Sharm el Sheikh

• The Pleasure Domes - Abu Dhabi
• The butler did it - Bahrain
• Dazzled by Dubai - Dubai
• Dubai’s must-do half dozen - Dubai
• The Day Chris tried to swap me for a camel - Egypt
• Ten great wonders - Egypt
• Keeping up with the Joneses - Jordan
• You CAN afford star treatment… - Middle East
• The hippy haunts of Hendrix - Morocco
• Souks you, sir! - Morocco
• Travelling in the sands of time - Oman
• OMAN! What a desert oasis - Oman
• Floating in a Red Sea bubble - Egypt

SHARM EL WHERE? If your next door neighbours tell you they’re off on holiday to Sharm el Sheikh, you could be forgiven for displaying ignorance.

In recent years you’ve managed to place geographically the likes of Halkidiki, Kusadasi, Playa den Bossa, Plovdiv and Djerba.

Sharm el Sheikh, however, sounds as if it might be a character played by Omar Sharif in Lawrence Of Arabia. Actually, like Lawrence, this Egyptian Red Sea resort has found itself ensnared in the grim struggles that have plagued this part of the Middle East for the better part of a century.

Yet Sharm has turned out to be a success and has broken into the list of Top Ten package holiday resorts, an extraordinary achievement for a place largely unknown less than 20 years ago.

In 1967, Sharm el Sheikh, at the mouth of the Strait of Tiran, became the unlikely trigger for the Six Day War when Egypt’s President Nasser chose it as the point from which to blockade the Gulf of Aqaba, denying access to Israel’s only Red Sea port, Eilat.

After Israel’s overwhelming victory in the ensuing conflict, Sharm remained in Israeli hands until 1982 when, as a result of the Camp David agreement, the Sinai region was handed back to Egypt.

The first influx of tourists to Sharm were scuba divers enticed by the clear waters of the Red Sea. The endless supply of sun and sand, however, soon attracted the interest of the holiday companies who sensed this could become that prized beast: a true year-round holiday destination.

As Kevin Costner observed in the movie Field Of Dreams, build it and they will come. Developers raced to construct hotels and holidaymakers came.

Geographically they may not have had any clear idea where they were heading but based on price the destination felt as if it lay somewhere near the Canary Isles (actually, the flying time to Sharm is five to six hours, about an hour more than the UK to Tenerife).

Sharm el Sheikh’s airport is now, after Cairo, the second busiest in Egypt. But the resort's connection with the rest of the country is largely abstract. Some tourists build Sharm into an itinerary that also features Cairo and the Pyramids, or Aswan and a Nile cruise, but not many are keen to visit other parts of Egypt.

The Red Sea resorts exist in their own beach-holiday world, separated not only from Egypt but also, like Dubai, from any sense of being in the Middle East. It’s like being in your very own Red Sea bubble.

The result is that tourism booms, hugely aided by the fact that the British currency still enjoys a healthy rate of

exchange against the Egyptian pound (heading back towards the generous rate of ten Egyptian pounds to 1 sterling).

Sharm continues to offer value for money. Seven-night bed-andbreakfast packages, for example, are available from about £400, while all-inclusive deals cost from £600.

Sharm also boasts a wide range of attractively priced restaurants and bars - as well as a busy range of excursions.

Its one must-see outing is the trip to St Catherine’s Monastery but,if you’re more attracted to cameldriving than sightseeing, there are plenty of Lawrence of Arabiaesque activities going on. Those keen on even higher-octane thrills can hit the desert on a quad bike.

It may have risen without trace but it seems certain that Sharm el Sheikh’s name will loom large in holiday brochures for many years to come.