Bodgy border crossings and bagpipe playing Palestinians in Amman

G'day,

On our final night in Damascus a few folks from the group headed to this little local cafe we'd been told about. One method of passing information from generation to generation is in the form of the oral tradition of storytelling, and while slowly dying out, there are some who still practice this art. For as long as anybody can remember, there is one old bloke who comes along to this one cafe every day from 5pm to 6pm and reads tales and folklore from a book in the old language of Aramaeic, and translates into Arabic for the audience. The five of us sat down in this cafe, ordered some tea and a sheesha pipe, and watched this guy perform. We were told by the waiter, that today it was one of the tales from the 1001 Arabian Nights. We didn't understand a word, but with his costume and sword as a prop he was as entertaining as anyone i've seen, and the audience interaction and repartee and laughter throughout was fantastic.



Damn we're moving at a frenetic pace. 6 days in Syria and then boom! - another new country, another stamp in the passport, and hey Presto. we're in Jordan!

Because a few of our group had some troubles getting visas before the trip started, our drive to Amman was split into two groups - one going straight thru with a change at the border, and the guide went with the 5 who needed visas on a seperate express mini-bus to get that issue all sorted out. That left the remaining 6 of us with no guide and some instructions to look out at the Syrian border for a tall, stocky, dark skinned man with tight curly hair (like that doesn't describe half the male Arab population!!) who was to be our driver from there to Amman. After completing passport/immigration formailities. We saw no sign of anyone that could have been our driver, and after an expensive international roaming mobile call to out hotel to try and suss out if they knew anything about it (they didn't), rather than be stuck at a Middle Eastern border post with no one to get us to our next stop, we decided to jump back on the public bus still sitting there.

At Amman a random guy ushered to his mini-bus and said he'd help us out. Somewhat confused, we refused, but then after overcoming the communication barrier, it turned out he was from the hotel. Obviously the driver had figured out what had happened and sent this guy. It turned out our driver had gone to the border to pick us up, but somehow we had simply missed each other (altho it beats me how he could miss 6 Westerners with chunky rucksacks wandering slightly befuddled around a border post!)

Speaking of guides, and drivers etc, I haven't made mention of our Syrian guide, Bashar. This guy has been simply incredible. In comparison to our Turkey guide (who was woeful) this guy was a revelation. An organisational supremo, he has turned out trip around. While the Turkey section was fun, there were times when it was frustrating beyond belief dealing with dodgy hotels with no heating or hot water in the midst of winter (and our guides inability to either ensure in advance this wouldn't happen, or resolve it in a satisfactory manner when it did). There were no such issues here, and moving thru a country like Syria, which is very much a police-state with potential dramas and dangers looming around every corner, he handled everything with aplomb. Having just said that tho, he was to be our guide for the Syria leg only - we've got a new guide to see us thru Jordan , and all the way thru Egypt to Cairo - an Aussie chick from Brisbane named Jodi, who also just happens to be a total babe!! But let's not get too distracted here!!

So anyway, we arrived in Amman a little weary, but in good shape. Now compare to the cities we have been thru recently, Amman doesn't really rate. It's pretty much just a big capital with a sprawling, but very densly packed metropolis of 1.6 million people (out of 5 million in the entire country), all, it seems, living virtually on top of one another in near identical light brown square-box-like housing, interspersed with a few 700-year old mosques on every 10th block. It, like Damascus, has its fair share of Palestinian refugees, and we noticed several very poor looking refugee camps on the outskirts of town on our way in. Aside from a few key sights there is not much in the way of historically or archaeologically important monuments, and we covered the main part of town in 1/2 a day of walking around.







I was beginning to suffer a little bit of information overload on ancient history anyways. After a while, all the facts and figures and dates and periods of a myriad of empires rising and falling tend to blend into each other, and i found myself getting confused pretty quickly, and not making sense of everything I was 'learning'. Not to mention the fact that more than few places we've visited are name-checked in the Bible and the Islamic Koran, which just magnifies their significance by some degree. There are a few serious history and archaeology buffs in our group, and they're soaking it all up like a sponge, checking out every single museum and ancient site they can.

That afternooon, we visited another Roman ruins site about an hour out of town, named Jerash. Very similar to Palmyra, the desert setting replaced with sprawling suburbia, and not as large. But while strolling around the site, we could hear Scottish bagpipes being played (of all things!!). Following our ears we wandered into the Amphitheatre and saw three Arab blokes dressed in the khaki uniform of the Scots Desert Patrol (a regiment posted there from early last century as i was reliably informed), playing pipes and drums!! They spoke no English and so we couldn't find out what their story was - how did they learn to play, where/how/why did they get the uniforms, and what they were doing there. The last question was answered by the open jewel box with small change in it - busking. But as strange and amazing and awesome as the moment was, we left none the wiser.



Talk soon.

Tonypeace love and happy faces

Dead Sea Scrolls, Pampering, and Petra - part 2

Hi again,

what can i say about Petra? Well, I can safely say that it has rapidly overtaken Palmyra as my fave stop on this trip - by a long, long way.

It is another ancient city left to lay in ruins after successive empires have taken it over and left to decay and disintegrate over centuries of time. This time it was an empire by the name of the Nabateans Arabs, a nomadic tribe who settled in the area, and that ruled from around 600BC to around 100AD (if my stats are right), when the Romans came and took over. In amongst the Wadi Musa valley stand enormous rust-coloured sandstone rocky outcrops and escarpments, rock faces and cliffs that have been moulded by a combination of centuries of erosion and fierce weather.

The site is semi-arid, the friable sandstone which allowed the Nabataeans to carve their temples and tombs into the rock crumbling easily to sand. The colour of the rock ranges from pale yellow or white through rich reds to the darker brown of more resistant rocks. The contorted strata of different-coloured rock form whorls and waves of colour in the rock face, which the Nabataeans exploited in their architecture. The first major sight here, and the most instantly recognisable, is the Treasury, a 40 metre high facade carved into a cliff face, intricately and exquisitely carved, with an entrance to a large square room designed for hiding treasure.

The whole site of the city of Petra is enormous, and on the climb up out of one valley then descending into another, you pass the impressive amphitheatre, Royals Tombs, and the tomb of the Roman Soldiers amongst a myriad of other small memorials and facades. The final climb leads up to the Monastery, another enormous building, 45-50 metres tall, from around 100AD, carved into a cliff face, this time with Roman influence in the design, as this was towards the end of their reign.

Aside from the sheer magnificence and majesty of these buildings, simple walking thru these hills and valleys on a gorgeous, warm winters day, with perfect blue sky, and the sun beaming and reflecting and beautifully showing off the colours of the sandstone was simply awesome. part of my enjoyment of sites like this, and Palmyra and Ephesus, is just wandering thru, hiking up and down the hills, and enjoying the moment and wonderment of thousands of years of history.

If i thought that was good, the next 24 hours really put me in my element. Directly after our full day at Petra, we drove off into the desert to spend the night soaking the cultural experience of camping with a Bedouin tribe. Bedouins are (or were, in centuries past), a nomadic group of people, tribes spreading out all over Egypt right thru to Syria, surviving off trading of animals and handicrafts, pitching down and pulling up their tents whenever they felt the need to move on. In recent times they have settled down more, and are pretty much minorities in their own homelands these days. If my mother berated me from time to time with 'hey, do you think you live in a bedouin tent' whenever i left the front door open at home, well now i can say that i did for 24 hours! When we arrived, it was already dark, and almost immediately we were served up with a feast of traditional Bedouin food - various meats and stews with rice, cous cous, and a number of salads (more for the Western palate), which was followed by some musicians and an impromptu dance session in the main tent. The good ol' sheesha pipe was also soon brought out for a bit of a communal smoking session, with various fruit flavoured tobacco. I've become quite partial to this middle eastern delight, having sampled cappacino, raspberry, apple and orange flavoured tobacco's. Mmmmm, yum.

After a night sleeping under a tent woven from camel hair with the campfire ermbers still burning (too cold to sleep out under the stars, altho one of our group chanced it in the sub-zero temperatures), we rose early for a brief little camel safari jaunt for an hour or 2. And then, if enough historical and cultural highlights hadn't already been packed in, the thrill-seeker highlight of a jeep safari thru the desert sand dunes was next!! Woo-hoo! Riding in the back of a jeep, we sped off thru the plains before hitting some heavy duty sand dunes, tackling them head-on. A bit of a foot race up one particular dune was on, after which the dozen of us that went out were totally knackered. Amazing views tho.

Unfortunately, it was then time to go - onto Aqaba, the border town, before then leaving Jordan for Egypt. More on that next email.

I had the most amazing past 24-48 hours of the trip, so much excitement and adventure packed in...let me just say that i was glad to be alive!!

I think that's a good note to finish on.

talk soon,

tony

peace love and happy faces

Dead Sea Scrolls, Pampering, and Petra - part 1

Hi there,

Here's a useless bit of trivia for you. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth at 391 metres below sea level, and it's salt water content sits at around 34%, making it incredibly bouyant. So much so that you can literally float on top of the water with pretty much zero effort. This narrow body of water also happens to seperate Jordan from Israel (or Occupied Palestine, depending on your viewpoint), and in particular that little trouble spot you hear about on the news fairly often, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. We could see it from where we were, but it was as close as we were going to get.

We stopped here on our way south from Amman for a few hours the other morning. From time to time, the tour company Imaginative Traveller likes to pamper its customers, and the spot where we stopped happened to be a 5 star hotel resort with its own private access beach to the Dead Sea, which they booked out for us for the morning. This place was amazing - it had 3 pools, 2 with waterslides, and the other a lap swimming pool, in addition to the sea. And part of the deal was an all-you-can-eat buffet of the most amazing food. And....being the off-season, we had the entire place to ourselves!! Of course, we took full advantage!

The other interesting fact about the dead sea is that its surface is muddy rather than sandy, and in this mud is reputedly a high content of some mineral which is excellent for your skin. So, the thing to do after you're done floating, you grab a fistful of mud and smear it all over your body and let the sun bake it dry, then washing it off afterwards. Mud fights not withstanding, we all participated in the smear campaign, and did those silly poses you see painted buskers doing in shopping arcades. Lots and lots of fun, let me tell you.







Fun over, we had a 4 hour drive to Wadi Musa, the jumping off point for Petra. Snoozing contentedly in the mini-bus as we climbed back above sea level and them up into a mountain range, we were woken by Jodi to show us Wadi Araba ('wadi' means 'valley' in Arabic), a desert valley that stretched for miles upon miles into the far distance. This was, in my words 'wadi awesome!' (at which Jodi was in stitches at my impromptu one-liner) - the colours and shadings of the sand and rock that made up the surface ranged from white to yellow, to red, then blue, and all shades inbetween (from mineral deposits of potassium, sulphur, iron and magnesium, as i was reliably informed by a science geek on our tour). Back in the bus, and back to our snoozing we arrived at Wadi Musa, and were told our hotel had a Turkish Bath facility for those that wanted to continue their pampering. At A$20 for a 90 minute session, i thought 'why the hell not'. My skin has never felt so good!

More in a little bit.

Tony




peace love and happy faces

Damascus - and hanging with a presidential loser

G'day,

When yer on a tour group, sometimes you simply don't get enough time to spend in some places - Damascus is one of them....a day and a 1/2 just doesn't cut it for a city so full of places to see and things to do.

It's basically divided into two areas - the Old Damascus, (the really interesting and therefore touristy bit) which is encompassed by the old city walls, and is made up of the souq-market areas, the Christian Quarter and the Jewish Quarter - and New Damascus, which is the modern city which has expanded on all four sides of the old city and up into the hills (most of which is slums holding the bulk of the population of Palestinian refugees and illegal immigrants).





Damascus claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, and evidence shows some kind of urban metropolis on the site from 5000BC. Therefore it is historically and archaeologically incredibly rich, and it's another important stop on the caravan trail from East to West and is chock full of history, having been ruled by a number of different empires, including the Romans, before falling under Islamic rule around 700AD.

The start of our short stay began with something that most tourists don't get to do, and that is visit the countries main Islam Foundation Centre - a mosque, school and international education centre. Here we were taken to a windowed rooom above the main prayer hall, and listened to a translated sermon (for want of a better word) and watched the congregation go thru the ritual of prayer to Allah. Afterwards, we met the imam (main guy) of Damascus' largest mosque, along with a dozen Afro-American' guys who were on an exchange programme studying Islam and Arabic, and had a sort of question and answer discussion about Islam. Issues of sexual equality and terrorism among other topics brought about some rather animated repartee, but all in all it was a good learning and info session for me in particular, not knowing much about the concepts and ideas of the religion.

A visit to Damascus is not complete without a wander thru the souqs and Amuyyud mosque (not the largest but the most important and beautifully decorated), dating from around the 7th Century.





The souqs never cease to amaze me - the sheer manic-ness, and hustle and bustle, the colour and the noise, the exoticness of the wares on sale, and the 3 hours i wandered around trying free samples of various food products and snapping photos barely saw me thru a 1/4 of the market.



At the mosque (one of the few that your allowed inside to photograph and wander thru as a non-Muslim), noticed a largish group of people closely huddled together wandering around, and curious, slowly approached. There was a lot of photographers and guys with notebooks out as well, and then I noticed John Kerry - the guy who lost to George Dubya in the US election, being escorted around. I had to get a piece of this action! And I did! Mingling with the journo crew i got into a position to snap a piccie of him pretty close up. Score! Happy with that i moved off, kind of hovering around the edges trying to catch conversation just to find out what he was doing there. I couldn't.

Nevermind. Shortly afterwards i bumped into another guy from my tour group and told him who i saw, and showed him my piccie. He knew about it already, and had gone one better - a photo of the two of them together! Not more than 30minutes later, as i continued on my touristy way checking out one of the small palaces by the souqs, i ran into the John Kerry expedition again. This time, emboldened by my mates efforts, i approached him as he was leaving a souvenir shop and doing the politician-kisses-baby photo ops, and asked for a photograph to which he obliged! (how could he say no, with all those journo's around - he'd look like a pompous ass if he did!).



Anyway, that'll do for now.

cheers, Tonypeace love and happy faces

Hama - Crac Des Chevallier - Palmyra

G'day,

It's bound to happen. You travel thru a series of countries and places, and pick spots that are your 'favourite', then a few days later, a new destination crops up and that's yer new 'fave'. Palmyra is one such place, superseding Cappadocia, which superseded Ephesus and Gallipoli before it as my fave spots in the region.

Before we hit Palmyra tho, we spent a night in Hama, a quaint riverside town with gorgeous centuries-old (isn't everything here!) water-wheels



supplying the irrigation aqueducts. It's also the main jumping off point for Crac Des Chevallier, an 800 year old castle that we visited. It is pretty much still in mint condition, and as a strategic defence post for the various ruling empires over the ages, you can get a pretty good idea of how life was for the 4000 residents that lived within it's walls in its heyday.



On to Palmyra. Syria is the self-proclaimed 'cradle of civilisation', and given that its 2 biggest cities Aleppo and Damascus both claim the title of 'longest continuously inhabited city in the world' with evidence dating back some 3000 years BC, it is a claim with some validity. Palmyra, situated by a classic desert oasis of palm trees and water springs, these days is a tiny, dusty little town, smack bang in the middle of these two cities, deep in the Syrian desert, and a major stop/rest-point/trading station on the ancient caravan trail between the Asians and Persians, and the Roman empire.





Driving out from Hama, spotting traffic signs pointing the way to Baghdad on the highway (good photo op!!),



we passed several bedouin camps, and goat and camel herders, which really made us feel that we were right in there in desert life. Before you reach the modern town of Palmyra, you pass by ancient Roman ruins of the old city.

These ruins date from the 3rd and 4th century, and span several square kilometres. This city is replete with giant entrance arches leading into the main market street, wide enough for camel caravans loaded with goods and supplies, service lanes for shops and stores, an amphitheatre for Gladiator-style battles for public entertainment, private and public underground and above ground burial tombs, the outstanding Temple of Bel - to worship the God of Gods - and a citadel at the top of a hill, now used as a spectacular viewing point (fantastic desert sunsets!) .




It's amazing. I spent hours just snapping photos and wandering around these ruins, the weather perfect altho cold (who would have thought I would be wandering thru the Syrian desert with 4 layers of clothing on, including a heavy wool-lined parka!

We have been extraordinarily lucky with the weather on our trip. We are up to about Day 20 now, and while it may be a bit cloudy on occasions and rarely warm, it has only been raining while we've been on the bus, but almost as soon as we stop to visit another site, it stops, and the sun would come out. We only got caught out with a slight drizzle once in Turkey (at Troy), but that's it. It makes the trip just that little bit better not having to deal with rotten weather!

I have to say that the Syrian people are amazing. Most speak no more than about 5 phrases of English, and i have learnt about 5 phrases in Arabic, but the warmth and friendliness of these people transcend language barriers. Just walking down the street we are forever being stopped by locals asking us where we're from, and the first response is "Welcome to Syria".



Market shopping is a helluva lot easier to deal with than Turkey as well. There's very little of the pushiness and pressuring tactics here, and bargaining is done with a lot more genuine joviality, rather than the forced smiles and pretend laughter we dealt with, and makes the process of buying something a lot more pleasurable. And the free cups of tea are just as good as Turkey too!

On that note I'll finish this journal entry now. Talk soon.

Tony


peace love and happy faces