Poll Star's Wonderings

Pyramid photos now added

2008-04-10T10:01:00.001+01:00

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Rowley Birkin's Home Town-Cairo

2008-04-09T14:08:00.003+01:00

Can't get the photos to load in the airport, so will do that back in blighty. Here's me signing off from Egypt

Day 83 Cairo
So the night minibus was an error in judgement. It was full, I sat at the end of three seats and my neck hurt and I couldn’t sleep. Worse things happen at sea and in case I know that I not meant for night buses. Trains yes, buses no.

I was feeling like I might have a little snooze when I finally got a room just before 10, but then the fun with Glasto tickets kicked off and I was sending texts and checking e-mails to get Sozz some details. So then when I had a snooze, there wasn’t so much daytime left.

I decided to do something a little different and went to the Mr and Mrs Mahmoud Khajil museum. Mahmoud gathered an impressive collection of 19th and 20th century art. Given that he was a noted politician of the 1940s, I was a little concerned as to how he paid for it, but he clearly left it to the nation. I’m not sure it’s that visited as a tout accosted me on the way and told me there was nothing down the road.

The walk was quite odd. Cairo was orange. It had a post apocalyptic feel. The sun was hidden and the visibility was a fraction of what is normal. With the right camera or some paints it would have been very beautiful. There were many people walking around, so I guessed that a bomb hadn’t gone off and it was probably the result of prolonged winds driving the desert into the sky. The desert is surprisingly close to a city of 20 million people.

A few of the paintings in the first room had Egyptian subjects, which was quite an interesting fusion with 19th century European style. There was definitely the feeling of a private collection-furniture, pottery, vases, miniatures and a great tapestry joined the paintings.

I soon came across a Gaugin. I really must find out more about him, as to me he went to the South Sea Islands, painted topless lovelies, shagged anything in sight, then died leaving a lot of half caste illegitimates and raging syphilis. His story convinces more than his painting.

This museum had many things I didn’t expect to find in Egypt. This was best exemplified by a Pissaro of a cricket match in Bedford Park-I’d have been surprised by that in Paris or the Long Room, let alone Cairo.

Two pieces had a room to themselves. This is quite unusual, I can only think of the Leonardo cartoon having similar treatment, but that is more to do with preservation. In a small collection it was a very cool way of giving pride of place. The first one was a Van Gogh. It wasn’t spectacular, but nonetheless it was a Van Gogh-I’ll guess it is the only one in Egypt. Across the hall, the second Gaugin received similar treatment.

Although the big name pieces weren’t top notch, there was an impressive lineup: Rodin, Monet and Degas joined the others. There was a very good room of Millets, which reminded me of my old dissertation on Joseph Israels.

The collection was a in a villa and was a good size: you could contemplate each piece. It was not a showy collection, but it was an enjoyable break for me. Something very different from most of the previous 3 months. A sorbet to clear to palette if you will.

Day 84 Giza
So yesterday I met Bell. Although she’d just flown in from London, despite the fact she’s Australian, we were essentially in the same boat: overnight travel, next to no sleep, early arrival at the hostel King Tut, hoping for the room to be ready. Alas no room. So we’d chatted for a couple of hours, then agreed to have a pyramid fest today. First stop Giza. You’ve probably heard of these boys.

As the car rounded a bend, there they were poking out above the suburb of Giza. It was quite strange. The pyramids predate the Valley of the Kings. They are from the Old Kingdom: Egypt has 97 pyramids, some of which are under mounds of sand. 90% are from the Old Kingdom. I suppose they are a different approach to preventing grave robbing: while the valley of the kings relied on subtlety and hiding the tombs, the pyramids feel more like a fortress. Temples and smaller pyramids for wives were around the main pyramid, but there was no comparison in size.

Before we got to plateau, we saw a poster for the latest Egyptian blockbuster

Motorbikes and Girls. Wasim, our guide, said it wasn’t very good.

We started at the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

This is the Daddy at 146m high, 10m higher than the pyramid of his son Khafre. The latter is the one that still has an amount of its limestone casing near the apex and is on higher ground, so it often looks larger. Had I gone on my own, I don’t think I would have paid the £100 to go inside the pyramid (and as the LP said £150, I doubt I’d gave approached the ticket office). I was glad I did. I have to say I couldn’t figure why you’re not allowed your camera: there are no paintings as in Luxor, just large stone chambers. While there may not be a lot to see, it is an interesting experience to be crouching (short legs good here) your way through something 4,000 years old. The first stretch was cave like: I suspect it was burrowed after the completion as the tunnels and stairs inside were beautifully regular and in one spot the ceiling soared up like a cathedral. There’s relatively little in there, given the size of the construction and essentially we were led to one chamber, although there was a very narrow passageway leading who knows where.

Then onto Khafre, which we didn’t go inside.

before a quick look at what may be the world’s oldest boat.

where you had to wear the old special shoes.

The boys are so big that you really have to stand back to get the overview

where it’s a great spot for silly false perspective photos.

Bell’s camera was better equipped to take them, so I may have to post later on that. With the pyramids’ size, it’s easy to forget the old sphinx.

which is in much better condition than I had expected

It was quite difficult to get photos without the crowds (we’d been fairly quiet at the pyramids, but the coach and school parties were arriving by now).

Naturally I managed to start a trend

A girl saw me and wanted one. Then Bell had one. I thought there was a little tongue in hers. I’m fairly sure there are still queues of people kissing the Sphinx. The Sphinx also provided one last recurrence of a well worn leit motif: the beard is in the British Museum (I think I shall have to blog my visit to the British Museum).

From Giza we headed onto Saqqara and Dahshur, home of the oldest pyramids. The step pyramid is the tomb of Zoser

and was designed by the architect Imhotep, who seems as famous as a Pharoah. Before seeing it I had been confused by the ‘step’ description, as I felt the pyramids at Giza were stepped on the outside. Of course those pyramids were originally clad, so that the exterior was smooth. Additionally, the ‘steps’ at Giza are just one block high. Here we see a design that in more akin to progressively smaller squares laid on top of each other. The shape becomes more pyramidal from the sand and rubble sitting on the steps. It is over 4 and a half thousand years old and is the world’s earliest stone monument. It is history.

There was a considerable amount of building around the step, but I felt most had been over restored. We did make our way into a stunning tomb, much larger than those at Luxor. I hadn’t seen green before and naughtily sneaked a flash free photo.

Finally onto Dahshur, where we went into the red pyramid

The red is the oldest true pyramid (the bent pyramid doesn’t have the shape, neither the step). There are 2 chambers at 12m and 15m high and you get to them down a 63m tunnel, which is long old way bent double on a steep slope.

You can’t get anywhere near the bent pyramid, which is in a military zone. Could you want any more convincing evidence that the pyramids were built by aliens? The shape

is due them having to adjust the construction as it develop stress problems half way up. I guess this was a learning pyramid.

There’s been a lot of talk on this blog about the seven wonders both ancient and new. Partly this is because I’ve visited 4 of each in the past 9 months. Today was the last one for now and I guess I need to declare a winner. You know it’s Petra. Still not been there?

Day 85 Cairo
So. Kinda done it all. At least all I fancied doing. I ploughed back through the book to see if there was anything else that I’d want to spend a day on. There were pages and pages on Islamic Cairo, although nothing that sounded essential. Or even that good. I took a potter round and there were some nice mosques, one stunner (which was too holy for me to be allowed in), some hussle and bustle, perhaps more of a sense of the real Cairo. Had I started here, I think it would have been quite a good scene setter. As I’m finishing here, it felt familiar. I guess it was a farewell.

I had a spot of dinner at a Chinese restaurant I had tried to go to the night before, when I thought it was closed as I couldn’t open the door. Turned out it was a sliding door. First time I’d had a beer on my own all trip, pretty good too. In the lift back up to hotel, I looked in mirror and smiled. What next?

That is a very good question indeed.

Day 86 The US Masters Preview, on BBC 1
Flight’s at 4, so cab at 1, lunch at 12, so not much is going on.

Today is all about Mike Weir winning the Par 3 tournament and being back home in time to see the masters preview.

Playing it safe

2008-04-05T16:59:00.002+01:00

I believe Butler's Cabin fell over.

Just as well as I had a cheeky covering (each way) bet on King John's Castle

Dahab take 2

2008-04-05T15:50:00.002+01:00

Day 78 Luxor to Dahab/Day 79 Dahab
I have to admit I was a bit nervous about Egypt air. Not so much that I thought it’d crash, but I figured it would be massively unreliable-down to arrive in Sharm as 22.25 with an hour and a bit to Dahab, I wasn’t keen on a delay. I went to their website to check my flight and e-ticket and that started the alarm bells ringing. My e-ticket had the time and date for my flight to Sharm and that flight existed and was on time, but had a different flight number to the one on my e-ticket. The flight number on my e-ticket went to Cairo. You what? So I headed to the Egypt Air office, where the guy seemed to think I was a bit bonkers for questioning it and told me I was going to Sharm. At the airport, all the screens and check in had one flight number, while my boarding pass had a different one, the same as my e-ticket, which was on all the screens going to Cairo. I did get to Sharm, but it was a bit odd and half an hour late.

That wasn’t the only bit of fun in getting out of Luxor. My taxi driver tried to molest me, kept telling me how many hours Englishmen have sex for (compared to 5 minutes for Egyptians-I’m not sure what basis he was using for his statistics), going on about banana, saying ‘strong, strong man’ and pointing at his crotch saying look. I repositioned my backpack and told him to keep his hands on the wheel: my sympathy for women travelling in Egypt redoubled. Proved my point that they’re all queer as folk.

It took me a while to get into the airport. We had some great banter.

‘Ticket?’

‘I don’t have a ticket. E-ticket.’

‘Print out?’

‘No. It’s on my credit card.’ {shows credit card}

‘Ticket?’

‘No. I have a number written on a piece of paper.’ {shows handwritten piece of paper}

‘Ticket?’

Eventually another bloke tried ‘passport’ and this gained me admittance. Of course that wasn’t the end of it. He walked through the scanner in front of me, set it off with his gun, while I didn’t. He turned round and frisked me, goes ‘what’s that?’ and I said ‘money’, ‘give me some’. I quickly tried to calculate how many countries in the world could a man on airport security ask you for cash and not expect instant dismissal. I managed to restrain my response to ‘I’m not giving you anything’. The two experiences made me think that half Egypt would be in jail in the UK. Which led me thinking who is the most famous Egyptian in the UK. It seemed hardly surprising that the man is a shopkeeper with a reputation for sexual harassment, dodgy dealings and talking twaddle. I understand his football are going to be relegated.

Before the taxi driver’s wandering hands had distracted me, I had been rather surprised to feel a bit of a pang as we headed out of Luxor. For all its faults, it is quite a place and they do light it up to good effect at night. I wonder if I will be back: I met a lot of people on Sinai who had been to Egypt before; a couple in the desert and I cannot remember meeting anyone in Luxor/Aswan/Cairo who had been before. The vibe seems to be ‘worth seeing, too much hassle to come back’.

The airport had a couple of final twists. I had a problem finding my gate. This was because gates 9-12 had been laid out (form left to right) 9, 12, 11, 10. With two flights leaving in two hours (40 mins apart), they called both of them (bloke shouts a flight destination across the departure lounge) within a minute of each other. Both need everyone to get on a bus. Oddly, chaos ensues. I really don’t look for these things.

I had felt tired after having lunch; I nearly nodded off reading in the afternoon; it was a struggle staying awake for nearly 2 hours while I waited for the flight; then I did have a doze in the minibus that had come to take me to the Pearl of South Sinai in Dahab. I was shown into room 1 and wished a good night’s sleep-it was fifteen minutes after midnight, so it was a fair assumption that I’d be straight to bed. I’d always meant to go out when I arrived to get something to drink and a quick something to eat. I was very thirsty as I had refused to pay more than 6 times the normal price for a softie in Luxor airport. So I headed out; the 2 guys in reception were clearly surprised. They jumped to their feet and asked if they could help. I said I was just off for a bit of a walk, no worries.

On the street, I walked a minute or so and then started recognising things (I’m a little further south and away from the centre of things this time). At this point I felt I was back in Dahab and I felt a weight fall from my shoulders and the tension seemed to leave me (Norbert later told me he’d had a similar feeling). Energised, my plan changed from just going to the supermarket and getting a couple of things to having a longer walk. Not long after that, I remembered that Norbert and Andrea had arrived in the morning and would almost certainly be in Rush. So I texted Norbert and headed back in that direction.

Unfortunately the Pearl of Sinai locks the front door and some poor devil sleeps on the sofa. I felt bad waking him at nearly 5 a.m., but I didn’t have much option. Never did get to the supermarket or eat anything.

I noticed on the second night they left the door ajar. They’ve got my number.

So it was time for another tour of the Dive clubs, trying to arrange the trip to Thistlegorm and Ras Mohammed. I went back to Desert Divers who pointed me to Sea Dancers, which was a little more expensive than I had been expecting. I spoke to a few others, but it seemed that Sea Dancers were the only one with an inside track on this one (owned by the same company). They’d inspired a good bit of confidence, so I wasn’t too disappointed. Steve, clearly from England, had been saying that they weren’t happy with merely advanced certified divers and normally wanted people with, I’m not sure how many, dives but I have a feeling it was 50 or so. I thought I had 12. Turned out it was 11 so I needed checking out, which means a dive at the lighthouse tomorrow.

I do love Bob Marley, like half the known universe I own Legend. This is a strange record in a way: I love it, think it’s full of great tracks and it has one of my very favourite songs in Redemption Song, yet it has never inspired me to buy any other Marley (apart from the remix of Sun is Shining that Sky use for cricket in the Caribbean. Odd really. Of course there’s a lot of Bob about here (anywhere where there’s a beach and beach bars/café, it is the official soundtrack) and while he was drifting softly in through the door, I got an urgent need to listen to the Clash-shamefully for the first time in 3 years. Hope I’m not getting a party pooper rep.

Norbert didn’t have a lot of stamina and headed off after dinner. Although I needed to get up to dive, it was Andrea’s last night so we went to the Tree bar, as it sounded like the only place with some life. I ended up describing it as a paedo club. I don’t there was anyone there in their 20s, and we were representing the 30 somethings. I got the distinct impression that mummy and daddy were spending the evening elsewhere. This impression of the Tree bar was reinforced when we had dinner a couple of nights later and there was a group of the kind of public school kids that send Sozz apoplectic wearing Tree Bar t-shirts. One beer was enough.

Day 80 Dahab
Steve had said there was no point in starting early as it was only one dive, so come along at 10. He may have been in Egypt for 7 years, but this was very much an English concept of not starting early. We’d had a fairly early night, but I still didn’t really fancy it when the alarm went off. I felt quite nervous, kitting up and managed to put my weight belt on the wrong way round twice. In myhead it was like it was an exam. The first thing that Ollie made me do was completely flood my mask, take it off, put if back and empty the water out of it-my least faoured skill. Burnt some aire, but did and after the fin pivot was away. Nioce little dive and the visibility was mega compared to the last time I was here. I don’t remember too much of what we saw as I was thinking technically the whole time_I really didn’t want ot screw this up. I passed the test and Ollie gave me some good tips-I reckon he’d be a really good instructor. As he was English, I asked him about diving back home. He said he hadn’t really bothered as it’s cold and beardy, which had been my preconception. Still, I am going to look into what’s available-I suspect it may be a lot of wrecks.

The rest of the day became something of a rush. I was supposed to meet Norbert, Andrea and Carolyn (who’s back in town) for lunch, then go back to the dive shop and leave Dahab at 11. After saying goodbye to Andrea, I pottered back to Sea Dancers, who told me the car would take me to Sharm at 6 instead. Plans of naps and blogging and leisurely dinners were out the window and I had to pack my dive gear, get a briefing and pack my overnight bag.

Along with a few folks doing another trip, I met Aussie Matt on the way down, who was doing the same as me. Getting to the boat early worked out well, as we had a briefing got our gear ready and got a pretty decent night’s sleep, which I needed after the past few.

Day 81 Thistlegorm and Ras Mohammed.
The Thistlegorm was an unfortunate British ship, which was transporting a range of hardware to support the war effort in the region. For safety they’d routed it down via the Cape and, after something like 6 months, it was closing on Sinai when it was spotted by German bombers. These bombers were on their way back from a failed mission. The Thistlegorm was not their target, but the dastardly hun took a few pot shots anyway and down the boat went in October 1941. The boat lay undiscovered until some Italians found it ’63, which surprised me. Less surprising was that they promptly lost it again and it was rediscovered in the 80s.

The LP says it is often too rough to dive the Thistlegorm. It was rough and again I was glad no to have seasickness issues. It presents diving issues though. There wasn’t much current under the water, but getting to the rope we descended by was fun and better still was getting back out as the waves wash you, the other divers, the boat and the ladder up and down.

Before the first dive I was quite nervous and felt both inexperienced and self conscious. Matt was a very experienced diver and the rest of the boat was full of Hungarians, who looked the business. Hungarian is not a language either Matt or I felt any affinity for. Sometimes you can get a sense of a language from hearing it for a while. Not Hungarian. We worked out the guy in orange was funny and I kept thinking of Keyser Sose (sic I am sure). Hungarian men appear to be tall, thick set and 8 months pregnant. The ladies are rather more trim, although I had to restrain myself from asking the girl in the porn star tight crop top if ‘those were all paid for’. Anyway, the briefings had to be translated, they were on a diving trip, so it seemed likely they knew what they were doing. There was a father and son, who had all the gear and were using nitrox: nitrox has a higher concentration of oxygen and required special training. Matt and I couldn’t help but notice that we went into the water before the nitrox boys and exited after them. They didn’t even do the final dive. I should know better than to make assumptions based on someone having all the kit-it’s about the first lesson of the golf course.

I am guessing that the most overused word in describing a wreck dive is eerie. Well, it was eerie. The first dive was the deep one and was a tour of the outside. The wreck lies on a slope, with the back (stern I believe) being the deepest spot. We headed past the captain’s cabin and then turned round the back, where the propeller made the biggest impression on me. It was massive and detached. We saw motorbikes, trucks, what looked like a freight train carriage, large shells, a defused bomb and tins of supplies. When I flipped on my back for a bit I could see the silhouettes of some very large fish hanging around the smaller shoals. The dive was quite hard work for me as we had two spells of hanging around vertically. My weighting seemed to be wrong and I had to work quite hard to maintain my depth. One of the most striking moments was just after getting in the water and seeing the aerial view.

The second dive was inside. I don’t know if anyone died when the boat sank-it wasn’t a troop transporter so there were less than 50 onboard. It seems unlikely everyone would have survived, but there are no bodies lying around which is a good thing. Mummies are bad enough. For me a lot of the fascination lay in what was in the ship, its state of preservation and how the marine life had now adapted to it. I kept seeing these solitary red fishing lurking behind doors and motorbikes; there was a lionfish who looked very comfortable. Some of the tyres looked good enough to still use, others were now alive with algae and supporting a new ecosystem. The style of the bikes and trucks had me thinking of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (for a change), although I didn’t see a sidecar for any of the bikes. There were quite a number of air pockets inside the wreck, indicative that quite a lot of structure had survived 66 years in brine. I couldn’t help but think of the poor buggers on that boat at 1.30 a.m. as we swam round the holds and up through the kitchen. I was glad Sea Dancers had leant me a torch.

The whole experience was less freaky than I thought and although you could often see a way out, there was plenty of time when you couldn’t and I was very glad we had a guide and a relatively small group of 6. Imagine swimming down a corridor with about 2 torso depths worth of gear on your back-it’s not the most room.

I clearly thought the boat was a bus, as I set about trying to crack my skull. Sea Dancers had sent me a bigger tank, which they couldn’t find on the boat when I set my gear up last night. The idea is that you set your gear up in the port, then they refill your tank when you’re at sea (no one mentioned that bit to me), so you don’t need to change tanks as the boat gets tossed about. In the morning they found my tank and I had to change it while the boat got tossed about. As it was a bigger I had to make a few additional adjustments. Not made easier as some donkeys had left their gear on the deck. When a really big wave threw me off balance, my (bizarre) instinct was to protect my gear and the donkeys’. The net result was I broke my fall using a combination of a bench and my head. The one that really hurt was after the second dive when we were trying to get out and a wave threw me up, another guide to the side and his tank introduced itself to my skull. It’s made brushing my hair an activity to be undertaken only when essential. After that, the 3 or four blows I took in the taxi back to Dahab were only to be expected.

Ras Mohammed is one of the world’s great dive sites and the drift dive we did from Shark Reef to Yolanda reef was my highlight. I somehow missed a massive barracuda, but saw a crocodile fish, which was a first for me. Mostly, as I was tired, it was back to gazing on in wonder. The coral was stunning, the fish colourful and plentiful. At one point I got very excited as I thought I saw coral in fins. When I got closer it turned out to be the coral forming on the metal from the famous container from the Yolanda. The Yolanda sank after the reef ripped the arse out of her, but the crew threw some containers off while they still had hope. This one was full of bathroom gear. I saw one bath, but it was mostly toilets-one of which is set up for you sit on and get a picture. Shall have to come back with the underwater camera. I also saw a beautiful blue spotted ray chilling on the bottom.

Taxi back to Dahab, shower, dinner at Aladdins and onto the party night at Rush. Half the dive guys I know seemed to be there. A good day.

Day 82 Dahab to Cairo
The very nice people at Pearl of South Sinai have let me keep my room for free until I leave on the night minibus to Cairo at 11. This is a calculated risk. It is quicker and they won’t check my ticket 3 times. It will also drop me straight at my hotel and save me the hassle of a taxi (I would have taken so many more taxis if they used meters). However, if it’s full, it’ll be gross.

I’ve been to the dive shop to tidy things up, changed my last dollars for Egyptian pounds and been struck by the thought that I have just 4 nights left. I plan on doing some (shock horror) shopping and having a last dinner with Carolyn and Norbert. Should be a nice day.

And if I have time, I’m having a tenner each way on Butler’s Cabin in the National. If it wins, I think I shall take my good friend Jim Nance for dinner. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Watch the final round of the Masters from Augusta next Sunday.

Ferry cross the Nile

2008-04-01T15:43:00.013+01:00

Day 76 Luxor Temple
I have not read any Agatha Christie for something like 20 years. Obviously I bought Death on the Nile for my location; amusingly there’s an advert in it for the next Poirot, which is set in Petra, so I guess I’ll be getting that too. Have to say she’s a better writer then I remembered/expected, though I guess to sell that many books you need something (over a billion in English and the same again in other languages-I think JK Rowling has a way to go). There’s some recognisable sides of Egypt in it too:

‘If there were only any peace in Egypt, I should like it better,’ said Mrs. Allerton. ‘But you can never be alone anywhere. Someone is always pestering you for money, or offering you donkeys, or beads, or expeditions to native villages, or duck shooting.’

Well, I haven’t been offered duck shooting. Yet.

The plan for today was to go across the river to Luxor Temple, have lunch, come back and have a snooze, post the blog and then go for a late afternoon mosey round the museum, before meeting Norbert (and whoever is now keeping him company) for dinner. In the end the blog was very long, so the museum got put back-I have plenty of time left in Luxor.

Luxor temple was mostly built by Amenhotep III, although the colossal statues of Ramses II do a pretty good job of stealing the credit. I can half imahgine having dinner with Ramses II, I think there would be only one topic of conversation-Ramses II. He’s at it again here with the statues accompanied by a massive pylon (kind of like a castle gateway) covered in his heroic deeds-I recognised the chariot and firing of arrows from Abu and the Ramasseum. The common theme to these heroic deeds does seem to be Ramses in chariot driving over his enemies while firing arrows at people on foot, who are running away from him. Now maybe I’ve seen too many Die Hard movies, but I’m not so sure that’s so very heroic. It smacks of clearing up after the real fighting’s over and then bragging in the bar afterwards. In the museum there’s a mummy of another great fighting Pharoah, and the caption expresses some surprise that he is small and arthritic, given the tales of his heroic deeds: call me cynical (go on, I dare you), but it strikes me that if you’re footing the bills for huge temples and friezes, you’re probably gonna want to look like you’re in the action, not cheering from the sidelines while some Achilles figure actually does the fighting. I think some of the academics need to consider that the Pharoahs might just have been full of shit.

The temple is 3km from Karnak and the two were originally linked by an avenue of sphinxes. A fair bit remains both exiting Karnak and entering Luxor Temple.

The format is fairly familiar by now: big boastful entrance, Ramses, big hypostyle hall, Ramses, obelisks and Ramses. Here’s Ramses’ leg and a fan

Now I wouldn’t say Ramses was on roids, but he’s certainly been to the gym for this one

To try and convey the ludicrous level of artistry, here’s a little detail from one obelisk.

There was one big surprise in here (don’t get me wrong this place is beautiful and impressive, but it’s getting a bit much)

This is a Roman era Christian fresco towards the back of the complex. It is more beautiful than it looks and, for my money, I think they should give serious consideration to moving it somewhere they can control the climate. This is essentially outdoors.

Later we had some dinner, a few drinks and there were some fezs lying about, so this happened.

Day 77 Luxor Museum
Today I was meant to be going to Abydos and Dendara. The plan was always to do a day trip from Luxor for this. Well my hotel was unsurprisingly no help at all. I must have visited at least 6 places that said they did a trip to Dendara and Abydos, but none of them had anyone going at any point in time, so they weren’t actually running it. I negotiated a taxi to do it the other day, but when it became clear he didn’t know we’d have to go in police convoy (and therefore didn’t know when we needed to start), I dumped that idea. Today is going to be different though. I had a long chat with a few taxis and have agreed a price with a guy that includes both temples and back to Luxor in the police convoy and NO SHOPS. I’m meeting him at the ferry on the East Bank at 7.30. As the ferry made its way over, I watched the hot air balloons floating over Luxor.

It certainly looks a nicer way to travel than the ubiquitous cruise ships.

I feel a lot of people must expect something tranquil and exclusive and be somewhat disappointed.

Well today would have been different had my taxi man showed up: I believe the price we agreed was half the average monthly wage, so even with fuel and all, it should have been worthwhile. Still I had a feeling he’d no show.. I thought Dendara and Abydos sounded well worth a visit, but it seems no one else is going, so maybe I’m not missing much. It certainly wasn’t meant to be. The museum opened at 9, breakfast places at 10, so I sat and read my book for an hour.

Luxor museum doesn’t really feel like Egypt. First up there is film (the first time there’s been anything like that: it is a joint production of the National Geographic channel and the Supreme Council of Antiquities (you just know they’re bureaucrats wasting oxygen). Omar Sharif does the voiceover in a curious accent. It’s reasonably well done and gives you a feel for the museum’s collection, as well as setting it in some historical context-hallelujah.

The museum itself is well lit (as in it enables you to see the exhibits) and the exhibits have labels and explanations. There’s even some big screens showing the making of pots, bricks and papyrus. Interestingly, although nowhere near as big, it costs 40% more than the Egyptian museum in Cairo. And there are some really good pieces. This is actually a proper museum.

Right at the start there’s the head from a colossus of Amenhotep III: I’m struggling to imagine how big it must have been as the head is the same height as me, though much bigger than me overall. The quality of the sculpting is again extraordinary, reinforcing what was lost until the Renaissance: this is best demonstrated in a simply wonderful sculpture of Tuthmosis III, which is as good as anything I can remember seeing. It is made from a black stone called Greywacke that I’ve never heard of, but I wish Michelangelo had used once or twice. (No photos allowed in here).

In the Egyptian Museum I chose not to go and see the mummies: I’ve seen the ghoulish reactions of people in the British Museum and I have very ambivalent feeling about it. Just when is it OK to dig up bodies and put them on show? How long do you wait before it’s no longer grave robbing? I hesitated and went for a quick look. I still can’t really see the justification aside from on a commercial basis-mummies seem to be a big draw, they’re more expensive than the rest of the Egyptian museum. There’s one here they think is Ramses I, when that was discovered the museum in Atlanta gave it back. They’d recently paid 2 million dollars for it.

The Egyptian idea of eternal life and mummification and burying people with things they’d need in the afterlife means there are some interesting items in tombs. On display here was some of the furniture and sandals in King Tut’s tomb. It seems that the afterlife was going to be quite hard on shoes.

Reading the captions you realise just how much they are still finding, some of stunning-there’s a whole room full statues, found in a cache less than 10 years ago. Makes you wonder what’s still out there.

Day 78 Luxor Airport
Yeah this really has been an airport day. Pack, check out, have something to eat, hang out, read, blog. Flight’s not till 21.40, but the need to forward plan and book ahead has meant I’ve had at least 1, if not 2, too many days in Luxor, so I’m not doing much today. This is the longest I have been without flying since before Benicasim in July 2006. I am going to have buy some more trees when I get home. And one week tomorrow, I fly back to England.

Boys on their bikes

2008-03-30T14:29:00.028+01:00

Day 73 Valley of the Kings
Although I was tempted to call this post ‘For a Fistful of Baksheesh’.

I’m staying on the West Bank. In some senses this means I am not really in Luxor, but Royal Thebes, mega city of yore and full of history. I have made a decision that there is too much history and all for me to try and distinguish intermediate period from 18th dynasty, Anubis from Horus, or much else on here. My head’s not entirely round it and it’d take forever. Luxor is mental. The LP often has 2 day plans for a city-they are 2 day or 4 day alternatives here for Cairo, which involves the better part of day away from Cairo. I have never seen a city with more than 4 days. Luxor’s West Bank has a four day plan on its own. The East Bank probably needs 2 days more. I’d like to day trip to Abydos and Dendara. For those, like me a weeks ago, who may not be too sure what of the famous Egyptian stuff is in Luxor, there’s the Valley of the Kings (including King Tut), the Valley of the Queens, Karnak, Luxor Temple and several others that are probably more visually familiar. It’s stuffed and often called the world’s biggest open air museum.

It’s also quite daunting. When and where do I start? How do I do it? First up is to choose a bank.

I chose to stay on the West as a couple of folk mentioned a hotel here and I was told the hassle is lower here. Hotel very nice, although the staff won’t be sorting out any piss ups in the local Stella brewery any time soon (took 3 people for me to be able to extend my stay). So I figured as I was already on the West Bank (admittedly only 2 min walk from the £1 ferry across the Nile) and as there was more to see that I’d start with a day or two here. First night I hired a bike, £10 a day (exchange is about 11 Egyptian to one English), and set the alarm for quite early. It’s best, in some respects, to make an early start as it just keeps getting hotter. It was hot as I ate breakfast on the roof terrace. The heat was the reason for the bike: it’s 3km from here to the ticket office, 8km to the valley of the kings and things are fairly spread out. Neither hiring a taxi for the day nor going on a coach trip held much appeal.

The Colossi of Memnon are the first thing to wake you up to being in an unusual place,

conveniently, so I thought, they’re just before the ticket office.

In case you had forgotten you were in Egypt the ticketing is a stark reminder. Despite massive signs for the Ramasseum, Valley of the Kings and all, the ticket office is unsigned and unobvious when on foot 25 yards away. Of course when you get there the fun starts. For 3 areas, or it may be 4, you have to buy the tickets at the site, not the ticket office. Everything else is split into a bewildering array of options and you can choose from a menu of 12 sights or groups of sights here. I know what you’re thinking, buy all the ones you want and then use them as you go. No, as they’re only valid on the day you buy them, raising the chance of wasting tickets or being 4 km from the ticket office at the gate of something you can’t get into without a ticket. Clearly Petra’s system of 1, 2 or 3 day tickets, where the range of sights is fairly equivalent, would be far too, well unEgyptian. Then you go to the window to buy the tickets, explain what you want and get told to go to the identical window on the immediate left; the following day when you go to that window, you get pointed to identical window on the immediate right. I guess they work one day, do fuck all the next. Pretty intense job for Egypt then.

I had what I hoped what a pretty decent plan and now I had the tickets to go with it. I was just bending down to unlock my bike, when I heard an excited shout ‘John, John’. I could tell by the depth of the voice that it wasn’t the supermodels Egypt tour calling out to me. In fact the Italian nature of the excitement could only mean Achille.

He’d even hired his bike from the same place; Ahmed used that later for the publicity shot above. Seeing as he’d been here for 2 days, which he’d spent on the East Bank, I think there was some element of destiny about us bumping into each other right at the start of looking over Thebes. It meant neither of us had seen anything, so we spent the next 2 days pedalling round together.

At the Ramesseum, one of the great names, Ramses II (Abu Simbel dude) built a big old temple to stamp his immortality on the ages. This didn’t pan out, tho clearly the Simbel did. A lot of the Ramesseum isn’t in the greatest state, although you can see the Ramses touch

My one note on the place says ‘colours’ and this is likely to be a recurring theme in this post along with the idiocy and incompetence of Egyptian antiquity management. Let’s stick to the positive for now: colour is used extensively in the decorative schemes of the tombs and monuments and where the sun can’t get at is impressively preserved.

We had the Ramesseum largely to ourselves. I’m not sure that Hatsheput’s temple at Deir al-Bahri was quite such a well kept secret

Hatsheput was a rarish lady Pharoah. The inscriptions on this bad boy, part construction, part carved from the rock suggest she presided over good times. There appeared to be no fighting, but bountiful harvests and lots of goodies for all. Interestingly, I thought, Hatsheput is sometimes female and sometimes male in the depictions, a relfection of the standardise pharaoh look in certain types of scenes. I like this one

Although this artwork is more impressive

I found it interesting that the Valley of the Kings is such a famous name, yet I had no real preconceptions and no mental picture of the place. Partly that is because on the ground it is dusty and hot and not much to look at. It is compact and unextraordinary, with no external structures aside from the modern entrances that have been built to the tombs. This is a place of death. Well, partly: more accurately a lot of effort went into trying to make the tombs inaccessible and confusing so they wouldn’t get robbed-this didn’t so much work. In another masterstroke of Egyptian tourism, you buy a ticket which allows you entry to 3 of 10 or so tombs that are open (there are 2 tombs that can be accessed with extra tickets). So if you want to see 4, you buy 2 tickets or baksheesh the guard. Even with the Lonely Planet’s help, I felt our choices were fairly arbitrary: there’s nothing in the valley to help you choose.

One surprise is how compact the valley is-the name suggest size to me, yet when we went to the ‘furthest’ tomb, it can only have been 10 mins from the entrance, if that. That was Tuthmosis III, where the tunnels are chiselled down and through the rock for a considerable distance. As Achille said ‘how many people’; the effort here is not a mere physical one removing so much rock, but artisanal and artistic too. Although not astronomical, the ceiling is covered with stars, while the walls are painted quite beautifully and include the first baboons I have noticed. I also like when you have triple or quad men-the style where the artist paints one figures then a small part of 2 or 3 more figures behind him to show numbers. I really do need to read more of the history. The final chamber in here is almost ballroom sized with two big square pillars and certainly surprised me.

You can’t take photos in here-quite right too as it would certainly harm the painted walls-and the contents have all been removed, but the tomb certainly still has atmosphere, even if at times that seems to be merely thick with heat and tourist sweat. It is really hot in here: maybe it’s the number of tourists passing through, but this is no Coober Pedy where living underground is cooler. Emerging from the tomb is a relief.

In the tomb of Ramses IX there appeared to be prototype Zorbers, Egyptian figures in large balls at very unvertical angles. We finished up with Ramses III, whose funerary temple at Medinat Habu we will see tomorrow.

Day 74 Valley of the Queens
After yesterday, I would heartily say that bike is definitely the way to go round here. It is pretty flat, although the Valley of the Kings was sufficiently into the wind and uphill that we didn’t need to pedal at all on the way back. Achille had been laughing at the fact the bikes were made in China and when mine lost 2 spokes crossing the railway line (which is currently moving a lot of harvested sugar cane) we had to pop back for another bike. I would estimate the age of our bicycle technician at 8. Happily we hadn’t gone far.

First up was Medinat Habu, which had reliefs and inscriptions on every surface, including the ceilings where the sun can’t penetrate and the colour remains. It would be great to see some kind of effort to mock up the temple as it would have looked using something like virtual reality. The effect with see with the colour removed is so different that it’s a big leap of imagination to try to get what the ancients had.

Both Achille and some other folk I chat to compare it favourably with the much more famous Karnak on the East Bank, which sounds like it is a lot larger, but in lesser condition.

The temple also includes a frieze where bean counters are counting the severed hands and genitals of some poor buggers that Ramses slaughtered, presumable for the official press release. I saw this in some tombs yesterday, I’m not sure, but it seems to be some kind of flower. Looks cool anyway.

And naturally if you want to show just what a kick arse pharaoh you are, you show that the baboons groove you

Then it was off to Deir al-Medina for the temple and tombs of Inherka, Sennedjem and Peshedu, who were artists and workers in the Valley of the King with sufficient wealth and standing to have to,bs with what I now believe to be frescoed walls rather than painted relief. So another set of skills to another exceptional standard. Achille was pleased to see the first nude of his trip in Peshedu-after all, they’re everywhere in Italia. From Peshedu you can see out over the workers’ village

Then onto the valley of the Queens, where most of the tombs seem to be for sons who died before they made pharaoh. Although you can only visit 3 out of something like 150. The tomb of Titi (the lady of the 3) was about 50m from the tomb of Khaemwaset but was essentially wrecked. The amount of paint remaining and its condition bore no compatison. I hope it’s nothing to do with the breath and sweat of tourists: it was hot enough here that we saw a new baksheesh ruse. Chop up a cardboard box and hand it out as fans. Most people seemed like me to be a little bemused and think it was the way they were counting how many people were in the tomb.

Some of this is definitely relief now and painted, so I am wondering if this is what the temples looked like. There is a lightness in the colouration, which would have been a wonderful contrast on such gargantuan structures. I am having to crouch in several rooms (Sozz, you would be in trouble) as the ceilings are so low. These kids and women must have been pretty small.

The tomb of Nefertari is supposed to be the beautiful of all. It was opened to 150 people a day for about 8 years. Now it is closed and tour groups who pay about £20,000 can get in (remember to take off one zero and a bit), so the thinking is that it will stay ‘closed’.

Verdict was the Valley of the Queens was a winner. 3 very nice tombs, no choices to make and nice and compact. Plus downhill on the way back.

Achille’s now in the zone, and leaving tomorrow, so back to the ticket office to see the tombs of the nobles. Achille was keen on the 3 that the LP recommends. By a strange quirk of fate, the three tombs were each in a separate group of tombs, so we needed 3 tickets for a total of 7 tombs (not that they had the right tickets, they just gave us ones of the right value, so we could probably have blagged it). So I remember we went to: Menna, Nakht, Ramose, Userhet, Khaemhet, Sennofer and Rekhmire.

This is a day of indecision. We get into the tomb of Ramose and this is definite relief, so it was fresco before. Maybe I should read a book. No point in asking anyone here, the guards just point at baboon, go monkey and expect baksheesh. Userhet’s is a lot more fun: the tombs of the nobles have more everyday life scenes, so here you have the barbers, folk drinking and hunting gazelle. A common theme across all the different tombs we’ve seen is boats. I think the combination of the Nile’s crucial role in Egypt and the concept of the boat to the afterlife make this a common motif. I also have to say that almost any one of the tombs or temples on the West Bank would be massively renown in most countries. There’s such a dense wealth of sights here.

I loved the ceiling in Sennofer’s tomb, it was undulating, bobbly I guess: it looked a bit like space Lego covered with grapes. His tomb also had a few figures in leopardskin, which we’d not seen before and was a potent reminder that we are in Africa. I think I prefer the nobles’ tombs, there’s lots of food, fishing, hunting and crop gathering. There’s more guys, more gals, more fun.

Size can be quite misleading in a lot of the ‘pictures’. Smallness doesn’t necessarily indicate child or dwarf. Rekhmire is four times the size of the people he is supervising-so he was either very important or insecure.

Of course we had further demonstrations of baksheesh lunacy: in at least 3 tombs there were guards using mirrors to angle the sun into the tombs and onto the paintings. Why not just use a magnifying glass and wreck the paintings inch by inch. I remonstrated, but met either feigned or genuine incomprehension was my only response. The Supreme Council of Antiquities should spend less time making up grandiose titles for itself and more getting its bloody house in order: Egypt may whore itself to tourism, but if they carry on as they are with the reefs in the red sea, guards doing crazy things, letting tourists touch and clamber on things then they’ll have nothing left to sell. And then Egypt really will be fucked.

I got Achille to take this at the tombs of the nobles to show how immediate the border between desert and lush is.

Day 75 Karnak
It’s been a while since I saw a load of good signs, but there are a few in Luxor.

What do you mean you wouldn’t trust him?

In the foreground is the sign outside the Winter Palace advertising the Metropolitan as being opposite the winter palace. In the background is the entrance to the Metropolitan.

Maybe I could twist a couple of arms and we could outdo them with the three Johns.

So, Karnak. I feel Karnak should be pronounced in that way the Rowley Birkin says Cairo. Karnak is big, it’s what the world massive was invented for. It’s like a Pharoah game of ‘You show me yours and I’ll show you mine’s bigger’. The temple complex just expanded and expanded, as each Pharaoh would add on new bits. When a Pharaoh was up himself or hated the one before, then it would be bigger than normal. I especially liked the bits where a Pharoah or two would die before their enormodome was finished, so the next pharaoh would simply removed their names and put his on instead.

As you go further through Karnak it gets more battered. I think this is at least partly due to the restorers starting at the front. One of my favourite bits was right at the beginning:

The avenue of the ram sphinxes (I had to stretch). Sadly after I found the most photogenic ram to photograph,

some muppet couple followed me and when I left took in turns to straddle it for their photo session. One of the curses of Luxor’s fame is that morons come to the world’s largest open air museum and then the Egyptians are too crap to police them. Crazy is becoming my most overused word.

This gives the very faintest idea of the size of both temple and crowds.

I’ll limit my comments to the great hypostyle hall, or this will be singularly painful. The hall has 134 columns and is 103m by 53m. The effect is that you walk through a forest of columns

I found it hard to believe that the roof needed so much support. It is very impressive, but it does seem a slightly useless room unless it was used for staging top class hide and seek. You couldn’t have addressed a crowd and been seen, while any heckler would have had plenty of cover. I think they have a scene in here from Death in the Nile with lots of sand on the floor and someone pushing a stone block at someone.

Few more pics.

Big one there.

Love these columns, should see more at Luxor temple tomorrow.

Imagine the size of this. Can you see my LP?

A stately baboon.

Temple fatigue, pharaoh fatigue, ancient history fatigue-it gets talked about a lot, but how do you know when it has set in? One indication might be that I’ve stopped reading the Oxford History of Ancient Egypt and have just been out to buy Death on the Nile, which I started reading over a late lunch of onion baji and vegetable jalfrezi (to be fair the Inidian is a long way away and I have just returned my hired bike).

And tomorrow Norbert’s coming to town.

Early starts and late nights

2008-03-26T19:47:00.024Z

Day 69 Abu Simbel
It’s tempting to say that the highlight of the day was meeting Tassie Tom and having a good long chat abut cricket over a Sheesha and a couple of Stellas (the rather good local brew, not the pricey wifebeater of Queen’s club fame). Sometimes when you’re travelling, although acknowledging it’s great and you’re very lucky, you realise you’re missing some of the important things in life like birthdays, kids being born and good long chats abut cricket. This was seems to have had the desired effect as it inspired Bell to a fluent ton and the mighty Strausser to his best Test score. I’m pleased to do my bit. It was good to find an Aussie to talk cricket with, it was a bit of an Australia day really.

Having got back from Abu Simbel and had a very deserved shower, I was looking round my room feeling rather disoriented when there was a knock at the door. The guy who’d come up didn’t have much English, but seemed to be saying that either I had a phone call (which seemed very unlikely) or the ship’s captain was downstairs-perhaps he would be asking to dine at his table on the Felucca. Should have packed the DJ. Turned out it was Jess and Fleur, Aussies, who I’d met at Abu. They’d been due to Felucca up to Luxor straight after we got back. However they’d had an obnoxious drunk Swiss (of all nationalities) on their boat so they jumped ship after 200m (he’d serenaded them off with his flute). For some reason they thought I was a better bet and wanted to know about my trip. This exposed my serious lack of knowledge, but they’re coming and now I need to buy some beers rather than writing this.

OK, beer bought. I walked into the place, it looked a lot like an electrical shop. They took one look at me and said ‘alcohol upstairs’. Ahem. Just one last thing on Oz. Australian appears to be my new nationality: it is now the punt of choice for touts, vendors and shopkeepers across Egypt. I’m getting a lot of ‘Aussie’ and ‘G’day mate.’ It certainly beats my German phase from a month or so back.

Of course in addition to having a good long chat about cricket, I did go to Abu Simbel

Might just edge it

This must have been the quietest day trip I’ve ever been on: hardly a word was spoken on the way down or until we got to the High Dam on the way back. I think this was partly due to the 3 a.m. start time and also that the Pollster got sat in the death seat so I couldn’t talk to anyone. I started to right this as the day went on. Quite a good bunch in the end.

Let’s get the convoy out of the way. Unless you fly or take a tardis you have to go to Abu in one the 2 daily convoys.

Why?

There have been some very bad terrorist attacks on tourists-these are not to be sniffed at and I am used to inconvenience caused by anti-terrorism. Not as if it’s unknown back home. So the solution in much of Upper (Southern) Egypt is the convoy.

All the Wacky racer driver convene and head off together with some police-not that I noticed them. To start with, at least, everyone travels together. At the same time every day. Anyone spotting the problem? How could the terrorists foil this genius? I mean the government have now changed a road that a bus and a car came down from time to time into a predictable pattern, where a massive target moves down the road at the same time. In fairness it does have to be said that the different drivers and cars means the convoy does stretch out a fair bit. But doesn’t that just mean they’re failing to run it properly?

Clearly I hope no one does the obvious and plants a massive bomb or two timed to hit the convoy, or worse still takes out the police car and then cleans up the rest, but I’m not sure who thinks this is any safer.

And that’s without mentioning the idiocy of making a large number of Egyptian drivers travel in close proximity……

Anyway, we get to the car park and the second wacky races start of the day swings into action. Inevitably there is no indication of the entrance (or even which way to go when you have passed through the ticket barrier), but I start by following the mass of people and then my nose. One by one my fellows fall by the wayside, struck down by their bladders, the heat, the inexplicable need to buy things or, in many cases, the fact they’ve seen too many summers. By the time I pass through the final security check there’s no one ahead of me. There’s no one very close behind either. One of my maion worries about the convoy had been that everyone arriving at the same time would leave the site swamped and we’d probably be rushed so I determined to savour my alone time.

Here’s my first glimpse as I came round the corner.

I passed Nefertiti’s temple to look at Ramses first, correctly guessing everyone else would do the same and so staying ahead of the crowd. There were half a dozen or so people there, who I guess had stayed in the town the night before (or had Michael Schumacher driving their convoy vehicle).

There’s a lot of history that I won’t bore you with (nor can be bothered to type), but this is a major piece of work.

Note the comparison in head sizes. The two temples were buried up to the 19th century and it’s a bit sad how much 19th century graffiti they attracted when uncovered (getting here back then must have been a major undertaking). I hope LeCaros is proud of himself.

The burial must have help to preserve the temple as well as it has.

The second major piece of work came in the 1960s when the building of the Aswan High Dam meant that the valley would become a lake Abu Simbel would disappear under it. So they cut the temples into a number of massive blocks, moved them 65m higher up and created a concrete mountain that looked the real one to house them in. I don’t think I’d have guessed that was the past without knowing it. They look spectacular.

Although the rear view may hint at it

So today they really represent two man made technological marvels. I’d love to dive to the original sites and have a look: there must also be some wonderful that weren’t saved in this way. I’m not aware of anyone doing though. Divemaster here I come. A significant number of birds live in Ramses’ temple, I’m not sure if that was the case before the move. Anyway, a few more pics:

No pictures are allowed inside, but unlike Petra the interior is quite something. There must be about a dozen rooms, mostly covered with wall pictures and reliefs telling tales of the mighty Ramses. The inner sanctum had four statues of the temple gods and Ramses, which twice a year are lit up by the rising sun. Naturally given all this effort, history and splendour, this is a slick operation

When I emerged, the crowds had arrived

One of the sad thing about the 3am start was the number of people, myself included, pottering round this great sight, yawning helplessly. It has to be said that the Missus’ temple nextdoor isn’t quite in the same class, but is still impressive.

As I sat waiting to go, it was clear that they route the aircraft over the temples as they descend. So back to the wacky races to speed up to the High Dam (3 hours or so away). The instant we start, every vehicle swerves into the left hand to attempt pointless overtaking/blocking the car behind. More sleeping and quietness got us there to the most useless tourist site in Egypt. The dam isn’t especially high, it isn’t especially wide, it isn’t especially attractive and it’s not very interesting. The only thing I find interesting about it isn’t recorded in the propagandist spouting about Egypt’s great technological achievement (no mention of the dubious environmental cost) is that 451 people died building it. Out of 35,000 workers, or well over 1%. It is also 17 times the volume of the great pyramid, which I reckon will be at least 17 times better to visit.

Then to the temple of Philae. This is another of the temples to be moved to be saved from Lake Nasser and it may be a more impressive achievement that Abu. Philae was on an island and previous dams had meant it was submerged for part of each year. They put a dam round it so they could remove to another island, which they landscaped to match. Now that is some big vision.

It is very beautiful, but with the heat and tiredness everyone’s brains were scrambled. Still I took some photos

That should be a monkey playing a lute in there.

And finally to the unfinished obelisk, which they made a good start on

before finding fatal flaws in the rock and giving up. Bugger. At 42m and 1168 tonnes it would have been the heaviest piece of stone ever fashioned. Time for a cold drink I think.

Day 70 Felucca-downstream from Aswan
Ah, Egypt. Today had a reassuring air of farce about it. By the time, I wandered into reception Jess and Fleur were already waiting. While I chatted to them, paid my bill and had the inevitable wait for change, the comment from reception ‘have you confirmed with the captain’. 15 minutes after the captain was due, I went to ask if he was coming. A quick phone call and we were told he’d been 15 mins. So we went snack shopping.

Captain Habi seemed pretty cool and we were half way to the boat when we had to stop and reverse after Jess’ sleeping bag fell off the top of the service taxi we were in. By now we were united with Shona, a Canadian who was joining us. There were two more bods on the boat, where we sat and waited for another hour till the other 6 made it-never did work out whose fault that was. At this stage the boat was very full and Habi’s promises of another boat, a bigger boat and two boats varied so much, we were resigning to this being it. Lunch looked a little lightweight and I felt like Chewbacca as I looked onto the next 5 meals.

I forget exactly what distracted the crew, but we smacked into a rock pretty hard not long after we set off. Further up we were just about to be overtaken by three large cruise ships when the police, complete with tinny siren and megaphone came down the river shouting and turning round boats. I was convinced they were going to hit each like the star destroyers in Empire, but the big boats were fine. There was a power being raised and dropped (for some reason) so that at times it was in the Nile (that some people were swimming in). We were small and plodded on. After we had snuck under we got some sort of ticket, then as they headed off the police crashed into us. Maybe they wanted more cash. Then after picking up yet another passenger we had to row across the Nile

as the other boat was now behind us and cooking up dinner.

Egypt really knows how to do shambles.

Still all turned out well in the end. We got an extra boat, got a great spot for the night away from everyone and everything, dinner was superb, we had a few beers round the camp fire

and got a visit from a taxi driver. Despite feeling rather drowsy, there was no sleeping on tour. When I finally clambered back aboard my felucca the others were all abed and I curled myself foetally into a corner.

Natural born sailor me

Day 71 Felucca
So. Day 71. A day spent entirely on the Nile. I did nothing except watch the world go by and thoroughly enjoyed it. We landed on an island with cows and had lunch. I took a photo and the big biats that pound up and down the river in surprising numbers.

And, er, that was it.

Day 72 Kom Ombo, Edfu, Luxor
We camped by the pick up to go to the temple of Kom Ombo. Fortunately at Kom Ombo we transferred to another vehicle as the first was a little cosy

Tomorrow I am going to the Valley of the Kings and a number of other spots in Luxor. I haven’t digested enough history to make any sensible comment on today, so I’ll just do some pics.

Riding the Night Train

2008-03-22T16:25:00.009Z

Day 66 Cairo (to Aswan)
I have decided that Cairo is bonkers. I walked to the train station about 8.15 to get a ticket for tonight. There was hardly a car on the road or pedestrian on the pavement/road or a shop open. At 11/12 last night it was total gridlock, a cacophony of horns and people everywhere. Travel tip-time your Cairo arrival to the morning.

Getting a train ticket for the sleeper to Aswan epitomised why I will never fully get on here in Egypt. You should bear in mind that is a relatively expensive tourist oriented service (at least I’m pretty certain we’re paying a lot more for our tickets). Last night when I turned up and walked through they’re open doors, the 4 people behind the desk ignored me, failed to acknowledge my presence and then after a couple of minutes one of them turns to me and says ‘closed’, as if only a retarded person wouldn’t realise that and walks off. This morning, I get asked what I want, I go through it and then get told they’re not open for another half hour. So I sit and wait, then the same guy asks me again what I want. He disappears into the back office and tells me I’m getting the last ticket, he waves casually at 2 people and disappears. These 2 then both ignore me until 2 minutes later one of them just says ‘passport’. To be fair I felt quite lucky as quite a crowd had surrounded me by now and I wasn’t sure anyone was ever going to get me my ticket. Then a German guy asks for a ticket and gets a surly ‘it’s full’ and nothing more-no ‘there’s space tomorrow’, or you could try the non sleeper service. He then asks if there’s space for tomorrow, the customer service agent (ho ho) disappears into the back office and returns to say he can have a ticket for today. I know my (former) career means I instantly pull any system to pieces, but I think most folks would find this mental. It’s small things maybe, but typical and crazy. I’m of course used to the fact by now that I had to go and pay someone totally different for my ticket.

Now I knew I was just in Cairo for the day I decided I’d go to the Egyptian museum. I took a walk past some of the more notable building and before going to the museum I went for a look at the Nile. I would have to check a map, but not sure I've ever seen the Nile before. It’s proper big and not looking dirty either.

So to the Egyptian museum, where I jotted down a lot of thoughts, which will likely render this stream of consciousness nonsense for you; aide memoire for me you see. For those that haven’t heard of the Egyptian Museum it has a reputation for being chaotic and stuffed full of unbelievable artefacts. I think that’s quite fair.

With it being such a big attraction, I had been hyped up for a tout onslaught. Going to the Nile first, I guess I didn’t come the main way and only had a couple of taxis beep at me. There are a lot of guided groups here, which was a mixed blessing. There’s so much to see here that the groups can act as a way of pointing out highlights. They can also make it damn difficult to actually see anything.

Just after you enter (sans camera) two colossal statues of Ramses and Amenhotep greet you. One of the consistently stunning things here is the condition of what is on display. I guess it has a lot to do with where they were before they were museumed, but there are many things that look all but brand new.

The King Narmer palette commemorates the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt and I suppose you could view it as the start of Egyptology. It’s 50cm tall, double sided with beautiful engraved pictures and in absolute mint conditions. Oh, and it’s from 3,100 BC. There are probably less than 10 museums in the world that wouldn’t dedicate a room to this and have it as a cornerstone of the collection. I had to look for it.

The museum looks less like the closing shots of Raiders than I had expected, but there’s a fair amount of confusion and pallet trucks, ropes across rooms piled up with stuff-this is Egypt after all. I am continually struck by the size and condition of the exhibits. Huge numbers of exhibits are bigger than me, even more must be heavier than me. I’m used to Greco-Roman statues, where the heads and limbs are usually missing. This place is Wow. Some of the hard stones and posings used by the Egyptians will have helped preservation (as well as being buried in some cases), but so much of this looks just finished. There are massive statues made of granite-amazing. I have to temper some of this and say that a good dusting wouldn’t go astray in parts.

Did I mention they’ve some big stuff? The colossus of Amenhotep 3 has feet the size of my upper body. It wouldn’t fit into most musea.

Aside from slightly frayed edges the Triad of Menkaure (a 3 figure piece is basalt) lookes perfect. It’s nearly 5 thousand years old. It’s abiut 75cm tall and the three sculpts are wonderful; Michelangelo would have been happy with it and this is from a time when I didn’t think anything like this could be done.

The museum is to shut in a year or two and move to a state of the art purpose built facility. I hope this will stop fuckwits touching and leaning on things. It’s quite distressing and somehow made worse that the museum employs plenty of people, but they’re involved in bureaucratically delaying you getting into the museum not throwing out morons who are damaging the very things they’ve come to see. Rather than checking ID pointlessly all across the country they could redeploy people to look after the country’s heritage (and economy); they could pick some of the litter up while they’re at it.

Of course, were one allowed a camera, this is about 5 years of top class Stand by Your Statue.

I cannot get over the quality of the sculpting; I always thought architecture, not art, when thinking of ancient Egypt. On some statues, chapels and sarcophagi the pigment preservation is also extraordinary.

There so much here, and so much more in the British Museum, that it begins to sink in just how much the Egyptians created back in the day.

There’s more labelling than I’d expected, but it still provides relatively little background, storytelling or context. At some points I’m not sure if that matters, it’s all so overwhelming.

They’ve got the only remaining representation of Khufu here. It was found in his mother’s tomb and is 7.5cm high. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw it: Khufu built the Great Pyramid.

How’s this for a job title ‘Seneb, chief of all the dwarfs of the Royal Wardrobe’: I guess they had small doors.

At the end of the ground floor I found the Greco Roman statues, with all their arms and heads missing.

As I approach the Tutankhamun section, I can’t shake Kurt Russell in Stargate going ‘give my regards to King Tut asshole’. I was aware that Tut wasn’t a major pharaoh, but the owner of a tomb that was well preserved and stocked. I found out part of the reason for this was because he was the last of his dynasty, they lobbed in all the other stuff that was no longer needed.

Before King Tut there’s been a fair bit of gold and although the workmanship is undeniably phenomenal, I can’t love because I just find gold so irredeemably naff. KT’s death mask has 11kg of the stuff and is the business-not because of sheer weight of gold, but because the gold is used as the canvass and the real design is what has been added.

I have clearly been in the Muslim world for quite a while now, as I am getting shocked by some of the things the tourists are wearing. Apart from the guy in the wifebeater, I am really talking about the ladies. I know I berated Ahmed in the last post, but I’m not sure hot pants and crop tops are a culturally sensitive dress option. I’m sensing that a lot of folk in Cairo are fresh off the plane.

The museum has a room called ‘the Royal tombs of Tanis’, which contains jewellery and funerary miscellany. Anyone hoping to see a Map Room or a Well of Souls will be sorely disappointed. My planned return to Dahab has eliminated my visit to Tanis-there’s nothing really there beyond the Indiana Jones pilgrimage (it’s been a while since I mentioned him). While I’m on the subject, I am very up for a big night day of release get together to see whatever the new one is called-I remember it was ridiculous. Let’s hope it’s not just odd numbered Indy flicks that are brilliant.

In summary, not one of the world’s great musea, but one of the very finest collections. If they get the new place right this will be one of the great places in the world.

As everyone seems to, I spent hours in the Egyptian museum, so I headed back to the area of the hotel, grabbed some Kushari and decided to spite the taxi drivers and take the metro to the train station.

If I have to travel 12-15 hours on something, I think train is my first choice. Probably followed by boat, plane, bus. I do like sleeper trains. Mr F and I managed 5in a fortnight a few years back. In case you’ve not had the joy of being on the night train

The seat turns into one bed and then a bunk appears above that. I thought I was going to have it to myself, but at Giza I was joined by Ram. Ram was Indian and very tired, so I didn’t get a whole lot of conversation out of him, but he was yet another Indian who wasn’t all that into cricket. He thought England’s last tour to India was under Nasser in 2001. Perhaps I set the bar too high, but I am yet to find an Indian who knows anything vaguely like as much about cricket as I do. I’m not sure anyone over there watches it: when Mick and I were out there, they always seemed to be a day behind on the score. Anyway, nice bloke till he started snoring.

Day 67 Aswan
Hmmm. Egyptian travel is reliably unreliable. Train ended up over 3 hours late, which canned my entire morning and the early afternoon. This has meant streamlining my logistics and trusting my (nice and well recommended) hotel for getting to Abu Simbel and on the Felucca back up to Luxor. This has created another change of plan: I’d always meant to do 3 nights on the Felucca, but having seen a Felucca and looked at where you get on day 3, I’ve chopped this back and am just doing 2 nights.

Apparently there were repairs on the train overnight, personally I think the driver was YTS. When I learnt to drive, the first few times I used the brakes I would keep pushing the brake pedal down until it got to the end-my thinking being that by the time you stopped you needed the brake fully on. For those who didn’t do this, the result is that you slow gently and then stop with an unexpected jolt. This happened every time we stopped. Still, it was the nicest and cleanest bed I’ve had in ages and I stayed in it a good bit longer. Still liking the night train.

Aswan is seriously hot (and I’m still travelling with a thermometer). Perhaps this is making me walk very slowly, but I am struggling not to think that the scale on my map is off. It seems to take an awful long time to walk round here. This meant lunch was very late and I then missed the unfinished obelisk, which would have weighed 1168tonnes, but they found a flaw in the stone and gave up.

I passed through the unexciting Fatimid cemetery and headed for the Nubian museum. The Nubian were the big losers from the Aswan dams. Especially the high dam which created Lake Nasser and put their land under water. The international community pulled together to rescue the archaeology-hence the temple in the Met in New York and the 20 or so sites that were moved in Egypt (including Abu Simbel and Philae where I’ll be on Sunday). I’ll talk more about that then, but here’s Abu before and after.

The museum is a kind of thankyou to the Nubians, though some of this was a bit pottery and flints for me. They had a few statues and a realy good section on the international rescue operation. Egyptian museums really need to get into Audio Visual, this is crying out for computer simulations and showing the temples move and water rise: this is no dusty old museum, this is clearly new and expensive. I’d have spent the money they used for the VIP room in a different way. Someone should be using this as a mascot for a sporting tournament

Day 68 Aswan
Luxor is split by the Nile and there is a lot to see on both banks. Aswan is mostly on the Eastern banks, but the tombs of the nobles are on the West Bank where the monastery can be reached (I didn’t bother). Also in the middle of the Nile is Elephantine Island. Most people Felucca their way round here, but I went for the public ferry route.

I knew exactly where the Elephantine ferry was, but was less sure on the West Bank. I must have reeked of being not quite sure as I went down the steps to the boat.

‘Where you going?’

‘West Bank.’

‘This ferry is for the Nubian village.’

‘On the West Bank?’

‘Yes, but there’s no way to the Noble Tombs from there.’
{sounds suspect}
‘So where’s the ferry to the tombs?’

‘There’s never been one. I’ve been here 20 years.’

‘Yes there is.’

‘Why would I lie to you?’
{wants to say because you’re Egyptian and can’t help it}

‘So I go on your boat.’

‘I give you good price.’ Starts to describe tour….

‘I’m getting on the ferry. Bye.’
{walks over to pay}
‘Five pounds.’

‘No it’s not, it’s one.’
{hands over pound and walks onto boat}

This is the only country where I have ever seen the LP or Rough Guide recommend organised trips as a way to escape the hassle. This is meant to be chilled out Aswan; Luxor will be fun. Got asked for 5 pounds again on the way back.

Coming back to a previous theme, even the ferry has to have a women section, which I inevitably sit in until told to move (German bloke does the same when I go to Elephantine). Boat takes 30-40. I noticed that when the women’s bit is full the boat doesn’t go, if the men’s bit is full we’re straight off. The metro has the same thing and the girl who helped me in Cairo and came in the men’s bit with me got some grief. This is a country of 12 year old sex pests. Jade and Lewti told me they followed round Luxor by boys going ‘can you sex us?’ It’s driving me mad and I’m a bloke.

At the tombs I notice that the admission had gone up from 20 to 25 (bits of paper are stuck over the old prices). I hand over a 20 and a 5 to the guy on the ticket desk, in front of which is a woman who appears to be taking records in a ledger. I’m not paying much attention and can feel something being pushed into my hand: I see it’s the £5 note. I must look confused and get a conspiratorial nod towards the woman. Not wishing to cause it, I take my ticket and pocket the £5. It all seems a bit odd that he’s charged me the old price. Then I look at my ticket. It’s a £15 student ticket-5 for me and 5 for him I guess. It’s different, the other times this has happened I’ve still paid full price.

The tombs are up a hill

they have some nice details,

but for me the real thing is the view back to the East Bank, the Nile and Elephantine.

Ferry back, quick bite, more liquid (I really can’t drink enough). In fact it’s worth mentioning the heat. My clothes (especially my zip off trousers) seem particularly dry; the money is really dried out. It’s like the resident water in things has been burnt off.

And then the Ferry to Elephantine. The Aswan museum looks like a relic and I guess some of the best bits are now in the Nubian museum, but you have to buy a ticket to get to the remains of Abu, the ancient town. Archaeologists are still at work there today-even on a Saturday, which should be a day off for the Egyptians, Swiss and Germans who are at it.

Pride of place apparently belongs to the two Nilometers. I didn’t think they were much to look at, but what a word. They do what you expect and measure the height of the river. Back in the day, the higher the water, the higher the taxes. The logic being river=harvest=prosperity.

A lot of people are travelling here by boat. There msut be at least 15 or so of these

Can you see the Felucca in the foreground? I hope we don’t hit by one of those big buggers.

I think I’ve just had the last logistics burst of the trip. The Felucca is booked, I’ve mailed place I want to stay in Luxor, booked a night time flight from Luxor to Sharm, mailed both hostel and dive shop in Dahab and booked myself into the King Tut hostel in Cairo for the last 3 nights. This is the first place I have chosen based on its name for a while-last time I did that was a hole in NZ. Apart from a boat trip to Abydos and the bus to Cairo, I think I’m done.

Up at 3 am tomorrow for the convoy to Abu Simbel. I have a feeling I may have something to say on the convoy………

Because it's clean

2008-03-21T17:56:00.019Z

Day 60 Alexandria to Siwa
The housing and buildings are seemingly without end for an hour out of Alex. Staring out of bus windows is a great chance to reflect on things and I began to think there appears to be tension in Egypt: we saw kids throwing stones at a restaurant in Dahab, a ruck was developing round a taxi crash on the way to Siwa-so much so that we had to backtrack, reversing up the road and there just seem to be a lot of loud arguments in the street. The vibe is different to the rest of the countries I’ve visited. I’ve also seen more cars being pushed than the rest of the trip put together-it really is up to Allah if you get there or not. The Lonely Planet calls the economy a basket case. I may be imagining, but it seems more desperate than elsewhere.

I’m pretty sure I sounded like a pampered, impatient Westerner when the bus stopped in the one real town between Alex and Siwa and we were told that it would move again in an hour and 20 minutes. I double checked. Twice. To my mind, we had 2 drivers. Let’s have a piss and get on with it. The 9 hour journey time began to make sense, especially as the guy I met on the bus, who’d been to Siwa before, told me we’d stop at a café in the desert as well.

By this time there were just 3 foreigners on the bus; all the locals had buggered off, they presumably had better things to do.

One was an American girl, who was one of those very rare people with whom I am completely unable to communicate. She was quite monosyllabic, well in my opinion she had no conversational skills whatsoever: this doesn’t normally stop me, I’ll just talk for 2. But she had that air that made me tense and doubt what I was saying, which still seeming expectant of me saying something. She was the equivalent of someone saying, ‘so what do you want to talk about’, or ‘tell me something funny’. So I was grateful that David, a 50, maybe 60 something from Rugby was there.

Although David was a touch unusual too. He was teaching at a school in Alex, having retired from teaching in Bilton (freaky small world there). Nothing too odd there.

Within about a quarter of an hour I had the sort of conversation with David that you see only on screen when backstory, character and situation need to be explained in a hurry. The sort of thing that doesn’t ring true to real life. But now it was happening.

David had mentioned his girlfriend a few times and his kids, so I figured he was divorced. He’d mentioned the girlfriend was in Thailand so I was desperately trying not to jump to conculsions. Sudenly it all came tumbling out: he hadn’t wanted the divorce, prior to it he couldn’t have sat and chatted to me so easily, his wife had had the last child as a financial insurance, a guy at the chip had suggested he try a website thaitheknot.com I think and he’d signed straight up for gold membership.

There was a lot more.

And then he showed me the photo of his girlfriend. Not a wallet job, but a large wooden framed one that he drew out of his small bag. I didn’t know what to say. I thought she looked 20, 21. I think I wanted to think that. Christina and Breeze, who I met later, thought 15. I saw she was holding a pink stuffed toy dolphin, and went for ‘I bet you bought that’. David was very excited that I read people and things so well. I was relieved to have managed not to blurt out you have a 13 year old son and 4 children older than her.

We talked for a good while longer about a range of things; all the time I was trying hard to not think of Bob from Teachers. I was trying even harder not to say ‘Did you ever see Teachers when it was on Channel 4?’.

I later found out that David managed to accidentally throw his false teeth away in Siwa and had to retrieve them by clambering around in a bin in front of the Siwans. I had no difficulty believing this. I sincerely hope things work out for David and his Thai girlfriend, but I can’t help but think of Bob and doubt it.

I guess some people might be wondering just what sort of specialist vehicle it takes to get way out into the desert hundreds of kms from anyway. One like this will do

You can see above that we were in deserty territory. The Oasis took me by surprise. It was movie like as we turned a corner and there it was after miles and miles of just flat yellow landscape. Siwa is renowned as the prettiest oasis and it lived up to that billing.

I took this after climbing up the fortifications in the old town for sunset. Before I could do that I had to brave the donkey boys. The donkey boys have donkeys and carts and will take you round and about. They descend on the bus en masse to try and take you to your hotel or any other hotel who’ll make it worth your while. They were so thick around me that it took a while for me to get orientated-David had gone off to a distance to allow the American girl and me to experience the arrival. It was fairly tame stuff.

I was slightly concerned that Siwa might turn into another Wadi Rum-a bit expensive as I had to do things on my own in a setup that was more group orientated. It turned out I needn’t have worried. At sunset I made two discoveries, one of them great. A former Donkey boy, who initially called himself Ali (he thought this was easier to remember for tourists), used this as a good place to find tourists and get them on his trips. Now usually I would be very sceptical about this, but his price seemed OK (not too much, not tool little) and I saw the car and anyway 2 germans were coming and they asked questions and thought it was OK. Also coming was Achille.

Achille may be the first legend of this trip. He is certainly the biggest legend of the trip and I doubt anyone will take that away from him. He is a travel machine.

Most places Achille has visited he describes as ‘very nice’; this can be subdivided into ‘very nice, very nice people/food’, ‘very nice, not very nice people’. Most other things can be described as ‘is no problem for me’. Achille speaks some very good English, but is happier in French, which he says used to be the international language so we talk a fair bit of French-mostly when the English isn’t working. Achille travels 6-8 months a year and spend 2 months before each trip planning. He takes a LP for each country and is the most organised traveller I have ever met. He colour codes his Lonely Planets, has 1st 2nd and 3rd choice accommodation, daily budgets for each country (broken down into accom, food, museums and one or two other things), a detailed itinerary that he is prepared to deviate from.

Achille is 67 years old, but younger than me at heart. Achille has a wife who doesn’t travel due to her health.

Achille is Italian. Without any doubt at all, Achille is Italian and his surname is Lucchini, which ought to be a type of pasta. He made me laugh like a drain and by the time I left him in Bahariyya 4 days later, I loved him to bits and was hoping to see him again in Luxor.

Sitting at sunset I heard him talking about going to Bahariyya. I wanted to do this across the desert, but it’s pricey £1200-1500 Egyptian for the vehicle I had heard, so I couldn’t do it alone. Achille, of course, said it was no problem for him to go alone, but he hoped other people would come and split the cost. He was asking the Germans if they were up for it, and I went totally un-English and butted in saying I would like to. Achille had already done most of the groundwork, so we were just left to see if we could find some people to drop the price further. Achille had lined up £1200, so 4 of us would be just £300 each….

After sunset we headed down to Ali’s shop to copnfiem what we’d do tomorrow-trip into the great sand sea, dinner and sleeping in the desert. It wasn’t till the following day that we found out his name was somewhat different. Imagine Margaret Thatcher saying Far-tay and that's about it. Of course, it just does up as an affected way of saying fatty. After which you try not to call him fatty like he’s findouter and it sounds like farty instead. Maybe I see his point in using Ali.

Day 61 Siwa and the Great Sand Sea
You meet some characters in the desert. It sounds like the cast of Forster novel-American mother and daughter, ex pat teacher, Italian traveller, Englishwoman setting up a retreat and that's without casting yours truly. Maybe it’s an Agatha Christie. I met David for breakfast and he’d met some folk including Breeze and her mother Christine, who’d met Fahteh last night and were also coming out in the desert today and were up for Bahariyya.

At dinner I’d arranged to meet Achille to go and book Bahariyya, so Breeze came with us we got everything sorted including 2 nights in the desert over there. Logistics over, I did very little until it came time to head off. Incidentally at dinner David had worked out who I reminded him off; he’d been saying it was off TV and I was thinking if he says Clare Balding, there’s going to be trouble. But apparently I am like Trevor Eve in Shoestring-anyone old enough to remember?

We’d decided not to use Fahteh to go to Bahariyya, as he seemed a bit of a cowboy-OK to get us around the nearby, but dodgy in the depths of the desert where there can be over 100km between the military checkpoints. This turned out to be a good decision as in my opinion, 1 year on from driving in sand on Fraser Island, his driver is an accident waiting to happen. We hammered down a few dunes as you might in a sand buggy, but we were in a 4x4 tank. I hadn’t signed up for the adrenalin, but the peace and beauty so found this a rather tedious diversion.

We didn’t have to head out too far into the desert as you get away from the Oasis and it is proper desert. I took a video panorama at one point and for about 270 degrees all you get is sand being baked by the sun, but then you see the oasis: it gave me a slight feeling of what it must have been like for those lost, ragged, thirsty souls when they saw it and ran down the dune to it. Of course this is the only oasis for miles and miles and miles, so most of the ragged souls never got to it.

We started at a hot spring 10km away and I would say it was serious desert after less than a quarter if that distance.

Some of the dunes were picture postcard stuff

Scenes like this made it obvious why it had been dubbed the Great Sand Sea, which starts around the hot springs. Cool as this name is, it is worth stating that the Great Sand Sea is part of the Sahara, the number one name in deserts and clear market leader. It is an appropriately movie looking desert. Even day tripping with 2 and a half litres of water and a 4x4, you realise this is not your environment and you need to be careful to be safe.

After dinner I chose the tent option-I’ve two nights coming up Al Fresco

Day 62 Siwa
With a day to explore the sights in and around Siwa, I hired a bike and headed off to the Temple of the Oracle. Didn’t ITV’s teletext used to be called Oracle? It classical for them. Anyway, Siwa used to have a famous oracle. Famous enough for Alexander the Great to have made a special trip here to consult it; he never revealed what was said, but it is rumoured it told him he was the son of Zeus (and Sid Waddell would memorably reference him in his Bristow’s only 27 commentary). The Persian King Cambyses sent a force of 50,000 men to destroy the Oracle after it foresaw his downfall. They were consumed by the desert and no trace of them has ever been found.

In itself there wasn’t so very much to see, but there were some great views over the oasis.

I passed the temple of Umm Ubayda, which is in a pretty bad state

after an Ottoman governor blew it up for building materials, and made my way to the Cleopatra spring. I’d meant to go for a swim, but it was quite a long bike ride back and I eliminated the risk of chaffing on wet clothes by just sitting in the café and chatting with folks there. (Incidentally the café with the best music in the middle east). I was just about to head off when Breeze and her mum arrived, so after another prolonged bout of chilling we headed back through town to the Fatnas springs. This time the donkey boys ensured we bailed on swimming, so we did sunset with a drink and a Sheesha.

Day 63 Siwa to Baharriya
As we were meeting Ahmed, our driver/guide/cook/sex pest, at 7 I had time to see sunrise from my balcony.

The drive to Bahariyya was a long one-9 hours or so including an excellent lunch stop.

The 7 checkpoints (I still can’t see the point) dragged it a bit as well. Although the desert was fairly unremarkable, I was still glad to do it as the alternative route was 9 hours bus to Alex, 3 hours or so to Cairo, 5 or so hours to Bahariyya-at which point I’d have needed to arrange an excursion into the surrounding area. It seemed quite a journey and an effort for us, even though we’d just sat in a jeep. The distance is pretty much on the limit of a camel’s range before water is needed. Had you made the crossing pre road, pre GPS, pre satellite phone, you really needed to know what you were doing.

I found it a little strange that in Bawati, the settlement in the Bahariyya Oasis, it was a bit tricky to find ice cream. The first guy didn’t even know if he had any; eventually we found a place with some crushed cornetto rip offs buried under the frozen meat. Glad I wasn’t eating the meat as the ice creams weren’t the most frozen.

After a brief stop in town (for military intelligence and bureaucracy) we headed to camp in the desert where we had a lovely spot in a dune and a camp fire.

When it came dinner Achille, who had been talking of his hunger for a while, appeared gracious. ‘Women first’, he said; after the ladies had theirs, he continued ‘women first, then children, I am child’ and he was off. Top dinner and no meat in sight.

I timed my moments of consciousness in the night quite beautifully. I saw the red moon setting, the stars at their brightest when moon and sun were gone, a shooting star and dawn,

Day 64 The Black and White Deserts
In the morning Achille and Christine got stuck into some Tai Chi type stuff; it was a bit new age for me so I stretched and went off for a piss.

We noticed the foxprints from the night before, but it wasn’t until we were in the whit desert tonight that we saw a fox. We had to do a few things in Bawati before heading south, but the Black desert was our first destination of the day. The black desert is one of those formations that is a result of volcanic activity. We climbed up a surprisingly steep and tall black mountain/hill and as I looked across the black desert, I imagined Peter Jackson adding flames to create Mordor.

We managed a self timer team photo, which I love as I clearly from land of the giants

(the ground sloped and I still haven’t mastered the thing on my head). Once again at lunch, the food preparation fascinated Achille

At the start of the white desert (imaginatively named desert with lots of chalk formations) is the crystal mountain, which is really a big rock, glittering with quartz. It looked like a massive tub of glitter had been emptied on it and wasn’t so much my thing. I did manage to find an arch to stand in with my new turban look.

By now I am finding that some of the flies are getting almost Australian in their persistence and aggression, but fortunately not in their numbers.

We catch some sun set over the white desert,

which is not white in the setting sun. The other thing about the chalk base of the white desert is it means there’s not a great depth of sand, which makes it rather difficult if you’re trying to dig a hole big enough to drop something in, if you catch my drift.

Later on Ahmed is talking to me about the airport opening up in Siwa being a good thing-currently bus/jeep is the only way there and it is a long way. Reservations are expressed about the impact on Siwa, but Ahmed says that the language (Siwa has 25,000 natives with their own language) and culture will endure. I feel bad and cynical for initially doubting him, arrogant for initially thinking him naive. His quiet confidence seems well placed and I am convinced for a time. Later thought a few things change my mind and make me think that Ahmed, although he has travelled a bit, is not as worldy wise as I thought. I had been shocked when I got to Siwa how touristy it felt; chatting to Ahmed about this he says only 40 people work in tourism. He means only 40 people drive jeeps: I’m thinking about the hotels, of which there must be 20, 30 more-all with Middle Eastern sized staffing, the restaurants, internet cafes, craft/tat stalls, sand treatments for rheumatism, tourist info office, 7-11 type shops and donkey boys. When you then consider the jobs that go to supporting them and their building expansions and the ex pats also living here, Siwa’s economy is tourist dependent. Ahmed also started talking to me with childlike enthusiasm about WWF (or whatever they now call themselves); he is addicted to it on satellite. After a few minutes gushing he said, ‘but some people say it is not real’-I didn’t know what to say. He was clearly a believer. I don’t want to sound like I’m poking fun at a simple country boy, I’m just saying that having travelled and seen a few places, Ahmed is wrong: the airport opening will make Siwa a resort. Already he mentioned donkey boys weren’t bothering with education, just getting cash off tourists. Go to Siwa now if it interests you, it will change.

Then of course there was Ahmed and Breeze. Poor Breeze.

On Saturday Breeze had asked me to be her husband for the day after some guy in a palm grove had asked her mum if he could kiss Breeze; it turns out it would have been wise to extend this arrangement as Ahmed’s heart was racing. This was very awkward for poor Breeze (especially as Ahmed was totally impervious to anything subtle) and while it provided the rest of us (well mostly me) with quite a lot of comedy, it also proved to be a royal pain in the butt tonight.

Breeze had been asking for some chaperoning assistance, mostly from her mum. Ahmed had been getting more and more excited. At the crystal mountain, where there are big signs saying take nothing, he tried to give Breeze some rocks and stuff. She refused, but then he just gave her something in the car when he couldn’t put it back anyway.

Tonight it emerged he had a masterplan. He asked Christine if he could take Breeze for a moonlit walk. I’m far from convinced this was a wide eyed innocent request, but anyway Christine said yes, which Ahmed took as a blessing. Breeze meanwhile is rapidly canvassing to get as many folk on the walk as possible. To me it’s quite clear that we are heading off together. Ahmed however takes Breeze’s arm and all but runs off. I’ve no shoes and Christine can’t walk the fastest on the sand, so we are soon a distance behind. Before much longer we’re just following 2 shadows. Still feeling we should support Breeze I make a fateful decision: looking at where Breeze and Ahmed are heading and back to where we have come from in the moonlight, I realise that this is the point of no return. If we keep going, I can’t find the way back-we’ve got to keep with them. We’ve been following them (or their dust trail) so haven’t seen any real markers to get back. We keep on. We shout a few times, but to no avail. Finally in amongst a number of rock formations, we lose the shadows. I’ve my torch so we follow their footprints for a while-Christine asks if I was a boy scout. Then we reach some chalk base without sand on. It’s quite big and obviously has no footprints on it, we can’t follow any more. I harbour a small hope that this a gag and they’ll jump out on us, but no. So it’s time to follow the footprints back. Which we do until we come to another chalk base and can no longer find our footprints (plenty of other ones with shoes, but not ours).

Bugger.

We climb up onto a small chalk hill for a look. We see no people and Christine starts determining North and directions we should head in way that totally fails to persuade me. Then she spots a fire. That’s the one, head for the fire. We climb down, but can’t see the fire anymore. So I climb back to get a bearing on something we can head for.

We get close to the rock I was aiming for and there is no way this is going to be our camp. There’s also no sound of voices and no sign of a fire. For the first time I am a little concerned-we’re now way off course well away from where we walked if Ahmed cools his ardour and looks for us by retracing the route. I leave Christine to look quickly round the corner. It’s not our camp, but it is a camp. Result. Turns out this is Rachel’s camp, she’s from New York and has some lovely Friends. We get on nicely and had I been alone, I’d have been tempted to say I’ll stay and we’ll find them in the morning.

Her 3 guides (seemed a bit unnecessary, but then she wasn’t lost) started to try to help us. I described how we were in the new white desert 18km from the entrance, 3 km into the new white, just off the road, camped behind a rock like a camel. I had hoped that the camel would seal the deal-I really did think it looked like a seated camel and that’s what Ahmed had called it. I even animated my camel and mimicked the sitting and staring position. Blank looks. Oh well. More discussion, then one guide goes. ‘Ah, I know’.
‘Gtreat.’
‘You have two cars.’
‘No, one.’
‘It is red.’
‘No, white.’

We’d honked the horn of their jeep a few times, but this was beginning to fee like an impasse. They had lots of blankets and a big tent and they’d already offered us food, so it seemed not too bad a situation. Then we see a car driving round and assume it is Ahmed. Christine says this means he’s had to collapse the camp, I say it serves him right. It seems to take a lot of effort to get the car to come over and stop. That’s because it’s not ours and isn’t looking for us. It’s 6 guides on a joy ride. Still they cram us in and although they too have no idea where we are camped, we start touring about 4 or 5 camps. Eventually we go back to the start of the New White Desert and later still see Ahmed standing around waving a light.

Ahmed feigns incomprehension, says we went for separate walks and doesn’t understand how we got lost. I tell him he’s full of shit. I’ve been laughing ever since we found Rachel’s camp, but this makes me angry. He’s essentially run off with Breeze, which she hadn’t wanted, and abandoned the two of us to get lost in the desert and now he’s feigning all innocence. He challenges me on it and I repeat that he’s full of shit and lost us on purpose. Breeze confirms later that he opened up by saying ‘my plan is ruined, I wanted to walk alone with you, but now your mum and John are following us’. Like I say full of shit and potentially dangerous. Once we’d been lost, Breeze had a few hairy moments as she too had no idea where she was, he had the horn and was evasive about returning to base.

Breeze tells us the moment she got back to camp, where Ahmed had assured her we would be, the words from the Lonely Planet echoed in her ears-‘people die in the desert every year’. Once we found Rachel I knew we’d be OK, the others had no such consolation.

When everyone was reunited it was clear again that Achille was the wise one-he’d stayed behind and had been talking to the foxes.

Day 65 Bahariyya to Cairo
I’m not sure how long we spent in the White Desert the following morning, but I’ll leave it to the pictures

We stopped at a hot spring on the way back and I had a quick clean as I was still harbouring a lunatic hope of making the night train to Aswan. Once I was back in Cairo.

I’d made various efforts to get a ticket, including Breeze’s contact in Cairo, but it seemed I was going to need to be in Cairo to book a ticket. Our bus was at 3, Breeze’s contact told me there was a late train at 10.30 and the bus journey was described as taking between 3 and 5 hours. I will skip most of the tedious details, but I finally arrived at the station at 9.30 pm (not knowing why I bothered as I had no chance) to find the sleeper had gone at 9.10 and the two more regular type trains that hadn’t left were full. I know I was sweaty and gross looking, but the surly Egyptian way people tell you these things doesn’t make you relish coming back the next day for an actual ticket.

After disagreeing with the taxi drivers over the fare to the King Tut hostel, I took the metro and a walk. I failed to find King Tut (it was obvious in the morning), but had deliberately headed to a spot where there were three hostels adjacent. I plumped for the Claridge, which was pretty poor, but welcome none the less. It had been 3 days since I’d seen a bed, shower or toilet. I found some food and threw myself into bed. That was 9 hours after getting on the bus.

Ice Cold in Alex

2008-03-13T19:13:00.014Z

Day 57-58 Dahab to Sharm. Nope, Dahab to Alexandria. Via Cairo
I think it’s fair to say I regret the extra day in Aqaba. Writing this I am sat in a hotel room in Alexandria rather than being on a bus to Luxor as I expected. I am quite ludicrously tired-combination of late nights, early starts, diving and a bloody night bus.

Just after my last post I headed up with my still warm laptop to see Mohammed at Divers Down under and sort my kit out for the Thistlegorm/Ras Mohammed trip. ‘I’m so sorry my friend’ he said; I realised immediately that the weather had f*cked me. The port authorities had banned any boats from going out so 34 people I don’t know and I weren’t going diving. Staying on till Friday for the next trip didn’t seem an option-the weather was a risk and I wasn’t sure I had enough time. I’d missed the bus to Luxor for the day. I guess most normal people would have shrugged, had a beer and caught the bus the following day-essentially as planned minus the diving. With a typically special approach I replanned the remaining 4 weeks of the trip and got a night bus to Cairo. I had to miss dinner at Samir’s house (an Egyptian Norbert, Carolyn and I had been hanging out with) and I was dog tired by the time I got on the bus.

Still I was excited to be on a night bus to Cairo and determined to go and see Madness again. I hear it’s been windy in England too. If I hadn’t been here disappointed at my diving being cancelled, I’d have been in Cheltenham disappointed at the racing being cancelled.

So the new plan? Well I decided that a 9 hour night bus wasn’t enough travel, so followed it up with a taxi to the Ramses train station and a 3 and a half hour train journey. In part I felt I couldn’t be doing with Cairo just yet, I didn’t fancy checking into a hotel at 8 a.m. and logistically the possibility of 3 stays in Cairo sounded dumb. So I’m in Alexandria.

Hopefully from here, it’s onto
• Siwa Oasis from where I hope to find a driver at a price to take me across the desert to
• Bahariyya Oasis for the White and Black deserts, then a bus to
• Cairo, hopefully just to catch the night train to
• Aswan and Abu Simbel then 3 nights on a
• Felucca up to
• Luxor after which comes the clever bit, time permitting get a flight to
• Sharm, then a bus to
• Dahab, where I can dive the wreck and the reef before getting a night bus to
• Cairo
And if I do all that in the 28 nights that remain I am going to be a pale shadow of a man as I ease myself into my business class seat for the flight back to England and Gary Linker’s woeful presentation of the Masters.

I didn’t sleep much on the bus, but it seemed a bit unnecessary that people were disturbed/woken up on 3 separate occasions to have their tickets checked and another 3 to have their passports glanced at. Overall it was a pretty straightforward 16 hour journey, although my bag is pretty much wrecked now and will need nursing back to England.

The temptation to flop into bed at the Hotel Union (Billy Bragg approved I’m sure) was pretty strong, but I ventured out with Matt and Sarah who I’d met on the way from Dahab. We started by heading to the Fort Qaitbey, which was built in the 1400s on the sight of the Pharos of Alexandria-the third of this trip’s wonders of the ancient world and another destroyed by earthquake. There’s some stone in the fort’s walls that came from the lighthouse, but in truth there’s little to see.

The Mosque of An Nabi Daniel was much more successful-at least for Matt and I, for Sarah wasn’t allowed into the vast majority of it. Stylistically it was very classical, but the condition made it me think it had to be quite recent and it turned out to be from 1943.

Day 59 Alexandria
Alex has a great history, but it is mostly under the current city or the sea. Much of this can be explained by the population: in the 1940s there were 300,000, now there’s about 4 million. In all honesty, it’s not too clear what has attracted them except for the urban drift that has occurred in so many of the world’s struggling economies.

Egypt and I are going to have our problems. I was aware of this before I left, that awareness has since been heightened by talking to other travellers and my limited exposure to a couple of the country’s less hassley spots. I don’t like being hassled: someone needs to produce the I don’t want a taxi, a donkey, a camel, to go to your shop Laa Shukran t-shirt so you can just point. It is continual and very tedious and I utterly cannot get my head round it. Most tourists head for the hills the moment someone approaches them and starts the banter, it’s all so counter productive. Me being me, I can’t resist pointing this out today. People standing in the doorways of their own shops, surveying the pavement look to me as if they’ve found an ideal way of stopping folk entering their store. I found it utterly mental as two staff followed me round a bakery this morning as I looked at what I was going to get. I don’t like the whole bartering way of things, I much prefer the price to be the price and be clearly advertised. I buy a lot more that way as well. And I know that things here are going to painful

Then there’s the baksheesh: essentially someone points out the entirely obvious, tries to wrest your bag from your hand, follows you round giving you an unsolicited and unwanted guided tour (tourist police did it at the fort yesterday), generally hangs round you and is annoying and then expects some cash for it. The guy who was sweeping up outside the opera house this morning kept leering at me and then looked expectant as I left. I’m going to sound terrible here, but I’ve a lot more respect for beggars than this-it’s honest and doesn’t involve pissing you off. And I know it is going to get a whole lot worse. I’m feeling that, outside Dahab, I’m going to be lucky to make any genuine contact with locals. Egypt has been widely described as a country where you’re a wallet in legs and I think I have that idea a little too firmly lodged in my brain. I’m going to enjoy it, but it’s going to drive me mad on occasions.

I realise how fortunate I am, especially compared to the average, but it is insane and somehow lacks the charm of India. Anyhow, rant over. In between being offered a large number of services, what did I do today?

I started with an ambitious plan, which I soon rationalised as the day drifted on and I felt the need for a siesta. Alexandria holds Egypt’s only Roman theatre: it’s a small, but quite sweet affair that was found when digging the foundations for some flats. It makes you wonder what else may come to light. I have to say the highlight was the area that contained a few of the pieces that the underwater archaeologists had removed from the sea, with accompanying photos of divers and massive hulking statues and pieces of building being hoisted from the sea.

I moved onto the Alexandria museum, which is quite a nice compact place divided into historical periods. The story that caught my eye was the British bombardment in 1882. The Arabs’ machine guns weren’t very good so they couldn’t reach the British navy, who stayed out of reach and blew the living crap out of Alexandria’s fortifications: it seems very British Empire, inflicting maximum local damage, while safely sipping a gin and tonic-Blackadder echoed in my head ‘well, it was a viciously sharp slice of mango’. I hope Rowan Atkinson is remembered for that and not Mr Bean.

The museum also contained some pieces, which struck me as classic Egyptology.

I went to see the Greco Roman museum, but it was very shut-in that the door was open, but there was chaos everywhere inside. They’re clearly doing a lot of work, which is interesting as the LP says on 2005 they were redoing the place and were nearly finished. Instead I settled for lunch and a doze: I actually went back to get some more clothes as it had been getting a little ice cold in the Alexandria museum, but then the bed looked comfy. Missing the Greco Roman may have been no bad thing: I am getting rather museum and ruined out. I am going to need some rather more spectacular sights to get the enthusiasm really flowing; fortunately I know that Egypt will oblige.

So to the library. This is a recent development and probably the symbol of modern Alexandria. Next to the library is the planetarium

Sorry, I mean Death Star. I think more architects should look to the Empire for their inspiration. The library is clearly a way on calling on Alexandria’s past in an attempt to position the city as a modern place worth considering. I think it’s great to see so much effort (and money) go into books in a country with 50% illiteracy. Egypt seems to have more of an affinity with books that Jordan and Syria: I’ve seen several large markety bits with books. When I went to a ‘really good book store’ In Aqaba, it was awful and very expensive. You might argue that health and more direct forms of education would be a better use of money, but there were lots of people in the library using it, including a very good number of women.

The building’s exterior is decorated at the back by all the world’s alphabets

neatly reflecting the library’s aim to be Egypt’s window on the world and the world’s window on Egypt. From the other side it’s supposed to look like a discus buried in the ground.

I’m not sure why. Inside it is magnificent and super modern. Very light as of course a library should be.

All this made me think once again that I must visit the British Library, a building that has fascinated me since seeing a programme about it on BBC2 (natch).

While I was in the library, I got a text from Mr A to say that the Noonster had won £400 on the third race of their postponed Cheltanham trip. Good work Luke-spend it on curry and sport, not nappies and pushchairs I say.

Looking out over the bay from the hotel foyer (on the fifth floor), I couldn’t help but think I could see what Alexander saw in the location, but much of that has been lost and I wasn’t sure there was a great deal for the modern vistor

I think I blame Kate for this post-she would keep going on about how Poms whinge.

Desert tomorrow-8.30 bus to the Siwa Oasis.

Under Dahab's Waters

2008-03-11T12:57:00.008Z

Day 49 Aqaba
I’ve enjoyed Aqaba, but mostly from under the water. On dry land, it turns out there’s not so much to it. The weather was lovely today, so I had a potter round and spent a few hours reading at the café on the beach (plastic table and chairs on 20m strip of sand). I had a look at Aqaba museum and castle; these may provide some diversion if you’ve come on a beach holiday. However, I’ve seen some pretty special stuff and have been reading about Egypt, so they didn’t quite cut it. Egypt is looking very busy, so I hope I don’t end up regretting a bit of a nothing last day in Aqaba. Even the quietest day has its highlights and I found excellent pizza and ice cream, so I looked after body, if not soul.

Day 50 Aqaba to Nuweiba (Egypyt) to Dahab…..I hope
I am raising my bat today for the fiftieth day of the trip-it’s only my 34th birthday.

This was officially the dullest day of the trip: a title I do not expect to be challenged, hopefully. I probably tempted fate in an earlier fate by flippantly saying I was just going to travel on my birthday. I got to the port a little more than the recommended hour and a half before the 12 o’clock sailing and eventually managed to understand the system:
1. Wander round aimlessly trying to work out what’s going on
2. Go upstairs with bags
3. Ask for a ticket
4. Walk across the ticket office to pay for the ticket
5. Walk back to the ticket counter and collect the ticket
6. Walk downstairs with bags
7. Buy departure tax stamp
8. Walk upstairs with bags
9. Get departure tax stamp stuck in passport and stamped.
I resisted the temptation to offer them some free consultancy on improving their process.

And at step two I was informed that the boat was going at 3, because of the ‘weather’: looking out the window at the millpond, this made not a lot of sense. At this point I deluded myself that if we could go a little early, then they might hold the bus a little so we could still catch the 4 o’clock last bus to Dahab. The stupidity of this thought was apparent when we got on the boat at 5; the boat didn’t move till gone 6. We got our passports processed: it seems that the stamp doesn’t work when the boat is moving or in the holding area that everyone had been sat in for 6 hours. When we arrived we sat for about an hour until 3 police came on board and looked around for 5 minutes. Even then we surprised the guys operating the baggage x-ray when we exited.

Hey ho. I’d written the day off anyway, I just wanted to get to Dahab so I didn’t waste even more time.

At 8.30 we got into a service taxi, where it emerged that the Germans I was now travelling with were staying in the same place as me and that it was my birthday-when the taxi asked my age I said ’34 today’. So at about 10, I sat down for the day’s first meal and had a birthday beer-nicest of all, they refused to let me pay for either. I may just start telling people it’s my birthday when I meet them.

Day 51 Dahab Dive Shop tour
I had hoped to arrive in Dahab at 5 yesterday and then have the chance to talk to a load of dive shops, hopefully arrange to do my Advanced Open Water and spend today at St Katherine’s: as going to St Katherine’s involves getting to over 2,000m up Mt Sinai, you can’t do that within 18 hours of multiple dives. It presents a risk of the bends.

That may have been too optimistic a plan, but having established the hostel had a trip to the monastery tomorrow, I headed out on a dive reccie. My suntan must be coming on, as one local seller of goods greeted me with ‘what’s up nigger?’ A slightly surprising opening gambit.

After the first dive shop I bumped into Carolyn and Norbert, who I’d not seen since Syria. They determined a night out to celebrate my birthday was in order. Norbert thought my name was Nigel, which I guess came to him from my nationality; I told him not to worry as I was rubbish with names and remembered his because of the dragon connection.

I am really liking Dahab. It has an Oxford restaurant, a Nirvana Indian, a bar that’s made out of a boat and I’m staying at the Penguin Village.

I finally chose Desert Divers, who were recommended by both Talal in Aqaba and the Lonely Planet. It’s a very difficult choice: there are over 60 dive shops, so you chat to a few, have a look at their equipment and pick one where you like the people. I spent a long time chatting to folk on 6 or 7 different places. Let’s hope it’s a good decision.

Day 52 St Katherine’s Monastery
I had the option of going on a sunset or sunrise trip to St Katherine’s: as one involved leaving at midnight and climbing in the dark, I went with the 8 a.m. kickoff, figuring I’ve seen a lot of dawns in the last 18 months. So we visit the monastery at the foot of Mt Sinai before having a bit of a climb.

We had a nice group of folks on the trip-my German pals, a Canadian couple, American Dad and daughter and a Swiss brother and sister. The Canadians had also met Beardy, who now appears to be developing the status of Middle East muppet that everyone meets and remembers.

The monastery, or at least the part that was open to visitors, was a lot smaller than I had anticipated and there were a huge number of people trying to get in: the doorway was a an arch one and a half persons wide, which caused a bit of a blockage. Inside the chapel, the main sight, I felt a real sense of pilgrimage in many of the visitors as they crossed themselves, lit candles and kissed the feet of some statue. It was very quiet in reverent way, a vibrant contrast to the circus that is the Cistene Chapel. On my way in I passed a German tour group. The only words I heard were ‘Im Britische Museum’. We’d clearly been here then.

The sunlight streaming in through the windows was beautiful as it broke on the chandeliers, which were suspended throughout the chapel. I felt a little awkward at times as I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, when it clearly was very vital to many of those present. Like the baptism site in Jordan, there seemed to be a lot of Russians.

As we climbed Mt Sinai, it became clear that my focus on diving yesterday had left me completely unprepared for today. The only questions I had asked were when and how much. Everyone else had a packed lunch and I had no torch for the way back. It was a pretty shambolic effort, but at least I had enough clothes to lend my Lions’ shirt to a shivering Swiss.

Overall I was a little underwhelmed; the climb and views were interesting enough, but not earth shattering. The Church at the summit reminded me that this is a place of significance first, natural beauty second. As we stumbled down in the starlight, I was bemused by the 30 or so people on their way up on camels: they weren’t staying the night, so I’m not sure what they thought they would see.

Not sure about the head gear, but it does a job.

For those who have been worried about my alcohol consumption, we had a few beers when we got back, which makes 3 consecutive days of drinking for the first time in a long, long time. German Peter then became the first person to accuse me of talking too much because I am travelling alone and have some sort of conversation debt bursting to get out: I assured him that many long suffering folk could testify that this was quite normal.

Day 53 Advanced Open Water. Desert Divers. Navigation, Underwater Naturalist and Night Dives
Vanessa, my instructor, can be a little difficult to follow: this is not because she is French, but because she’s so gorgeous that it’s often tricky to concentrate on what she’s saying. She’s very chilled out and we had a good laugh: after a couple of months in France, I’m her first student of the year. We started with the navigation dive, which, after the Open Water, was probably the one I was most concerned about. The exercises weren’t too difficult-count kick cycles for 10m, then with the compass swim 6 kick cycles and then come back on the reciprocal heading and then swim a square of 4 kick cycles per side.

We then went off to the Lighthouse reef, Vanessa led and then I had to get us back using natural navigation-so I had to remember the way and the buoys, sunken pottery and so on that were the markers. It might have been sensible to take a look at the compass to get a bearing to start back on as I headed off for deeper waters (apparently everyone does). Vanessa corrected me a few times, but apparently I was good enough to pass.

We sat and had a drink and looked at some pictures of fish in preparation for underwater naturalist. We also went through a load of signals so I could communicate what I thought I was seeing-so I rub my nose for a clown fish, fan my fingers for a lion and take my regulator out and grind my teeth for a grouper (this was the trickiest and made Vanessa laugh, but sadly I called the fish wrong). The one thing I didn’t pay attention was the size of the fish-the pictures have an indication of size next to them, so this made my attempts even more hit and miss.

We did the dive at the Islands, which was a lovely site: it was a little like rooms of coral, you went up and over a bit and reef and back down into the next coral room. It was a good buoyancy test too and my confidence was aided when we came across some other divers, who were flailing, going up and down. My fish spotting was fairly comical: on land I would sooner be eviscerated than do cheesey Saturday Night Fever, but I had little choice when I saw a parrot fish (they’re very colourful, hence disco fish). I was very pleased to get that right, as to do that and be wrong would have been shaming. When it came to spotting and identifying clams I was world class; I reckon it was this that tipped the balance and led to Vanessa passing me.

I was getting a bit tired and blonde by the time we were getting ready for the night dive. Vanessa and Kate were less than impressed when I used my hair colour as an excuse. Kate is learning to be a divemaster, so she joined us for the rest of the course. The Padi book makes quite a lot of the fact that you shouldn’t be concerned at being nervous and a bit freaked out before your first night dive. Maybe it was the tiredness, built I was totally relaxed about it: or it may have been Vanessa’s good briefing. We dived the same area as for the navigation, but this time with (waterproof torches). Buoyancy wise this was my worst dive-apparently that’s quite common as you have fewer reference points when trying to control your depth. I spent the first ten minutes earworming Fear of the Dark. Night time allows you to see nocturnal fish and different behaviours. It was the first time I had seen a lionfish swimming, which was very cool and we saw a massive scorpion fish too. Some coral only comes out at night and will retract if you shine your torch on it-a little like the Christmas tree, which retracted into its tube at the Islands when Vanessa waved at it-we then hovered and watched it come back out. Pretty magical. As well as a lot of general fish, we also saw a Spanish Dancer, a massive cuttlefish and a very ambitious hermit crab, who’d got a shell big enough for two or three. When we met the dive group who had video cameras I got a bit disorientated: I think it would be quite easier to latch onto the wrong group at night.

Perhaps the best bit was when we all sat down on the bottom and turned our torches off. We then threw some shapes and generally waved our arms about and the disturbance of the plankton created speaks of phosphorescence in the water. It was very cool and reminded me of getting a similar effect moonwalking on the beach of Fraser Island. Although, maybe the Octopus was the highlight.

Afterwards we were invited up into the mountains for dinner: one of the owners is Bedouin so we had dinner with a whole group of folk looking down the hill over the town and out to see it was a lovely spot. The only downside was that I was unprepared. I’d been expecting to just walk back to the Penguin Village with wet shorts. To stay warm and help the shorts dry, I wrapped my towel round my waist and as it’s one of those compact travel towels, it looked scarily like a sarong. I made it very clear to anyone who would listen that I was not doing a David Beckham.

Day 54 AOW. Desert Divers. Deep and Drift Dives
All the dives in Dahab are shore dives again. The Lighthouse reef is close enough to walk to, but the other sites have to be reached by transport so we’re either in a jeep while the pickup takes the dive gear or when it was just Vanessa and me, we sat in the back of the pickup while it thumped round the roads and down to the beach. It makes looking like a beach bum very easy.

Today we headed to the Canyon, Bells and Blue Hole. These are very famous sites and are visited by people from Sharm as well as Dahab. A lot of them finished their journey by camel. Vanessa said she goes diving to see fish not divers so we made an early start to beat the crowds. When we came out from the canyon I could see she wasn’t joking. It felt a little like the wave of divers were coming to get us and then I saw the beach was filled with people getting kitted up. We had the place to ourselves-this was for the deep dive.

Up front I hadn’t thought too much about the Deep. Technically it’s not very different, in fact for equalising and such the move from 20m to 30m is significantly easier than the move from 0 to 10-you need to add a third more air to the air spaces rather than doubling the amount of air. I’m not sure how deep I’d been before, but I think in excess of 20m (technically I shouldn’t have). The two other big considerations are that 30m gives you less time underwater to make a no decompression dive (in other words to avoid the risk of the bends) and because you’re under 4 atmospheres of pressure at that depth you consume air 4 times faster than at the surface. Our longest dive yesterday was 50 minutes; this was 36.

Maybe it was tiredness but I got a bit freaked on this one. The odd thing was it wasn’t in the deep that I lost control of my breathing but in about 2m of water as we swam out to start the dive proper: had I been diving alone (not allowed), I think I would have surfaced to regain my composure. I got through a lot of air before we reached the canyon. Then at about 18m down, Vanessa turned so she was vertical and pointed down. I had know this was coming-to enter the canyon we were to pass through a hole. It was a little narrow, but the disconcerting part was that you couldn’t see the bottom. The visibility wasn’t great, but I think it mainly the dark that caused this. The spectrum is slowly absorbed as you get deeper so the sea does get darker and of course when you’re going into a canyon there’s even more obstruction to the passage of light. Sometimes an inability to speak is a good thing. Had we been able to have a discussion at this point, I think I’d have been opening along the lines ‘you want me to go down into that small, black hole. Are you mental?’. There’s a fair chance I might have talked myself out of. As it was Vanessa and I exchanged Okays and she went in and I followed. I controlled my descent nicely and about 8m up I could see the bottom and was perfectly happy. I seemed to miss out on the nitrogen narcosis-perhaps I just behave foolishly so I didn’t go any weirder, but at this depth it is common. My breathing was good too and afterwards Vanessa said my air consumption had been good-though I always noticed how much heavier her tank was when I moved the used tanks.

We saw more on the general part of the dive as opposed to the deep bit. Floating on my back looking up was very cool: the canyon walls went up and then there was a river like blue where the canyon opened up and the sun shining made it very movie especially when some big fish swam over. The number of Jellyfish was significantly up on yesterday and they are quite photogenic floating around as you dive, but today I saw several fish nibbling at them. They have a bit and move on, not killing the Jellyfish-it’s a little like taking an apple from a tree or nibbling on candyfloss.

We did Bells to the Blue Hole as a drift: the idea of a drift dive is you enter at one spot and the current takes you to the exit. There’s not a lot of current here, so we replicated the effect by swimming. The way to the entrance is sobering as you passed a fair number of memorial plaques. Quite a lot of divers have died here: by now Vanessa had decided I didn’t need kid gloves handling, so she told me about the girl whose life she saved here when she couldn’t get buoyant and was just sinking-it goes down to 80m, so hitting the bottom isn’t going to save you. Someone told me there’s a video on YouTube by a guy who died-they recovered his camera with the body. Bit gruesome.

Kate and I did a thorough buddy check and although all 3 of us were feeling a bit blonde by now, we were definitely focussed for that.

Bells is named for the sound made by tanks banging on rock as the divers enter through a hole in the rock and descend feet first. About 20m down you emerge into the open water and swim along the rock/coral wall-keeping a good eye on your depth. It can be quite easy to drift down when you’re looking at the wildlife. The whole thing presents opportunities of a Big Blue Jean Marc Barr moment and just floating off to join the fishes. I was not even momentarily tempted, but I wonder if some of the deaths have come in that sort of way, perhaps with the assistance of some nitrogen narcosis.

We saw some small tuna and a couple of times saw a kind of fish waterfall. A shoal was going deeper and they poured round us, another reminder that you’re only a visitor down here.

On the way back the big bar that is a boat was showing the rugby, so I got a taste of what I wasn’t missing as I watched most of the dire Scotland England match. I sat next to a retired couple from Yorkshire who are staying out of town in an all inclusive. He was convinced that the whole world hated England; it has to be said with much of what he shouting, he was doing very little for diplomatic relations.

Day 55 Desert Divers. Fun Dives.
I had expected to be sleeping on a boat last night. I want to go and dive Thistlegorm (a British wreck from WW2) and then do a drift in Ras Mohammed, which is supposed to be marvellous. Truips go twice a week and I thought one left last night, but they were actually diving the wreck yesterday, so I’ll need to wait till Tuesday to do it. I decided to do a couple of fun dives today and chill tomorrow.

There were even more Jellyfish today and I took a few stings. We went to the Moray gardens, where we saw no eels, and then had a very long at the 3 holes as our divemaster got a bit lost on the way back. After our safety stop we must have been at 2m for about 10mins while he looked for the gap in the coral to get us back to the beach 20m away. We saw some very cool cabbage like coral, but in general the visibility was a bit poor and on the hour long second dive it was quite cold.

A typical prelude then for the evening turning into a night out. Bit of a watering hole Dahab.

Day 56 Dahab
I had wanted to do a wreck dive as part of the advanced course, but there isn’t one in Dahab-the lighthouse must have done its job. As a result Thistlegorm will be my first time in/around a wreck. So I’ve been a touch keen and read the section on wrecks in the advanced diver menu. Today seemed to drift away without me actually stopping. I bought a t-shirt, posted a load of books home (including the ones I need to thank Tim and John for) and confirmed myself for the Thistlegorm trip. I spent a lot of time working out the logistics for my next stop in Luxor. I’ve concluded that I’ll not return to Dahab, but will get the bus from Sharm to Luxor. It sounds a bit of a horror show-16 hours, not a very nice bus, but to fly I’d have to wait 18 hours after diving, which means a night in Sharm and then the flight and taxis. Kind of spent that money on diving; anyway the bus should be greener. After Aqaba I decided I couldn’t face the ferry/night stop/bus option.

I should have said by now that this is a very cool hostel, even though their dive shop was unimpressive. The rooms are behind the pedestrian walkway and then the restaurant/bar is right on the beach. So much so that if you sit in the wrong spot and a big wave comes in, you may get a refreshing shower.

Day 57 Dahab
Ouch. Big night out last night with Norbert and Carolyn along with a couple of American girls and an English Billy Bragg worshipping girl I’ve met. Lisa has tickets to see his Braggness on her return. We spent some of the evening exchanging favourite moments from when we’ve seen the Bard of Barking. She can’t even listen to Tank Park Salute as it makes her cry.

Anyway, the ouch was because I had a 9 a.m. orientation dive with Divers Down Under: I’m having to do Thistlegorm with a different company, so they said I needed to come in to dive, get my kit and so they could see me in the water. Sadly this needed to be at 9 a.m. (presumably so my kit’s dry by the time we leave tonight). I’m not entirely sure why I had to do the dive as when my buddy told Mohamed ‘he’s good in the water’, Mohammed replied ‘I know, I saw him in the Islands’. I guess it gave me a chance to try a different set of kit and pick up some litter. We didn’t take long as the sea is really rough today (it’s very windy) and there was just no visibility so, apart from watching me swimming, there wasn’t much for either of us to see. When we got to the reef, vis was maybe 1m.

So tonight we get a bus to Sharm el Sheikh, where we get on a boat to sleep tonight and then it navigates to the wreck (it has to be found by GPS as there’s no land in sight). We do two dives to the wreck tomorrow morning-one deep and one touring the wreck looking at the motorbikes and such. Then we do a drift in the protected area of Ras Mohammed. One of the world’s great dive sites I understand. My mind is already turning to getting back to Blighty and looking to do peak performance buoyancy and wreck diving specialty courses. Maybe dry suits and navigation too and perhaps diving something like Scarpa flow, which I’m sure I’ll learn to spell before doing.

Under Aqaba's Waters

2008-03-03T08:17:00.006Z

Day 44 Wadi Rum to Aqaba
When I nabbed Difallah’s web connection last night, I should have gone to weatherbet.com and got some dosh on today being a belter. It’s clear as a bell and even at quarter to seven, as the sun starts to bathe the mountains, it isn’t really cold. Perhaps the end of the ski jacket is in sight.

The bus to Aqaba was something of a surprise. For one, it got full. I had to sick with my daypack on my lap, while holding my big back in the aisle. On the way from Petra there’d been a dozen or so tourist and a local or 2, while we piled the bags on the unoccupied back seat. Here, I’m the only tourist. I don’t know where all the others went; hope the desert didn’t get em.

Coming to Aqaba, I saw one of the all time greatest road signs of all time: at a fork in the road, the main road was signed Aqaba City Centre, while the other way was simply the Back Road.

I’d checked in by 9 a.m., which seemed all wrong. I had a very leisurely settle in and shower before heading out. My main aim for the day was to post Petra and confirm my Open Water Padi diving course. I wandered down the beach, looked at the big flag and figured I had loads of time. Stumbling into the dive shop area, I met Talal who’d I’d been exchanging e-mails with and confirmed I’d do the Open Water in the leisurely 5 days we’d discussed. ‘OK. Today is day 1’. I think he saw the look of surprise on my face: ‘it’s OK’, he said handing me the manual ‘you just need to read chapters 1-5.’

Well that doesn’t sound so bad I thought.

‘Fill in the knowledge reviews and we’ll go over it tomorrow. Go to the water in the afternoon.’

Knowledge reviews, that’ll be a bit more work, still sounds OK. I did a few more odds and ends and then sat down with an ice cream (the sun’s out and the sandals are now on the feet) to look at the manual in a little more detail. It’s 250 pages long; there’s a pop quiz every 2 pages or so and there are only 5 chapters. I’m supposed to get through all of this by tomorrow? This is leisurely? Has he any idea how slowly I read?

I bought some lunch for tomorrow and I had about an hour on the net, apart from that my head was in the book, even during dinner. At 10 I had to put it down-I was shattered after 5 consecutive starts of 6 or earlier.

I’d just finished the knowledge review of chapter 2. I was going to be put in detention.

Day 45 Aqaba Adventure Divers-School
I had to catch the school bus at 8.45. I’m not sure when I last really learnt something. I certainly don’t know when I last spent 9 to 5 reading an instruction manual, watching videos telling me stuff and doing multiple guess. Man I read slowly.

My failure to address chapters 3-5 meant that we didn’t get into any water today-just as well it’s quiet season and the training is 1 to 1. It was getting painful, so I promised to do chapter 5 tonight, watched the video lectures for all 5 chapters and did the multiple guess for the first 4. Got 40 out of 40 on that, so my painstaking approach was bearing some fruit. I would never have managed this in 3 days-there’s just too much to read. The theory has taken me nearly 2 days.

Day 46 Aqaba Adventure Divers-Confined dives 1 to 5
I walk to the dive shop each morning, where I meet one of the other instructors. When the Belgian couple he takes diving and the shop manager have arrived, he drives us the 18 km down the coast to the dive centre. This morning we had a little stop at a ‘small gas station’. This particular fuel stop was down an alley and round the back of a couple of buildings. There wasn’t a pump, but we did take on 4 watercooler sized bottles of the good stuff. The ‘benzine’ is brought from Saudi in a ‘small car’; actually in a fairly large BMW, but I guess a van or minibus attracts more attention. It made me wonder if there are any ‘small petrol stations’ in the UK: I guess some farmers run diesel ones. The Belgians wanted to get a photo; to my total unsurprise this was against the rules. From the road you can see Israel and Egypt. Take a boat a few hundred metres, or be brave and swim and you can see Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt. Yet I haven’t noticed the military presence here, unlike the heavy amount at the Dead Sea.

Each of the 5 chapters of The Manual has a corresponding confined dive: the idea of a confined dive is to learn a number of skills in a controlled environment. They’re normally done in a pool. As I left last night, I casually asked ‘where’s the pool?’ ‘We do the confined dives in the sea: you dive in the sea, not in a pool’. Oh.

I can see this point, but seeing as a number of the skills involve getting water in my eyes, I’d prefer the pool. A pool would be a lot stiller, which gives you one less thing to think about. Also, being in the sea pretty much eliminates the underwater perv options that a pool presents.

My failure to get my school work in on time has meant that I’m doing all 5 confined dives today just as soon as we’ve been over my homework, knowledge review 5, and I’ve sat my final exam. It turned out that half 9 isn’t the best time to sit your finals: I got one question wrong by thinking A and crossing the box for B. It was worth 2 marks and all. So I ended up with 138 out of 140. As a theoretical diver, I’m pretty damn good. I was reminded of wise words ‘Good against remotes is one thing; good against the living……’ So let’s no get ahead and remember diving is done in the sea.

The manual summarises what happens in each confined dive. Actually, it summarises what is required-at no point does it say ‘John will repeatedly stuff up clearing his mask’. I hate doing this and it was skill 2 on confined dive 1, so that combined with my confined sea location was making me a bit nervy. To clear your mask, you first have to unclear it, which I also hate. This means letting water into your mask deliberately, which is totally counter intuitive. I was very good at this, completely flooding the damn thing, which gave me plenty of water to try and clear. We’re doing this sat down in a bit more than 2 metres of water, yet it was still humiliating to have to emerge from the water twice to be asked what was wrong (and what was I doing). Or was it three times.

I got it in the end. Which was just as well as I still had some similar things to come: remove, replace and clear mask underwater; breathe underwater for a minute without mask, then replace and clear; swim around without a mask, then replace and clear.

Here’s something I never thought I’d say. At times I felt like Justin Hawkins, if he is the chief of the Darkness. Before you get worried, this wasn’t because I felt like a washed up loser, wandering why no one likes me and Motley Crue tribute band any more. But with my front fastening wetsuit, my only real choice was to unzip it to the navel when walking round in the heat, jumpsuit-tastic; the dried salt on my face looking like cheap makeup; chuck in the sea’s effect on the blonde locks and I feared a scary sight was on patrol on Aqaba’s beach. Reckon I have better teeth than Hawkins. Justin-if you’re reading this from the Priory-maybe the world’s ready for a Hue and Cry tribute band. The Dampness?

We covered a lot of things including sorting my buoyancy, underwater striptease-taking off my weights and scuba kit before replacing them, have my air turned off so I know what it feels like if it runs out, emergency ascents and sharing a single second stage (the breathing bit) in classic movie out of air stylee. This isn’t really done anymore-almost all gear has an alternate second stage, allowing 2 divers to use one tank without swapping saliva underwater.

I think my favourite skill was the fin pivot: you adjust your buoyancy so that when you exhale you like face flat on the bottom (you do that by adjusting the amount of air in your BCD-buoyancy control device). Then when you breathe in, the air in your lungs means your upper body rises up and you pivot around your fins, which stay touching the bottom. Breathe out and you go back to the bottom; breathe out a little hard and you go down a bit too fast.

Oh and there was a lot of high fiving, but no duding. I think this may be why I prefer diving to surfing.

By the end of the day I was getting carried away and thinking of doing the advanced course in Egypt. (it is the next step, although the title makes it sound like I am getting very carried away). This include options like deep dive, wreck dive, cavern dive (no so appealing), enriched air dive, drift dive (whatever that is) and night dive. Even thinking of buying some gear when I get back home and becoming a total bore.

And I’d just like to wish Robin and his twin a very happy birthday. I’m not sure when you’re reading this (or when I’ll have posted this), but today is February 29th, so it’s their first birthday for 4 years.

Day 47 Aqaba Adventure Divers-Open Water 1 and 2
Today’s witterings are brought to you by the power in the union, wistful nostalgia for an England that never was and a sadness that most love is destined to be unrequited.

Yup I am writing this while listening to the God like genius that is Billy Bragg. I believe I have told many people before that the world would be a better place with more Billy Braggs in it; I’m still delighted that I won a trivial pursuit chocolate at Xmas by answering a question with the answer Billy Bragg (I kept the wrapper with the question and all).

I think I only know two other people who really love Billy Bragg. So many people are missing out.

Thanks to the wonder of earworms Billy Bragg is rarely far from my mind, but he is at the forefront right now as I am enjoying my early birthday present from the Sozz. The magic of iTunes allowed him to send me the new Billy Bragg record (that’s the end of all those album of the year contests then) and carrying a laptop round for the last 6 weeks has finally paid off as I downloaded it while posting on Wadi Rum. Sometimes technology really is a wonder.

This appears to be an album that could introduce the wonder of Bragg to the uninitiated/non-believer: it’s called ‘Mr Love and Justice’, which is a pretty fair summary of what the Braggster is about. The album then runs two sides of the same songs-one in classic Bragg guitar and mic mode (not got there yet) and the other with his band the Blokes. Very much the two sides of Bragg; it’s worth noting that his turning point to more involved arrangements was ‘Don’t Try this at Home’ in the early 90s, for me his finest album, which saw contributions from several members of R.E.M. as well as some Stipe backing vocals. Even the biggest band in the world owes Bragg.

While I’m at it, I’m just going to recount one more time my favourite song intro ever. 97 or 98, Sozz and I are in Bristol to see the man himself (first time for both of us): a time when the Spice Girls were selling a couple of records. Billy took time out to introduce us to the 5 members of the blokes backing him. ‘On Drums Posh Bloke, bass Ginger bloke….Baby Bloke,…..Scary Bloke……., Sporty bloke. {Pause}. I’m Ugly Bloke and this is my song.’
I was 21 years when I wrote this song
I’m 22 now but I won’t be for long
Not a dry eye in the house.

My first memory of Billy Bragg is my first year at Rugby and someone 3 or 4 years above me came back from Our Price and proceeded to remove a new Billy Bragg album (yup, vinyl) with one of his great ‘pay no more than £3.99 for this record’ stickers on. You see you don’t have to subscribe to Socialist Worker to love the Braggster, it’s politically aware romance for all.

Smash the system.

OK. Should I talk abut diving now? I bet Billy would be a great diver. Enough? Oh alright.

I saw quite a lot of fish today, even though the emphasis is still on skills. Lion and stone fish, some lovely coral and the first time I can remember seeing a Moray Eel. It looked pretty harmless peering out of its coral lair, but I understand a wide berth is in order. Sadly we also did some litter picking, still it showed I was managing my buoyancy nicely enough.

I cleared my mask first time today and all essentially went well except that I was again too casual with my out of air signals. I need to work on my acting as I’m clearly not conveying any urgency in my ‘I’m under 10m of water and have no air’ hand signals.

The swimming and floating tests were snuck on the end of the two dives. I’d clean forgotten about these: these were definitely my number one dread. I have a swimming style that involves massive effort and little progress: I opted for the 300m option with mask and fins-the no mask option was just 200m, but the sea was getting quite choppy. I’d far rather swim a 1,000m under water with my scuba than either of these options. And as for the floating test. The Manual states on numerous occasions that most people float. I don’t: just another thing I have in common with dozens of leading international sportsmen. I think our high proportion of dense muscle makes floating highly unlikely. I wonder if Billy Bragg floats. Anyway, I drank a fair amount of sea in the floating test. Still got through it, so just 2 dives tomorrow. Fingers crossed I’ll be certified in 24 hours.

I also handed over my photos today: I had to get 3 (I forget what happens to the 2 that aren’t going on my diving card) and despite telling the photo shop I only wanted 3, they still gave me the full set. So I have 5 left over passport photos and this:

Apparently I can give it to my girlfriend: well, it’s a novel way of dumping someone.

As well as looking to do my Advanced in Dahab, I’m now also up for the idea of learning to be an ice diver. I’ve even been wondering whether you can dive if you take one of those trips to the Antarctic. You’d need to add 4m to your calculations for no decompression-to account for the cold you see. Really have learnt something.

I had a slightly early finish, so over lunch I had a read on Aqaba and thought about what I might do. I figured I’d leave the fort till Monday and it was too windy to sit on the beach and read Oscar Wilde, so I turned to the Jordan Experience. The one non-diving thing I’d really clocked about Aqaba before arriving. Here are some extracts from the Jordan Experience flyer.

“Thrill to this multisensory experience, unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It is a journey through the country’s most spectacular and captivating sites……walk through our Siq with its enchanting sounds of birds and horses…..enter the gathering room where you will get chance to watch scenes from the internationally known TV show ‘The Royal Tour’ showing his majesty King Abdullah travelling across Jordan {they really love him; I was told today he once rode his motorbike from Amman to Aqaba-about a 4 hour journey, not the most impressive feat}…..the Jordan Experience culminates with an amazing aerial trip over Jordan with moving seats and the largest screen in the region.”

Who could resist that? But they even miss out the best bit. What the flyer doesn’t mention is that the ‘amazing aerial trip’ is on a flying carpet. So I turn up for the Saturday showing at 5 pm (last show 6). The ticket sales girl tells me they need 4 people to put on the amazing spectacle. I left at 5.10-they were 3 people short. Bloody tourists……

Over dinner I was reading about Egypt. I’m kind of committed now, but I wonder if I would have gone if I’d really thought about it beforehand. I made a politically influenced decision not to go to Israel and with what has happened in Egypt regarding political openness and human rights, I’m not sure I should be going there either. Interestingly Egypt is highly dependent on US Aid. They get $600 million a year and another $1.3 billion in military aid. You what? Does that not sound just a little bit crazy.

I know a lot of travellers plan their birthdays so they’re in a special place and doing something special. Here’s my plan for Tuesday.

10.00 Get Taxi to port for 2 hours messing around prior to
12.00 Ferry to Egypt. Astronomical $60 for a one hour trip to
1.00 Nuweiba. Enter Egypt, expecting border control fun. Walk to bus stop, through what sounds like a fair bit of hassle then sit around till
4.00 Bus to Dahab.
6.00 Or so, arrive Dahab and find my way to the Penguin resort. It was sounded good and Jade’s just told me to stay there, so fingers crossed it may be a spot for a beer or two.

Not the greatest day ever. And you know what? I couldn’t give a monkeys. I’ve already been given the greatest birthday gift a man could have-Billy Bragg’s Mr Love and Justice. Maybe if I play it in Egypt it’ll help them smash the system.

Day 48 Aqaba Adventure Divers-Open Water 3 and 4
I am now a certified diver, I have a temporary card and a permanent one will be sent to me together with my certificate-pucker stuff this. Technically this means I can jump in the water with another qualified diver and sink away to my hearts content; realistically it would be unwise of me to do this at a great many sites. I deliberately didn’t take any photos until I’d passed, it felt like tempting fate. So here’s a classic scuba psycho shot

and here I am with Moutaz, my super teacher dude

You’ll notice that I of course have no underwater photos, since I don’t have the right casing for my camera. One of the dives that is an option in the Advanced Open Water is underwater digital photographer; if I can get a casing in Dahab, I may go with that if possible. I’ll see what they recommend in Dahab, but as I don’t expect I’ll be able to do an ice dive I feel fairly set on doing the wreck and night dives, which I expect to be terrifying in the dark. Deep dive and navigation are compulsory for the Advanced: the latter may be interesting as the compass skills today were rather taxing. You have to hold your right arm out straight in front, hold your right elbow with your left hand so that he compass on your left wrist is in front of you; then you follow the bearing you want, while counting the number of kick cycles (so you know how far to come back). This got a bit much for me and I was concentrating on all this so much that I forgot to breathe.

I’ve never been much of a swimmer and I’ve never been very comfortable in water: I’ve done a fair bit of snorkelling, but always disliked the snorkel itself. I’m not one of those of snorkellers who hyperventilates and dives down for a closer inspection. I’m no water baby, so I’m really rather pleased with myself. By the last dive today, which was just for kicks really, as we’d done all the required skills in the first 3, I was much better than I ever thought likely at this stage. I was really in control and was even swimming slowly, previously I’d been burning round a bit all over excited. Slow and steady gives you a lot more time for the air in your tank.

I’ve decided to have a chill day tomorrow to give my ears and body a rest: all the dives here are shore dives, which means in addition to the actual diving, each of my 9 dives involved walking down the beach and into the water fully kitted up. Then back afterwards-my shoulders have been a bit sore at night. Still, I’ll miss the bus ride to the dive sights:

I went to watch the sunset and read some more about Egypt and on the way dropped by the Jordan Experience-still not got a quorum, give it one last go tomorrow.

I’ll be heading to Egypt 5 days ahead of schedule, which is quite impressive as my original plan was 3 days short: I guess Johnny A may not be too shocked that I’ve gone 8 days quicker than I had thought. It looks just as well from what I’m reading about Egypt. Luxor sounds like one of the most ridiculous places on earth: named the world’s biggest open air museum both banks have a plethora of things to see. I think I’ll need a week and I hadn’t budgeted for any more diving in Dahab.

Still, it’s all good……

Whar-deee Rum

2008-03-01T15:24:00.011Z

Day 42 Wadi Musa to Wadi Rum
Wadi Rum.

A tough ask for Wadi Rum as it comes straight after Petra. I fear that would set up most things for anti climax. However, the Rum has several things in its favour. There’ll be desert; there’ll be camels (‘I said no camels, that’s 5 camels, can’t you count?’ ‘Compensation for my brother in law’s car.’) There’ll be camping under stars. And there’ll be the peculiar way I’ve been saying Wadi Rum for weeks and weeks: drawn out in Anthony Quayle’s style (having left Petra, you now need to watch David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia-on as big as screen as possible). It is one of the most glorious settings in the movie and meant to be a real highlight of Jordan: unlike Aqaba, the Wadi Rum scenes are filmed in Wadi Rum. I hope my Petra hangover doesn’t take the edge off Wadi Rum, as I think it deserves much better.

I shan’t be sending my thoughts on Wadi Rum to the British Travel Writers’ Association; sometimes cliché isn’t so much a cliché, as a point, which has been nailed. Wadi Rum IS landscape writ large, landscape on a scale epic enough to wreck all judgement of distance. It may have hot spots marked on the tourist map, but it doesn’t have sights in the traditional way-the desert is the sight. More than anything you see, the desert is something you feel, something you experience-more being here than seeing here. There’s not a single original word there, BUT these are all thoughts that came to me while in Wadi Rum; thoughts I had of my own accord that others had had before. I didn’t go out with a checklist of preconceptions. So, I guess I’m saying my reaction is honest, but not groundbreaking.

It had been rush hour as we’d headed out of Rum village and a coachload’s worth of 4x4s were coming towards us. It was soon clear to me that the camel was the right choice for transportation: views develop rather than flash past, you can look around as you please, there’s no roof or fellow passenger to block your line of sight and you can even turn your camel round. Some of the 4x4s looked really cramped and on a camel it is quiet in the vastness.

Camel’s aren’t so fast, at least with me at the reins, so we didn’t travel a huge distance from Rum, but we barely saw anyone, despite often being able to see for miles.

My now pervasive uneasiness about any activity that involves the ‘use’ of animals wasn’t really assuaged; on day one I was regularly urged to ‘hit him’ to get a desired response and on day two my guide asked me if I’d ever eaten camel. Camels are big enough and obstinate enough to avoid terrible treatment, I think, but I get the sense that when they can no longer carry tourists, the Bedouin fire up the barbecue. I have to be careful, if I keep following a policy of not doing anything in which an animal may have been abused or distressed, the logical conclusion may involve giving up cheese. Still, I do wonder.

I’d met a couple of others on the bus who joined me for the first half of the day and this was our camel train.

Overall this seems to be a desert with quite a lot of vegetation.

It’s also quite mountainous-there’s a lot of climbing here. Combining all these elements and the variations in the sand colour results in the sort of epic, monumental and divers landscape that made David Lean want to make a 4 hour film on the desert.

Overall the weather wasn’t that kind in the desert: I had no sunsets, lots of cloud and probably only 3 or 4 hours of good sun in the middle of the first day. On day 2 I switched to woolly Benny headgear instead of day 1’s T.E. Lawrence effort. The disappointment is due to the need for sun to see this place at its best; I’m not so worried about my personal comfort.

Still, when we left Petra the visibility was shocking-as bad as when I’d driven away from the Dana Nature Reserve. Wadi Rum was therefore a lot better than Petra that day and I’d certainly had 3 wonderful days of weather in Petra, which I’m very grateful for. Given there was going to be some crappy weather, I’d rather have had it in the Rum rather than Petra.

Interesting animals camels: they’re very wilful. Not just with me, but with Abdullah my guide as well. I got the feeling they do largely what they want. This is especially true when it comes to eating and drinking-they move on when they’re ready. Reins or no reins, there’s no chance of a human pulling a camel up from a tasty bush if the camel wants to stay down there. I was also interested that they seem to prefer the drier, less tasty looking plants.

This is my camel, Biff

unless I’m way off, Biff was the bully in Back to the Future. This whole trip is in danger of becoming an 80’s movie tribute. Perhaps my dive instructor will be Monty Brewster and Clarence Beeks will drive me to Abu Simbel. Biff pads along serenely, looking around almost as much as me. When they do decide to break the silence, camels make a fearful racket: movie sound people must have used them for monsters. Luckily Biff and his brother are quiet at night-they kept me company in camp. The camp was rather good. Mohammed and Abdullah’s family used to live here. 2 sides of wall have been built around the natural protection. The roof and the other 2 walls are rock and there’s a gap through which I’ll be able to see the stars from bed.

I must have been very bad as I was in bed by 7.10, by which time it had been pitch dark for an hour. I read for a while (give me some credit) and although I heard the occasional rustling noise, I paid it no heed. Then about 20 mins after I turned off the torch, I heard some scurrying. In order to begin investigating, I sat straight up and essentially headed a mouse. It was pitch dark as the moon hadn’t yet cleared the mountains, so I couldn’t tell you if it was a goal or not.

As you’d expect I was a touch perturbed at the thought of flying rodents in my bedroom and was saddened that my career as a mouseball striker was unlikely to prove lucrative. Scrabbling around I located my torch and found no mouse, nor anything worse. At least this confirmed I’d failed to head it into the fire’s dying embers.

Looking around the camp in general, I saw what had happened. Round most of the rock walls lay a stone bench with cushions on, which was a foot or 2 above where I was sleeping by the fire’s final efforts. Mousey must have been running along the bench, hit my ski jacket, which caused the noise to make me sit up before he ran out of bench and flying through the air got nutted by me. It seems likely he was significantly more freaked than I was.

I looked for him as best I could, but to no avail. As the only way in was past the carpet hanging over the only doorway, which was a lot easier as entrance than exit, I figured there was little chance my dazed new friend wasn’t still inside. That was unless mousey could climb over the wall of the sides that weren’t cave: I decided not to think about that possibility too much.

Short on options, I put on a hat so the little one couldn’t steal the gold and turned the light off again. This wasn’t brilliant preparation for going to sleep; I don’t think I heard anything, rather it was paranoia turned the torch back on. Freakishly, there he was, about 6 feet away, where dinner had been.

It wasn’t a rat. It may have been any of a mouse/hamster/gerbil. With a body about the size of my fist, it was fluffy, a darkish, golden yellow with massive eyes and a fairly thick tail. It sorted of hopped away at first; maybe it’s Aussie-a roo mouse? I found I could use the torch to move him around-it was very Jedi as the beam chased him. This started as an accidental discovery, which I found intriguing, but with no cogent plan he eventually dove for cover and I lost him.

When I turned the torch off this time, I had it worked out. It seemed only seconds later when the light was back on, he’d returned to the same spot and I sprang into action. I grabbed the drum Mohammed had earlier been using to play with the echo, planning to trap the roo mouse underneath it. It was soon apparent that this was a stupid idea as the drum wasn’t wide enough and I never going to sufficiently to use it.

A quick change of approach was called for: I decided to use the torch to force him out the door. This required a high level of skill with the light sabre; fortunately I am a registered Jedi (2001 census). At one point I nearly chased him into my bed, but I soon gained the upper hand and him at the carpet in the doorway. He hesitated and sweetly he didn’t want to leave me. Focussed on my goal and unemotional, I thrust my torch toward him and he was gone. Taking no chances, I lifted up the carpet and caught him lingering outside: I forced mine enemy into the desert night and secured the carpet with the drum.

I slept on the bench after that and when it started pouring with rain, I did feel a bit guilty.

Day 43 Wadi Rum
Day 2 showed that I had been wise to decide against getting a camel trip all the way to Aqaba. I was rather sore and the weather was lousy. It was still enjoyable, but apart from watching the camel’s morning routine

I didn’t feel it added much to the previous day. This feeling was doubtless increased by losing Abdullah as my guide. We’d got on well the previous day, but he had to go to school. My new guy seemed to want to get it over with as quickly as possible and I had some saddle problems.

Not what you think.

Coming down a slight incline, I started slipping forwards, then further forward. Just as it was getting silly we stopped.

I was sent off to explore a gorge and he set to work on the saddle. He did a crap job. As the camel got up, the saddle lurched forward even more alarmingly than before. As my guide genius had tied my camel to Biff (he’s had Biff off me too) and he was stood behind me, I was struggling to find somewhere to jump to. I was determined to bale, otherwise gravity or the camel, who sounded in discomfort, was going to have me off. I got myself into a position where I could step onto Biff’s saddle-sensible Biff was still seated. I managed this in a controlled manner and was quite pleased as I took a gentle backward step to get onto the ground…..only to trip over the local who had silently rushed over intent on catching me. I was probably a touch ungrateful as his well intentioned efforts merely resulting in me landing on my arse. Then he set about sorting the saddle out and seemed to be telling my guide off.

Tip to guides who want tips: apologise when you screw up. His English wasn’t great, but I’m pretty sure he blamed the camel. We were back in the village early afternoon, so I went for a hike, which turned into an aimless ramble in the desert. At least it stopped me seizing up.

A few more pictures.

Today is half way day: day 43 of 86. I was a little sad to reflect that the only time my shorts and sandals have left my bag was when I repacked it in Petra.

I stayed at Difallah’s house tonight: technically he’s been my guide, in practice his sons have done the work. He decided to entertain my showing me a selection of TV channels. It was a real culture clash, as he was quite proud as I searched for something nice to say. On Camel TV a large number of camels move around the desert, while a man sings a capella over the top. The camerawork was all over the show-zoom seemed to take the camera bod by surprise. Then we had a televised version of what I understood to be some kind of traditional Bedouin debating, which Difallah also likened to a disco. With just men of course (sometimes the Middle East is more the Blue Oyster East). One guy does some of that half chanting/singing thing that comes through the mosque tannoys and sounds so off key to (these) Western ears: the posse then chant this repeatedly until someone comes up with a decent retort, at which stage the posse change to chanting the new line. The looks on the debaters faces somehow made me think they were exchanging playground insults. And the disco? Well amongst all the chanting, the posse clap and try to jump up and down on the spot in unison. Those who get really taken away, run off and freestyle. The only way I can describe this is by saying they reminded me of over earnest folk, who’d thought too much about their dancing in footage of the 50’s. Sorry. From what Difallah just said I think we’re now watching Pop Idol, but it doesn’t look right. Nope, I think it’s Rant Idol: it seems someone comes on and delivers a polemic and then the audience vote on it. There’s some sort of telephone vote too.

I’m really not sneering, but I was quite bemused.

My second and last Jordanian bus tomorrow and a real lie in: ex Petra was 6.10, this is only 7.00 to Aqaba. You’d think the only bus of the day would be a touch kinder.

And in Aqaba? I shall be getting certified. At last.

You’re strangely dressed. For a Knight.

2008-02-27T19:50:00.000Z

Day 38 Petra by Night
I had a bit of a ratty day: no one could tell me how much my washing was going to cost, I couldn’t find the post office, Hertz had told me to return Apple to a hotel-when it needed to go to their office (why are companies with big names so shit), taxis drivers kept beeping me and the place I really wanted to have lunch (and my first proper meal in some time) was shut. And the internet was rubbish, then they tried to overcharge me and didn’t apologise when I pointed it.

And yes, that is all very petty stuff.

I didn’t managed to get round to dinner; I think a small part of me didn’t fancy the idea of Petra by Night becoming John puking by candlelight. So I grabbed a Snickers (where is that a better name than Marathon) from the minimart opposite the Moon Valley and started down the hill to the visitors’ centre. I took a bite and half a dozen strides later all thoughts of the day’s crap were banished by the single thought-‘I’m going to Petra’. The biggest grin spread quickly across my face and then it started.

Der der der, der der der, duh duh duh, duh duh duh duuuhhh. With the help of Indian Jones, that grin grew to massive proportions. A sense of perspective instilled my sense of excitement. I feel I’ve waited a long time for this.

Naively I thought the dozen or so people waiting when I arrived meant it would be a small crowd, but I reckon there were 150 or so by the time we set off. I was a little surprised as I felt very young and the visitors appeared to have been shepherded out of comfortable hotels. The number of couples under 50 and backpackers was low. Seeing as we were going to walk the Siq in silence and singlish file, then sit in front of the treasury, none of this seemed to matter a jot. As long as I wasn’t too close that bunch of Americans whose volume was set to 11.

Let’s not mess about; it was a brilliant night and left me hungry for 8 hours time when I’ll return in the light and will see so much more. The Siq in itself is a marvel; it is simply wonderful. The Siq is like a gorge/canyon, except it was created by a rent in the earth rather than water: it’s ¾ of a mile long and on average it is about 4 or so metres wide, at times stretching up to 200m. In the moonlight, full and strong enough to create a full shadow of me, the approach to the Siq had felt a little plastic, a little like a film set (this is other rock formations). The Siq maintained an atmosphere of its own. The Siq’s shape was continually changing and the moon and stars came and went. While I knew I wasn’t alone, it was a very contemplative embassy.

It’s no exaggeration that a trip just to walk down the Siq would have been worth doing, but the knowledge that the Treasury-Petra’s most familiar sight-is around one of the Siq’s winding corners adds an extra layer of excitement and poignancy to the walk. If you asked the world’s greatest architect to design an approach to a building, or a stadium, or a square or anything and you asked for that approach to combine beauty with increasing suspense and excitement, there’s not a chance in hell they’d come up with anything to rival the Siq. I found myself slowing down as I went into corners; I was thinking the Treasury might be round this one and then the Siq will end; much as I wanted to see the Treasury, I also wanted to prolong the Siq. I don’t know how deliberate on the part of the Nabataens was the use of the Siq as the way to the Treasury, but I can’t believe it was just a happy accident. It’s genius. It makes you think about where you are and where you’re heading-in both senses.

My thoughts turned to the new 7 wonders and the approaches to the other 4 I have visited. There’s fun, but little peace or dignity, in the madness that surrounds the Taj Mahal; braving the fake centurions vying for your photo posing custom can raise a smile at the Colisseum; the mad taxi drive up to Christ the Redeemer in Rio prepares you for the mad crush around what is a very large piece of concrete; Machu Picchu with the Inca trail and the sun gate makes you work for it and gives you a lot of thinking time, but I don’t think it has the magic. You can keep ‘em all; the Siq is the dogs. (It’s worth adding here, after my visit during the day, that the area of Petra is one of phenomenal natural beauty; worth a visit even without the efforts of some of the world’s most extraordinary architects).

After stumbling for a while on the paving that the Romans had put into the Siq, the ground turned to sand and I took the last turn and saw the Siq’s last trick-the famous framing of the treasury that my camera is nowhere near good enough to capture. Tonight the Tresury is more of a feeling, an outline of what I can expect tomorrow. With the ground in front lit and the Bedouin making music, it oozes beauty and atmosphere. Sadly, these were the best I could manage.

We sat and drank mint tea and despite the number, I had a sense of everyone being in their own place. Of course when the music stopped, the lights in the tat shop blaze out.

I still don’t get it. Why would you want shopping to intrude on something so ethereal. Plenty of people did; you can hardly blame the Bedouin. And they do take Visa.

It’s great to think I’ll be back tomorrow to see this all in so much detail.

Day 39 Petra by Day 1
Let’s start with the controversy. If I were to level a criticism against Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a film, needless to say, that only Empire and Withnail could compete with for the movie of the 80s title, is that it might leave you with the impression that Petra is the Siq and the Treasury. This would be grossly unfair, as the film never mentions the city, but the two have become intertwined. As a result, I would suggest that many of the Jones generation fell in love with Petra, without ever knowing what it was they really loved.

Petra is big. They sell 1 day, 2 day and 3 day tickets. You know what I bought just after 6.30 a.m. this morning (winter opening time). This should have resulted in a rather more steady approach to Petra day 1 than actually happened. I left the site at gone 5.30, when it was nearly dark. I had to go on the internet and initially could barely feel my hands from tiredness. I got stuck in.

Still loving the Siq in the light although I must have been seeing things when I thought I saw a Moai in the rock. It was so quiet-I only saw one other tourist while I was in it and I took my time-that sounds were magnified. The flapping of a bird’s wings, the wind and the chatter of 2 bedouin on their way to work all dominate the sound waves. In the light, I could see the many carving and reliefs with which the Siq had been decorated.

Just to make me marvel at the Siq even more, the arrival of the Treasury caught me by surprise. Fortunately I managed to compose myself and get my camera out.

I don’t think there is anything you can possibly to do to improve that view. As a teaser for what’s to come, it is perfect.

I got to the Treasury quite early, but as more people dribbled out the Siq I began to wonder about whether to stay for the best light to hit the Treasury. Just as I heard the first coachload of noisy buggers approaching, I noticed there was a hike that led high above the Treasury. The tour group’s spontaneous round of applause sent me speeding past the Treasury to find the stairs up. A kilometre or so further down, I headed round the back of the Royal Tombs (stunning, but for another day) and started scrambling my way up.

You all know that I am at the very peak of my sporting abilities. I can pinpoint buttons on a remote control with both thumb and fingers; this skill is seamlessly extended to involve both hands when the Sky box and widescreen TV both require adjustment; even this manoeuvre can be accomplished accurately while I cradle a phone to my ear. From here, judicious control ensures pizza can be ordered without missing Monty winning yet another Ryder Cup singles match.

Giving this Olympian standard, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that this sporting pedigree combined with a diet that hadn’t shown much regard for food in the last 4 days proved to be no preparation for going up a cliff like a mountain goat. I’m now a little tired, sat 200m above the Treasury, having probably climbed twice that distance to get here. In truth it wasn’t the hardest and no one else is here-bizarre as it is in LP. And the sun is out.

Just looking at this one again makes me feel a bit sick.

The rock all around the Treasury had given it great protection from the elements: the rock walls are high and the walkways are narrow. Down on the ground it’s actually quite hard to get a picture of the whole as you struggle to get far enough away. The parallel up here is that you need to get near the edge to see it all. The rock walls are quite sheer.

This topography has left the Treasury in wonderful shape. I’m not aware of restoration and I could see no sign of it. I think this is the real deal.

It turned out I wasn’t the only one to come up here, I was just the first. I had to myself for a good half hour and then only 3 French joined me. I spent a good hour up there, but as I started to walk back, the people were flowing up. It’s all in the timing you see. I noticed I’d slipped back into the hiker’s cheery ‘Hi’ as I passed folk: unable to speak, one guy just gave me a filthy look. He had a long way to go.

As I mentioned before, there is so much more to Petra than I had expected. I’d planned to spend 3 nights here, giving me 2 days at the site, much of which I thought would be spent lingering at the same sights. It’s so big that I’ll need to be a little careful to make sure I see and hike round all the bits I want to-as well as returning to some favourites on the last day. I went back passed the Royal tombs and headed into the colonnaded street. This is the Roman bit of Petra and it shows that the Nabataens knew a thing or two as it looks pretty sad here in comparison. Freestanding structures just don’t survive as well as those hewn out of rock.

By the way the Nabataens made their money by taxing trade and trade routes; they lived in tents, which is Petra consists of so many tombs and public style edifices like the Treasury.

At the end of Roman Petra, it was certainly time for lunch. I was walking towards the buffet, but just before was a few steps to the Al-Habis museum. Well, I might as well take a quick look. Just as I was about to head into the museum, I saw a sign pointing round the hill to the crusader fort; just a quick look couldn’t hurt? Now I’m up here. So lunch went back an hour; I am the king of getting distracted and I never did make it in the Al-Habis museum. Got a great view over the Roman part back to the Royal tombs.

And an insight into how they built these.

Start at the top and work down it seems.

Lunch is buffet or buffet. With no breakfast, recent fasting and the exercise my supply of snacks had proved woefully inadequate, so it was going to have be buffet. This was bad news for 3 reasons: firstly it was expensive-a 3 day Petra ticket costs 31JD, make your choice of the 2 buffets for 3 days and you’ll need 30-39JD; secondly, as it’s a buffet, I’m honour bound to eat my money’s worth and after lunch I’m climbing to the monastery-that’ll test my stomach; and thirdly, I haven’t brought my big plate. I went with the Bedouin tent buffet, which was 3JD cheaper than the Crowne Plaza one, where other folk had been expressing their displeasure with the range of options. Still, I guess the Crowne Plaza don’t take the washing up away in a wheelbarrow.

Good thing I’m no coffee drinker-Nescafe is a premium brand in these parts. I still puzzle at the way Johnny Walker has made itself THE whiskey outside the countries that actually make the stuff. Marketing is an evil practice. As people were settling up for lunch, I heard one American asking a total stranger, ‘Where’d you get the Jordanian money?’. They just don’t help themselves.

Indy was lucky. If they’d put the grail in the Monastery, he’d have had another big hike, where he’d have to contend with the Donkey Derby. There are lots of offers of donkey rides up to the Monastery (it’s a good climb), donkeys flying up and down (they seem to have right of way) and plenty of donkey shit. I decided not to make any jokes about people who ride the donkeys, just in case, but I held out to the lunch test. Donkey ride probably wouldn’t help settle your stomach come to think of it.

Sat in front of it, I’m just shaking my head. This is amazing. If it wasn’t for the Treasury, the Monastery would be Petra’s signature hole.

There’s a nice vibe up here. Maybe it’s because almost everyone has earned it: only the women donkey riders escape the hike or the spud squashing.

There are some viewpoints further up from the monastery and again I am struck that this would be a place to come to without man’s efforts here. It’s like a mountain range as you look out.

I half wished for snow; OK I 1/16th wished for snow, but the thought was there.

Slightly reluctantly, I turned and headed for home. It took me 2 hours to get back to the hotel.

I am seriously battered. Circumstances have come together to make this as physically wasted as I can remember being. But, boy did I have a great day.

Day 40 Petra by Day 2
Today I took the Wadi Muthlin route into Petra, which bypasses the Siq and Treasury. Instead I shall end up entering the city from the far side of the Royal tombs. Wadi Muthlin runs perpendicular to the Siq from the dam just before the Siq’s entrance. I did feel a slight wrench at missing the Siq, but I’ll be back tomorrow.

The Wadi feels like a dried up river-sand, small stones, rocks and the occasional boulder line its path. However, it’s more accurate to describe it as an intermittent river, subject to flash flooding when it rains. Not that that should be a concern today as it’s dry, sunny and generally lovely.

This is much narrower than the main Siq: at several points I had to lower myself down. The colours of the rocks were beautiful, but I’m not sure if the sun ever penetrates the Wadi walls to make them look their best.

In other parts, I felt the rock looked like it had been melted. It was the kind of alternative route that was interesting enough when you have time. I noted again that not all the Bedouin are selling stuff to tourists and that others still live and work here amongst the ancient city.

Once again I headed past the Royal Tombs and chilled out for a while at the theatre, where I came across a whole new form of tour group-groups with colour coded baseball caps. At least 3 different groups went by clad in their matching hats. I tried not to smirk.

The hike through the Wadi hadn’t been so taxing, but I thought a breather would help prepare me for my next stop-the High Place of Sacrifice. Apparently the Nabs quite enjoyed a bit of sacrifice up in the clouds, so the High Place of Sacrifice is accessible and well-renown, rather than unique. Slightly out of breath, I pottered around taking in the views before spotting where I’d come from.

While I was near the altar (a fairly simple affair), this kid kept pointing out where the sacrifice happened, the channels the blood flowed down and, to his obvious disappointment, that only donkeys and goats were sacrificed.

It’s nice to have time not to rush here, due in part to yesterday’s lunacy, so I’ve treated today more like a hike. Ignoring the blood, sacrificed donkeys and goats I spent a good while enjoying the views and the picnic I’d assembled. Even up here the sound of Petra, baying Donkeys, drifts up.

From what I understand the Nabataens had a trading empire, not a military one. I like the idea that a creation such as Petra has no military significance, or apparent human cost.

I took the back way down from the High Place, so rather than return to the theatre I would arrive in the Roman city. I felt sorry for the traders on this route-more than one of them asked me if there were any more tourists coming. This was in the early afternoon; it’s not a main thoroughfare. Why became clear at the end:

Well you could have told me before I started. I stopped off at the remaining sights in the Roman City, including the Church and its mosaics. Although many looked like ice cream sundaes to me, it was nice to see true heroes honoured

If the Nabs could see into the future, they were certainly laughing at tourists with their urban planning: the walk back home at day’s end is a complete swine. It’s uphill from the city to the treasury, along the Siq, from the Siq to the entrance and from the entrance to where everyone’s staying. Hardly surprising that you are constantly offered a range of taxis-camel, donkey, horse and yellow. I am still resisting the call of the donkey.

This was a good day, a different day; it didn’t have the same magic as yesterday, but was more of a hiking and scenery day.

Day 41 Petra by Day 3
So back to the Siq and the Treasury. I love that no one knows what it is. The name comes from the tradition of the Pharoah’s treasure buried in the Urn at the top. Believers have shot at the urn to try and get it to spill the good stuff.

The building may be the tomb of King Aretas IV, who reigned around the time of Christ. He must have been some king.

I think the Treasury is the only interior visitors cannot access. To get an idea of how the façade dominates the interior, you can see in. In the centre, the steps ascend to floor level and the ceiling is below the height of the 6 lower columns; the room is not as deep as it is wide and although there is a door at the back, there doesn’t seem much more. I think the 2 side doors from the main chamber lead to the 2 small rooms at the side, accessed by doors left and right at the level of the bottom of the columns. There is no upper storey interior-wise. It is about as opposed to the ‘form follows function’ ideology as you can get.

Everyone stayed in bed today. I saw and heard no one the whole way from the entrance gate, down the Siq and to the Treasury. Then for a good while, when the guys from the shop shut up and turned off their music, I had the Treasury to myself in total silence, with just the occasional bird moving the air. It was very special and I was definitely lucky-all day this was quite substantially the quietest of the 3 days I spent at Petra. I doubt many folk get the Treasury to themselves in these post Indiana Jones days.

Which reminds me I have an Indy update.

The scenes with the tanks and so on look as if they may well have been filmed in the area. It’s hard to say where or how close as there are no recognisable reference points.

When Donovan spots the ‘canyon of the crescent moon’ in his binoculars, that is not the Siq. You see a single canyon depressed into a fairly flat landscape. If that is real, I don’t think it’s anywhere too nearby.

When the good guys finally get to see the Treasury, I’m sure they are in the Siq. The exteriors are clearly real.

For the closing sequence they again ride off into the Siq-something you can’t do however tempting it is. You can only a ride a horse from the entrance gate to the entrance of the Siq half a mile away. I’ve seen people do it, I’ve no idea why. The way certain nationalities applaud the brave members of their group on horses makes me think it may be a daredevil thing.

Still on the end of the Last Crusade, when they’re on the flat plain, riding into the setting sun as the credits start to roll, they’re somewhere else. Having ridden up the Siq, they’d been on that mean uphill climb back to Wadi Musa. I guess Spielberg felt the Movenpick hotel would wreck the shot.

As I have spoilered above, none of the Treasury interior in the film is real. The Nabataens weren’t too bothered about the inside; all Petra’s building contain largely plain and empty spaces. There’s the very occasional niche and more common coffin space.

And it’s still a brilliant film-they’re very brave to make another.

Oh, and after all that on the Treasury, here I am.

I walked around a few little sights, found some more mad coloured rock

had a picnic and still felt sorry for the donkeys. Several times I walked round a corner or through a doorway and there stood a donkey, often not tethered, looking mournful. Perhaps it is their way-Eeyore wasn’t a ray of sunshine.

So, on the home straight, having walked past them 5 or more times, I finally made it to the Royal Tombs. So many of the structures were tombs. I love the fact that, unless your tomb was particularly cheap, part of it would be a funerary dining room/banqueting hall. It must have been some comfort as you went the way of all to know that your nearest and dearest would still pop round dinner. I think I see a great way of the Juxon Street Xmas having a very long life.

The Palace tomb,

on the left of the Urn tomb, has the largest façade of all. I wondered how long this would be the case, as quite a lot of the pieces on the ground looked to have recently fallen from the top.

Sitting outside the Urn tomb, looking over the city below, I felt sad as I checked the map and realised I was done. Just the walk up the hill to go-via the Treasury and Siq one last time.

It took a while for me to drag myself away from the Treasury. I stood for some time in the square in front, before edging my way up the Siq, stopping frequently to look back. It was like walking away from a girl you know you’ll never see again: you keep stopping to steal a final glance until you turn one last time and you can’t see her anymore. She’s gone and you feel a little empty.

Special place Petra.

I have to admit I had the feel of much of this post written in my head before leaving Amman. I was pretty confident about Petra.

I was right.

You should go.

Where am I?

2008-02-26T21:27:00.001Z

Wadi Rum. But I leave for Aqaba in 7 hours.

Yes-the camels have left me sore.

Yes-I have been mercifully quiet.

Yes-I have been to Petra.

Yes-I have written an absurdly long post about it.

Yes-it contains many tedious, nerdy references to Indiana Jones.

Yes-I did watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at my hostel (I even copied the DVD onto my hard drive so I can keep watching it).

Yes-the post has so many photos that they almost certainly won’t all load when you get the page open on your browser.

No-that won’t stop me loading all the photos up.

No-you can’t see it yet. Have you not been paying attention? It’ll take hours to load all the photos.

Sneak preview? What do you call this?

In the meantime, if for some ridiculous reason you have never seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (and I recently met a perfectly sane and reasonable person who hadn’t) GO AND WATCH IT.

If you have seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, well you know how good it is, so go and watch it again. (PARENTS the DVD is in the box set, it should be easy for you to find and borrow).

Go on. What are you waiting for?

Oh, you’ve just this second finished watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Well, watch Raiders instead. Then, watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Road Trip…..

2008-02-21T11:54:00.009Z

…or sex on 4 wheels.

Day 35 Amman to Karak
Look at her

isn’t she a beauty? Given the colour, I christened her Apple and to stick with the theme put Coldpay on the iTrip all morning. Then I whisked her off to the hills over the Dead Sea for her first photoshoot. Apple’s registration is 2652, which must say something about Jordanian car ownership.

I spent 15 mins at the Hertz desk getting nowhere, when another man came in. Turned out I had been talking to a driver up till then. Still, he gave me great directions to get out of Amman, which was probably worth the delay of nearly an hour. I was heading up into the hills to reach the Dead Sea panorama complex; even though it was quite steep, we never needed 1st gear. Hertz had given me dire warnings about the roads, but it all seemed good to me.

The Panorama complex is a right mixed bag. It has spiffing views over the Dead Sea,

a restaurant, conference hall, amphitheatre

(I know where I’d be holding my conference) and ‘the utmost entertaining museum in Jordan’. It costs less than 40p to get in and, apart from at least 5 staff, I was the only person there for the hour and a half that I hiked round and was impressed by the museum. They show a video, which details the shocking drop in water levels in the Dead Sea: a metre a year may sound a lot, but that’s vertically. In the 4 years from 2002-5, the 4m drop in height corresponded to 30m retreat horizontally. There is talk of creating a canal to the Dead Sea from the real sea.

Sat in the car park I got very excited as I looked at the map. Rather than return to Madaba, get on the King’s highway, head south and get back off the King’s Highway into the hills, the map offered me a nice road through the hills. I followed it for 5 km or so and then I got to the bit they were still building. So I had to turn round, but eventually I reached the village of Mukawir and the castle where Salome danced and John the Baptist lost his head. The ruins themselves are perched on a reasonable hill that I hiked and come a distant third in the Wow stakes to the views and the howling wind. I didn’t linger as once again I was looking at the Dead Sea and the weather was getting biblical. Happily it had been sunny at the panorama before, so I had finally seen over to the other side.

The extra drive gave me a chance to think some more about Jordan’s road signs: there’s something more than charming about roadworks flagged thus ‘we work for you, sorry to disturb you.’ You are welcomed to and thanked for coming by every district and signs all refer to places, not road numbers-I think that gives a sense of people knowing their country. Sadly they’re not big on making speed bumps at all obvious, so when we weren’t behind a local Apple and I got some good air.

On the way back from Mukawir I finally found a lunch spot. Sitting in Apple on the road side, eating chilli flavoured Mr Chips and a Tiger bar, I thought how often the cheapest hire car was a Chevrolet-Apple is a spark and has a curious feature that when you put the wipers on, the top third on the left hand one comes clean off the windscreen.

Next on the way was Wadi Mujib gorge, Jordan’s grand canyon. It’s one of those things that’s massive, but didn’t creep up on me, so much as emerge fully formed when I turned a corner.

They should film car ads here. It was quite daunting enough to make my legs a little wobbly. As Apple and I eased our way the (vertical) kilometre up the other side of the gorge, it was James’ turn on the iPod and once again I had to wonder how they failed to sell an awful lot more records. Especially of Millionaires. They’re touring in April, go see them if you can.

It was getting dark (due to clouds not so much the time) and there was some rain, so I had decided to skip the Roman ruins at Ar Raba. In the event, that just seemed too rude as the ruins were right on the roadside, on my side of the road. So I only had to put on the brakes and then my coat. Half an hour later I was walking into the Towers Hotel in Karak. The castle was closed, but that can wait for the morning. When I finally found a place to eat, there was talk of snow again. That’s the third consecutive day I’ve been threatened with snow, I wonder if my luck will run out.

Day 36 Karak to Dana Day 37 Dana to Wadi Musa (Petra)
‘It wasn’t meant to be cherie’.

It’s fair to say that the last 2 days didn’t quite work out. I spent most of a pretty cold night in Karak throwing up and most of the following night in Dana with it coming out the other end. This has allowed me to reflect in the wisdom of laying down some good reserves over the years so that a few days without any proper food isn’t too much of a problem.

Health aside, there was some more fun. Karak castle may be the windiest place on earth. It was cold as it was, but the wind chill was making it plenty below and I missed that balaclava I bought skiing in Lapland. I decided to bail on it fairly early, but then got lost in the castle-good bit of design I guess. Apple’s heating is pretty good and by the time I was heading in the right direction, I was starting to defrost. I missed the next stop altogether, although it was a hike up a steep hill, so I’d probably have bottled it anyway. Which led me to Dana. The plan here was to have a little afternoon walk, then have an early start and hike to the remote and apparently fantastic eco lodge at Feinan. This was already sounding ambitious when my first choice for a bed for the night proved to be full; my second (and final) choice proved to be empty, but very nice and friendly. I made a decision that I’d bale on the hike if I didn’t have a restful and healthy night. I didn’t.

I took my time to emerge this morning and was feeling a little guilty until I heard the road out of town was shut. This was a bit concerning as I really didn’t want another dead stop in Dana. So I had tea with the tourist police, while waiting for the road to open. I didn’y have to wait too long before being released into snow, ice and cloud-15m visibility. Fortunately Jordan’s roads are fairly empty (of cars, if not pedestrians). I kept to about 30km an hour until I headed over one rise and the cloud was gone. It even started to warm up a little.

I am really disappointed about missing out on the eco lodge, it’s lit entirely by candles. I guess it probably wasn’t to be even had I felt well. I’d seen a bit of the route on arrival and could see none of it today as cloud swallowed the Wadi (valley). I suspect it would have been neither safe nor sensible to try and hike 14km through that. While that hasn’t always stopped me in the past, I think the added factor of the cold might well have done. It was possible to drive 120km to the place where you could get a 4x4 to the lodge, but that drive looked like it would be through even more snow and cloud that the Petra route: and getting to Petra would have been a long haul from there.

So I guess it’s fate’s way of telling me to come back in the summer.

On the plus side? Firstly, you’ve been saved the lame Eurovision gags I was thinking up around Dana. Secondly, I’m at Petra a day early and should save a day’s car rental when I take it back tomorrow. Thirdly, I’ve decided to award myself a day off: gonna take it very easy tomorrow and then go the candlelight tour in the evening, which should be on after a few days snow delay.

No complaints-I’ve done very well at escaping (non drink related) feeling crap. I think back to most people in the altitude of South America.

In any case the day wasn’t over. Checking into the Moon Valley hotel, where I took a practical decision to get a room with an en suite, I noticed on the desk a copy of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade-I’m saving it for the moment. Then walking up the stairs they had a poster reminding folk to vote for Petra in the new 7 wonders (Jordan must be the smallest country of the selected 7). I really hope I’m back on form for Thursday as there’s plenty of hiking to do here and you might have gathered I’m a touch excited about Petra.

I’d made a positive decision to skip Shobak castle on the way from, as I felt it might not be blessed with toilet facilities. I had forgotten about Little Petra, my other planned stop for the day. This was partly because I’d had visitors-I got through 6 hitchhikers today and because it turned out to be byond Petra. So I took Apple for one last trip.

Some will be disappointed that Little Petra isn’t a Beckonscott style recreation, but a small siq 8km from Wadi Musa. Even without man’s intervention, the rock formations here would be quite something.

I found the walk quite tiring, but I think it was a good warm up for the main event.

Okay. Now I want the sun to shine, for the photos and my chilled bones. I think I’ve earned it.

Day 38 Wadi Musa
I’ve just been to the visitor’s centre to buy my ticket for the candlelit trip down the siq to the treasury and I’m loving this.

All around Amman

2008-02-17T17:53:00.028Z

Day 30 Damascus to Amman
I’ve just been told there’s been a bomb in Damascus, which is apparently being blamed on Israel as the victim was a member of the Hezbollah hierarchy. This may have been a good day to leave Syria and decide not to go to Israel (I was doing some planning on the bus and I don’t want to give up bits of Egypt or Jordan for Israel; also I’m simply not sure I’m comfortable with giving Israel the legitimacy of tourism).

The bus to Amman leaves at 7.30 a.m. or 3 p.m. I persisted with my early approach and was looking for a taxi at 6.45. There’d been more rain and as the taxi moved through the largely empty streets, everything took on a Shed Seven feel as we chased rainbows. Although the kilometres between central Damascus and the Al Soumarya bus station are only categorised by concrete ordinariness, I felt a certain wistfulness. I’m going to miss Syria; I’m glad it sits between Turkey and Jordan, as that’s how I ended up coming here.

I soon understood why there are only 2 buses a day to Amman. I started wondering why there wasn’t just one as I set off with just 7 travelling companions. Much of the route looked familiar as I think we largely went the same way as to Bosra, so I got stuck into reading about Jordan.

After we’d got our Syrian exit stamps, I got back on the bus, but soon noticed everyone else was standing around outside looking at the luggage compartments. Rather than appear like a disinterested foreigner, I went out to join in the staring. Turned out there were a couple of Syrian officials going through some bags: I think they were both official-one was in uniform and the other, who was bent over into the luggage compartment, had an automatic tucked in the waistband at the back of his jeans. I was sorely tempted to lift it; on balance I figured stealing a gun at a border post, which had a number of armed men, might end badly. Still, I’ve seen movies and it was asking for it. At the very least if he carries on like that, he’ll end up with a bullet in a buttock.

I met the nicest old chap from Syria. Our communication was pretty feeble on a verbal level, but they were much smiling and hand on heart. He even rubbed my head when I did my favourite bus trick and tried to brain myself on the overhead luggage racks. Twice.

Bus time is good musing time, and I was daydreaming about mosques and remembered some of the things I’d seen in mosques. I think it’s fair to say they’re used by the community in a lot more general ways than churches. I wrote previously about my photo shoot in a mosque, I’ve seen plenty of picnics, lots of kids playing, one running round in borrowed high heals, people chilling and, best of all, one guy cutting his fingernails. Try that in Canterbury cathedral. There’s a noticeable less commercial feel than many European churches give off.

I thought about starting with this next bit, but I thought it wouldn’t be good to start with a bummer (so I chose to talk about a bomb instead). I have some really disappointing news from Jordan. It has certainly shocked me. A few years back John A and I received a Stanford postcard of King Abdullah of Jordan, noting (somewhat unnecessarily) that he had a doppelganger. Now King Abdullah may still be on the throne, but he’s clearly gone astray somehow as he no longer looks like Adams Junior. I don’t know how this terrible circumstance has come about, but it’s certainly not a result of Abdullah being put on a pie free diet.

I guess it’ll save me some money on postcards and fridge magnets. I think I may need less time actually in Amman than I had envisaged. A quick stroll this afternoon took in several of the sights, including a funky little art gallery with this installation.

I don’t know what it means either. I have plenty to organise as I hope to do 3 day trips from Amman (including the old chariot racing) and hire a car so I can make a number of cool stops on the way to Petra, which public transport just wouldn’t work for.

Did I mention I was going to Petra?

Day 31 Dead Sea
America’s bible belt may be an area populated by a large number of folk whose favourite hobby is thumping, but this is the real deal. Here they have the actual places from the bible-Jericho, Mt Nebo, the Jordan river, the East bank where Jesus was baptised, Jerusalem, Bethlehem. John the Baptist, Jesus and Moses were all in action. Trumpets blared and walls fell down. It certainly gives things some context. 4 of us set out from the hostel this morning to see some of these places and end up floating in the Dead Sea. Shame the weather was crappy.

We started at St George’s chapel in Madaba, which contains an extraordinary mosaic from 560 A.D. Only about a third remains of what was once a regional map of 2 million pieces. I like the way there are fish in the rivers, boats on the dead sea and Jerusalem is blown up so that you can see a limited plan of the town.

It is surprising just how disorientating a map becomes when it is the opposite way up to what you expect. The fact that the writing on the map was in Greek indicated an influence from a country that would have arrived in the region from the Med; therefore from that angle, Egypt was to the right and modern day Jordan to the top. We got there in the end.

Madaba even has a mosaic school, they take this stuff seriously. Sadly mosaics are a bugger to photograph and this wasn’t helped by the fact that the old ones all looked in need of a good clean. I guess this takes more than a bucket and some soapy water, as when we got to Mount Nebo I read about a mosaic that took 30 years to restore. With that level of commitment, I’d be tempted to say a little dirt never hurt anyone.

Mount Nebo is where Moses saw the promised land for the first time. The Good Lord had told Moses that he would ascend a mountain and look out over the promised land and on seeing it would die. When Moses finally got up Mount Nebo he supposedly was still sprightly and had all his faculties, but was 120. Personally, I think he knew where the promised land was all along, he just led everyone else round in circles so he could rack up a really large age. Sadly there was some restoration happening on the mosaics here so we couldn’t see much: I hope that piling up 4 foot square block of mosaic outside the chapel is standard practice in the mosaic restoration world. The low clouds put pay to any sweeping panoramas, but you certainly got a sense of how much could be seen-we could see Jericho and the Dead Sea clearly. I’m sure after following Moses all the way from, the ancients were more than happy with what they saw.

Bethany Beyond the Jordan is the location of the baptism site. You can only go accompanied by a guide, who was at pains to stress that we were in a military zone. He was less impressed when I enquired why so many churches were being built in said military zone: it turns out that Jordan is making religious tourism one its targets ad the churches are being built for pilgrimage.

There is some disagreement over the location of the spot where John splashed Jesus with water, but comment consent now has it in a place 60m from the Jordan, which is now a muddy streamlike thing. The Israelis diverting the water is apparently the cause of this. I wasn’t entirely convinced as the reasoning seem to be based on the supposition that 3 churches built and destroyed within the space of 100 years were an attempt to mark the baptism spot. Seeing as this was in the 6th century, I feel it left plenty of time for rumour, myth and legend to have comment consent building churches in the wrong place. Anyway, a mosaic marks the spot

ever seen a web address in mosaic before?

Then we headed down to a wooden landing area where you could actually get in contact with the Jordan. I dipped by finger in and placed a spot on my forehead (and no I don’t know why), but felt it was a little cold for swim. When I turned round I was doubly surprised: a soldier had emerged to keep an eye on us (he had enough ammo to shoot us all up several times over). Perhaps more surprisingly was the Russian ladies who had changed and were emerging in a variety of gowns (and a nightdress for Granny). This is when the significance of the spot really struck me, and as a mere tourist I began to feel a little intrusive. On a chilly, dank day with rain coming and going, these ladies were going to indulge in a spot of self baptism in a muddy river. Good on them. It was so brown I thought they’d emerge like they’d been in Willy Wonka’s river. Two of them bobbed down to the shoulders 3 times; the other two totally submerged 3 times. Bizarrely the soldier followed them down to the water.

While all this was going on a large bus load arrived at the equivalent Israeli site across the river-so an easy stone’s throw. They applauded the attempted drowning with great enthusiasm. I noticed they had two soldiers, fully body armoured and the rest, who were happily having their photos taken with tourists. It seems the Jordanian army isn’t so keen on showing its softer side.

When I took this, with Nicole snapping in sync, we got properly told no.

Then it was Dead Sea time and the weather got properly biblical. Filthy black clouds blocked out the sun, while the staff tried to sweep the rain off all the paved areas. As we walked across the sand towards the water lightning crashed into the sea, the rain intensified and the wind blew all the signs over. These had concrete bases. We retired indoors for a while before trying a second assault. It was really only the photo op that got us in there at all and while the water wasn’t hot, at 400m below sea level, it was manageable. I was a bit gutted I forgot to take my book out, but it was an extraordinary feeling, half your leg from your knee down was thrust out of the water. Going on your front was brave as you became very unstable and it tasted foul: the one drop that went in my eye stung like hell. I’m sure if this wasn’t natural it would be described as an environmental disaster.

I think it was worth it.

That’s no more effort than lifting up your arms.

On the way back I felt sporadically itchy and if I ran my hand across my skin I get mineral deposits on my hand. I stupidly didn’t wash my shorts, which dried with a cardboard like stiffness. Which was nice.

Day 32 Desert Castles
Another day, another day trip. Steve, Nicole and I were back and were joined by Jay and Garrick from New York.

First up was Qasr Kharana, which illustrated one of the issues of fortifying in Jordan’s Eastern desert.

It’s flat as a pancake. In fact this is most likely an early conference centre; it lies on the trade routes and has about 60 rooms, some of which are very out of the way. Driving on, there were frequent reminders of the neighbours.

So the world heritage listed Qusayr Amra. LP had promised that the visitor centre displays included this text ‘None of the painting of Qusayr Amra portray scenes of unbridled loose living or carryings-on.’ Well no one could find it, though there was general agreement to try and get more unbridled loose living and carrying on into our own lives. Perhaps the museum changed their text after seeing the book. They’d have been kidding no one after all.

There were a number of painted ladies, who were perhaps a little less than decent. No one knows quite what this small fortification was for, but the baths and decoration rather suggest it was used by the boys for weekend getaways. I thought it a little like some nuclear power installations.

So onto the last stop Qasr Al-Azraq. We probably had the most fun here as this was a real scrambling around kind of castle. Lawrence was here, the man really did get around, I must find and read 7 pillars. Here’s his room above the gate

Now I know some of you thinking this travelling lark is pretty soft, but today Nicole managed to show just some of the work that goes into a shot like this.

One doesn’t just teleport into such a position.

Just one false move…… I look a bit like I’m creeping about so I can disable a tractor beam (30 seconds after writing this, iTunes pops up Star Wars, spooky). This reminds me of something that has been troubling me the last few days: just who was the coolest man of our childhoods? Was it Han or Indy? I think Magnum and Daley Thompson are scrapping for a rather distant third. Of course for Hughesy that’s an easy question-Noddy Holder.

Back in Amman and after a 2 hour lunch, I took a quick butchers at the Roman theatre, which seemed to be of a particularly steep pitch.

I was feeling a bit tired and culdn’t be bothered to go right up to the top, but I has no choice. After a call of ‘Mister, Mister’ and a wave of a camera phone, I was led up to the uppermost level. Very nice the view was too. Hope you enjoy the photo. Maybe I should get some signed ones to give away……

Day 33 Jerash
A day of ash. We visited Ajlun castle, then on our way to JerASH saw the aftermath of nasty looking car crASH and then I spent the evening eating and hubbly bubblying with ASH, who was staying in my hostel. That tabloid journalism job is mine.

Ajlun castle was a more classical feeling castle

than those in the desert: it was on a hill that was steep enough to persuade us to get a taxi, so the views were lovely. This was just a brief stop before we headed to Jerash, where the Romans had a city of somewhere between 15 and 30 thousand people. In this town there were 2 theatres and a hippodrome that seated 15,000: this was the smallest in the empire-the Circus Maximus took 157,000. It was here that chariot racing took place. With those crowds and those population, you can be assured that the punters loved it.

I can’t imagine there’s anyone reading this who can’t imagine the raw excitement of a Roman Chariot show. I’m sure you’d all travel a long way to see such a thing, so you don’t need much from me here. It was a bit amateur dramatics, but we had the legion performing some manoeuvres

The quality of the marching was quite dreadful, but there was little time to reflect before the slaves came on for some gladiator fighting.

We were a very generous crowd and spared all but one of them, mainly because he was beaten by a Rambo lookalike. Then the chariots.

12 dinar? We robbed them. And then I nearly got away.

Take away what some barbarians would call tacky tourist gimmicks and Jerash is still a stunner:

And in one of the theatres a band tests the acoustics.

I chatted to the piper and there was a Scots regiment here when the British were about the place.

Getting back was something of a farce, but I blame the Americans: they’d spent two days joking about their friend and how she’d never make it to the hotel.She and Ash were in the foyer waiting when we bumbled back in.

Day 34 Amman
After 4 nights sleeping in Amman, I finally spent a day in the city and it’s been one of those days. The of them can be booked on line, 2 of them had mail addresses that bounced and 1 had a duff phone number. Suddenly Hertz wouldn’t let me book my car on line and a misjudgement of map scale had me walking 40 mins to do it person. The museum of Jordan’s political history that I wanted to go to turned out not to be next to the Iraqi embassy. Or anywhere else. Perhaps that wasn’t a great loss.

I was a little out of puff, but happily Hertz had some very comfy chairs. The lady of Hertz was off on her spiel. Did I want to hire a driver? We have this car and that car. Seeing as the office is in the Grand Hyatt-a nice man in a suit directs you to security screening before you reach the lobby, she was probably used to a different kind of customer. After a while I interrupted her, the gist of which was ‘I want the cheapest piece of shit you’ve got’. Seeing as there was a 85 dinar invoice on her desk for an airport transfer, I think 145 for a four day one way hire was a result. Even if it is a 800cc car. I’m hoping that wasn’t quite right.

My visit to the Wild Jordan was more successful, not least as I spent half hour with a future Miss Jordan. I am booked into the eco lodge at the Dana nature reserve, but you’ll have to wait for the next instalment to hear about that one. The plan seems to be coming together. All things being equal I will get to Little Petra for lunch on Thursday, then move onto Wadi Musa (the village by Petra) in time to dump the car, dump the bags and buy a ticket for the candlelight tour. This would mean my first experience of Petra will be at night, walking down a candlelit Siq to the treasury.

I just hope all this talk of snow proves to be bogus.

And John climbeth Jebal Alexander-Qala to the citadel of ancient Philadelphia, and upon the summit he sayeth to King Abdullah ‘Cometh on then, showeth us your flag.’

And Abdullah surely did.

Perhaps that could be a passage for the newest testament. That is the highest freestanding flagpole in the whole wide world. The North Koreans have a bigger one, but they’ve had to support it with cables. It’s 127m high: Abdullah has 3 lovely children, so it appears he’s not compensating for anything. I understand there’s another big bastard at Aqaba. The ruins atop the hill were nice, but not too spectacular. After a couple of hours I wandered down for juice, cake and to write this lot.

I was going to head off for a Turkish bath and chips after this, but I’m not sure I can be arsed. After all I have bought a dozen DVDs for £7.

Sneak Preview

2008-02-12T17:42:00.000Z

Usual witterings, this time on Damascus, below.

My mind's been on Jordan for a few days and when I found out about something that happens in Jerash. I got a little excited.

Well tremendously excited.

I'm going to Jerash anyway, but before I went I wanted to know if the racing would be on, or if they might be taking a break for winter. So I mailed them.

Hi

I plan to visit Jerash in the next week and was hoping you could confirm that your marvellous chariot racing is still running at this time of year.

Thanks

John

And I've just had this back, which may be the most triumphant e-mail of all time.

Hello,

For sure we will continue the marvellous show ..
You are heartily welcome

Loving that.

Set the camera to sport mode......

Laurens, Laurens, Damascus, Laurens.

2008-02-12T16:58:00.000Z

Day 26 Palmyra to Damascus
I know very little about Damascus, yet of the four capitals I am visiting I feel it to be the most….something. The most historic? Most significant? Most important? The one I should like most? I feel it should be the most interesting, although I’m wondering if Istanbul and Cairo will have stronger identities as Damascus has seen so very many invaders, empires and busybodies come and go.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that Damascus feels like a major stop on this journey, but I don’t know why.

This post is off to a great start. For my next trick I shall reveal that this has been a nothing much happened kind of day.

Is there really anyone still reading this?

The surreal moment of the day was definitely this morning, waiting for our ‘cab’ (Mohammed’s mate who owned a car) to take us out of town to the restaurant where the buses stop. Considering what a massive tourist attraction Palmyra is, I can only think that having no bus station and dumping people away from the town is the result of a complicated web of kickbacks. Anyway, Mohammed explained his views on homosexuality as if we’re magnets: women are positive are men negative, so man and woman attract, but same sex should repel: ergo it is not natural. This was all explained while Al Jazeera ran a piece on cock fighting followed by a monkey riding a dog. It was an odd five minutes. I settled for ‘that’s interesting, but I can’t really agree with what you’re saying’ as a reply. I am almost becoming diplomatic.

I marked my arrival in Damascus by disagreeing vociferously with about 20 taxi drivers at once. They appear to be working cartel style to fix the price into town at £200 (for contrast a 3 hour bus from Palmyra is £120). After telling the first guy no thanks, he shouted at the next few cabbies I spoke to, who amazingly came up with the same price; they in turn shouted at the next ones (no matter how far down the queue I tried to go). No one’s meter seemed to work. I hate to think what they did to the guy who caved and took me for £50. It wasn’t as far as I thought, so he did quite well. (And yes I know this makes me sound awful when you convert it back to sterling.)

Found a nice place to stay on another road that’s being redone as in Antalya and then went a walk round the city to get a feel for it. The walk was cut a little short when I got a little carried away and had a one hour lunch, which made dinner snacky. Thus far Damascus seems quite cool (I’ve got some great new photos of the President), but I’ve not been blown away. I’ll be back to visit properly everything I glanced at today, so will leave the real waffle till then.

Favourite moment of the day? Walking past the Kinda Hotel. Just too many jokes for me.

Day 27 Damascus
First up the national museum. There must be some old adage that says if you want to make a statement, make an entrance. In the case of the national museum, if you can’t make an entrance, why not steal one from Palmyra.

and ship it to Damascus. The museum had archaeological pieces from all over the country and from many places I’d been. It was a bit confusing as sections kept opening and closing-I was hurried out o one upstairs gallery. A nod and a wink seemed to open some sections and being behind a tour group could sometimes get me access to the good stuff. As a result I feel sure I missed some stuff. Officially there’s no photography in the museum, but on the hope of a coin or two, the caretaker egged me on while he kept watch.

I’ll keep posting these pics, but these ornate Islamic rooms really need to be seen. I should add that I was a semi-good boy and turned off my flash. There’s quite a lot of Palmyra here including a tomb!

This is just one small part. I think I sense the French influence here; after all they do have a pyramid in the Louvre. In addition to the glass one.

I walked through a lot of the streets in the old town, which must wow people from new countries. To me a lot of it looked in need to some sympathetic restoration. Especially in the former Jewish quarter where many houses were effectively abandoned in the early 90s and are still deserted. Almost everything seems to be a shop too, which just holds no interest to me. Both here and in Aleppo, I’ve been unable to get excited about souqs and shopping; especially when to glance is to invite the hard sell. It frustrates me, although it doesn’t work on me-I’ve travelled a lot and seen Casablanca besides. A kiwi told me that we have the Americans to blame-they often pay the first price.

Truth be told, if you hadn’t guessed, I’m finding Damascus a touch disappointing. Still, the Azem palace (house of a former ruler) was quite luverly.

This time you really couldn’t take photos inside and the guy on the tannoy was at us every 5 mins about not being able to take photos. So you’ll have to take my word about the large number of rather manly lady mannequins lurking inside the rooms. It’s an odd thing I’ve seen here and in Turkey where mannequins are used to illustrate everyday scenes; they pretty much all look comical and mostly serve to distract from some exquisite interiors.

Day 28 Bosra
Well this was the kind of day that could have gone quite wrong. Fortunately my attempt to buy a bus ticket to Bosra yesterday made me discover that Damascus’s bus station for southern routes (i.e. Bosra and Amman for me) had shut down and moved. The tourist info guy had been quite helpful and although he didn’t tell me quite the right place to get a microbus to the new bus station, I’d left enough time to get there buy a ticket and get my ticket to go to Jordan on Wednesday well before the bus to Bosra left at 8.

I’d half inched the hostel’s Syria guide, which gave me a lot more info than the half page my Middle East LP had on Bosra (regional guides cut down the weight, but they really don’t cut it). So I settled down on the bus for a good read and found Bosra has a lot of history. Bosra eclipsed the inescapable Petra as capital of the Nabataeans, then it was the capital of the province of Arabia under the Romans, when it was connected to Amman and Damascus. Later, local boy Phil became Roman Emperor. Tradition has it that it was in Bosra that a monk told Mohammed he would be a prophet: prophesying prophecy I guess. In amongst the history lesson, I did have time to look up when we stopped to pick someone up under a flyover; about half a dozen cars were parked around and the guy got on after saying goodbye to all his friends in sunglasses and black leather jackets, so Syria either has 80s rockers or the mafia.

I felt quite prepared once we arrived and I found my bearings. In the centre of the town is the theatre, which held 15,000 and was freestanding, which was unusual. What is probably unique is that after the town was twice attacked by the crusaders, some bright spark decided to convert the theatre into a citadel. So now the theatre is the centre of a castle. This means that from the outside you get no sense of the shape or orientation of the theatre. It’s an interesting military strategy; I was disappointed not to find out what role the theatre played in siege defence. Perhaps they drove back the Christians with a medley of Lloyd Webber and Cliff Richard. They needed something as it looked nowhere near as daunting as Saladdin or the Crac. Still Cliff might have had the opposite effect on Christians.

I crossed the moat over the bridge and plunged into the corridors of the citadel.

Even inside, with the fort wrapping round the theatre like a second skin, I got no impression of what part of the theatre I was just outside. I passed by several staircases leading up to the sunlight,

as I sought to delay entering the theatre proper, preferring to explore a little first. This turned out to be very wise as I discovered a room full of tyres, a number of which were for tractors. It was therefore the purest coincidence that when I eventually chose to make my entrance, I came on stage right to the applause of a Japanese tour group. With the help of their leader, the Japanese shouted and clapped to demonstrate that the Romans knew a thing or two about acoustics as well as seating a crowd. I guess I should have known this was a slippery slope to Karaoke. It seemed a fun meeting of cultures. For some reason it also made me ponder whether Lost in Translation, Raging Bull or the Godfather was the most overrated movie of cliché stating obviousness ever made.

More interestingly, it also left me marvelling at the Romans once again. The spacing of the aisles between the rows of seats looked very equivalent to modern stadia, where I would suppose computer modelling dictates the ideal length of a row of seats. I’m not sure today that it would be economic to drape the theatre in silks and perfume the air; progress isn’t all advancement.

Oh, and in case you think the seats look a touch uncomfortable, I fairly sure I remember reading at the Coliseum that cushions could be hired, rather like at Lord’s or Twickenham.

Of course anything Roman that’s impressive inevitably makes one wonder what the Romans ever did for us, which reminded me of Carolyn’s Life of Brian story. When she was at the crucifixion site in Israel (please feel free to remind of its name), she conducted all the tourists in a chorus of Always Look of the Bright Side of Life. I’d have like to have seen that. What was Golgotha? Must read some bible again. And the Koran too. I’ve been reading the 1001 nights, and found interesting that the women are almost universally cheating whores, who end up with their heads cut off. Unless they’re really wicked, when they need chopping into tiny pieces.

I must have been scarred by the photo session with the Armenian priest in Aleppo, as I hadn’t had a me photo since. Just in case anyone was worried that I’m not still here:

I realised I’d been made quite cagey by the pushiness of Palmyra and Damascus and it was nice to meet and chat with some genuinely friendly folk again. It was even noticeable in the vendors: the guys in the cake shop gave me a free taster, while the chap in the mini market gave me a free chocolate as I left: a much more effective sales approach too! Lots of big smiles today-one guy saw me waiting for the bus back, so he just came over to chat to me. I think lone travellers worry some of the locals-I’ve been asked many times why I have come alone; combine that with not being married and they really want to look after you.

I was also pleased that I didn’t need my ski jacket in Bosra, which has been a constant companion. When I set off I’d hoped that I’d only need it in Turkey, but 100km south of Damascus and the temperature was starting me thinking the shorts and thongs could soon be out the bag. Amman’s further south again, so it’s all looking good. I really enjoyed today and, despite feeling a bit tired, am reinvigorated. I hope to look on Damascus with fresh eyes tomorrow.

Day 29 Damascus
I hope anyone reading this will be tempted to visit Syria, if not so much Damascus. If you do, here’s a bit of advice. Don’t try to post anything. Certainly not if it’s a got a CD of photos in it. I went to the post office, full of vim and vigour, looked around the counter and went to one that sold stamps. That seemed right. Well the lady had a good feel of my package, which I said contained some paper and a CD. In which case her stamps were no good. She said I needed to go underneath. At this stage I was already thinking I should wait till Jordan, but I stumbled out a little bemused and as I headed down the steps of the post office, I noticed another kind of post place under the stairs. The guy at the door didn’t have a good feel, but passed me onto a bloke who did. ‘CD? Down the street.’ By now I’m starting to feel like I’m trying to get a visa to Russia, but halfway down the street was a door topped by a ‘Parcel Office’ sign. Mine was only an A4 envelope, but maybe this would work. Another guy, another feel. He said I needed to go upstairs. I said they’d just sent me here. He was halfway to shrugging, when I said the magic word. ‘CD’. The look on his face was pure ‘well why didn’t you say so. Of course you can’t post a CD anywhere else’. Things were going quite well and then he asked for my passport. I suppose I should have guessed, but passport for letter posting was a total surprise. It appears that for £50 the tatty photocopy of your passport lurking at the bottom of the bag will suffice. I had to go to 2 more desks, my envelope had to be covered in sellotape, but I was handed a piece of paper and told finished. Phew. As I turned to leave, one beaming helper grabbed my hand and pointed to the tracking on the piece of paper-I’m guessing this is a new thing. I didn’t spoil by asking if I could track it on line.

With less than 24 hours to go, I was hoping for no more bureaucratic encounters.

I’d concocted a route of things that might be worth a look so I pottered off and mostly succeeded in covering myself in mud: there was a downpour last night and this did not combine well with Damascus’ dusty streets, many of which are being dug up. Still I found some good strolling spots

Walking round I got the impression that not a lot happens in Damascus; good crowds were gathered by most of the roadworks and not all of the onlookers were builders. I think it must have been a courthouse where a lot of folk who weren’t fans of digging had gathered. I guess this maybe explains why foreigners get stared at so much: this never feels threatening, but I think being different makes tourists diverting for a while.

One thing that appears alive in the modern old city is the porter. It took me a while to work this out, but there are quite a few guys making a living with a sack barrow shifting stuff about town. The way one sack barrow was padlocked to some railings emphasised its importance. The 1001 nights are full of instances when a porter is called or needed to shift merchandise or some purchase. Sinbad the sailor tells the story of his 7 voyages to Sinbad the porter.

I remain to be convinced that the decision a few years back to allow motor vehicles into the old city was a good one.

I tried to see the city gates; at one point I walked through a city gate, onto the other side of the city walls and crossed the now pathetic and dying river without seeing any of it. Giving up on gates and walls, I headed to the Umayyad mosque.

Now the mosque promised to be the big one for Damascus and it was mighty impressive. As it should be, for in the early 8th century when it was built/converted from a church, which was previously a temple, it cost a lot. A lot being all tax revenue from Syria for 7 years. A lot of this cash got splashed on the mosaics, which were beautiful.

It wasn’t the easiest place to get into, despite being rather large.

Sure there are 3 large gates, but as I approached one I was asked for my ticket. There was a booth type thing by the gate so I hoped I could get it there. Nope. I got some vague arm waving to go further round, where some more building was going on. I tried the museum of calligraphy, which is affiliated to the mosque, but they were building in there and pretty much chased me out. Passing a lot of building I reached the main gate, who sent me back the way I’d come. Which left the mausoleum, which didn’t seem right. I passed a doorway, which had double doors, no signage and looked most unwelcoming. I found the entrance to the mausoleum. Realising this still didn’t look right, I left my shoes on and hailed the custodian. No tickets here either. He waved me back the way I came. That only left the unfriendly door…….

I soon realised the door was a sign of things to come. For here were the two least friendly men in Syria (n.b. this would make them the two nicest people in London if they moved). I made a here you are kind of gesture, which elicited no reaction and made me think I was in another wrong place. Then I saw the sign ‘Entrance £50’ and felt a ridiculous feeling of accomplishment. I handed over a £200 note, ‘You’re very hard to find’. They ignored me. I wasn’t to be put off that easily. ‘You should get some signs.’ Stamps my ticket. ‘So people know how to find you.’ Pushes ticket and change towards smart arse Brit who thinks it’s all so easy. There is a possibility that I may not have been the first tourist to point out that there is not a single indication anywhere of the whereabouts of a ticket office for a mosque nearly 100m by 150m; it seems someone hid it on purpose. I should emphasise that this is the number 1 tourist attraction in the capital city; yes, it is a working mosque, but visitors are welcome. Anyway, it was so tranquil and pleasant sat down inside, with the sun on me that I nearly fell asleep. So it turned out nice in the end.

After the ticket buying fun for the mosque, I figured that although Damascus and I had had some good times, there wasn’t any future in it. So I grabbed some food and a couple of fake DVDs for quiet nights in Jordan and headed back for a shower.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Syria and think the letdown of Damascus was mostly a result of all the great stuff that preceded it. I feel there’s only one man to whom the last word on Syria can go and that’s Mr President.

Just look at him; it’s hard not to, he’s everywhere after all; with all those pictures, I’d vote for him; although I’m not sure if I’d have any choice in the matter.

City in the desert

2008-02-09T16:43:00.000Z

Day 24 Palmyra
Palmyra must be one of my most famous stops on this trip and is surely Syria’s no 1 destination. 1000 year under the Syrians preceded 200 years of the Greeks creating a marvellous classical city before the Romans took charge in AD 217 and Palmyra got seriously rich. Zenobia ruled here, but she opposed Rome and lost, which sent Palmyra on a downwards spiral. As with so many Middle Eastern sites, it was looted and sacked a bit before an earthquake really sorted it out. Once again, you’re left slightly tantalised, longing to see the full city as it was. However, there is still much to see and it is very satisfying.

It has a different feel from the other places I’ve been to in Syria and that’s not necessarily been a good thing. I may be wrong, but the modern town at Palmyra looks to me as if it is here for the ancient city. New Palmyra needs Old Palmyra’s tourists to function and this has meant a noticeable rise in the amount of hassle, touts and people selling stuff. One Bedouin scared hell out of me as he appeared from behind a rock to request baksheesh. I was fairly amused that competition has driven the tat sellers to patrolling the site on motorbike, tho I’m not sure it’s the best thing for the ruins, especially as part of the site seems to be a motorbike rat run. I chatted for a while with a necklace seller (I don’t think he was too optimistic of making a sale) and he said the tourists should increase in number next month. Maybe. Or maybe they won’t come because of things around here-Lebanon, Israel and Iraq all border Syria. It feels a bit in the middle of something and suffering for it. I’d read things had dropped off since 2001 and that competition between restaurants, hotels and the like had got intense and nasty. Relatively it is also rather expensive and has seen the biggest jump in prices from what I was expecting; to an extent, I think fewer tourists has meant higher prices. All of this put Palmyra on the back foot a little, but for a place like this you’d happily pay a whole lot more and take a lot more inconvenience.

The ruins give a proper sense of a city, spread over several kilometres, with temples, baths, a senate and an agora (general meeting place and market place) as well as a spectacular main street. Today I walked round most of the main site. Before reaching the monumental arch and the entrance to the Great Colonnade is the Temple of Baal Shamin, with the Arab Castle in the background.

Here is main street which leads to the Tetrapylon.

The plaque on the Tetrapylon says it served as a roundabout, which is an interesting way of looking at it.

These give an overview of sorts, but does it no justice at all.

This really is a place to explore and feel it with the desert. In town I finally managed to get a good shot of the President.

There are many much larger and much funnier than this. I’m not sure if having one in your business is law, advisable or if Syrians just love the man that much, but I have never seen anything remotely like it. I’m not sure you can go 25 yards without seeing one in inhabited areas; there are even special stickers for your rear windscreen. He wears shades and looks sinister in my favourites. As far as I am aware, this is the only part of the Stalin playbook he is using.

It is good to be back in the desert, while elsewhere in Syria may technically have been classed as desert, it was quite rocky and I think needs a few million years for those rocks to wear down to sand to be the real McCoy. Palmyra’s desert certainly isn’t as clean as Lawrence would have liked, but I did see a litter picker, emphasising the importance of the site. This afternoon we even had a limited sandstorm, which meant I’ll need to wait for tomorrow for the sunset. I quite enjoyed popping back to the Sun Hotel for a nap-I’d walked a long way and I’ve been having a lot of early starts. Tonight the hotel owner Mohammed’s mother is cooking dinner, which I think is pretty cool.

Day 25 Palmyra
After an excellent dinner, we sat by the fire and watched the African cup of nations-remarkable, football that was not the Premiership, hosted by what can only be described as an Arabic speaking Jimmy Hill.

Having been rejected from the Temple of Bel for not having the right change, I tried the theatre. They couldn’t change my note either, but let me in anyway. Gorgeous as the theatre is

the real drama in it was trying to work out what the two women with the tape measure were up to. When I tried to pay on the way out, they simply nodded me away.

Returning to the Temple of Bel, I was feeling a little desperate as my change situation had not improved, but this time he’d had some other tourists and I managed to persuade him to take y money. The cash machine kicks out £1,000 notes and most musea are £150, so you’d hope it wouldn’t be a problem to get change; prior to now, all I had had was an unhappy look or ‘change?’. Occasionally you have to lie and say you’ve no change, as there’s no way you pay for a cab or a falafel with a grand.

This is part of the restored wall at the Temple of Bel:

this I am not so sure about. It looks like they’ve used what’s come to hand, rather than strictly the right blocks.

The Temple is quite curious both in the flesh and in the model in the museum. It has 4 massive outer walls, which create a huge square courtyard, enclosed by colonnaded cloisters. The temple then seems disproportionately small: to my eye the proportions seem like a Chinese style pagoda rather than a Greco Roman temple.

Of course I took no photo to illustrate this hypothesis, but I thought that was kinda artistic for me. From the temple I headed back towards town and the museum. It was the first time I had seen tear containers: the ides is that when someone dies, you catch your tears in the tear container and the container is then buried with the deceased. I think it’s a rather lovely idea. Fortunately I no longer work for Past Times, or I’d probably have to suggest it as a new product.

As I went round downstairs I noticed a couple of tour groups enter the museum, go straight upstairs and then leave. When I’d looked around the upper level, I stood at the top of the stairs trying to work out what they were looking at; the best pieces all seem to be at the ground level. Then I realises it must have been the mummies. I think I had my fill off these in S America, so they didn’t exactly grab me. I was taken by something I read: during mummification, organs and the brain are removed. (The brain was either taken ‘bit by bit’ via the nasal cavity or more directly by cutting open the skull). This little lot were then discarded as they are ‘not needed in the afterlife’. Who works this stuff out? You need your hair but not your liver, your fingernails, but not your brain. I think this may be how zombies were created.

In the museum and on the way to the Arabic Fort on the hill, I was pleased to see that both the EU and Japanese governments have been investing funds to help Syria with its cultural heritage. No sign of much coming form the US in the last 40 years. The need for this fort,

and indeed Palmyra’s wealth came from the city’s strategic position on the silk route.

So when was the last time that someone asked you ‘are you a boy or a girl?’ I’ll wager it’s been a while, if at all. Most likely it was never asked to you, but to your parents before you could even talk. Well a middle aged woman asked me today. I’d decided to walk to the fort and rather than take the rod, I opted for the direct approach (it’s a lot steeper than that photo makes it look). Even this wasn’t enough to put off the hawkers: when I was two thirds of the way up, one scrambled down the very steepest part to see me. I wished he hadn’t as every time I heard him slip, it sounded like it would send a rock down at my head. Still he was a good bit lighter than me and found it a lot easier to get back up. There was a lot of loose scree (I think that’s the word for dust, sand, pebbles and small rocks, which slip when you step on them) and I was nearly on all fours at the end. And that’s when the laughter and the magic question rang out. Bloody cheek-she’d come by car.

I took my usual approach to castle exploration-start off by going through the smallest doors into the darkest corridors. In a couple of minutes I was in a room with 3 small, quite brightly lit doorways. I strode across only to recoil as I discovered the doors were actually windows, providing the quick way back down to the bottom of the hill.

Well my legs wet after that, which meant spending the rest of my tour thinking the Arab castle was built to defend against a group of marauding vertigo sufferers. Low parapets looked over precipices and gaping opening fell into the unnecessary looking most way below.

It was quite a location. Sadly, although the wind was light today, the air was still dusty and sandy, so the views were limited,

but sufficient to imagine the spectacle on a clear day. This is a favourite spot for sunset, but that wasn’t going to work today, so I slid back down to town.

Tomorrow-Damascus, my last stop in Syria.

Where’s the Crac?

2008-02-06T18:11:00.000Z

Day 22
I guess I was due a day of farce, or at least partial farce. Having a bit of a muse earlier, I felt sure that the rhyming of farce and arse was surely no coincidence and one of those word expert jobbies could probably explain the connections. I made an arse of a few things today.

I was a little too keen getting to the bus station. In Turkey they want you there half an hour early, which is when your bag goes on and they depart to the minute. It’s a little more laid back here. About 15 mins before the bus pulled in and the guy who hands out the drinks was getting dressed in the back of it.

We got to Hama a little after we were due, since things had been pretty casual and smokey whenever we stopped, after we finally got started. This was a slight shame, as there’s only a few things I want to see in Hama, which I am mainly using as a good base to visit Crac des Chevaliers and Apamea. So I grabbed my bag and powered off to find a room so I could dump my stuff and head off to Apamea.

Just in case Mr Lonely Planet Middle East map man is reading this: in a city where there are two minibus stations about 100m apart on different forks of a junction, it might just be an idea to mention this. It might just be an idea to mark them both on the map. Otherwise someone might see a minibus station, take that as confirmation that they are heading the right way from the bus station, which is off the map, and not realise for 2 hours how the hell they got so lost and far from where they meant to be. The mappage wasn’t helped by obstinacy in keeping walking long after sanity said get a cab. Though I doubt I would have carried so long if there wasn’t a river in Hama; I kept thinking I simply must hit the river, which I could then follow to hostel central. I think I was running parallel to it so I’d have kept going to the sea before I hit the river. Well I’m sure I’d have stopped at the Iraqi border. Finally, knackered and clueless, I got a cab.

Returning to the scene of the confusion I first tried the wrong microbus station to head to Apamea, but was reasonable swiftly on my way to Suqeilibiyya. Now that’s not easy to say and I was just hoping that there wasn’t another town that sounded anything like it. As I looked as the road signs I was hoping that the ministry of transport had used a different transliteration of the Arabic to the one I had. Fortunately I was able to change onto microbus 2 to Qala’at Alexander-Mudiq. Well now I was home free, Apamea was big and right by the village. Wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it?

Not so much. The microbus sped off, chappie said this was the right place, but there were no signs
I was stood at a junction and the road went 3 ways. We’d come from one direction, the bus had gone in another so I took the third one.

I did ask a chap if I was heading towards Apamea (even pronouncing it Afamia as you’re meant to) and he did nod, but the way things were going I wasn’t convinced-the guy looked like he’d have nodded if I’d asked if was Elvis. I felt stumbling up a steepening hill had to be a good thing; if I’d learnt one thing in Turkey it was that these ancient buggers always stuck it on a hill.

Reassurance came, as so often, from a man on a motorbike. Not only did he tell me I had guessed right but he told me to jump on the back and sped me up the rest of the hill. Thus it was that my first sight of Apamea was from the back of a motorbike looking over a flock of goats. I think I did well not to fall off.

I then got an invitation to come back to the chap’s house. And stay with his family. And phone my hotel that I wasn’t coming. This is the kind of thing that makes trips and you should jump at. I’m just too English, so I declined, which, being English, wasn’t too easy. I did feel bad, but consoled myself with the thought that it was unlikely he lived in the middle of a supermodel convention.

My next attempt at farce was with the camera. I’d got one photo and the camera batteries died. It was probably a couple of miles down a big hill to get back to the village for fresh batteries, so it was just as well I had replacements. I loaded them up, set the date and time and all that, turned to take the photo the last batteries had just denied me and they died. Bugger. I started desperately trying combinations of batteries hoping that some set might just get me through the day. The third or fourth combo looked OK, but I made sure I just turned camera to take the pic for the rest of the day.

I’ve run out of fresh ways to say this, but I think it’s worth repeating myself. If this place was in Britain it would be overrun with tourists and massively famous.

In Turkey the odd coach party bumped the numbers up. The first hour or so here it’s just me, a boy shepherd and the guy who takes the money and he wasn’t here to start with. I was glad when he did show up, as I would have felt most guilty not paying for this.

Much as I hate to say it, Syria needs someone to work on their PR and get people to see this. Palmyra will need to go some to top this.

However, if you do go, watch out for this man.

I believe him to be an old perv. I may be missing some local tradition here, but I doubt it. He shouted at me a lot and waved him arms, so it was only polite to go over and say hello. I suppose I should have been suspicious when he patted the rock next to him for me sit down. He then turned his head to one side and pointed at his cheek. Now I am not sure about this. I’ve seen plenty of local boys do the two cheek kiss thing; Antonis did it to me at the Athens games, but only me and John, who he knew well. I understand Beckham does this when he plays football, but that’s no excuse for anything. We’re all a bit continental now, people drink expresso, men kiss women on one, two or even three cheeks. In almost all circumstances, men shake hands. Firmly.

Even in exceptionally continental circumstances, one thing I am absolutely convinced about is that this cheek malarky does not involve any use of lips. So, not wishing to offend, I did a bit of cheek brushing and made some noise. This did not get full marks from the judge, who then decided to demonstrate what he was expecting from me. There was moisture and some kind of sucking: I suddenly, fervently wished I had a beard. A fucking big one.

I’m not 19th century, I have bought moisturiser, I love Oscar Wilde, I can wear pink shirts, but that’s it. Hugging blokes is for large sporting moments and celebrating the departure of a particularly heinous woman. That’s where it stops for me. So when he started pointing at his cheek again, I went ‘er, that’s a bit weird’ and stood up. Strong stuff I’m sure you’ll agree.

It all backs up my theory that in countries where women are not a conspicuous part of the society, the men go a bit gay. It’s the same in India. Men holding hands, men arm in arm, sleeping on each other. These are straight men; they’d probably hit you for saying they weren’t, but I’ll tell you this, it’s not a Northern European definition of heterosexual. It brings back memories of me, Mick and about 700 Indian men in Delhi on New Year’s Eve. We were trying to find the ladies party. That’s a whole other story though.

The old git wasn’t done. He then thought I wanted his photo in my shades, above, and having been told he couldn’t keep my Oakley’s he wanted baksheesh (cash).

Like I say I may have missed some worthy local tradition, but I doubt it. I feel violated.

Still a little disorientated, I got a bit hassles by some locals who’d ‘found’ some antiquities they were willing to sell to me. They even tailed me on their motorbike. I was beginning to think that this was a beautiful place populated by nutters, but this beaming kid in a green jumper offered me a lift back down the hill to the bus. He neither tried to kiss me or sell me anything and thus reassured me that all was right with the world.

Oh, you’d like to hear about Apamea? Well the columns extend for about a mile and a half I reckon and it’s 2nd century BC, founded by Seleucus, one of Alexander the Great’s generals.

Back in Hama I went to look round the Norias.

I saw about a dozen of these water wheels around the place, sadly only one was moving. That might be because it makes a lot of noise and stirs up the water, which smells foul.

I rather like the fountain round the corner from my pad.

Day 23
Tomorrow I head to Palmyra, where everything will be on my doorstep, but today saw another road trips via microbus and the city of Homs to reach Hosn and Crac des Chevaliers. Syrian roads have a strong air of exuberant chaos about them. The traffic is light enough that a fair amount of rule breaking and driving the wrong way down roads (even dual carriageways) isn’t suicidal as it would be at home; there’s enough traffic to make it hairy tho.

Motorbikes are very popular. My guess is that this is economic. Most vehicles are taxis, buses and trucks, so the private car is not common. My theory is that the motorbike takes the place of the small family car; a throy that is backed up by the number of motorbikes with a whole family on. Mum will sit side saddle behind Dad and she’ll hold any babies. They may a have little one sandwiched between them and a slightly larger one sitting up front between Dad’s legs. Teenagers will hoon around 3 to a bike. I’m sure it’s good for Syrian emissions targets, but without a helmet in sight, I fear for their road casualties.

The bikes look regular enough in the hands of the young, who mostly wear a Middle Eastern slant on Western clothes. Lots of denim, lots of designs on it. Where the meeting of cultures stands out is with the older more traditionally dressed gentleman. Robed in a black Lawrence of Arabia with the red and white head dress, it does look incongruous with a Japanese motorbike. I also thought how distinguished the men looked in these outfits; clothed which we see on TV being worn by terrorists and malcontents, clothes that the media have something made threatening. That at least is the perception I had.

I hope the health service can cope in Syria, as I think a lot of the cabbies must suffer from repetitive horn strain. There are cabs everywhere. Many are free. It’s not hard to get one. So I don’t really understand, why taxis cruise slowly round blaring their horn at any pedestrian to show they’re free. I haven’t noticed anyone stroll, get horned and then go ‘well I was going to walk, I hadn’t thought of a taxi, but come to think of it a taxi would be nice, why there is a taxi bringing itself to my attention, how convenient.’

I love the guys selling fish on the dual carriageway between Hama and Homs. They stand in the hard shoulder and when cars approach they lift up a bit of fishing line with a fish on the end and wave it about. I’m not sure if the ones you buy are rather better protected from the car fumes than the demonstration model.

One innovation they have, which we don’t have, is countdown traffic lights. I’ve seen variants in many places, but these are especially smart. The red light isn’t a solid circle, but is made up of LEDs, so it can be red, but by turning off some of the LEDs can show a number, like 27. This allows the red light to count down to when the lights will turn green. Some pen pusher has ordered a lot of these. Anyone on the street could have told the bureaucrat what would happen. The red light gets to 3 and the horns start blaring. At zero the green light comes on; it too counts down till it changes, but I’ve noticed that no green light is ever lit as long as a red light. The drivers notice this too and the horns take on a more frenzied pitch and frequency.

Safe to say I was quite well entertained before reaching the Crac. We’d all had to agree to pay a bit extra for the empty seats on the microbus as

The Crac was a fortress for some time, but was developed to its current form in the 12th century by the crusaders. It’s a heck of a fortress and a devil to get a long shot of.

Truth be told, I preferred Saladin, whose location is stunning and has a more romantic feel. Where the Crac scores is by being more complete; or more rebuilt, I’m not sure which. It’s clear the French did a lot of work in 1936 and some continues today.

The Crac was designed for a garrison of 2,000. It strikes this layman as a masterpiece of defensive design. There are a huge number of levels, half levels and quarter levels. You feel as if you keep ascending, yet almost always there is higher ground you. Higher ground an archer or such could easily exploit. Frequently you come through a door, an arch and you are overlooked from an unexpected angle. Many an invader would fall before they saw a defender. Then it’s such a rabbit warren; really knowing the castle would be a massive aid to defence. I found a corridor of archers post through an out of the way nook in a store room; it reached half way round the inner fortress.

The two walls which form two almost separate fortresses both have towers and any number of positions for individual defenders. The strategic options available to the general seemed almost limitless; the biggest problem I felt would be to command once battle was commenced. It would be very difficult to get a good overview and with so many defensive positions, small rooms and so on, I’d love to know how instructions were issued without modern communications.

However, when 200 troops, with 5 years of supplies were besieged by the Muslim hordes they gave up after a month. On the way there, I read this and thought it was a bit lame. I changed my mind once there. The wind was roaring round the place. Stuck in this huge construction (200 of them would have really rattled round), surrounded and lashed by the weather, I could see the appeal of safe passage. Great as the castle was, I think the crusaders were vanquished psychologically.

Oh, and it had one of these

The whole thing gave me quite a Helm’s Deep feeling.

Palmyra tomorrow. Bus 6.45. I haven't worked this out yet, buses are very early, but people don't seem to be up early

Hurrah for Hama

2008-02-05T18:48:00.000Z

Good internet cafe.

Uploaded all the photos from the last 2 posts where I got thoroughly bloody carried away.

Now I just need to check I still have money, go home and write up today.

Long day.

See ya

Flith, pure filth

2008-02-04T18:02:00.000Z

Hi

Still having photo loading problems as you can see from the now 2 photoless posts.

I had wondered if i'd be able to access the BBC website in Syria-no probs.

However something called the ALOOLA filter is blocking my blog, Scat's blog and that Swiss Toni thing

Dirty

Will try and get photos when have some proper acess. E-mail troublesome too if you've sent me one of them

Cradle of Civilisation

2008-02-04T17:41:00.000Z

Day 18
I had hoped that I’d be able to get round the sights of Aleppo today, but my bus left Antakya rather later than I had been promised and that, combined with some pretty early closing times, made it impossible. It was probably the emptiest bus I’ve been on; while there have been plenty of local ladies on other buses, there were none on this one. At the border I noticed how many car transporters were coming into Turkey-I’m not sure if Syria is a manufacturer, dealer or simply place of transit.

It took me quite a while to pass through Syrian immigration. As required, I had got my visa in advance, but my passport needed a lot of scrutiny. The border guy went through it very carefully once and then repeated his examination: I think he’d have done this anyway, but the number of Turks who kept pushing their passports at him may have made him lose track. A rather strange approach to queuing had been adopted: rather than one person standing behind the other, 3 or 4 passport piles formed in front of the border guard and everyone scrummed round. Every so often someone would move their passport from one pile to another, or pick theirs up and wave it at the guard shouting; he’d look at them, say nothing and go back to my passport. I couldn’t help but feel they were just making it all go slower: I resisted the colonial approach of trying to teach the natives good British queuing. Anyway, the guard eventually stamped my passport and I edged through the scrum to retrieve it, but rather than hand it to me, it went to Mustafa, who examined it once more. I do have a lot of stamps for them to examine (after the beggar stamped a clean page, I’m down to 4) and they clearly wanted to be absolutely certain than none of them were Israeli. When you apply for a visa you have to confirm that you have not visited the ‘occupied territory of Palestine’. I have quite a lot of sympathy for their position. However, given geography and the nature of travellers, this mean I met no one in Turkey coming from Syria, but plenty of people going the other way: people simply visit Syria, then go to Israel afterwards. You can also try and charm the Israeli’s into not stamping your passport.

One of the things that you cannot possibly avoid from the moment you enter the country are the pictures of a man in his late 30s or 40s with a tasche in a suit. He is either the president or the most shameless self-publicist you’ll find whose surname isn’t Beckham. Even by African standards, he’s got his mug in a lot places.

We’d barely got over the border when we filled up with fuel. This is hardly surprising as Turkey’s fuel is more expensive than ours, while a litre of Syrian petrol is about 25p. Syria is a country that is very popular with a certain kind of traveller. My room (single, shared bathroom) in the centre of the country’s second biggest city is described by LP as ‘not the cheapest backpacker place in town but the best’; it costs £3 a night. Having been gagging for a falafel since Istanbul, I’ve finally just had one. It was superb and cost 15p (this is a full sandwich with salad and everything). It doesn’t look possible to spend £1.50 on a bus anywhere. In some ways, it’s rather shaming.

My first stop was the cash machine. One Syrian pound (they’re mostly called lira, but they use the £ symbol) is 1p sterling. This is the kind of exchange rate that is simple to calculate when you’re spending-£50 or £120 goes easily to pounds, but always makes me a little nervous at the cash machine. Have I put another nought on the end of what I need? Have I just withdrawn enough cash to buy an apartment?

Flush with cash I headed to the photo free National Museum, which was rather better than I had expected. The settlement at Aleppo dates back to the 9th Millennium BC, so there’s a bit of history about. Many of the artefacts themselves weren’t exactly earth shattering, but the stories they tell were something else. There were a significant number of cuneiform tablets from the 2nd and 3rd Millennia BC. These mostly concerned administrative and bureaucratic issues. Not a riveting read, but it says a lot about the kind of people, the kind of civilisation that existed in this area. Add to that archaeological finds from 8200 BC alongside 4m high walls from 7000 BC and Syria’s Cradle of Civilisation moniker seems well earned. I shall try and take this line when I next meet my friends in US immigration.

The museum did have a rather disorganised feel. In fact parts of it looked as if it had been robbed, with some display cases largely empty and clean shadows visible where exhibits must have set earlier. The labels in display cases were all in Arabic and usually had a second language: this was often English, but often reflected which European country had been involved in the excavations. Syria was a French colony and the French influence was evident both in the museum and in the significant number of squat and drop toilets in Syria.

I had a walk round the Christian quarter and managed to nip into the Armenian Church of 40 martyrs, where I was given a personal tour by the trainee priest. It was rather bizarre and I’ve forgotten most of what he said as I was in a bit of shock. I got the usual marriage and age questions, but was thrown when he asked me if I was Catholic or Orthodox (as if these were the only two options). When I started stammering, he started hammering through most of the world’s religions, though he did omit Jedi. Then he asked me if I had a camera. By this stage I was wondering if he actually was a priest; he manoeuvred me round the Church saying ‘very nice’ each time he took a photo and then ‘over there’ to move me to the next bit. I didn’t get to catch my breath and when we moved outside, I was starting to wonder if I was going to have to chase a fake priest down the street in order to get my camera back.

I now have 10 pictures of me and the Armenian Church. As this strange sequence progresses, I look more and more uncomfortable.

I feel a bit bad that I deliberately forgot the name of my hotel when he asked when I was staying; I’m fairly happy now that he was just sweet and enthusiastic rather than psychotic. Still, I shall think twice before entering another Armenian Church.

So far I’ve seen quite a lot of the English alphabet, which is a relief. I can recognise a few basic numbers in Arabic script, but I have to say the text is a bit of a struggle. Comparing English and Arabic notations in the museum made me hope I won’t have to read much of the Arabic alphabet very often. Street names so far have been in both scripts.

It seems that the lack of tourists at this time of year may prove a bit of a pain-there are a few spots around Aleppo that it is only really practical to visit by organised tour. However, numbers aren’t looking good for any tours to be running. Hopefully a visit to the tourist office tomorrow will resolve this. Otherwise, I could do some of it from Hama when I get there next week.

I was planning on an early night; truth is I have yet to learn that such an expectation invariably produces the opposite result. I pottered down through the floors heading towards an early dinner; reaching reception I saw that the Aussie girls who’ve been stalking me since Gallipoli were sat there. So the evening took a slightly different turn. Cards were followed by a night out with Ahmad, the Kuwaiti owner of our gaff. After a quick fuel stop, we headed to the bar of the Baron Hotel, where Agatha Christie had a connection and about which T E Lawrence writes in 7 Pillars (they have a display case with a magnifying glass on the relevant section). I guess there’ll be more of that. In the bar we learnt that Ahmad had to pay a special tax on his gay employee (I’m not wholly sure about this, it may have been a line). Then we headed onto a club, which to my memory looked identical to the one I went to in Zanzibar. I think it must be an off the shelf layout from the ‘Clubs R Us’ website. I felt most young, at least compared to the other men. We were generally confused as to the exact status of the girls-almost all were a fair bit younger than their companions. There was general surprise at what several people were wearing-the Aussie girls were a lot more covered up than many of the locals. With the amount of drinking that was also going on, it was clear that this was not Iran. Musically it was perhaps 10% western with stalwarts that I have heard across the world in the last year; of the local stuff, a lot of beats and rhythms were pretty familiar before that classic Middle Eastern high pitched violin instrument would kick in, give the local feel and the Arabic vocals would begin. While it failed to get Jade and I on the dance floor, it was definitely working for most of the rest of the place. It was a fun night, tho not the sort of club I’m about to start frequenting. I’m still smiling at being told ‘you don’t look like a cool guy, but you are a cool guy.’ Mainly because I’m not sure what it really means. When the cab dropped us off, Ahmad told us that a few weeks ago there had been public executions by the clock tower, a minute’s walk away from the hotel. So far Syria seems to be mix of quite a lot of different things.

Day 19
I spent the first part of the morning picking up my e mail and going to the tourist information centre to try and arrange a tour to Qala’at Samaan, the Dead Cities and Apamea. Well I spent the actual first part of the morning in bed, but straight afterwards I got on to sorting things out. I didn’t have much success-these things are easy enough when it isn’t winter, but after a word with Ahmad, it seems he’ll be doing something tomorrow and I won’t be the only one, so it won’t be scary expensive. I also found out about train times to Lattakia, my next stop, and pottered up to the train station to buy a ticket. I found the tracks without too much bother, but getting to the station proved more challenging and I think I must have looked pretty daft trying to orientate the LP map to the one I got in the tourist info office. I got a sinking feeling as I queued to get a ticket when I suddenly remembered you need a passport to buy a bus ticket. Then I saw the ID check window. Bugger. In the end it didn’t much matter as you can only buy a ticket one day in advance. 6.00 a.m. train at that. Might give the clubbing a rest tonight.

After a quick pit stop for a falafel (making up for lost time there), I headed to the old city and the citadel, which is a beast. There wasn’t any real info there, but whoever it was made the residents of Aleppo build this, they must have some scary bad guys.

Thinking about it, I suppose it may have been a crusade as it was from the 12th century. The mound was man made and most of the place inside the walls was in ruins. Both in and around there was a great deal of construction/reconstruction going on-I’ve not been able to learn much about the Syrian charter of historic buildings, or whatever the policy will be called. Sadly the place had a very large amount of rubbish scattered around it; the following day I met Ash from Canberra, who’d been in Amman for some weeks and said she was starting to get used to the way pretty much anything would be dropped to the ground once it was finished with. I felt it was like India, where the meeting of modern packaging materials and ancient cultures produced something environmentally unfortunate.

I climbed up the bridge

to enter the citadel, and although the main entrance clearly bore round to the left, I was distracted by a small door in the right corner with a little staircase leading up from it. I plumped for that and, much as I expected, was soon above the citadel entrance amongst slits for firing arrows and holes through which boiling oil could be poured and rocks thrown. Attacking this place would have been no picnic. The area was surprisingly large, but what was more surprising as I tottered through another door was the magnificent throne room.

I spent a long time in the citadel, in many ways there wasn’t so much to see, but it was mazey to walk through and had many great spots to sit and look over the city. I in the sun for a while in the amphitheatre in the citadel’s centre and as folk walked by, I thought that Steve and Anita would be in Iran by now and hoped that Anita was managing to keep her head scarf secured.

Later I was sat on the roof of some building when the first call to afternoon prayer rang out. I was staring out over countless minarets (Aleppo has about 1,000 mosques, which according to the tourist board means it is considered the 3rd city in the Islamic world). The next few minutes were unexpected and quite wonderful; the number of mosques calling the faithful to prayer grew and grew; high above the city, I had been sat in quiet and the now Aleppo was waking. I had a real sense of the sound rising up to me, giving it an almost physical quality. The clarity of this moment gave me a very different take on what one hears down in the hubbub of the street, where the mosque tannoys just seem to much noise. It was a slight shame that I turned out to be sat on a mosque, as when that call started it drowned out what was happening around. I couldn’t help but smile that even now there was no escaping the modern world, as my mosque’s call was clearly punctuated by the interference from the caller’s mobile phone being too close to the microphone.

On the way out I got some sense of how massive the construction must have been: the main entrance was through a massive barrel vault that turned through 90 degrees on several occasion. The ceiling must have been 30 feet high.

Afterwards I had a mad half hour when I visited the Souq and the Great Mosque. The Souq is a huge covered maze of shops and bazaars. Running over 10 km, it is one of the sights of the town so I went in for a wander. This was somewhat naïve, as I was fairly set upon by touts and shopkeepers making a bit of a browse rather tricky. Without being totally rude you can’t stop and talk with everyone who starts up chat-in a souq you know there’s an end game, but some take ages to get to it. I had walked on quite a way from one guy when he shouted after me ‘you’re not English, you’re Scottish’. I guess this was a dread insult proffered to the rude limey who’d refused his offer of kebab. I stumbled around and the touts essentially drove me out of the clothing areas and their tourist appeal. So I found myself passing a butcher’s with an unidentified headless corpse, through the baby section and into the specialist section where you could get a nice leather holster for your handgun. I became the tourist cliché and got properly lost and disorientated.

Finally escaping into the open air, I found the great mosque. I hadn’t been in there long when I felt like I was being followed. Then there was laughter too. After a couple of glances over my shoulder I turned round fully to find a family of mum, 4 daughters and 2 sons. Emboldened by eye contact, mum waved her camera phone. So I lined up with 2 boys and the little girl. I noticed the 3 girls in headscarves stayed with Mum. The little girl ran after me as I carried on round and came to speak to me 3 times. On the first 2 occasions, I shrugged, went English and looked lost. On the third occasion I applied my nightclub rule-if you’ve said ‘pardon’ twice and still can’t make out what’s being said the third time, pick Yes or No and hope for the best. So Yes it was. Wreathed in smiles she ran back to Mum and it became obvious I had agreed to a more extended photo session; this time the other 3 girls also got involved. Various different lineups arranged themselves around me, with the littlest trying to get in all of them, which was not allowed. During the last one she was on her back being whirled in circles by the younger brother. All of this meant that I didn’t notice the Great Mosque so much.

Just walking the streets here can be quite an experience. A sense of frenzied commerce is created as goods are continually being loaded and unloaded, a process that is not hidden in warehouses off major motorways as in England. Crossing roads is crazy, traffic thunders and weaves and I have learnt to shadow a local. Often the only way is to make some progress, stop while cars pass/screech by on either side of you and then move again. I suppose it’s like real life Frogger.

Dinner was unexpected tonight. I was heading downstairs past the Arab floor (they all stay on the 1st floor) where a feast was in progress for which I was promptly collared. Repeatedly I was told Eat, Eat as bread was thrown as me and a variety of local good stuff pushed at me for me to try. It was very good and lots of fun. The hospitality is legendary and I sat with the 4 guys at my table and had a great laugh. I did make a bit of gaff when I said some cheese was like Feat-Mohamed and Kalir are Turkish

I found out everyone was significantly younger than they looked-the smoking can’t help. You almost feel rude turning down the proffered fags; there’s no possibility of anyone going ‘do you mind if I smoke’ anywhere (it was the same in Turkey, where I often saw cooks with one on the go). Ahmad smokes 100 a day; that’s such a level of commitment that I almost admire him for it. Ash told me in Jordan it has only been illegal to smoke in an Operating Theatre for the last year. Only Sahib spoke English, but we all managed a fair degree of understanding with arm waving and Sahib translating when we got stuck, even if much of the conversation was on football. Me knowing the Aussie girls produced much sniggering and nudging amongst everyone. None of this got translated, but I found the Arab for Australian is basically the same, only followed by a dirty laugh. When I actually sat and spoke to Jade later, they were almost beside themselves. Any time I caught them in my eyeline there were broad smiles and winks. That aside, they were lots of fun and very very friendly and welcoming.

I said to Ash the next day that the men were like 14 year old boys; it seemed like they saw women so infrequently that they just behaved like muppets when they did. They’re worse than that apparently. She’d been groped a fair a bit and someone had walked up to her in the street and shown her porn on their mobile. As a bloke you never see any of this, as nothing like that happens to any woman who is walking with a man. Oddly Ash said that she rejected this tempting advance. You really have to wonder what these men think is going to happen. Though it doesn’t happen here, there are many places where local men hiss at women. Do they expect them to turn round, ‘wow, that makes me horny, let’s go.’ Never in recorded human history has this happened: I think a smile and a hello might just be a better bet.

Day 20
During last night’s Syrian feast, Norbert the Canadian came and introduced himself. He wanted to sign me up for today’s trip to Qala’at Samaan and the Dead Cities. He seemed very nice, sounded just like our Greg and had the same level of optimistic enthusiasm. Sadly I was a bit tired, so as he left the room rather just think it, I said out loud ‘Norbert’s a dragon’s name’. I don’t think he heard.

Zacharia was our driver and he was top value, he even took us to his house for lunch.

Qala’at Samaan is on the site when Simeon lived on top of a succession of pillars for 36 years. At his height point he was 36m up. He got made a saint for his services to pillars. I’m sure there’s more to this, but it all seems pretty bizarre that a 5th century David Blaine was beatified. If anyone should have been made a saint, I think it should have been his support team: someone had to feed him and let’s face it, someone had to clean up after him unless that’s why the pillars kept getting higher. I’m surprised that Monty Python missed out on him. Anyway, whatever the rights and wrongs of Saint Simeon, this is a wonderful place.

I have to say I think LP goes way over the top on the Dead Cities calling them eerie and as if the inhabitants have just wandered off to the shops. A hell of a lot it is rubble, so unless they’re gone to B&Q…….

Day 21
The train to Lattakia was very comfortable and I was soon presented with some headphones endorsed by someone who looks a great deal like Uma Thurman. I didn’t use them for either the local slapstick movie or the follow up-Mr Bean’s holiday. Trying to get my monster bag down from an overhead luggage rack did make me worried I may be about to have a Bean moment. I didn’t see much of the scenery I took the train for as I didn’t have a window seat and everyone kept closing the windows so they could sleep. But not to worry.

I had to wake the hotel manager up in Lattakia so I could get and room and then head off to Qala’at Saladin. I’m not doing too well at understanding a great deal about some of these places, as LP is a bit skimpy, the Syrians aren’t labelling much and there’s none too many folk about. Still, Crac de Chavalier (planned for Wednesday) must be quite something to be topping this.

Some guy called T.E. Lawrence liked it too.

There was a lot of building going on again, in fact it was just me and the builders on the site. I’m not too sure what to make of this-does ‘rebuilding’ bring the site to life, or is it destructive to the archaeology and the history. Hard to say.

This was my first venture by microbus. They hadn’t really been relevant in Turkey, but it is a really good way of getting around. Minibus type efforts with sliding doors stack up at a kind of bus station. A whole bunch of different routes are serviced and the bus leaves when full (both of mine took 14). The route is fixed, as is the price (10p for my half hour to Al Hafa) and people get on and off on request along the route. What you end up with is a cheap and quick service that isn’t too far off door to door. I think a lot of places could use that.

7 a.m. bus tomorrow after today’s 6 a.m. train. Maybe night buses weren’t so bad…….

Stranded

2008-01-31T15:41:00.000Z

Day 11
There is really mountainous terrain very near the coast in Turkey, it took us a lot longer to make the journey that the mere distances would have suggested. My Marie Celeste hostel was deserted, so being offered breakfast was never going to happen (I’m sure the bloke pocketed the 10 lira I paid for the bed). The Metro buses had tended to stop every two hours or so, so I wasn’t too concerned that my snack supplies were all but exhausted. I’d be munching on Pide or something similar before long. Wouldn’t I? After 6 and a half hours on the bus, I was still some way from renouncing vegetarianism and thinking my fellow passengers looked tasty, but it was becoming a matter of time. Lunch at 4.00 did seem Mediterranean with knobs on. Rather killed my appetite for the tasty local coking in the hostel later. It took an hour of traffic and passenger chaos to travel the 4 km from the Otogar into the Old Town of Antalya, but more friendly local help got me to the church on time. About 5 pointed me in the direction (all straight down, it’s on your right) when I was walking to the hostel. I couldn’t really be bothered to explore in the dark and I knew there wasn’t so much to see in town, so I arranged a trip to Aspendos and Perge for Sunday (more Roman ruins) and did the last post.

Day 12
In the morning I found the Aussie girls I’d been to Gallipoli with had stalked me so cunningly that they’d arrived in the same hostel 24 hours earlier-they’re repeating the trick by heading to Goreme tonight. They confirmed today would be plenty of time to see Antalya and I was going to head off when one of the hostel guys said the agency had called and could I change my tour. I didn’t really want to, but I was the only one who wanted to head to the ruins. When I saw of the photos of the sunken city and the crazy tombs in the wall tour they were offering instead, I realised that I had chosen poorly, so agreed to it and got a bus ticket to Goreme and the crazy Cappadocian landscapes while I was at it.

The sights of Antalya are as follows: 2 minarets, a couple of Roman gates, a (none too exciting) clock tower, a museum of pottery and scenes from Ottoman life and the views:

Views win I reckon. The place has real character and a good feel to it, I enjoyed walking around through the narrow mazey streets with the old building on either of side of me (and yes I realise this shows no consistency of emotion to Bodrum). I guess the place has charisma.

I reckon anyone who has lived in Oxford will have had the thought, why don’t they just repair all the roads at once? Instead the simpletons (I believe council is their preferred name) dig up a road for months, give you two minutes of normality and then dig up another one, then another and so on. Just do it all once, cause chaos and get it out of the way. It’s what they’re doing in Antalya. Although here most of the traffic is on foot.

Day 13
With an early start, I was too early for breakfast, which I figured was fair enough. Yesterday I had been promised a sandwich to keep me going; in the end I and the others 4 from the hostel received a bag with a tip top cheese sarnie, an orange and a bottle of water. They really are some very nice people (this place was about £12.50 for 2 nights inc breakfast and free wireless).

The one bad thing about today is we’re looking at about 6 hours in the people carrier thing, then I get dropped off at the Ottogar for 11 hours on the night bus. I wasn’t thinking about that at when we set off on the boat for the sunken city at Kekova.

Earthquake hit the Roman city and it was a bit parky to swim and look at the submerged bits, but there were some parts on the island to snap at.

In Myra we visited the church of St Nicholas. It has some marvellous frescoes that they’re working on restoring

and has also managed to spawn a toursity feel from an old friend.

After lunch and Alvaro’s birthday

(check my healthy lunch in the background) it was off to the day’s crowning glory. Here’s a taster

Check this

They also had a 12,000 seater theatre. The crazy Petraesque stuff is tombs, all have been broken into. Around many of the sights are plentiful evidence of the importance of farming to Turkey. There is plenty of orange production as well as whole areas of greenhouses growing tomatoes and so on, much of it for export. I can’t think of another country where I’ve seen tractors being sold, in numbers, in city centres.

No avoiding it this time, night bus. I think it’ll be the only one. I am whacked tho: nice bloke from San Fran was in my dorm last night and I reckon we talked till 2; had to leave at 7 this morning and the crew on the underwater city trip were good value so no sleep there either. Maybe, just maybe, I can kick the night bus curse.

Day 14
It’s fair to say that I’ve had worse. The early part of the bus trip I spent sat next to a nice lad, who strongly felt that Turkey’s proposed entry to the EU would be a mistake and that they would lose their culture as a result. I found myself rather flummoxed as to what entry to the EU would actually mean (aside from Turkey having to stop charging people £10 to enter the country). The bus wasn’t too full, so I was able to move to a double seat and get some kip.

I had to wait an hour in chilly Nevsehir to get a shuttle the few kms to Goreme; I passed it with a very nice travel agent in his warm office-drinking tea, chatting and not buying any of his tours.

I had decided to spend the ¾ of a day left to me after checking into the dorm of my cave hostel

walking around the local sights including the Goreme open air museum. A combination of volcanic eruption and erosion has created some bizarre landscape features, while people have buried into the rock walls to create numerous rooms and churches. The open air museum focuses on the latter. The majority of the ‘buildings’ are churches, quite small ones at that

The frescoes are very nearly as impressive as feel of the place is unreal.

Once again it was impossible to prevent my thought turning to Indy and Petra.

Tombs were placed in the highest parts to be closer to God

After the open air museum I set off in search of Fairy Chimneys. I think these are they

I think, because these seemed to be in the right sort of spot for where I thought I was on the map. Given I spent most of the two hours off roading, they might very well be something else. As I slipped around, taking chunks out of the earth and sliding down slopes I hoped the Turks didn’t fine tourists for environment destruction in the same way as the Aussies. I was on no recognised trail, which was made clear when the only marks in the snow were large paw prints. I had some distant memory that the area had lynx or something. With the rock walls towering over me, I was certainly in grave danger of being stalked, jumped and eaten-had I been in a movie.

As I walked my thoughts kept turning to the morrow. I had decided to go on a tour to the Ilhara valley-since it was something like a 200km round trip and included a stop at an 8 level underground city, this seemed a no brainer. What was taxing was the hot air balloon. Cappadocia is one of the places in the world to go hot air ballooning. It was quite easy to combine this with the Ilhara valley as the balloons set off at 6.30 a.m. (a lie in compared to the summer’s 5.15) so that you catch sunrise over the rock formations. At 105 Euro, it was also something of a bargain for ballooning. The mention of being 3,000 feet up had made me a little nervous. I texted Stanners as I knew she’d done it and looked around at the variety of the colours while I walked

thinking that the light wasn’t especially good, although the dusting of snow gave the area an icing sugar appeal. I was dithering and not sure what to do. Then the snow came properly and rendered any of my decision making irrelevant

In fact the weather made quite an impact on my plans. On Monday night I went down to book a bus ticket for Wednesday morning-although the journey to Antakya is quite long I wanted to do it by day to see the landscape. However, the only company that ran a day bus said they had no seats till Friday. This seemed odd as there weren’t a lot of people about. Not wishing to hang around that long, I reluctantly booked a night bus for Tuesday night. With the snows of Monday night and Tuesday day, all the buses for Tuesday were cancelled, so I rearranged the bus for Wednesday night. On Wednesday, the road to Kayseri was still closed by snow. I managed to find a lunchtime bus that was running to Adana, from where I was told there were loads of buses to Antakya. I even managed to persuade the night bus company to give me my money back. My problems were slight compared to those trying to get out to catch flights and once weekly trains.

Day 15
When all the buses are cancelled, you can bet 200km round trip tours are going to get cancelled. But what to do? I’d done the local stuff. I certainly wasn’t walking beyond that immediate vicinity in what was essentially a blizzard. Many are those who would have chilled out by the fire with a book and had a look at the BBC website. But me? Well, I decided to go on a more local organised tour. With the only company crazy enough to still be running. In truth it was pretty silly-conditions were appalling. It must have been -5 to -10 before the wind chill. We couldn’t walk much, the snow was half way to my knee on average: after the first stop this meant my jeans were soaking. Later they were simply frozen solid. Still, I had walking boots while most of the others had trainers, so I wasn’t the only one. I’m really not exaggerating how bad it was

We were meant to climb up to this castle

We did manage to climb a ladder to get into this church

Ordinarily it wouldn’t have been my kind of thing as the trip included a trip to a potters and a winery, but it was just so ridiculous that it fostered a great spirit. Well until the last stop when it was too cold and wet to be funny any more. We also visited a formation that looked remarkably like a camel, covered in snow. At this stage my camera went on strike-I could see its point. It took a good hour for feeling to return to all of my body and I’m not sure my hat will ever be dry.

Given how much I missed out, I shall have to return to Cappadocia. In the summer I think. It would combine nicely with a trip to Mt Nemrut, where they have the heads of statues that look like something out of Lord of the Rings.

Day 16
This was the archetypical travel day. When I woke up I was catching a bus at 8.30 in the evening, after spending an hour running round bus companies changing that plan, I threw my junk in my bag and started the Odyssey to Antakya. As this took 4 different buses this gave me many opportunities for getting juiced on the bus. This is where one of the stewards, with surprisingly frequency, comes round and squirts some lemony stuff in your hands for you to freshen them up. Everyone takes it, so on the occasions I have declined, you get some odd looks. I even saw one bloke smear it lightly across his hands and then run it through his hair. I wonder if we’ll get that in Syria. Unless the exchange rate in Syria has changed dramatically, then an hour’s flight from Aleppo to Damascus cost £9.50. It looks ridiculously cheap and that’s also the word I’ve heard.

Day 17
Antakya has an embarrassment of names: formerly known as Antioch and referred to as Hatay by the locals. Despite these riches, I was surprised and relieved to find the tourist information office-being without a map in a city of 140,000 in which one of the sights was ‘3km west of the centre’ was the kind of challenge I could do without. The LP’s half column on the city had been just enough to entice me into making this my final stop in Turkey. The other 4 tourists who arrived with me at 9.30 in the very dead city centre went straight onto Syria; I was happy to have enough time not to be doing so and was even happier when a hotel a minute’s walk from the bus station gave me a room for 20 lira.

The LP has two sights and the tourist office revealed no more. It would be fair to say that the wealth of other parts of Turkey has not spread down here. Antakya is part of a parcel of land that used to be in Syria until France gave it to the Turks in an attempt to gain their neutrality in WW2. The vibe is different here, maybe it is Syrian. In some ways I hope not as I caught some blighter trying to pinch my camera out of my back pack as I walked towards St Peter’s church. Antioch was quite a den of iniquity, perhaps that’s why Peter came here for some preaching

The Church is not that old, but it is positioned to mark where the Christians first met. Barnabus, Paul and Peter all spent time here, so it quite a significant spot. There’s not much else to mark that in smoky, run down Antakya. The other magnet here is the Archaeology museum, which has some blinding mosaics.

So the time has come to say Tesekkur Ederim to Turkey and Marhaba to Syria. As long as my bus doesn’t get snowed in tomorrow morning.

Lost in Wonder

2008-01-25T18:30:00.000Z

Day 8
First night in Bergama I was the only one in, last night there were 12 of us and a right UN it was too. In the end I got stuck chatting over breakfast this morning and I didn’t get away quite as quickly as I had hoped. Still I made quite good time on the 3 buses it took to get me to Ephesus and I managed to look around town.

I had been a good boy and headed to the museum in Bergama before breakfast (and anyone stirring, including the German). Once again signs warned me ‘Antiquities cannot be taken out of Turkey’-all sites and musea seem to say this. Does that mean I can take a bust to the park for lunch, just not across the border? It might refer to the ancient coins I’ve been offered. Apparently they’re worthless in Turkey, but in the UK they’d…and then the pitch concludes with a whistle. Think of it, something so valuable that you couldn’t even imagine the wealth, all you could do is whistle. So far I’ve resisted the temptations to throw all my clothes away and fill my bags with these one way tickets to a millionaire’s life. I must be mad.

Anyway, the museum was pretty good and had a number of interesting pieces, including quite a lot of headless statues. Most noticeable was what wasn’t there. If you ever go to Berlin, look out for this.

This is the temple of Zeus that was part of the Acropolis in Pergamon (let’s use the alternative spelling today). The kindly German archaeologist who worked on the site half inched it. Still, there’s some worse steeling I read about, but more of that anon.

You have to like a place that has marking on the map for ‘Aquaducts’ and they have some quite creditable remnants. I hadn’t realised quite how biblical it is in Selcuk. St. Paul lived here: he can’t have been too sociable though, as he wrote his ‘Epistle to the Ephesians’, rather than just talking to them. I guess he dropped by as St. John was living here with the Virgin Mary (sounds like the start of a Da Vinci Code sequel). It was here that John wrote Revelation, which I read when studying Durer and I remember as cracking read. If you like End of the World type stuff. So it’s only appropriate that he had Basilica built here in his honour. And a pretty bloody big honour it was too. Here’s the way in

They’d have made it bigger if the site could have supported anything more massive. As it is they settled, in the 6th century, for what would today be the 7th biggest cathedral in the world-110m by 140. A 14th century earthquake knocked it down and locals pilfered a lot of the ruins, but it’s still a great maze to wander round.

It feels a little like walking across a building plan as there are very few remaining dividing walls. Or to put it another way, I felt like Joey getting into his map. They’ve made a number of attempts with models and drawing to show what is and what was:

All this overlooks the Mosque of Isa Bey Cami, which is also a fair size and took a pounding from both the quaking earth and local builders. In the morning in Bergama I’d read about tombstones on which turbans denoted the status of the interred. Here they had some

The main event here is of course Ephesus: I’ve already lost count of the number of people who’ve told me it’s better than Pergamon. On the way back from Ephesus tomorrow I shall be visiting the Temple of Artemis. The Temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World and in my anoraky Nick Hornby style of travelling this has made me think about the list of 7 ancient wonders.

1. The Temple of Artemis, Selcuk (right here, right now)
2. The Mausoleum of Helicarnassus, Bodrum (my next stop)
3. Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Iraq (give that one a miss)
4. Pharos of Alexandria, Egypt (going there)
5. Pyramids of Giza, mark me up for that one
6. Statue of Zeus, Olympia, Greece
7. Colossus of Rhodes, Greece. Quite near by actually, but won’t be fitting it in.

Aside from the pyramids the other 6 exist is spheres somewhere between near mythical and a pile of ruins, however I shall visit the three sites as well as the pyramids. So with Petra, by the time I finish this trip I’ll have visited 4 ancient wonders and 5 of the new ones, and all but one in the last 12 months. Well, I haven’t had many stats thus far. Which reminds me I should raise my bat; Turkey is country no 50.

As I’ve just indicated there’s not a lot I shall actually see at the Temple of Artemis-just one column is upright. In some small part this is because the locals treated it as B&Q-the stone has been used in the mosque and basilica in Selcuk as well as Aya Sofya back in Istanbul. Guess where else you can find some? Go on. Yup, the good old British Museum. I sometimes wonder why I bothered leaving England, the whole bloody world is in the British Museum. And we’re not giving any of it back.

Day 9
So what can I say about Ephesus? A lot and probably far too much. So I think a few facts and some photos will best serve the purpose. Beginning at the end, Ephesus was hit by 3 earthquakes in 15 years in the 4th century. That set it on the road to being destroyed, abandoned and then attacked by the archaeologists. For the Romans it was the Bank and then Capital of Asia Minor. A city of a quarter of a million, which must have been massive for the time, Ephesus had the public and private buildings to reflect its wealth, size and influence. The tourist board are claiming its the best preserved city outside of Pompeii (I guess they don’t count Rome). Whatever else it may, it is worth visiting Turkey just to see Ephesus. So what’s it all look like then?

This is the Odeon, which means little theatre. This one seats 1,500. We’ll see why it’s little later.

The Fountain of Pollio and the Temple of Domitian.

An invader.

The Fountain of Trajan.

Clever shape the arch, no need for mortar.

The Temple of Hadrian.

The public toilets. You can see where Eavis gets the idea for Glasto. Normally all this would be breathtaking, amazing and all the rest. But then Ephesus has 2 of the most wonderful buildings I’ve seen.

The Library of Celsus and The 25,000 Grand Theatre. The library strikes me as a warm up of sorts for Petra.

In the 60s they excavated some of the dwellings, although the fabric was quite damaged, mosaics and frescoes have somehow survived in goodly numbers.

Had to get in a rather precarious position for that last one. And there’s plenty more to excavate.

They did have slaves the Romans, but they did do things in style.

The hostel gave me a lift up to Ephesus, but I walked back. Firstly past the grotto of the 7 sleepers.

This isn’t much to look at, but it is the site of quite a legend. The seven, who I believe had no affiliation to Blake, hid in the caves and were walled in. When the walls came down in an earthquake 2 centuries later, the 7 emerged (very Indiana Jones). The best bit is that no one saw them; they were ‘discovered’ when they tried to get something to eat. They were arrested for proffering dodgy money! Eventually it was determined the money was old rather forged and the legend was born.

I also discovered that Turkish pancakes are to be strongly recommended.

My last 2 stops on the way back were the Temple of Artemis and the museum. After the grotto I managed to cut through an orange orchard and a graveyard to get to the Wonder. Like me, you’ll have to use your imagination.

I think I’ve got the buses sorted to get me to Bodrum tomorrow and the next wonder (this is getting a bit Dan Cruickshank) and then onto Antalya. Time will tell.

Day 10
You can hear the tourists-‘I love Bodrum, it’s go so much character. It’s a maze of streets you can just lose yourself in.’ Of course if I wanted to get bloody lost I’d leave the map behind, ignore the street signs or just get drunk.

I got lost in Bodrum.

Three times.

Map was crap. Street signs were rubbish. Navigator was dreadful. All of which contributed to me not liking Bodrum.

Give me some credit, it takes more than getting lost. I am very glad it is out of season. My hostel is above a British Bar (where some really tuneless karaoke is going on), down the street a Scottish pub has closed down. You can get a fry up. The food’s double the price of all the other places I’ve been since Istanbul and isn’t as good. There’s club bragging if you haven’t been there, you haven’t been to Bodrum. It’s rather touristy shall we say. Still, this was always a one night stand and I’m glad to have seen the Mausoleum’s remains and had a bit of an idea, so worth the slight detour and overpriced lunch.

The Mausoleum of Helicarnassus was built in 353BC. Rather depressingly it was still intact, although buried, in the 16th century when some French tore great lumps out of it to reinforce the castle from impending Ottoman attack.

The French promptly lost, which makes it worse in my mind. Of the 6 deceased wonders of the ancient world, I reckon this one came closest to joining the pyramids in the 21st century (interestingly the pyramids are the oldest of the 7).

In the Mausoleum was buried…..Mausolus. Although I think I wrecked the spelling there, you can see what happened-he built the mother of all burial spots and got a whole genre of building named after him. Old Mausolus was a bit up himself, so he’d have loved that. When asked for the reasons why he was constructing something so, well, ludicrous in his memory, he partly justified it by saying ‘I was handsome and tall’. Well of course.

There a lot more to see here than at the temple of Artemis, not in terms of ruins, but there’s a little museum with some history and reconstructions. It seems a bit odd that some decent effort has been made, while just a 3 hour bus ride away there are goats grazing round Artemis and no more information than a sign.

All of this set me to wondering how brilliant it would be if someone recreated the 6 alongside the sites of their respective ruins. If I had Bill Gates’ money…….well, hopefully I’d spend it the way he has, but it’s a nice thought.

And if you can’t make it to Bodrum, fear not. There’s some Mausoleum in the British Museum.

The castle is meant to be the main sight here,

which also hosts the few other sights. I was disappointed as the Museum of Underwater Archaeology turned out to be a museum of items found underwater and now on display in the dry. I’d interpreted the title in the same way as many 6 year olds before me.

While it is fascinating that there was sea bound trade going on in 4,000 BC, think about that, there is only so much you can do with what you rescued. What they were trading was food, wine oil and so on. As a result the vast majority of what you can see are amphora. They can get a bit samey. It’s a little cheap to say they’ve made a museum out of a bunch of 6,000 year old Tesco delivery boats sunk to the bottom of the sea, but……

There really are an awful lot of Koreans here. At Ephesus there are signs in Turkish, English and Korean. From what I can tell, all the oriental folk, which must 80-90% of the tourists, are Korean. Perhaps they’re here now to avoid the sort of people that come to Bodrum in high season. The locals don’t seem all that happy about it-I’ve had several saying to me that the Koreans are cheap, mean and the like. Seems they’re not big spenders. All the Koreans I’ve met have been lovely and tremendously polite. I was chatting to a guy last night who wanted some tips on the rest of Europe. We nattered for 10 mins or so. And then he presented me with a keyring with a Korean drum on. His friend asked me if I knew the Korean drums. I told her I remembered them from the opening ceremony of the Seoul Olympics. She was very impressed, remarking it was 20 years ago. I was thinking it’s only 5 Games. Well they had only just met me and we hadn’t got onto the history of the Masters or Roger Federer.

I hope there won’t be a repeat of the police roadblocks and passport checks on tomorrow’s bus. We were stopped twice on the way down here. I do wonder what or who they’re hoping to find. I may have been lucky to get through the first one as I emerged from my iPod with a ‘what the hell do you want?’ look on my face before realising the bloke in uniform was probably asking for my passport. They do still seem to have a lot of army here: I’ve seen bases everywhere and there’s a recruiting station in Bodrum with an armed guard and a sign saying ‘military installation, keep out’. Must make the recruitment side of things a bit tricky. Maybe they shout at people on the street.

8 hours to Antalya tomorrow, after my record on night buses, I decided to blow the day and travel in daylight. I’ll probably sleep the whole way now……

Hello Pergamum

2008-01-21T17:18:00.000Z

Day 6
I got a free Turkish vocab lesson at dinner last night. It turned out that sossi, the mystery ingredient in my Funghi pizza, was chopped up hotdog sausage. I used hand gestures to explain my retardation when it came to reading the menu and free of charge I got a replacement without sausage. I’m really struggling to imagine anywere in England when a non English speaker could wave their arms about to explain they didn’t know what their meal was going to be, then have it replaced with a customised version without being charged anything. I think tough would be the usual response.

Today’s bus is meant to be 3.5 to 4 hours and take me to Bergama, or at least take me to the bus station, from where a minibus will take me to Bergama and my pension by the Roman Bridge in the old town. It does sound rather nice. The fact that there aren’t any hostels or places with dorm beds in Bergama reinforces my expectation that it will be rather nice. Bergama used to be known as Pergamum, which may be a more familiar name. It was a wealthy and powerful kingdom for about 400 years around the time that Jesus popped out. The ruins sound impressive and much more together than Troy-they include a theatre, a Temple of Trajan and an Acropolis. It sounds like an excellent stop.

I guess the Asian and European plates are colliding to the South of Canakkale, for we’ve got up and down over some pretty steep windy windy roads. Not as full on as the ones I drove up to reach Belle Plagne earlier in the month, but enough for me to be happy to just be a passenger on this occasion.

When we dropped back down to sea level and a coastal road, I got a text message. Rather than someone loving me, it turned out to be an automatic operator message welcoming me to Greece. If you don’t how provocatively close some of the Greek Islands in the Aegean are to the coast of Turkey, then it really is worth getting a map out. I’m not sure how clear the day even needs to be to see many of them from Turkey. Rhodes is a good size, find that and see the small sliver of water you cross to reach Turkey. There are plenty closer. It helps you understand why they don’t tend to vote for each other in the Eurovision song contest.

Even in January it is a beautiful stretch of coast. From my seat on the bus I can see how clear and cobalt the water is. I suspect once you got in you’d wish you hadn’t been tempted, but a swim does look mighty good from where I’m sat. Looking at the unattractive pile of buildings on my left, this must be a popular holiday spot. I can’t help but feel that’s a shame. I never will understand the appeal of the traditional beach holiday, cooking yourself on a crowded beach and eating in phoney restaurants.

I’m quite stunned at how helpful and friendly people have been tonight

The bus doesn’t go straight to Bergama, you get dropped at a massive Otogar (bus station), from where you get a minibus to take you ythe 7 km into town. The Otogar was pretty deserted, but I got pointed to where the minibus would pick me up. Bergama was rather than I had imagined, so finding the hostel looked as if it might have been a challenge. Instead of which half the bus passed round my piece of paper with the key landmarks and address of my pension. They agreed on where I had to get off and then a lady took me to it! Genius. As it was dark and cold and a bit of a maze, I really lucked out. Again.

It’s low season, so I got a tour of the Athena pension and got to choose my room-it’ll be away from the noisy students arriving tomorrow! My host is top and is also getting me a map and some shortcuts for getting around tomorrow-a real bonus, as LP suggests a 50 Lira taxi tour to get about.

Day 7
Let’s talk about Pergamum, seeing as everything I’m going to see is from antiquity, I think it’s fair enough to ignore Bergama, much of which is so recent. The two key areas are the Acropolis, which I can see a little of from my room and is up a big hill and is supposed to 6km away and the Asclepion, which is 3km away. In the other direction. Both are also quite large sites when you get there. Time to unpack the walking boots then.

Good news for lazy bones from the pension-master, I can cut some of the distance off the Acropolis, which I decide to tackle first. I’ve been told there’s a hole in the fence and since the road wraps right round the hill this should give a shorter, if substantially steeper, way in. In the end I only need to use the short cut on the way back-after half an hour’s walk I’m on the road to the Acropolis and a car screeches to a halt next to me. The gesturing clearly means ‘get in’. In South America that would mean run for your life, here it just means the guys who run one of the stalls up top don’t want to see me wiped out before I start. They don’t even try and sell me anything when we get there.

When I arrive, only 40 mins after opening time the people from the tour bus are heading back to the exit. For the next hour or so, I have the whole place to myself. I think Acropolis means fortified hill or something very close to it. Like Troy, Pergamum has taken a steep hill to provide a sterling defensive position for the city-the walls extended to 4km and in Roman times 150,000 people lived there. Still, I think the view had some influence on the decision to site the city here.

There is some much stone on the site that being a good boy and not stepping on it simply isn’t an option, so it becomes like a childhood flashback, clambering up and down through the ruins and history at times becomes a playground. Obviously a city of this size has a number of buildings and a lot infrastructure, but it’s the big spectacular stuff that draws in the tourists and the theatre and the Temple of Trajan are the real focus. Those Romans were really were the daddy’s of big public building projects-they’d have sorted Wembley out. They didn’t mess about, they looked at what needed to be done, what would achieve it and did it. Take this example-when you build on hills you need terracing so that you have flat areas to work with and they need to be strong enough to support your construction. So when you’re building yourself a nice Temple of Trajan and you need to extend the terrace, you build something like this.

Between each pair of columns is a chamber

None of this space was used for anything, it helped support the platform above, on which the real building sat. No messing about. The Temple itself was destroyed, but some reconstruction has been done to give you an idea of what it was all about.

Rather prosaically, I found myself wondering about the economy needed to support such efforts. Huge blocks of stone and marble, not just dragged by slaves, but shaped by real craftsmen. I may have mentioned, all this was up quite a hill. Of course what goes up must come down and the 200,000 scrolls in the library were taken down (pinched) by Anthony so he could give them to Cleopatra.

My favourite was the 10,000 seater theatre, which looked out across the valley {I have just discovered an awesome remix, just waiting to be done-the Kaiser Chiefs with the call to prayer in the background}. Where was I? Oh yeah, theatre photo time.

One of the bigger crowds I’ve played.

(It was quite windy and cold up there).

It was really from the Asclepion, where you can best see just what a stunning setting it was all in.

It took me an hour and some to scramble my way down, cross the river and find the Asclepion. On the way my photography skills were demanded.

I think they’ve done that before. I say find the Asclepion as if I were finding a Starbucks in a capital city. It wasn’t all that easy. Finding a complex with a large colonnaded approach, a temple and theatre ought to be a piece of you know what. Hmmm. Well it wasn’t well signposted. Well, it wasn’t signposted. That shouldn’t mattered as I had a map. Or I did have until it fell out of my back pocket. I remembered it was right, somewhere off the main street. I knew I was on the right lines when I turned right and saw stairs climbing up and then more stairs after those and then some more. Well you wouldn’t want to build in the valley would you? Roman houses NEVER flooded.

After a vertigo inducing climb I saw a huge military base and remembered that the Asclepion had been behind something military thing. With nothing to go on, I chose to go round it to the left (military types don’t tend to like you wandering across their bases-that’s why they spend a fortune on barbed wire). Having gone up yet another hill, I saw some Roman looking stuff and the Military Police told me they loved England and I was on the right way. Wuhoo.

Then a tour bus roared past in confirmation. It must have been quite an entrance back in the day.

This time the temple was Hadrian’s

If you knew the way it was probably only an hour to the 10,000 seat theatre on the Acropolis, but the Romans were like Aussies for building venues and this one would take 3,500.

I took a seat in the audience this time.

(The tour bus had left, so I had to improvise with the base of a column and my wallet). There was less explanation here, but I thought scrambling around in the underground chambers and archways was about as good as the bits above ground. I really need to get back to reading some Latin and some Roman history. I struggled to remember who wrote the Aeneid yesterday, which is appalling given I read quite a lot of it for A level 15 years ago and nearly read Classics.

Sadly the archaeology museum is shut on Mondays, so I’ll have to go there first thing before getting my bus to Selcuk. I’d been hoping to leave early so I could see the town tomorrow before spending the day in Ephesus (more Roman, more famous) on Wednesday, so guess I’ll just have to work fast with the time I do have in Selcuk. Still, most musea and sights open at 8 or 8.30, so it’s easy to get a pretty long day in. My legs feel as if today was long enough; the Romans built some marvellous things, but they would insist on building them on bloody big hills. Still I did save on hiring a taxi for the day……sleep well tonight.