The ferry from Aqaba to Nuweiba was a mess. People were climbing over seats, pushing each others and shouting to get into the boat, to get their passports stamped inside the boat and again when departing the boat. Almost everyone were men (Egyptian migrant workers) and the few women who were there were with their husbands who did all the elbowing for them. The only other tourist I spotted on the boat was a small retired Chinese lady who spoke no English at all and I felt obliged to help. Having someone to share the taxi and room costs with was great, but I did not know then that she would follow me absolutely everywhere the next five days.
When we arrived Dahab we had almost a full day to kill, so we went into the tourist town to have a look around, but as we got there the city was completely empty. They were going into high season and all shops, dive schools and restaurants were open but they did not have any customers at all and when we got there the shop owners were almost dragging us into their shops, which showed how desperate they really were. Ever since nearly all governments put out travel warnings for Sinai and Russian airplane went down, so has the number of tourists.
It was interesting to visit the city during these times to see all construction being put on a hold and streets that were empty, buy other than diving the Blue Hole in Dahab I had no interest in staying overnight in the city, with or without tourists.