Holidays
This is very, very long, but you're under no obligation to read it all - it's mostly for my own benefit, as my memory is shocking. There are links to photos, which is nice if you haven't already seen them on Facebook.
Jordan
We initially flew into Jordan, and spent the first day acclimatising. Given the heat of the day (which, us being us, we ended up walking in) I was very entertained to discover that airport buses departed from and returned to the 7th Circle. Amman was pleasant enough, but - given the amount of development they’re currently putting into their tourism industry - if you had thought about going there, I’d hang on a few years. I definitely recommend the folk museums, though. They were excellent. The Roman theatre’s pretty impressive, too; again, though, I’d hang on until they’ve got more done to it, and the citadel (on the hill with the great view over the city) before you go. In Amman, I first encountered the Middle East’s problem with cats. For reasons I romantically like to attribute to proximity to the sphere of influence of Bast, the Middle East swarms with street cats. I didn’t have an issue with this; Teh Australian, being a dog person, wasn’t so keen. The photos of Amman are here.
Syria
The road to Damascus was the first of our encounters in this beautiful country; those of you I spoke to beforehand will recall my concern over our lack of Syrian visas, but assurances from heyokish and the Syrian embassy in London spurred me, unvisa’d, to the border. There, our driver led us from window to window to door to taxi; and as we motored off into the sunset, the realisation dawned that we’d just sailed through immigration. Our next shock was arriving at our hotel. Hostelworld had promised a basement room, with reviews suggesting it might be windowless, fanless, and possibly furniture-less. The reality was a great twin room (all our double-room bookings got converted into twin-bed accommodations in the Middle East; I never did work out if this was because we were travelling unmarried, or just standard practice), our own bathroom, an open-air mosaic’d courtyard shared with invisible others and one of the nicest Damascene hotel restaurants around the corner.
From day one, I was enchanted with Damascus. A serious contender for the title of Oldest Inhabited City, Damascus is welcoming, proud and amazingly well-preserved. I would gladly have spent weeks wandering lost through the backstreets of the Old City, exploring its souqs, mosques and coffee-shops. Unfortunately, we only had a few days, so we had to satisfy ourselves with a respectful visit to the beautiful Ummayyad Mosque, an afternoon lost in the Christian and Jewish quarters, and a wonderful hour spent listening to the stories of the last Damascene storyteller, Abu Shady. If you can’t understand how a story told in a language you don’t speak could be entertaining, you’ve never met a storyteller like this man. And, because the world is tiny, we spent that hour in the company of a guy who also studied archaeology in Melbourne, who ran out of an antique bookshop around the corner to ask how he knew Teh Australian.
Photos of Damascus are here and here.
Our next trip was to Aleppo, via the incredible Crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers. If you’ve ever pictured yourself rescuing Robin Hood from some imminent hanging, this was the castle you spurred your horse through. Never actually captured, Krak was eventually given over to the Arabs by the Knights Hospitaller in 1271 - largely because, if you’re the only stronghold left on the Syrian/Lebanese border, there isn’t much point in holding out any more, even if you do have five years’ worth of food. Photos here. Aleppo itself, fighting with debatably older sibling Damascus for the Oldest Inhabited City crown, is also gorgeous. Another Crusader-era castle, their citadel commands stunning views over the city, and Northern Syria, from the top. Further wandering through the old city itself presented gorgeous French colonial architecture, ancient madrasas (religious schools) and yet more souqs. [Handy hint, girls; if you ever want lingerie, go to an Islamic country. I have never seen underwear like I saw in Jordan and Syria. Stacks and stacks of it, from standard PJs to crotch-, nipple- and everything else-less tassels and everything in between]. One of the main highlights of Aleppo, though, was the Baron Hotel, much beloved of regular Syrian visitor T.E. Lawrence. And me - the downstairs bar (which pretty serious illness meant I have no pictures of, sadly) is the one you would head for if you’d just escaped some form of Horror on the Orient Express. Apparently recently renovated, the Baron showed no visible signs of having changed since its 1909 building or its 1920s habitation by Lawrence and his Arabian friends, and it was amazing as a result. Other photos are here.
The next day we caught up with our Al-Karameh FC fan friend in Homs (he'd put us on a bus to Aleppo the day before) for long enough to grab some photos of him and T-Boy before heading off to Palmyra. As the sun had set before we left, we drove the two-and-a-half hours through the deserted desert in darkness. I have a weakness for deserts, although my overriding love of the sea would make it difficult to live in one. Palmyra was not as welcoming as the rest of Syria had been - the guidebook warned that plummeting tourist numbers since 09/12 meant that the locals who depended on it for a livelihood had become less pleasant in their desperation for the tourist dollar, and our experience backed that up. We'd also been advised that the best way of seeing this was getting up at sunrise, so we did; exhausted, we were sitting on a hill surveying the entire site by 05:30, so we were able to watch as the sun gradually illuminated each individual building of the Roman ruins. Palmyra itself was amazing to see; we were originally unimpressed by the sun rising over it, but it did mean that we spent most of our time there sightseeing in the smaller a.m.'s, which I'd definitely recommend as it got really hot later in the morning, so I'd hate to think what it was like later on. Photos are here.
More Jordan
From there, we put our multi-entry Jordanian visas to good use as we went back to Jordan; mostly, so we could go and see Petra. As I may have already mentioned, I cried when I saw the Treasury; it really is all that, and then some. The whole site is incredible, and massive - you drive for hours and hours through the desert seeing absolutely nothing, then suddenly an outcrop of rocky hills appears from nowhere, and you know you've arrived. As well as the Treasury, and the equally impressive Monastery that we didn't get to see, there are a whole host of other Nabatean remains at Petra, so you could spend a few days there easily just seeing everything. We had a pretty disastrous morning getting there, but it was absolutely worth it all; I would've liked to spend more time there, but we badly miscalculated how much time we had, and thought we were in much more of a rush than we were.
Israel
Teh Australian was, I think, more excited by the prospect of Israel than anywhere else; understandable, really, as his Masters' thesis is based on the excavations at the City of David in Jerusalem. My interest in Israel was less academic, and more...emotional isn't the world I'm looking for, but it's close. My parents don't refer to that contentious little country as Israel; they call it the Holy Land, and believe it's a deeply symbolic place of peace, mysticism and respectful worship; some previously unnoticed adolescent corner of my brain had also thought of it that way. The significance of this may become obvious later.
We crossed the border from the rather lovely Aqaba, in southern Jordan, to...well. First things first. We got to the Aqaba/Eilat border ahead of schedule at around half four. Feeling rather chuffed with ourselves, we breezed through Jordanian customs and immigration with minimal drama and headed for the Israeli side, where we were greeted in perfectly colloquial English by a girl who could've been a cheerleader, her BFG slung casually over one shoulder like a handbag. Her colleague, a high-school jock strolling around in a t-shirt and those over-the-knee shorts the kids are so fond of wearing, also seemed unaware of the BFG over his shoulder, pointed out where we should go to. Teh Australian and I answered question after question at a counter all others were shooed away from for around half an hour and then had to sit to the side, tour buses of Americans stop-motion filling and emptying the room as we waited, for another two and a half hours while our security check was completed.
We got to Eilat at around half eight, nearly delirious from hunger, thirst and exhaustion (we'd cleverly had one or two hours' sleep, and then - on a breakfast at nine a.m. of half a packet of biscuits - spent nearly five hours climbing and walking around Petra before heading for the border, so it was our own fault) to discover that the prices of everything had effectively quadrupled over the border. My guess would be that Israel is comparable with the States, price-wise; we hadn't been prepared for that coming from the incredibly cheap rates in Syria and Jordan. I mention all this purely as a disclaimer, so that when I say that Eilat is a fairly accurate representation of my idea of Hell, you can take it with as much salt as you like. Eilat's basically a Club 18-30 destination for American Jews and Mediterranean Eurodisco afficionados. Heading to the choon-pumping malls of downtown Eilat was a massive cultural shock to the system - the Arabic friendliness of the other countries was replaced with an Israeli contempt; the hospitality and warmth we'd been shown all across our trip became suddenly, and very noticeably, absent.
Israel, it seems, is not like its Middle Eastern neighbours. Who knew?
Anyway, this is all crass generalisation, for which I apologise. We left Eilat on - quite literally - the first bus to Jerusalem, driving through the stark beauty of the southern Negev region, which was lovely. Jerusalem itself was a predominantly positive experience - as well as the sights of the old city, it has some other great areas (we had a very enjoyable night drinking Hoegarten in a rawk! bar near their trendy yuppie bit) and it's a good base for day-tripping. Photos are here and here. On one of the days, we did a half-day tour of the Mount of Olives, which was (naturally) quite biblically-focussed. It's a lovely hill to walk down, with stunning views of Jerusalem across the valley.
One afternoon, we decided to take a trip to Bethlehem. I'm not sure what to say about that. I think I'll start by pointing out I was unaware of the political situation in Bethlehem. Effectively a satellite of Jerusalem, I've been told that the West-Bank town produced a greater-than-average number of suicide bombers, forcing the Jewish Israelis to build a big bloody wall around it. Today, you enter Bethlehem through a military border checkpoint where humourless Jews process stern-looking Arabs and largely ignore rubbernecking Westerners. I didn't know this beforehand. Teh Australian did. I offer this purely to help you understand why his reaction to arriving in the unrepresentatively-named Manger Square was to want to leave; mine was to want to cry. I'll be the first to admit I can be naive, but I really don't think either of us were prepared for how oppressive, dangerous and just plain *nasty* Bethlehem felt. After some token hanging around and picture-taking inside the Greek Orthodox Church of the Nativity we headed out into the square, where I cried unconsolably for a few minutes while Teh Australian suggested we leave. We did, after a total of about half an hour there, and both breathed a large sigh of relief on the bus back to Jerusalem. I felt that both bibles - the tradional, and our Lonely Planet - had a distorted view of the town. The King James I was willing to forgive, as it had been 2000-odd years; the LP's boxed-text visit recommendation, suggesting that Bethlehem was a welcoming and charming place, I was more aggrieved about.
On the morning (at roughly 09:30) we went to the Dead Sea, the lifeguard's hut digital thermometer read 47 degrees. You couldn't walk from the water to where our stuff was without shoes, as the rocks were too hot and burnt your feet. The Dead Sea - another place I've always wanted to go - was amazing. If you go, try not to get salt in your eye, though; it burns like no acid on earth.
The day before I left, while Teh Australian was doing Important Thesis Research in the museums of Jerusalem, I went off on my own mini-adventure northwards, into Galilee. The guidebook warned that, compared to the "lovely" Bethlehem, Nazareth was nowhere near as nice, so I was prepared for the absolute worst. When I arrived late in the evening, I found the Basilica of the Annunciation unexpectedly open. Personal prayer was underway, and maybe forty people sat in complete silence on the ground floor of the church, too absorbed in their private devotion to notice me. I respectfully stood at the back for a few minutes, looking around, watching them, and just...hanging, I guess, before wandering - calmer and more tranquil than I'd entered - around the grounds, admiring the mosaics. I then headed to my gorgeous hostel (a 200-year-old converted Arab mansion), wandered down to the old part of the city for possibly the best felafel I had in the Levant and returned to the hostel for a great night's sleep. I'm not sure if all visits to Nazareth would be so restful, as I may've just been lucky, but I had a lovely time there.
On the way to Galilee, I stopped off briefly in Haifa & Acre; Haifa only long enough to decide the Baha'i gardens looked too long away up a steep hill, but I spent an afternoon wandering around UNESCO World Heritage-site Old Acre (mostly, so that I could then have paddled in the Med, Dead & Red - an obligatory Israeli experience). Similar sites in Syria (e.g. Krak) were considerably better preserved (Old Acre was quite dirty and covered in grafitti), but it was the first coastal "old town" I'd been to on the trip, and so it held a special attraction for me (I love me some sea, I do). And when you looked across the Mediterranean bay, you could see Haifa.
And that, I think, was pretty much that. I'd go back to Syria in the morning - there are quite a few places I regretted not getting to, and I would've liked to see Lebanon, too. Jordan I could also spend some more time in. There have been suggestions on Facebook from his dad that Teh Australian could get a job in Israel when he finishes his MA; if he does, he'll be going alone.
Jordan
We initially flew into Jordan, and spent the first day acclimatising. Given the heat of the day (which, us being us, we ended up walking in) I was very entertained to discover that airport buses departed from and returned to the 7th Circle. Amman was pleasant enough, but - given the amount of development they’re currently putting into their tourism industry - if you had thought about going there, I’d hang on a few years. I definitely recommend the folk museums, though. They were excellent. The Roman theatre’s pretty impressive, too; again, though, I’d hang on until they’ve got more done to it, and the citadel (on the hill with the great view over the city) before you go. In Amman, I first encountered the Middle East’s problem with cats. For reasons I romantically like to attribute to proximity to the sphere of influence of Bast, the Middle East swarms with street cats. I didn’t have an issue with this; Teh Australian, being a dog person, wasn’t so keen. The photos of Amman are here.
Syria
The road to Damascus was the first of our encounters in this beautiful country; those of you I spoke to beforehand will recall my concern over our lack of Syrian visas, but assurances from heyokish and the Syrian embassy in London spurred me, unvisa’d, to the border. There, our driver led us from window to window to door to taxi; and as we motored off into the sunset, the realisation dawned that we’d just sailed through immigration. Our next shock was arriving at our hotel. Hostelworld had promised a basement room, with reviews suggesting it might be windowless, fanless, and possibly furniture-less. The reality was a great twin room (all our double-room bookings got converted into twin-bed accommodations in the Middle East; I never did work out if this was because we were travelling unmarried, or just standard practice), our own bathroom, an open-air mosaic’d courtyard shared with invisible others and one of the nicest Damascene hotel restaurants around the corner.
From day one, I was enchanted with Damascus. A serious contender for the title of Oldest Inhabited City, Damascus is welcoming, proud and amazingly well-preserved. I would gladly have spent weeks wandering lost through the backstreets of the Old City, exploring its souqs, mosques and coffee-shops. Unfortunately, we only had a few days, so we had to satisfy ourselves with a respectful visit to the beautiful Ummayyad Mosque, an afternoon lost in the Christian and Jewish quarters, and a wonderful hour spent listening to the stories of the last Damascene storyteller, Abu Shady. If you can’t understand how a story told in a language you don’t speak could be entertaining, you’ve never met a storyteller like this man. And, because the world is tiny, we spent that hour in the company of a guy who also studied archaeology in Melbourne, who ran out of an antique bookshop around the corner to ask how he knew Teh Australian.
Photos of Damascus are here and here.
Our next trip was to Aleppo, via the incredible Crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers. If you’ve ever pictured yourself rescuing Robin Hood from some imminent hanging, this was the castle you spurred your horse through. Never actually captured, Krak was eventually given over to the Arabs by the Knights Hospitaller in 1271 - largely because, if you’re the only stronghold left on the Syrian/Lebanese border, there isn’t much point in holding out any more, even if you do have five years’ worth of food. Photos here. Aleppo itself, fighting with debatably older sibling Damascus for the Oldest Inhabited City crown, is also gorgeous. Another Crusader-era castle, their citadel commands stunning views over the city, and Northern Syria, from the top. Further wandering through the old city itself presented gorgeous French colonial architecture, ancient madrasas (religious schools) and yet more souqs. [Handy hint, girls; if you ever want lingerie, go to an Islamic country. I have never seen underwear like I saw in Jordan and Syria. Stacks and stacks of it, from standard PJs to crotch-, nipple- and everything else-less tassels and everything in between]. One of the main highlights of Aleppo, though, was the Baron Hotel, much beloved of regular Syrian visitor T.E. Lawrence. And me - the downstairs bar (which pretty serious illness meant I have no pictures of, sadly) is the one you would head for if you’d just escaped some form of Horror on the Orient Express. Apparently recently renovated, the Baron showed no visible signs of having changed since its 1909 building or its 1920s habitation by Lawrence and his Arabian friends, and it was amazing as a result. Other photos are here.
The next day we caught up with our Al-Karameh FC fan friend in Homs (he'd put us on a bus to Aleppo the day before) for long enough to grab some photos of him and T-Boy before heading off to Palmyra. As the sun had set before we left, we drove the two-and-a-half hours through the deserted desert in darkness. I have a weakness for deserts, although my overriding love of the sea would make it difficult to live in one. Palmyra was not as welcoming as the rest of Syria had been - the guidebook warned that plummeting tourist numbers since 09/12 meant that the locals who depended on it for a livelihood had become less pleasant in their desperation for the tourist dollar, and our experience backed that up. We'd also been advised that the best way of seeing this was getting up at sunrise, so we did; exhausted, we were sitting on a hill surveying the entire site by 05:30, so we were able to watch as the sun gradually illuminated each individual building of the Roman ruins. Palmyra itself was amazing to see; we were originally unimpressed by the sun rising over it, but it did mean that we spent most of our time there sightseeing in the smaller a.m.'s, which I'd definitely recommend as it got really hot later in the morning, so I'd hate to think what it was like later on. Photos are here.
More Jordan
From there, we put our multi-entry Jordanian visas to good use as we went back to Jordan; mostly, so we could go and see Petra. As I may have already mentioned, I cried when I saw the Treasury; it really is all that, and then some. The whole site is incredible, and massive - you drive for hours and hours through the desert seeing absolutely nothing, then suddenly an outcrop of rocky hills appears from nowhere, and you know you've arrived. As well as the Treasury, and the equally impressive Monastery that we didn't get to see, there are a whole host of other Nabatean remains at Petra, so you could spend a few days there easily just seeing everything. We had a pretty disastrous morning getting there, but it was absolutely worth it all; I would've liked to spend more time there, but we badly miscalculated how much time we had, and thought we were in much more of a rush than we were.
Israel
Teh Australian was, I think, more excited by the prospect of Israel than anywhere else; understandable, really, as his Masters' thesis is based on the excavations at the City of David in Jerusalem. My interest in Israel was less academic, and more...emotional isn't the world I'm looking for, but it's close. My parents don't refer to that contentious little country as Israel; they call it the Holy Land, and believe it's a deeply symbolic place of peace, mysticism and respectful worship; some previously unnoticed adolescent corner of my brain had also thought of it that way. The significance of this may become obvious later.
We crossed the border from the rather lovely Aqaba, in southern Jordan, to...well. First things first. We got to the Aqaba/Eilat border ahead of schedule at around half four. Feeling rather chuffed with ourselves, we breezed through Jordanian customs and immigration with minimal drama and headed for the Israeli side, where we were greeted in perfectly colloquial English by a girl who could've been a cheerleader, her BFG slung casually over one shoulder like a handbag. Her colleague, a high-school jock strolling around in a t-shirt and those over-the-knee shorts the kids are so fond of wearing, also seemed unaware of the BFG over his shoulder, pointed out where we should go to. Teh Australian and I answered question after question at a counter all others were shooed away from for around half an hour and then had to sit to the side, tour buses of Americans stop-motion filling and emptying the room as we waited, for another two and a half hours while our security check was completed.
We got to Eilat at around half eight, nearly delirious from hunger, thirst and exhaustion (we'd cleverly had one or two hours' sleep, and then - on a breakfast at nine a.m. of half a packet of biscuits - spent nearly five hours climbing and walking around Petra before heading for the border, so it was our own fault) to discover that the prices of everything had effectively quadrupled over the border. My guess would be that Israel is comparable with the States, price-wise; we hadn't been prepared for that coming from the incredibly cheap rates in Syria and Jordan. I mention all this purely as a disclaimer, so that when I say that Eilat is a fairly accurate representation of my idea of Hell, you can take it with as much salt as you like. Eilat's basically a Club 18-30 destination for American Jews and Mediterranean Eurodisco afficionados. Heading to the choon-pumping malls of downtown Eilat was a massive cultural shock to the system - the Arabic friendliness of the other countries was replaced with an Israeli contempt; the hospitality and warmth we'd been shown all across our trip became suddenly, and very noticeably, absent.
Israel, it seems, is not like its Middle Eastern neighbours. Who knew?
Anyway, this is all crass generalisation, for which I apologise. We left Eilat on - quite literally - the first bus to Jerusalem, driving through the stark beauty of the southern Negev region, which was lovely. Jerusalem itself was a predominantly positive experience - as well as the sights of the old city, it has some other great areas (we had a very enjoyable night drinking Hoegarten in a rawk! bar near their trendy yuppie bit) and it's a good base for day-tripping. Photos are here and here. On one of the days, we did a half-day tour of the Mount of Olives, which was (naturally) quite biblically-focussed. It's a lovely hill to walk down, with stunning views of Jerusalem across the valley.
One afternoon, we decided to take a trip to Bethlehem. I'm not sure what to say about that. I think I'll start by pointing out I was unaware of the political situation in Bethlehem. Effectively a satellite of Jerusalem, I've been told that the West-Bank town produced a greater-than-average number of suicide bombers, forcing the Jewish Israelis to build a big bloody wall around it. Today, you enter Bethlehem through a military border checkpoint where humourless Jews process stern-looking Arabs and largely ignore rubbernecking Westerners. I didn't know this beforehand. Teh Australian did. I offer this purely to help you understand why his reaction to arriving in the unrepresentatively-named Manger Square was to want to leave; mine was to want to cry. I'll be the first to admit I can be naive, but I really don't think either of us were prepared for how oppressive, dangerous and just plain *nasty* Bethlehem felt. After some token hanging around and picture-taking inside the Greek Orthodox Church of the Nativity we headed out into the square, where I cried unconsolably for a few minutes while Teh Australian suggested we leave. We did, after a total of about half an hour there, and both breathed a large sigh of relief on the bus back to Jerusalem. I felt that both bibles - the tradional, and our Lonely Planet - had a distorted view of the town. The King James I was willing to forgive, as it had been 2000-odd years; the LP's boxed-text visit recommendation, suggesting that Bethlehem was a welcoming and charming place, I was more aggrieved about.
On the morning (at roughly 09:30) we went to the Dead Sea, the lifeguard's hut digital thermometer read 47 degrees. You couldn't walk from the water to where our stuff was without shoes, as the rocks were too hot and burnt your feet. The Dead Sea - another place I've always wanted to go - was amazing. If you go, try not to get salt in your eye, though; it burns like no acid on earth.
The day before I left, while Teh Australian was doing Important Thesis Research in the museums of Jerusalem, I went off on my own mini-adventure northwards, into Galilee. The guidebook warned that, compared to the "lovely" Bethlehem, Nazareth was nowhere near as nice, so I was prepared for the absolute worst. When I arrived late in the evening, I found the Basilica of the Annunciation unexpectedly open. Personal prayer was underway, and maybe forty people sat in complete silence on the ground floor of the church, too absorbed in their private devotion to notice me. I respectfully stood at the back for a few minutes, looking around, watching them, and just...hanging, I guess, before wandering - calmer and more tranquil than I'd entered - around the grounds, admiring the mosaics. I then headed to my gorgeous hostel (a 200-year-old converted Arab mansion), wandered down to the old part of the city for possibly the best felafel I had in the Levant and returned to the hostel for a great night's sleep. I'm not sure if all visits to Nazareth would be so restful, as I may've just been lucky, but I had a lovely time there.
On the way to Galilee, I stopped off briefly in Haifa & Acre; Haifa only long enough to decide the Baha'i gardens looked too long away up a steep hill, but I spent an afternoon wandering around UNESCO World Heritage-site Old Acre (mostly, so that I could then have paddled in the Med, Dead & Red - an obligatory Israeli experience). Similar sites in Syria (e.g. Krak) were considerably better preserved (Old Acre was quite dirty and covered in grafitti), but it was the first coastal "old town" I'd been to on the trip, and so it held a special attraction for me (I love me some sea, I do). And when you looked across the Mediterranean bay, you could see Haifa.
And that, I think, was pretty much that. I'd go back to Syria in the morning - there are quite a few places I regretted not getting to, and I would've liked to see Lebanon, too. Jordan I could also spend some more time in. There have been suggestions on Facebook from his dad that Teh Australian could get a job in Israel when he finishes his MA; if he does, he'll be going alone.