Surprise! It's Israel

After a nice couple days at the beach, we left Dahab to take the boat back across the Red Sea to Aqaba to catch our flight to Dubai. We thought the boat left at 3pm, so we got to the ferry terminal at 2:00. But, after several confusing arguments in Arabic/broken English, it turned out the boat was either sold out or had left or wasn't running. What was clear though, was that we had a flight out of Jordan at 9am the next morning and we weren't getting on a boat to get there.

One of the quirks of travel in the Middle East is that since many countries do not recognize Israel, they do not allow Israeli citizens to enter their country. While this is not surprising, what was surprising to me was that they also do not allow foreigners who have visited Israel (and who have an Israeli stamp in their passport) to enter their country. The UAE is one such country.

The natural solution to getting to Jordan was to go by road, through Israel. The problem was, we needed to get into the UAE the next day.

We had read on the Internet and heard informally that most of the time that, as an American, if you explain to the Israeli customs agents that you would prefer that they do not stamp your passport so you can travel more in the Middle East they will stamp a piece of paper instead. Though our guidebook described rogue customs agents who will "accidentally" stamp passports anyway. If this happened to us, we would be stuck and not able to join the first half of our study trip. Still, we saw no alternative, so we headed for Israel.

We took a cab, a little nervously, for about an hour from the ferry terminal to the Israel border. There, we went through the Egyptian exit procedures, and walked across the no-man's land into Israel. There, we went through some pretty intense security screening and made it up to the customs agent. There, I asked her not to stamp our passport. It was a little trickier than I expected - she asked a number of questions about why we didn't want our passport stamped, where we were going in Israel (we had no idea, so we said the Holiday Inn at the first town, Eilat, across the border). Then she called her supervisor. By this point, we were getting pretty nervous, but in the end, they stamped a piece of paper and let us through.

Since we successfully made it into Israel and had already spent some time in Aqaba, we decided to spend the night there. We actually did go to the Holiday Inn in downtown, which had some open rooms. We walked all around downtown Eilat - it was really nice, much wealthier than the similar towns on the Jordanian and Egyptian side of the gulf. We went into a big nice mall (with extensive security screening) where I bought some clean socks, some outdoor shopping areas with some decorated cows and pigs, to a great Israeli diner - to fill a somewhat humorous stereotype, we saw no less than 4 old Jewish women send their dinners back for being undercooked - and then to a nice Irish Pub to watch some soccer. Pretty sharp contrast from the rest of the Middle East, but pretty fun.


The next morning we got up early, took a cab to the Israeli/Jordanian border, avoided an exit stamp, walked through an even bigger No-Man's Land, then took a cab to the Aqaba airport for our flight to Dubai. A fun, though definitely unexpected side trip.

Dahab

Dahab was a really cool little beach town on the Red Sea. While it was a little touristy, it was mostly European and backpacker touristy. There were not a lot of Americans there at all (which is not surprising, given that Americans rarely venture out of North America and sometimes Europe).

But anyway, Dahab has a nice promenade along the Red Sea waterfront with tons of restaurants built right into the sand. The floors of the restaurants are basically blankets and pillows and you can just crawl into a spot at a low table for a drink, a shisha (the Arab hookah, quite popular among locals since many Muslims do not drink alcohol), or great seafood.

There is also fantastic snorkeling with a beautiful coral reef that you can just walk into right off the coast.

We spent a pleasant and relaxing two days hanging out along the water, snorkeling, and recuperating after a pretty intense two weeks of travel. Jason and Rob left to go home and Owen and I met up with two other friends, Alex and Huiting who were also in Dahab scuba diving. A pretty fun few days.

Restaurant, Dahab

Red Sea sunset

Sinai Peninsula - Mt. Sinai

After a day in Aqaba in southern Jordan we decided to venture across the Red Sea onto the Sinai Peninsula. Given the politics and geography of the area, which will come into play later, we took a ferry to get there. It is remarkable how physically close together so many different countries are in the Middle East. Sitting at the beach in front of our hostel in Aqaba, Jordan (Al Aqabah in the top right corner of the map below), we could easily see across the water to Egypt, up the road to the right to the buildings and hotels of the city of Eilat in Israel, and down the road to the left at the mosques at the Saudi Arabian border.

The ferry was an experience in itself. It was scheduled to leave at noon, so we arrived at the terminal to buy our tickets at 10:30. After two treks up and down two flights of stairs with our luggage (up to buy tickets, down to pay the departure tax, up to get our passports stamped, down to get on the rickety old bus to go the 100 yards to the boat), we finally made it on to the boat an hour later. Then, since our journey was a few days after the Hajj concluded, our boat was packed with a ton of people who were returning from their pilgrimage to Mecca. As a result, it was extremely crowded and more than a little aromatic. After the hour long boat ride, and a 2 hour disembarkment process we finally made it to Egypt.

Egypt was definitely cheaper than Jordan and tremendously cheaper than the Gulf. Our first move was to hire a driver to take us to lunch and then an hour up the coast to the beach town we were staying. Total cost - $20. As we were starving, our first destination was Dr. Kebab, where we had some pretty good chicken shwarma and lamb kebabs. We then continued on to Dahab, a pretty cool beach town right along the Red Sea.

The main reason for the trip to the Sinai Peninsula was Mt. Sinai. Mt. Sinai is about 2.5 hours inland from Dahab, in the south central Sinai Peninsula. Reputedly where God delivered the 10 Commandments to Moses and appeared as the Burning Bush, Mt. Sinai attracts hundreds of pilgrims a day. While it is a fairly difficult trek to the top, we decided it would be a memorable way to spend Christmas Day, so we decided to hike to the summit for Christmas sunrise.

After arriving in Dahab on Christmas Eve, our first order of business was to hire a driver to take us to Mt. Sinai. Without too much effort, we found a cab driver who would pick us up at 2am, drive us to the mountain, wait for us to summit the mountain, and then take us back to Dahab afterwards for about US$25 each.

I have a few distinct impressions of Mt. Sinai. The first is COLD! The wind-chill was in the high teens during our trek from 4:00am to 6:30am where we reached the top to coincide with sunrise.

Second, it was isolated. We drove through hours worth of isolated desert to get to Mt. Sinai that were broken basically only by security checkpoints every 15 minutes or so. I cannot even imagine what how alone and isolated fleeing Jews, pilgrims, and other historical migrants in the Sinai must have felt in the frigid hostile environment without access to a heated 4x4 vehicle.

My third impression of Mt. Sinai is that it was beautiful. The actual hike up the mountain took a little over 2 hours. We walked with two headlamps but were able to see quite well thanks to the largely full moon. We were largely alone during most of the hike, with only the occasional Bedouin offering early morning Mint Tea or a camel to ride to the top to break the stillness.

We did stop once for a tea break and talked to some really nice Bedouin guys. They were very curious about our mobile phones and spent a long time playing with Owen’s blackberry. They desperately wanted to trade something for the blackberry and we negotiated to the point where they were going to trade one of their camels for the phone but in the end, Owen decided to pass.

While the hike to the top was both pretty and memorable, the view at sunrise was spectacular. We rented a blanket near the top from a little shop for the expensive (but well worth it) price of US$10 and watched for the sunrise. By around 7:30 a few hundred other pilgrims had joined us at the summit to watch the Christmas sunrise. While we were not given any new commandments, it was still an incredible experience.

Wadi Rum and other Jordan photos

After Petra we spent a day in the Wadi Rum desert. Wadi Rum is where Lawrence of Arabia fought in WWI and also where the movie of the same name was filmed.

We took a pretty exciting 4x4 ride out into the desert and rode up and down the sand dunes. We stopped on top of a dune and had some tea and watched the sunset, then proceeded to our Bedouin camp to spend the night.

We had a great night in the camp, eating some good food, playing cards, and hanging out around the fire with our Egyptian and Bedouin hosts (and the half dozen other tourists who were foolish enough to brave the desert in winter with us) who were really nice. We also walked around outside the camp (partially because moving kept us warm) and had the really humbling experience of being quite alone in the middle of the desert.

Finally, the fire died down and I headed to sleep under 5 blankets and wearing every piece of clothing I brought to the middle east. It was probably the coldest night I have ever experienced in my life, but it was still a really amazing night in the desert.

4x4 ride through the desert

Camels roaming in the desert canyons

Sunset at Wadi Rum

And some other Jordan highlights:

We had hummus for almost every meal - here, the hummus, at Hashem restaurant in Amman may have been the best of all

View of the Sea of Galilee, Israel, Syria, and Lebanon from Umm Qais Jordan

Roman amphitheater, Jerash

Two thousand year old Roman columns, Jerash

More Roman ruins, Jerash

View from hill in central Amman, largest flagpole in the world

Petra

One of the highlights of Jordan definitely - and probably of my whole trip to the Middle East - was our visit to Petra.

Petra is an ancient Nabatean city in southern Jordan famously described as "a rose-red city half as old as time". It is deservedly one of the (new) 7 Wonders of the World. While many may not know the name Petra (I did not until recently), it was prominently featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and other movies so often people at least recognize its likeness.

Petra's origin is still somewhat unclear, though evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other sources suggest it was founded around 300 B.C. and was at its height from around AD50 to 300. While the Nabateans were a distinct culture, Petra served as a trading crossroads at a key juncture for traders coming across the Sinai from Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, and to the prominent Greek and Roman lands to the north. As a result, Petra became extremely wealthy, which can be seen today in the intricate carvings of amazing magnitude. The architectural influence of each of these cultures (Greek and Roman columns, Egpytian pyramidal designs, etc) are also visible.

The primary attractions today are the amazingly preserved ruins of buildings which due to the high quality construction and arid desert conditions are still almost perfectly preserved. The city is literally carved into canyon walls, and runs for several miles through the desert. There are hundreds of tombs, statues, buildings, an amphitheater, temples, and more carved out of the wall.

Like Machu Picchu (probably the only place in the world I have been that is comparable to Petra), the interplay of the beautiful natural setting and the ancient cityscape is absolutely incredible.

The major ruins of Petra are approached through a long narrow canyon known as the Siq. This 900km hike is pretty spectacular in itself.

We did the Siq hike once at night (while the candlelit walk was pretty spectacular, the freezing rain took a little away from the atmosphere) and again during the morning. As Petra is in a flood plain, the Nabateans built a system of dams to prevent flash floods from filling the canyon and also carved piping / drainage systems into the canyon walls to fill the village. At the end of the Siq stands the Treasury, the most famous and best preserved landmark.

Full view of the Treasury - massive and beautiful

Tombs and temples lined the incredibly colorful pink canyon walls


More intricately carved massive ruins


An overview shot of one tiny portion of Petra to show the massive area it covers


The gang in some cave/tombs

We also hiked up to the "Monastery", an area overlooking the ruins on one side and the canyons on the other. A pretty long hike, but the view was spectacular.


Finally, a much needed rest with the Jordanian flag in the background

Some photos from Oman

A random collection of photo highlights from Oman (click any to enlarge):

Mountain Goat at the Grand Canyon of Oman

Owen and I in the desert after climbing dunes by a Bedouin village

Camel crossing

Fort on island on way out to Survivor Island snorkeling

Sunrise on the beach

Sur, beach town with beautiful promenade and packed games of beach soccer

Inside a souk (market) in Muscat

The group in front of the Presidential Palace (home of Sultan Qaboos)

Fort protecting the Sultan's palace

It should be clear what this is

Wild Wadi waterpark (Dubai)

Shanghai update - new photos

Check out some of the recent photos Jian Shuo posted of the Jinmao Tower in Pudong. Really cool views of some of the crazy development that is continuing in Shanghai.

Dead Sea

We spent a day at the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth at 1,000 feet below sea level and the saltiest body of water on the planet.

Floating in the Dead Sea was a really bizarre experience that is hard to describe. The water is around 6 times more dense than normal salt water, and as a result it is impossible to sink. As you can see in the pictures below, it's possible to float without any effort - as Jason and I both have both our arms and legs out of the water. It's also possible to sit Indian style in the water and to just float. Very strange but cool feeling. The water is also so salty that if you have any open cuts or wounds, or if you have recently shaved, the salt will cause painful burning.

We visited the Dead Sea on the Jordan side. The opposite side of the Dead Sea is Israel (under the sunset below). There are many more resorts on the Israeli side, but the view from the less crowded Jordan side was quite nice.

We also did some sightseeing in the Dead Sea area. We headed to the top of Mt. Nebo, where Moses died after looking out over the Promised Land.

The view was cool and you could see a number of ancient towns including Jericho, Bethlehem and Ramallah.The terrain on the Jordanian side was quite isolated and was primarily desert canyon.
Finally, we played around an ancient castle, Kerak, that overlooked a crossroads on ancient trading routes for the past two thousand years.

Very cool castle, but tough to capture its size and antiquity.