Aqaba

Jordan’s port and resort town on the Red Sea, one to two hours’ drive from Wadi Rum, and where Harry, Mac and a third companion go to stop moving for a few days.

First impressions are of a beach town rather than a Middle Eastern city — noticeably hotter, palm trees, and enough Western tourists that Harry says it could be Spain. It is bigger than any of them expected. The thing it is known for is its marine life.

Staying there

• A three-bedroom apartment inside a beachfront hotel: about $200 a night (from video – unverified) — split between three, and it sleeps four. Harry calls it fairly good value given it is a tourist town.
• Living room, a balcony over the beach, a washing machine, three bedrooms with multiple beds, and enough room for two of them to work.
• The hotel has a pool, a private beach, a gym, a hot tub and a bar.

Obs: the hotel’s name is garbled beyond recovery in the auto-subtitles, which render it two different ways in the same minute. It is not named here rather than guessed. Nothing suggests anything was given free — Harry books and pays for it.

Eating

They walk out with no idea where to go, ask a man selling tea in the street, and he and his son walk them to a restaurant.

• The bill: about $28 for two full meals and a few drinks between them (from video – unverified), which Harry singles out as good value precisely because this is one of the country’s more touristy towns.
• Chicken biryani, grilled chicken, rice with nuts, lemon poured over the rice, soup, and a thin flatbread. Mac demonstrates the technique — pinch the bread, scoop the rice and chicken, eat it like a parcel.
• Jordanian tea with sage, cinnamon and cardamom. The tea goes in after the water. Sugar is declined for him on the grounds that he is sweet enough.
• Kanafeh — Harry’s first: a hot pastry with soft stretchy cheese inside and pistachio on top, a dessert built on cheese, which he rates immediately and emphatically.
• Churros, also a first for him.

The boat trip

The thing to do in Aqaba, and the reason people come: the Red Sea coral.

• A glass-bottomed boat out into the Red Sea, with snorkelling. They had it essentially to themselves.
• The water is fairly cold; Harry, being English, doesn’t mind.
• Sea urchins are the real hazard. They are dense enough that putting a foot down is a genuine risk — Mac nearly stood on one and was warned off by a passing swimmer, and they discuss on camera whether it would have meant hospital.
• The marine life is good rather than world-class, which is roughly the verdict all three of them give. Harry’s framing is that it is impressive for where you are.
• Value: expensive for what it was — around three hours — and the group’s shared conclusion is that better value is available from other operators. Their other conclusion is that it is close to a must-do simply because of where you are. The figures in the video don’t reconcile between the agreed price, the amount handed over and the dollar equivalent Mac gives, so no single number is recorded here (from video – unverified).

The extra 20 dinars

At the end of the trip an extra 20 JOD was asked for on top of the agreed price. They refused immediately, on the grounds that they knew exactly what had been agreed on the phone, and the original price stood — the video’s own description confirms the outcome, where the transcript garbles it.

Harry’s own reading, which is the useful part:

• It happened because they hadn’t paid upfront. His advice is to pay in advance where you can, or at least to pin down the terms rather than only the number. See agree the price before it starts.
• The captain did nothing wrong. Harry says so repeatedly — he was good company, struggling with English, and the demand came from one other person.
• He does not generalise from it, and says he doubts a visitor would normally meet this at all.

The local beach

Away from the hotels, and full of people finishing work — swimming, smoking shisha, and a great deal of looking at the three of them. Sofia covers up, having been warned in advance that this is what a woman should expect here.

Harry’s fix is four words of Arabic, and he sets it out as a sequence: they stare until you look back; you say something in Arabic; they are friendly from then on. It works every time he tries it. See learn the local language.

At the far end there is a very large flag — he compares it to the one in Amman, which he has been told is among the biggest in the world — with mountains behind it, and it is where locals go for the sunset. The sun sets around 4–5 p.m. in November, which he flags as a real constraint on the day.

The marina

Restaurants along the water, where they stop after the boat.

• About 18 JOD for a large snack and drinks for the group (from video – unverified), which he calls what you’d expect for a nice restaurant with a view.
• Mint tea — the thing he singles out, saying the mint gives it a kick English tea doesn’t have.
• Za’atar with oil, and an iced coffee he describes as a ten-year-old’s dream.

The market

Backgammon being played in a crowd, tourist shops, and Harry admitting his haggling attempts are going nowhere: he gets drawn into stalls, doesn’t want anything, feels bad, and blames his own pronunciation.

Travelling here as a woman

The one place in the cluster where Jordanian hospitality is qualified, and it is worth recording carefully because it comes first-hand rather than from Harry.

Sofia, travelling with them, is stared at persistently. Harry raises it directly at the end of the video — the locals here are a bit different from the rest of Jordan — and she answers it herself:

• It is an experience you have to hold your own through, and she compares it to time she spent in Egypt, including alone.
• Dress appropriately and be strong in your stance — her two pieces of practical advice.
• She is emphatic that she would not tell any woman to stay away or not to do the trip.
• And she draws the distinction that matters: everyone they actually interacted with — the tea seller, his son, the restaurant — was kind. The staring is not the same as the people.

See cover up in conservative countries.

Harry’s tips

• Split an apartment rather than taking rooms. Three of them in a three-bedroom flat with a washing machine, for the price of a hotel room each.
• Ask a local where to eat, even in a tourist town. It produced the best-value meal of the trip.
• Have the kanafeh.
• Aqaba is where you stop, not where you rush — it is the chill-out end of a Jordan trip.

Source videos

• $200 Luxury Jordan Resort 🇯🇴 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hvHNO80GYM
• $180 Boat Scam in AQABA, JORDAN 🇯🇴 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX-3z2aREZE