DIVE HAPPY

South East Asia isn't the only place in the world with world class diving at affordable prices - Egypt has a plethora of great dive sites too

Before I started travelling in South East Asia and eventually wound up living over here because I loved the diving so much, the place I'd escape to for great, cheap diving outside of the UK was the Red Sea in Egypt. There are scores of cheap diving holidays to Egypt available and there's also a big choice of different dive destinations. I've dived all along the Sinai coast in Taba, Dahab and Sharm El Sheikh - I'd definitely recommend shore based diving in the first two, especially Dahab, and doing a liveaboard from Sharm into the Ras Mohammed Marine Park. Within the Marine Park lies the Thistlegorm, one of the most famous shipwreck dives in the world, on account of it landing upright and still possessing all its wartime cargo of motorbikes and trucks inside the easily penetrated hold.

Sharm has got a charming old town but can be pretty busy; Dahab is a lot more laid back, although it's been developing fast in recent years. Dahab is only a 100 kms up the coast from Sharm airport, so it's an easy alternative to reach. Taba is right on the Israeli border with Egypt, and is dominated by the Hilton hotel - the reef at Taba had only recently reopened to divers when I was there 5 years ago and so was in very good condition. Taba is also great for easy access into Israel's city of Eilat and from there into Jordan, as Aqaba sits on the opposite side of the Red Sea to Taba while Eilat sits at the very top, joining the two. It any takes a few hours to drive from Taba all the way down to Sharm - one day, I'd love to do a drive and dive safari down the Sinai coast and find some of the more out of the way dive sites and also to see some of the places where I did my first real dives again.