Perched on the southern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, Elat is a hedonistic cluster of high-rise hotels and bronzing beach bums surrounded by blue sea and burning desert. Basically, it's as close to Las Vegas as Israel gets -- without the gambling.
Elat, however, has got most of the other Vegas ingredients: sun, floor shows, well-stocked buffet tables, lots of fat people and, underlying it all, that faint whiff of vice. Plus the much more obvious whiff of money.
Great fun, in its way. But hardly the kind of place you'd expect to encounter massed ranks of bird-watchers and naturalists. Go there now, though, and that's just what you will find.