Aquba by Red Sea

What makes a perfect vacation? I mean "perfect" in terms of the quality of service, cost, company and scenes? Imagine this: you and a few friends of yours (I mean really chill friends who knows how to enjoy themselves and get along with others)own the entire beach by Red Sea and the amazing marine world under the Red Sea, served by hospitable water front Mediterranean style beach resort,immersed in Islamic culture and the prayers echoing in the air and some long awaited evening beach breeze if you are lucky. For all this, you pay $20 a day! But you need to be able to handle a superb scorching beach/desert weather!
I spent my last two days in Jordan at Aquba. I engaged myself in snorkeling. Marine life is so accessible that it takes 10 walking steps from the shore to get into a spectacular aquatic world where a vast variety of tropical fish, corals and exotic marine living creatures are vividly unfolded in front of you. Having a company of an avid scuba diver friend (William) who can manage to free dive more than 10 meters to pick up whatever on the bottom of the seabed makes the excursion even more fantastic. Along with another friend we took a couple of guided snorkeling tours to check out a couple of shipwrecks, which added more excitements to the Red Sea excursion. The marine life here is extremely rich, accessible and extended. I later got to snorkel at Dahab (in Egypt) also by Red Sea and Zanzibar by Indian Ocean. Neither of them was as of a great experience as Aquba. The only killer is the heat and dry sand blowing wind from the desert.
On the second night, I bumped into Frank again at his hotel across street to mine. While we hang out that night, Frank pointed out Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia in the distance over the Red Sea. The Gulf of Aqaba (where we are) is bordered by four countries! Tomorrow William will head out to Israel and Frank and I will get on our ferry to Egypt. We will all be on the other sides of Red Sea. That night Frank's hotel was apparently hosting a big Islamic party. A group of 30 or so Saudi Arabian looking Islamic men in their serious Islamic white robe did about one hour of some sort of Islamic ceremony. The seats were put by the order of seniority. At some point, when the prayer was calling, they all stood up and kneeled down toward Mt. Mecca. The prayer "Ahlan....." permeated the air over the Red Sea and met the same echo from the other three Islamic countries cross the ocean.
We all left on the following morning. That was Saturday. I noticed there were a lot of more locals on the beach than the two days when we stayed. Locals were having their fun with their big group of families. Women were soaking in the water in their fully dressed black robe and hair dress. They were smiling. It's nice to get wet and cool even in their drenched robe and just for a little moment.