes hide what must have been one of the first resorts.
I cannot see the sprawling Kanabesh lasting much longer, the land is too valuable. Sharm is probably reaching a limit to its current development stage. The next stage is to build hotels six or seven storeys high.
All tourism resorts eventually face stagnation, a drop in standards and urban blight. The big dive operators and resorts may be making money hand over fist at the moment, but the reefs around Ras Mohamed and the Straits of Tiran are already over-dived.
Sharm will have to learn how to reinvent itself before too long or before people move on. Tourism is driven by trends, and fashion by definition is dynamic, constantly changing and looking for the next big thing.
Sharm, like a lot of us in Cairo, is facing a change of life. But it will take some decisive planning to look into the future, past the 500 or 600 hundred punters moving along that snorkelling/diving conveyor belt I witnessed on Saturday morning. I am sure hundreds more boarded before I arrived and more after I bounced.
For me, it is my personal health and for Sharm, it is the health of the environment. If both of us get that right, then we can look forward to many more years dancing along to gay anthems and lying about the size of fish over a cold beer in the Camel Bar.
