*This is an excerpt from my diary just before I left Egypt for the last time. The six months that I spent living in Dahab on the Red Sea coast, working in a tiny little hotel, was one of the happiest times of my grown up life. Much later, after several sad goodbyes, a few naps, one enormous packing session and a good old scrub up of my soon to be ex-bedroom, I left Alf Leila Boutique Hotel for good, in the middle of the night. Over 36 hours later (after near misses with wandering camels and actually missing a connecting flight, a whole accidental day spent exploring the streets of Istanbul on two hours sleep and eating so much Turkish delight that I could've puked) I was back in my hometown.
