Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

It was a good trip but it's a weird country. All the women go round wearing those black veils from head to toe, with only their eyes showing. You'd be going along the motorway when you see guys pulling their cars in on the side of the road and then kneeling down right there and praying in the direction of Mekkah. They're a wee bit too extreme there for my liking. The best thing about the trip was that I got to go snorkelling in the Red Sea on my last day there. It's weird how the coral bed is there - you walk out into the sea and for the first 15 metres, it's only upto your knees, then you reach the waves and it gets upto near your waist. So then you start swimming with the snorkel tube sticking up out of the water. Below, you can see the coral bed and some fish etc. Then comes the suprise - as you swim another 10 metres out, there's a sudden cliff in the coral - from the water being 6 ft. deep to being so deep that although it's pretty clear water, you can't see the bottom - although you can see it's going down at least 30 metres. It was wonderful there - beautiful coral (deep purple, yellow, blue, bright white etc.) and tropical fish (striped, fish with a thin purple edge all around their bodies, little ones, big ones). As I stood there on the coral bed, one of the more playful coloured fish swam in a circle around my ankle 3 or 4 times !! We swam there for about an hour. I got some photos with one of those underwater disposable cameras but the photos don't compare to the reality.