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Five Sinai Scenes

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1. Crossing the border The transition into the Third World is immediate. Time slows down. The Egyptian customs officials greet the trickle of incoming visitors from Israel with a lazy indifference.   At the entrance to the marbled Taba terminal there is a sort of podium where visitors are supposed to fill in entry forms. The forms have been commandeered by three men who, in return for baksheesh, fill them in for you. At the bank, my dollars are turned into an unwieldy wad of Egyptian pounds. The ATM machine doesn’t work. In a Bedouin taxi we speed unnervingly along the twists and turns of Israeli-laid southbound coastal road. No-one’s wearing seat belts; Khaled, the driver, is singing along to a hit song. To the left, the beaches and sparkling waters of the Red Sea/Gulf of Aqaba and the rosy outline of the Jordanian side of the gulf; to the right, imposing red granite mountains, changing hue in the late afternoon sun.   The once unspoiled desert coast is now scar