Middle East Summary

Number of Countries Visited: 5 - Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel and Egypt, all without flying starting from Greece!

Favorite Country: Jordan - A lot to see in a small country

Favorite City: Cairo days 1 to 4

Least Favorite City: Cairo days 5 to 8 - You too will get this facial expression after 8 days in Cairo:

Best: Middle Eastern hospitality and sense of humor

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Worst: Touts and bargaining (though I must say it's fun to sit in a shop, have tea, chat, then walk out of there having paid way more than originally intended but still happy with the purchase)

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Number of non-alcoholic beers Bill bought by mistake: 2 (in Petra, Jordan)

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Number of bad words Bill used upon realizing that he was duped into buying non-alcoholic beers: 4

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Number of times we were asked whether we had a baby, why don't we have a baby, when are we going to have a baby: too many to count

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Number of times Bill mistakenly stepped on a prayer carpet in the hotel hallway: 2 (It was at the beginning part of the trip in this region; now we know better not to step on the green carpet!)

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Number of cockroaches we saw in our first Lonely Planet recommended hotel room in Cairo: 8

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Number of non-smoking malls we saw in Cairo: 1

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Number of men we saw smoking in that mall in one hour: 15

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Best Arabic Phrase: "Inshallah", meaning 'God willing' can be a reply to almost anything. For example -

Q: See you tomorrow!

A: Inshallah

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Q: Will the bus be here at 8pm?

A: Inshallah

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We used the phrase to respond to the when-are-you-having-a-baby questions and also to people trying to sell us a tour:

Q: Are you going to Petra?

A: Inshallah

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Fortunately (or unfortunately?), the barbers in the Middle East are really good so Bill hasn't gotten a crazy haircut. The preferred style here seem to be this hedgehog/Zoolander cut:

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We are now in Nairobi, Kenya, looking for a safari...

Egypt - Luxor

We took the sleeping train from Cairo to Luxor - the brown panel on top is another bed when pulled down. It was very much 'Murder on the Orient Express' by Agatha Christie. Unfortunately, there was no murder for me to solve (yes, I am a big dork):

We rode donkeys over the desert hills to the Valley of the Kings and the Hatshepsut Temple. It was a memorable way to see the sights, but I think we were scammed by the donkey man. He swore he worked for the stable recommended by the Lonely Planet that we were looking for (he was standing right in front of it), but on hindsight, I don't think he worked there. We ended up paying for the donkey that he rode on, plus he demanded more after we gave him a tip of 28% on already overcharged total price:

Hatshepsut Temple:

The touts have completely worn out poor Bill; he has now taken to taking naps in the middle of the day. Bill gets hassled more than I do, I think due to his 'American boyscout'-ness; he can't bring himself to rudely ignore someone that's talking to him. They can smell that kind of weakness from a mile away. I am trying to perfect my wicked witch of the east expression.

The Nile river and the fertile farm land in the Nile Valley:

This is a statute of Ramses II and Queen Nefertari:

I was secretly disappointed in Luxor, because I thought there were pyramids in Luxor. It's probably the pyramid-shaped Luxor hotel in Las Vegas that confused me. How sad.

Egypt - Cairo

Cairo is great! It's a sprawling urban jungle with 11 million people. It is chaotic, noisy, polluted (my eyes hurt from the car fumes), vibrant and stays up late; at any given time, there are at least 15 different interesting stuff to look at.

The pink building is the Egyptian museum. They have so many stuff in there that things look sort of piled on top of each other:

The drivers in Cairo are absolutely crazy. Signal lights are more of a suggestion than a rule and they drive at night without headlights to save gas. We'd be sitting in a cab heading into an intersection; our driver would see another car on the cross street also heading towards this intersection. Rather than doing what a sane person would do and slowing down, both cars actually accelerate, madly honking at each other. Just as they are about to crash, the car that got to the intersection a nano second sooner speeds through and the other car screeches to a halt. It's like playing chicken.

How much we pay for a cab ride is reversely proportionate to how tired we are. Sometimes we just don't have it in us to bargain, so we end up paying $4 for a half an hour cab ride instead of $2. We can live with that.

Giza pyramids were amazing - it's a shame we couldn't stand still to take it all in, because we had to keep moving to avoid getting hassled by the touts. The touts in Egypt are the most persistent I have encountered on this trip. But the worst thing about the touts is that it makes us defensive against everyone, thus fending off genuinely friendly or helpful people.

Bill being lured in by a tout:

This street has numerous beautiful mosques and madrassas (schools) from the 11th century. We had actually told the cab driver to take us to the Egyptian museum but got dropped off here instead. Oh well, we had planned on coming here anyway:

Israel - Galilee & Tel Aviv

Galilee:

In the Galilee region, we stayed at a Hosteling International youth hostel. They are actually very nice; generally, the only annoying thing about them are the noisy 'youths' that also stay there. We came back from sightseeing to find a group of co-ed high school kid at the hostel. Oh no, we groaned, are they going to be loud...wait, they can't be high school kids because some of the boys are carrying machine guns! We are used to seeing guns around on this trip - many banks and stores in Central & South America had guards with guns, and of course the military men have them, but here in Israel, we see them in unexpected places, like a young man in jeans walking hand in hand with his girlfriend, carrying a machine gun, or a guy ordering a Big Mac at McDonald's, with a gun on his back. Sorry, no pictures - we try not to annoy men with guns.

This is the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth (the childhood home of Jesus), where the Catholics believe the Angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she would bear the son of God:

Shopping in Nazareth:

This is the rock where it is believed that Jesus laid the five loaves and two fishes that multiplied to feed 5000, in the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves & Fishes:

Tel Aviv:

We were sort of 'churched' out after Galilee, so we headed to Tel Aviv to enjoy the famous night life. Jerusalem was pretty dead on Friday night as Sabbath starts sundown Friday (the official weekend in Israel is Friday afternoon and Saturday, but some Muslim establishments close on Friday and some Christian establishments close on Sunday - very confusing), but we had heard that in Tel Aviv, people party on Friday night. We got all dressed up (as much as we could with our backpacker clothes) and went out about 8:30pm - it was very quiet! But things picked up at midnight, and by the time we went home around 2am, it was very busy. The cab driver told us that people have dinner with family Friday night and come out very late.

Palestine - Bethlehem

We went to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, in West Bank. This actually sounds more dangerous than it really is - tons of tour buses go there every day. Of course, we hate group tours, so we went to the Palestinian East Jerusalem, took a mini bus to the West Bank checkpoint, and took a taxi from there after we cleared the checkpoint.

East Jerusalem:
At the Checkpoint - inside the check-point looks somewhat like a mix of a prison entrance and an immigration building. There are over 500 checkpoints in the West Bank:

This is the 'security wall' Israeli government built around the West Bank, 436 miles long and still in construction:
Graffiti on the Palestine side of the Security Wall:
This is the Church of the Nativity, one of the world's oldest churches:
This is the small cave inside the church cited by tradition as Jesus' birthplace:

Israel - Jerusalem

We had heard horror stories about how tough the Israeli border is; the British lady we talked to had gotten her bra sent through the x-ray machine because it was the metal under-wire kind. But it wasn't so bad for us; at our request, they even stamped a separate paper rather than our passports so we would not run into problems visiting other countries after Israel. (In this region, all countries, other than Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, refuse to admit anyone who has visited Israel previously. Travelers try to get around this by not having an Israeli stamp on their passport.)

Jerusalem is a fascinating city. It is divided into three parts - the walled Old City, predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem and the Israeli West Jerusalem.

The Old City is divided into four Quarters - Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian. I am pretty sure it's the only place where you can buy a cross, a yarmulke (small skullcap worn by Jewish men) and a guthra (white, red & white checks or black & white checks head-covering worn by Arab men) all at the same store.

This is the Western (Wailing) Wall, the only remnant of Judaism's holiest shrine:

This is the Dome of the Rock in the Temple Mount, the third most important Islamic holy site, after Mecca and Medina (the latter two are in Saudi Arabia). You can see the gold top of the Dome of the Rock from above Western Wall picture:No, I don't remember why I was so annoyed in this picture; Bill probably did something wrong.

This is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site where Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian and Coptic churches believe that Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected. Different church communities divide control over various parts of the church, with times and places of worship for each community strictly regulated in common areas. However, the church door is kept by two Muslim families - in 1192, Saladin assigned responsibility for it to two neighboring Muslim families and this arrangement has persisted into modern times - twice each day, a Joudeh family member brings the key to the door, which is locked and unlocked by a Nusseibeh:

Every Friday, the Franciscan monks walk down the fourteen Stations of Cross, the route that tradition claims was where Jesus walked bearing his cross to the site of crucifixion. We started off following the monks, but it was just too crowded so we broke off on our own. As the result, we still haven't found Stations Nine and Fourteen:
This is the Church of the Dormition, where Jesus' mother Mary fell into 'eternal sleep':

This is the Coenaculum, held to be the site of the Last Supper:
Yes, it seems that even dirt in Old City Jerusalem has some sort of historical and religious significance.

Politics & Commercialism:

Jordan - Wadi Rum, Crusader Castles and Dana Village

Wadi Rum:

We could have taken a group tour to the desert of Wadi Rum, about 45 kms from where we were staying, but we are somewhat allergic to group tours. So we got there and came back on our own, with the combination of local buses, walking and hitchhiking on the back of a pickup truck. For a mere $40, a private taxi would have taken us there, waited three hours and brought us back, but where is the fun in that, right? (I.e. we are cheap.)

Anyway, riding camels in the desert of Wadi Rum was one of my favorite experiences on this trip - the scenery was majestic and we had two very charming camel guides.

This is Bill having picnic lunch with our guides Hussein and Bado:

They both claimed to be 15 years old, but I am guessing Hussein is 12 and Bado is 10. Hussein was definitely the leader of the two - he solemnly told us "if you have a problem, you let me know" and made Bado put back some food at lunch when he thought Bado was taking too much. I told Bado "there is plenty, please take more" but he wouldn't budge.

The ride lasted about two hours. We made a stop so that our guides could look at the airplane that flew over the desert.

We also made another stop at a Bedouin tent shop to drink tea (Bedouins are traditionally nomadic people that live in goat-hair tents and graze animals - well, they used to, I think a lot of them have settled down in villages now.):

This is a little boy we passed that was walking home from school (the black speck on the right is the boy and the long black shadow on the left are the tents):

The Wadi Rum pictures are fuzzy because we had dropped our camera and broken it the day before, so these pictures were taken with a disposable camera. Fortunately, we dropped the camera when Bill was trying to pass it to me so it is impossible to tell exactly which one of us is to blame. Otherwise, the person that dropped the camera would have had to go home.

Crusader Castles:
Karak castle, the battle place between the Crusaders and the Muslim army of Saladin (please refer to the movie Kingdom of Heaven for details):


They shot arrows through this:

Cannon balls at Shobak castle:

Dana Village - a charming 15th century stone village that we visited:

Jordan - Petra

We saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in the hotel's DVD collection and tried to watch it the night before in preparation of our Petra visit, but the DVD didn't work. I suspect that the hotel guy scratched the DVD on purpose, because he was complaining about how he saw that movie over 30 times. I was not happy with our hotel, because we killed three baby roaches in our room.

The stone city of Petras was built in the 3rd century BC by the Nabataens. First, we walked on this siq, created by earth quakes, for 1.2kms:

Just when it got tiring and I began to wonder if it will ever end, we came upon this view:

This is the Treasury (it is actually a tomb, but is called a Treasury because people believed treasures were hidden there):

We walked up 850 steps (because we were too cheap to hire donkeys to take us):

and reached this Monastery (the cafe tent across from the building had strategically placed props for maximum photo effect):

Walking to the royal tombs:

Petra is huge; we met a French guy that spent four days there. Having a much shorter attention span, we only spent a day there, but walked around a lot and tried to see as much as we could.