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If any one event sealed Dahab's entry into the Beach Nation, however, it was the 1997 massacre of 58 tourists by Islamic extremists at Queen Hatshepsut's temple in Upper Egypt. The Egyptian tourist authority immediately touted the Sinai as a safe alternative to the Nile Valley, European travel agents sold package trips to the Red Sea region without ever mentioning the word "Egypt" and many foreign travelers saw their first glimpse of the country at the brand-new Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport. Resort towns like Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada and Nuweiba saw the bulk of the new traffic, but the overflow splashed much of the younger crowd into Dahab. In adapting to needs and demands of the new visitors, the once-unassuming Bedouin beach village rapidly completed its transition into a tourist colony.

Unlike the inhabitants of Leonardo DiCaprio's cinematic beach community -- who react to change (and the threat of change) with secrecy, denial and violence -- Dahab's beach veterans seem to be taking the new changes and new company with a kind of wistful fatalism. Achmed, the proprietor of my $5 hotel -- who first came to Dahab 12 years ago -- summed it up for me the best of anyone.

"Dahab means 'gold' in Arabic," he said, "but now we call this place 'silver.' It's still good, but it's not what it used to be."

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Late in the screenplay version of "The Beach," Leo's Richard character briefly leaves his secluded island to buy supplies from a town on Ko Phangan. His reaction to the crowded Beach Nation atmosphere there is unambiguous: "This was why we kept the secret," he says in a voiceover. "If these assholes ever found out about our island, they'd take just one night to spoil it forever."

Richard's assumption -- that the Beach Nation threatens his notion of paradise -- is both understandable and unfair. Understandable because it's natural to bemoan the encroachment of the Beach Nation into once-pristine places. Unfair because the Beach Nation -- in ghettoizing the inevitable crush of Western travelers -- performs a protective function. Not only do such travel ghettos siphon the bulk of tourists into a relatively small area (thus keeping a wealth of other regions native and pristine), but the Beach Nation also helps local governments address the importance of formal conservation efforts. As with Thailand, it is no coincidence that the bulk of Egypt's national parks and reserves are being developed in high-traffic tourist areas.

Beyond protection, however, the Beach Nation -- crowded as it may be -- still does a pretty good job of providing its visitors with a good time. Most travelers, even backpackers, don't require an island paradise all to their own. Part of the charm of budget travel is that it blurs the line between being a king and being a bum. Exclusivity notwithstanding, sitting and doing nothing on a warm beach in the Sinai (or Thailand, or Belize, or Bali ...) with a return ticket and a carefully managed wad of spending cash will probably always be a popular youth pastime. And, like Ko Samui, Dahab will no doubt retain its reputation as a place where travelers come for a two-day visit and end up staying for five weeks.

It's also important to remember that the Beach Nation (and its imperialist instinct) is governed not by the juggernaut of inevitability, but by the cold demands of the free market. Those who don't mind giving up basic comforts (a very small percentage, in practice) will continue to have their anonymous adventures and, from time to time, briefly discover places that resemble paradise. On the other hand, those who insist on idle comfort -- be it cheap marijuana at the Beach Nation or 24-hour room service at the Beach Hilton -- will have to learn to deal with all the new company.

In the end, any assessment of leisure travel has to come to terms with our fanciful notions of what "paradise" is in the first place. Until fairly recently, paradise was considered to be Eden, an earthly heaven with four rivers flowing from its borders. At the outset of the exploration era, in fact, mapmakers placed Eden in the uncharted corners of Asia or sub-Saharan Africa. Later, adventurers and scholars (Voltaire among them) surmised Eden was in the New World. These days, with the world mapped and explored many times over, we are still looking for Eden in the Other -- other climes, other times, other states of mind.

The problem with this is that, when we try to plant our flag in the Other, we find that what seemed like Eden tends to mimic home. And the more it resembles home, the less it resembles Eden. It's a vicious cycle, but we can't seem to get over it.

And that, of course, is what gives "The Beach" its drama -- because anyone who's paged through Genesis will know that the real fun starts not with the Edenic bliss, but the desire to control it.
salon.com | Feb. 11, 2000

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