Under water, everything is OK. A bright purple sunfish with ostentatious gold
and electric blue swirls — a real Dame Edna Everage of the sea — floats up,
blows some bubbles, winks conspiratorially, blows some more bubbles, winks
once more, and drifts happily away.
Farther on, a lionfish quietly ripples its coffee-coloured fins, seemingly at
ease with the world — and our hulking wetsuits. An octopus the colour of a
rock alights from his perch, turns maroon and swishes nonchalantly onwards.
A turtle wallows by peacefully in the dark, salty distance.
We’re in the Red Sea, getting our first, wonderfully addictive taste of diving
— using a “snuba” system that allows us to drop 6m (20ft) below the surface
with an air tube.
We’re also in Israel, home of the suicide bomb, the West Bank’s “Apartheid
Wall”, intifadas, more than 50 years of conflict and — it’s
hardly surprising — not a lot of tourists.
Eilat, Israel’s once-buzzing Red Sea resort, has been hit hard by the recent
Arab-Israeli flare-up, which began in September 2000 and shows little sign
of abating. The number of European visitors to Eilat has since dropped from
150,000 in 1999 to about 50,000 last year (having got down to 25,000 in
2002).
To make things worse, last November, a fortnight before our visit, a terrorist
opened fire at the Jordan-Israel crossing, just north of the resort,
wounding five people including four tourists (no Britons).
The shootings were believed to have been the act of an “isolated madman” from
Jordan, and Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not since singled
out Eilat in its advisory. But it still recommends against travel to the
West Bank and Gaza, two hours’ drive north across the Negev Desert, and it
says the risk of terrorist attacks in the country “remains very high”.
For Eilat, it’s a sad state of affairs that’s a far cry from its 1990s glory
days. Then, 200,000 people each year visited the resort, which boomed on the
back of its year-round sunshine, its novelty factor and its spanking new
hotels.
The latter were key to the appeal: plush, comfortable, with big pools, good
restaurants and shaped like giant Aztec temples — with big, jutting balcony
steps.
Our hotel is one of these monsters, the Royal Beach, in the heart of the main
stretch of sand on a kilometre-long promenade that boomerangs from Le
Meridien at the Egyptian end to Herod’s Sheraton Hotel, close to the
Jordanian border. On a good day, Saudi Arabia can be seen in the distance;
the Red Sea is the only place in the world that you can see four countries
at one time.
A walk along the promenade confirms the resort’s decline, as well as its
continuing appeal. The sea is calm and crystal clear. Small groups of people
stroll past a pleasantly uncrowded row of stalls selling T-shirts, bright
shawls, bangles, bootleg CDs and Arabic water-pipes (nargila).
“Hey, where you from, my friend?” says one pipe seller. “Britain, eh? Golders
Green? Hampstead?” he guesses, before speculating: “What, my friend, are you
not Jewish?” I’m not, but a lot of British visitors are. Glenda Baum, an
author from London, is on a sunbed on a manicured bathing lawn at the Royal
Beach.
“It’s great here — there’s a perfect feeling of relaxation and safety. I
haven’t felt threatened at all. Plus it’s very reasonable, much better value
than other similar resorts.”
Indeed, a week’s half-board at a four-star hotel often starts at as little as
£500, flights included, from Israel specialists such as Longwood or
Superstar Holidays.
Farther along, I chat to Eli Bernstein, 57, a marine claims administrator,
also from London. He’s staying at the Dan Hotel. “We’ve enjoyed it
immensely: eaten a lot, talked a lot and played bridge a lot. No problems.
Good restaurants.”
Ian Daniels, 59, a doctor from Chester, is with Eli: “I would rather come here
for sunshine than anywhere. The security’s not a worry: it feels safer here
than in Chester.”
At the height of summer, some of the nightspots can be busy. But on the
evidence of our visit, most places are fairly lively without being
boisterous. The Three Monkeys Pub, connected to the Royal Beach, is a case
in point.
A live band plays R&B, while people drink quietly in groups and security
men with bulges under their jackets keep a sharp eye on all who enter (bags
are checked rigorously). Apart from similar checks at hotels, this is the
only visible extra security.
Later, over an appleflavoured nargila pipe at the Green Beach Bar, Kfir
Cöhen, the barman, tells us: “Eighty per cent of locals now do two jobs.
Even so, my pay is half what is was. I have no money to go out any more.”
It’s a similar story across the resort. I ask Rina Maor, from the tourist
office, what is being done to turn things around.
“We’re running advertising campaigns to explain that Eilat is a town, while
Sharm el-Sheikh (its Egyptian rival, and a favourite with Tony Blair and
family) is just a bunch of hotels,” she says, as we walk along the seafront.
A positive sign, she adds, is that almost 250 tour operators recently attended
an Eilat tourism conference. “All the main ones were there, including Tui
(which owns Thomson, Britain’s biggest operator). We hope they will be
coming back soon.” Thomson has, however, since said that it has “no
immediate plans” to return.
Maor is with Yuval Russ, a guide, who explains that while there are few
cultural events or historical sights in Eilat, people can take day trips to
Jerusalem or Petra, the stunning 200BC “Rose Red City” across the border in
Jordan. Excursions cost about £50-£80 — and are absolutely worth it.
Russ says he served in the Israeli army in Eilat in 1963: “There were only a
few buildings then. We would take positions near the beach and watch the
Jordanian border. There was so little here that people used to be sent as a
punishment: it was either jail in Tel Aviv or life in Eilat.”
So what brought about the changes? Maor picks up the story: “The peace that
came after the 1967 Six-Day War gave Eilat a big push. By the mid-1970s many
hotels were built. The first charter plane arrived in 1975 and then more
came — people didn’t want to go to Spain at the time because of Franco. It
went on from there, until 2000.”
Apart from diving, visitors can swim with dolphins (a phenomenal and memorable
half-hour), take trips into the desert mountains for canyon tours and the
best four-country views, take camel rides, visit the fun aquarium, or go
designer shopping at the mall.
There’s also “Relaxation in the Water”, a 90-minute experience that’s part of
the swim-with-dolphins centre. It’s an absolute must — so much so that
booking well before arrival is recommended.
Visitors pass through three heated pools: one salty, another unsalted, the
third recreating the extreme saltiness/floating sensation of the Dead Sea —
flowing curtains and candles all about you.
If you’re looking for peace in the Middle East, this is where to find it. I
almost fell asleep floating in the second tank, with the assistant twirling
me about and massaging my feet; more relaxing than any other spa I’ve tried.
No intifadas, no Sharon, no Arafat, no bombs — just, as almost every
tourist I meet says: relaxation and no problems.
Page 2: dropping in to Aqaba, Jordan
Page 3: need to know
()Aquba, Jordan
“YOU got magazines, eh?” asked the cheeky, chubby boy grinning by the
Jordanian security point’s X-ray machine at the Eilat-Aqaba border.
He wasn’t after rifle magazines. “You know, magazines,” he
said again, with a glint. “FHM, eh? Playboy?” Crossing
security seemed laid back when I went through last month, despite the
wounding of five people by a gunman at the border in November. Things had
been tougher on the Israeli side, requiring you to pass several checks
before walking along a minefield-surrounded road, watched by armed guards.
No messing with them.
Once beyond Chubby, the benevolent smile of King Abdullah, staring down from a
cinema-screen-sized portrait, greeted us at the other side. From there it
took five minutes to drive to Aqaba.
Aqaba is 20 tourist years behind Eilat. It has a five-star hotel, a tiny
museum, a few diving centres, its souk — and not much else.
We stopped off for souvenirs (carpets, backgammon boards, pretty carved wooden
tables, vases) and cheap chicken kebabs from stalls. Not as flash as Eilat,
but all somehow more real.
Page 2: dropping in to Aquaba, Jordan
Page 3: need to know
()Need to know
Getting there: Tom Chesshyre travelled with the Israel
Ministry of Tourism and El Al Israel Airlines. Superstar Holidays (020-7957
4300, www.superstar.co.uk), a subsidiary of El Al, has a week’s B&B
at the five-star Royal Beach from £675pp in February; a week’s half-board at
the three-star Palmira Hotel is from £450pp. Flights to Eilat from Heathrow
included.
When to go: Eilat’s best weather — 21-30C — is from the end
of September to the end of March, during the main tourism season.
What to do: Dolphin Reef (00 972 8 637 5935,
www.dolphinreef.co.il) offers a half-hour dolphin swim for about £30.
“Relaxation in the Water” (637 1846, x107) costs about £20. Club Snuba Eilat
(632 72722, www.snuba.co.il) has half-hour scuba dives, with 45 minutes’
instruction beforehand, for £20. Hotels can arrange desert and camel tours
from £10-£20 per person.
Further information: Israel Ministry of Tourism (020-7299
1100, www.go-israel.co.uk); Jordan Tourism (0870 7706933,
www.see-jordan.com).
