Blogs from Aqaba, South, Jordan, Middle East - page 4

I didn’t even arrive at my accommodation and already obviously things went tits up. I’ll start from the top. I realised that I left my badass sunglasses and my diving boots when I arrived at Manchester. I did not tell my dad as he was already in a tiff because I ‘only’ printed my tickets off the morning I was due to fly. But if that was the extent of my worries then I would have had a splendid journey. On the plane to Istanbul there were a fantastic array of movies #thanksturkishairlines. I ended up watching United Passions and the Kingsman. The flight to Aqaba from Istanbul I met a nice girl from Finland who was visiting her boyfriend in Amman, apparently the flights to Aqaba were £200 cheaper to Aqaba and her boyfriends whipped ... read more

25thApril Aqaba, Jordan After 5 days at sea we arrived in the Port of Aqaba, Jordan for what we think is one of the highlights of the cruise with a visit to the City of Petra, a spectacular attraction, abandoned and forgotten for centuries, a ‘Rose Red City half as old as time’. Aqaba is Jordan’s only seaport on the southernmost tip of the Red Sea; it is the countries winter resort because of its sandy beaches and coral reefs. It was 30 deg C when we arrived at just after 8.00 in the morning & people were flocking for the weekend from Amman. The deep water port was built by King Hussein to accommodate the imports the country needs but also to facilitate the export of its main commodity of phosphates. As we approached the ... read more

I’ve met some great people through this blog, twitter and other social media outlets. One person in particular stands out as someone whom I feel especially lucky to have met, the talented creator behind For The Intolerants, JoAnna. JoAnna and I have a lot of similar interests, as do many travel bloggers; exploring exotic lands, sampling global cuisine, merging into bizarro cultures, but ultimately we share a unique idiosyncrasy, a sort of fervor for the Middle East. A keystone in my mission being to deflate nasty stereotypes revolving around the Arab world, I found it fitting when JoAnna approached me to wri... read more

Hello fellow travellers! After our booze bonanza yesterday we unfortunately woke up way past breakfast and therefore we missed our Saudi Arabian friend from yesterday. Instead we chose the not so glamorous option to eat at McDonald's. At least it did its job and got us back on our feet which in all honesty was quite shaky after a long day of travelling topped with a generous amount alcohol. With some food in our belly we then set out to explore Aqaba. I'm going to be honest and say that there isn't that much to see here but we started with the Aqaba Archaeological Museum. It's a quite small museum and it doesn't house to many objects but the entry fee was only 1 JD so of course it was worth it. The museum is actually ... read more

There was one nature treasure left that we had to visit before leaving Jordan; the coral riffs of the Red See. Aqaba is a perfect place to dive, snorkel or for a glass-boat excursion; the reefs are quite close by the beaches. Another plus punt is that Aqaba is still an overshadowed city, in comparing with Eilat in Israel or Sharm al Sheik in Egypt. However, I think it’s a great plus, Aqaba is not touristic, and it still kept his own signature. This makes Aqaba a perfect end of our trip. In the last past centuries, Aqaba had invested quite in its city; for example the many facility’s and the infrastructure. Aqaba was first a small, harbour village. It growth after a deal with Saudi Arabia, where Jordan, for exchange of desert, gained extra kilometres ... read more