Mumbai

Sasha:

Today is a bit of a crunchy day. And by crunchy, I mean that we are feeling cracked-out and tired, weary of the traffic and the constant noise around us. Weary of the people, and of the guardedness that comes with being a tourist. And so I sip my latte with my headphones on, and take comfort in the company of my own thoughts. It isn't a bad way to take a vacation from our vacation.

I'm writing in a cafe in Mumbai. As in a proper cafe that serves 10 different varieties of coffee beans, and offers thick foamy lattes with hearts drawn in esspresso circles. For some reason, in this part of the trip, I am craving coffee. Or maybe I am just craving a little bit of something western. As it turns out, the 25 other people in the cafe (all Indian) are appreciating it too.

Mumbai is a modern city, filled with nightclubs, high rise buildings, train stations that have more to do with European Cathedrals than with any Asian tradition. The soundtrack to the city is a constant symphony of cars, scooters, and buses buzzing around and honking at one another. In a city of 16 million, that is a lot of motor vehicles. The young men walk down the street with their arms around one another, and holding hands, while couples walk a more modest distance from one another. In peak hours, the commuter trains in and out of Bombay will squeeze 16 people per square meter in their cars, creating a “super dense crush.” While we stand on the sidewalk, looking at our guidebook map, strangers will appear over our shoulders eager to help. This has mixed results since only the more educated speak English, and our ability to communicate in either Marathi (the language of Mumbai) or Hindi (the official language of India) is minimal. Personal space and privacy aren't a high priority in Indian culture. A family of four can make a motor scooter look downright roomy. There is less space allotted to each person here, both because the people are typically smaller, thinner, and shorter than the average American, and because they don't need the buffer zone that we do. “The Indian people have a strong need for touch,” we were told by our couchsurfing host, Ashish. I can't say that they eager look forward to being canned sardines on a train car, but they relax into physical contact in a way that we don't. We took a bus from Panjim to Palolem Beach, and they bus seats were a challenge for Ra and I to fit into. For a little while, an Indian man sat next to me, and I strove to keep and elbows width of room between him and I.

One of the things that I enjoy about Mumbai is that it so much more than a tourist destination. It is a world class city, buzzing with people in their everyday lives- dealing with design, finance, government, and transportation. We ventured into the tourist districts, and our blinders come up, guarding us from the vendors and scams. In Palolem, it was inescapable (which is why we escaped to Agonda Beach). In Mumbai, all we have to do is cross the street and I can look up, make eye-contact and smile with out being accosted with dolphin rides, bangles or tshirts.. I've read about how men here would interpret the smallest encouragement as a come-on, so I reserve my smiles for women. Having spent so much time in the past month and a half being on the defensive against the press of shop keepers and taxi drivers, I take so much pleasure in making a momentary connection, and opening up for 4 seconds at a time. Almost all of the women return my smile. In fact, it sometimes goes farther than that. With a little encouragement, they approach us and ask to take a photo with us. Usually we say yes, although this can get out of hand by the time the 5^th or 6^th person in a row asks. We've decided to take these requests as a compliment. Part of me wonders how different the two experiences are- in one we walk through India as a set of dollar signs, and in the other we are a novelty- a pair of white faces. In both cases, we are objectified. However, I'd much rather offer a smile, than the rupees in my wallet. I'd rather trade a hand shake for a handshake, than haggle over the price of a cheap trinket. The question we ask ourselves is how do we interact as individuals here, and not as anonymous objects.

We have found that it is easier to make a connection with other tourists than it is with locals. Part of the reason we liked Agonda Beach in Goa so much is because of the other travelers we met. It was so much easier to meet people when we aren't being hassled every moment. The defensive blinders come off, and suddenly we are being invited to pull up a chair at our regular cafe (we had two of them in Agonda, Arabian Nights and Lily Moon.) Before we knew it, we started seeing the same people every day. Annie and Cambell from Scottland (by way of Lisbon) and John from Manchester (by way of Sri Lanka) Brandon from San Diego, Carol, Moon, and Lily who ran our favorite restaurant, and Bobby from Albuquerque (who surprised us by being 21 years old, on his third trip to India, who had a wisdom and curiosity beyond his years). In 6 days we had built up a nice little community that we were sad to leave. 5-6 days seems like the minimum time it takes to get a regular routine, and to create a circle of expat friends. On our last evening, Cambell (who is a professional musician) got out his guitar and we had a sing-along at the Lily Moon cafe that lasted 6 hours.

Couchsurfing.com may also be a saving grace for us in our travels. Sure, it is great to save some money on hotels, but it offers a way to meet local people in a meaningful way. Ashish hosted us in Mumbai for 3 nights. He is 31, and has a masters in Finance, and clearly loves his wife. The irony is that his wife was out of town while we were there, but it was really sweet to hear the way he talked about her, and about their life together here. They bough an apartment in the suburbs 6 months ago, and it was the nicest place we've stayed in India. It had double paned class, AC, and a hot water heater that worked within 5 minutes of being turned on. We met him at 10pm the first night we got into the city. He met us, drove us to dinner, and got the tab (despite our best efforts to pay instead). Turns out buying an apartment in Mumbai is almost as expensive as buying real estate in the Bay Area. However, people in Mumbai make $.19 for every dollar that they would make in the states. (These are the things you learn when you stay with someone in the finance industry.) Ashish was smart, open, and an all around great host. Our only regrets was that our schedules didn't permit us to hang out with him as much as we would have liked, and that we didn't get to meet his wife. The beauty of it all, is that as a guest and host, the usually boundaries fall away, and we get to make an actual human connection.

Hampi

At 4:30am, our alarm went off.  Quick shower before the Anjuna Villa staff fixed me a bowl of yogurt with a banana and honey, and a masala chai.  Brush teeth, grab 25lb, 45 ltr backpack, and head out to the "van."  Sqeeze in to th eback seat with Tom and Penguin, with Ra up front, and drive 80 minutes to the train station in Margao.

The train station has its own aromas, most of which are blocked out by my stuffy nose.  Many of those smells derive from the fact that the bathrooms on the trains empty out directly onto the train tracks.  All around us are the calls of the chai wallas, and the samosa wallas- "chai chai chai. . ."

"samoSA samosa SAMosa samoSA. . ."

Like a vendor yelling out "Peanuts!  Get your fresh roasted peanuts!"  at a baseball game, the canteens, baskets and accompanying calls are just part of the adventure.

We are seated in sleeper class, which means no AC, but three fans are mounted on the ceiling, and the hardbenches are long enough for a person of moderate heighth to lay down on.  We are seated with Ken and Imame- from Japan, and the two guys from Bath, England who come to India every winter to escape the coldest days in Britania. 

Chai chai ch-ch-chai! comes in little plastic cups, at 5 ruppees a cup.  (We could buy 9 cups of chai for $1.)  The tea is spicy- a mix of black tea steeped in warm milk with spices and a bit of sugar- and it goes down easy at 7:30am.  We are more dubious of the veg bryani and dahl, but we order it anyway.  I'm pretty sure that the black lump was a black bean. . .

The smells range from the burning trash, to the dampness of the fog over rice paddies, to the pungent odor or urine in the train station.  Ra lights incense in our train car to create a little bit of atmosphere.

Once in Hospet, we take a tuktuck ride of doom through that town to Hampi.  Our 3 wheeled car is separated from the passing busses, bicycles, cars and cows by no more than a few inches, a metal frame, and a leather roof.  The sides of the tuktuk are open. 

We get to the hotel, and somehow the numbers have been transposed, and although we have made A hotel reservation, we intended to make it for a different hotel.  Oh, well.  We will take our one AC room for Penguin, and the two others for Tom and ourselves. 

We wake up this morning to see monkeys running around the banana trees on our patio.  A girl comes downstairs to feed one of the many wandering cows the remnants of her breakfast.

I go up the street and get two newpaper parcels filled with 10 little spicey rice pancakes with coconut chutney for breakfast. Om nom nom nom.

Our tuk tuk driver's name is Vikram, and his birthday is the next day.  He takes us around from temple to temple to temple. . . So many of them, it gets almost overwhelming. 

There are groups filled with school kids from neighboring villages.  As they pass us they stare, they wave, and at first they say "Hi," very shyly.  Slowly, they get more bold until we find ourselves surrounded by 25 Indian school kids while one of their friends takes a picture of us.  This is amplified until someone else also puts a baby in my lap, with 25 indian kids surrounding us, and takes a picture of the whole group.  All day the kids are eager to talk to us, and to shake our hands.  Though it seems they are most excited to talk to me.  Ra is afraid that I will begin to feel too much like a celebrity here in India, and it might go to my head. 

Ra and I eat lunch at an Indian place, and NOT a tourist resaurant.  We each get a vegetarian Thali, and it is really spicey and good.  Penguin is skeptical, and decides not to eat anything.  So far, my stomach has been fine here!

Hampi is beautiful- a much less populated place than where we were in Goa.  The palm trees and rocks look like they are out of a prehistoric dinasaur movie, the boulders are so HUGE and the palm and banana trees so big.  There are temples and ruins for days, and who knows how much more is burried underground. . .

Sadly, we have to leave already tomorrow to make the Zakir Hussein concert in Panjim, and so Penguin and Tom can catch their plane back home on Saturday.  I would have gladly stayed here a few more days.  Oh, and if you want to come to hampi, I have the name of a really great tuktuk driver. . .

Land of Palm Trees, Beaches, and Prem Joshua

Sasha:

Ahh, we landed in Goa.  And what a welcome landing it was after the craziness of Egypt.  We had a one hour flight from Mumbai to Goa with King Fisher Air, and in it they managed to serve us a full meal.  We had tasty vegetarian dal, paneer, and rice.  Ra and I looked at one another and said, 'We're home."

My first impressions were of the lushness here- the weather is sultry, humid, and almost-but-not-quite too hot.  There are green grasses and palm trees, interspersed with lots of dogs and half sized cows.  At night you can hear the alarms of howls as people walk past the packs of canines, and all the time on the road you play chicken with the cows.  (Hint, culturally the cows win).

We are paying too much for our hotel- about $37/ night, but we have a pool, air conditioning, and the food here is pretty good.  What is even better is how awesome the staff is.  Bejamin, Lucky, Mengel. . .  We have been here 3 nights now, and it feels good to know people's names.  We have also met other travelers- Emma from Cambridge with the dreadlocks who is here to volunteer at the animal shelter, Sabastian (like the crab) who is French and was able to guess that Ra was from Israel within the first 5 minutes with whom we engaged in an intense political discussion about the occupied territories, and the two, blonde,  22 year old guys from Sweden, who picked up the poi and got the 2 beat weave in about 45 seconds and the 3 beat weave in about 20 minutes.  But he was drunk, and probably won't remember today.

Last night we went to Mackey's Night Market in Baga.  Every 3 stalls was playing a Prem Joshua mix, and everywhere were strappy dresses, cotton shirts, and carved elephants.  I got a so-so dress for 150 rupees that I probably didn't want, and a leather belt pouch for 475 rupees (about $10.50 instead of $90-150 in the US).  Within 5 minutes of being in the market, Ra recognized a passing couple.  Turns out they are Emam and Yashoda, good friends of Ra's uncle Shabda. Hopefully we will meet up with them later on today.  After shopping, we saw some acrobats from Africa who tumbled, balance, juggled, and put fire torches out with their breeches.  For a moment, I couldn't remember where I was. The people around us were from all over the world, and we had just looked at some earrings for stretched lobes that would fit in as easily in Berkeley as it would have in Baga, or Barcelona.  It was as if we were at a county fair for The World.

I am loving it here.  My skin eats up the humidity, and for the first time since march, my face has cleared up.  Speaking of eating, my body is loving the food.  I have been traveling for a month, and this is the best that my stomach has felt.  My meals of rice, dal, and curry last me a perfect 5-6 hours before I need to eat again, and am starting to loose some of the hummus weight I put on in Israel. And finding something to eat here is so much easier for me!  I have eaten enough Indian food in the states that I know what dishes are safe for me, and which ones aren't.  (okay, I accidently ordered Veggie kufta hoping that kufta was sauce, not the dough balls, whoops.)  My only complaint is that the tourist restaurants make the curries too bland. 

There is poverty here, but I know that it gets much worse.  This is the wealthier part of India, thanks in part to tourism, and in part with some of the local traditions. So far nothing has shocked me- god knows that they drive far crazier and with less clearance between vehicle in Cairo than they do here.  The cars are so narrow here, to go with the narrow streets where cars pass one another with a couple extra motor scooters between them for good measure.  Exploring India by starting out in Goa is kind of like easing into a cold swimming pool by beginning in the kiddie pool.

We haven't decided how long we will stay in Anjuna, much less how much time we will be in Goa.  I am hoping to be in North Goa for perhaps another week, then head down to Palolem Beach and Gokarna.  We will be in Mumbai for Anisa Qureshi's wedding reception from Dec. 28-30th.

Cairo, Take one, Luxor take two.

wow, the past 48 have been a whirlwind. we started out our day on sunday morning in a small town in the south of Jordan called Aqaba. when i was growing up in Israel, I was always in a small town in the south of Israel called Eilat for vacation,  and i would always look across the bay at Aqaba, and wonder about it. how big was it? did they have diving as well? how are the views from their side?

well, i'll get to Jordan in another post. this post is about the past 48 hours. (concentrate!).

ok, so, we started the day in Aqaba at a hotel called Hotel Baracuda. i had to repeat that name at least 15 times, since the driver could not - for the life of him - remember it.  once we fouind this 4 star hotel, we checked in, and went about our business. we were told there was internet in the rooms (nope, only in lobby, at the end, by the window. yes, i'm not kidding.), and everyone took cold showers besides me. i actually tried (and failed) to get some warm water going through the front desk.

ok, i veered away from the past 48 hours again. i'll try again. (deep breath here).

at around 5:30pm we crossed the border back into Israel from Jordan after a lovely 3 days. we went into Eilat and hung out in a Cafe for almost 4 hours, drinking coffee, eating dinner, chatting with our table neighbors and generally having a good time.

our official pick up time was 11:30 pm from the "Taba side of the border". no further coaxing could convince Mazada Touirs to give us more information as to WHERE in the Taba side we should meet them.

well, a few hickups later in the border, we had crossed Israel into Egypt, and were waiting in front of the passport window, which (as mazada told us several times), we needed them to get a visa through.

11:30 came and went. luckily for us, there was another couple with the world's cutest baby also waiting for the Mazada tour bus, - misery loves company.... well, we all waited. and waited. and waited.  at some point, i grabbed an official looking person, and gave him the name given to us by Mazada Tours of the guide we were to meet by the name of Khaled. the guy called. and disappeared. so, we waited some more.

at some point, i got bored, and decided this would be a good time and place to practice my Poi. now, if you're never been in the Taba egyptian border you have to understand - this a really small border crossing. it's really just a long and not to wide corridor, with not that many people crossing - especially not at night. so, i practiced. a couple of minutes later sasha joined me, and before you know it, we are performing not just for our friends and the cute baby, but for the ENTIRE terminal. people came out of their offices, and there was a crowd of people taking pictures and vidoes of us with their phones. we did this for quite a while, and made friends in the terminal. everyone was MUCH nicer to us, which, again, if you've crossed at that border, you should know that they are about as friendly as a pregnant mountain goat when you try to steal her food..

so, i had another person call, and this time i got a real answer. he is on his way from Cairo, will be here in 20 minutes. of course, AFTER the past 48 hours, i know that they meant 20 egyptian minutes (similar to burning man minutes, just... longer). so, an hour later, our guide finally shows up, apologizing. the car broke down from cairo, they had to send another one, etc. we finally left Taba around 2:30 am.

yay! we are on our way! sure, even though we were told it's a bus that picks us up, and it's a crappy little van, we don't mind too much. the plan, btw, was originally to sleep on the comfi overnight bus into Cairo so we can tour around during the day.

so, a word here: if you're reading this blog, you should know by now that we are on a long trip. most of this trip involves south east asia and India. and i'm SURE we'll have worse and longer bus trips than that. BUT... we won't make the mistake of booking ourselves the very next day after the bus without a break. the road from Taba to Israel is in what we discovered to be typical egyptian condition, which is to say that it is not what we, in the western world, would call "good roads".so, the trip was full of pot holes, and slow.

by the time we arrived in Cairo and put our bags down at a hotel to store for us until we pick them back up (i'll get to that), and set on our way, it was 10:30 in the morning, which meant we were 2.5 hours bewhind schedule, and TIRED.

i won't bore you with the details of the day. it was a blur, accompanied by a "tour guide" which in egypt is a fancy word for "someone who will gladly set you up with whatever you need for more than what you could get if you spoke to the natives and also barely speaks english". the end of the day had almost arrived, and we haven't even been to the pyramids. finally, at 3 pm, we got there. please remember that the sun sets at 4:30 here. so, we wasted our day going to a bunch of places trying to make our tour guides money (we failed, i'm happy to say), and only got an hour and a half at the last standing wonder of the world. we were... unhappy. at this point, our helpful "tour guide" tells us "this area is almost 19 kilometers, and you won't be able to see anything. you should rent a camel/donkey/carriage to see it all". well, you ARE the tour guide, you would know, i thought to myself, and negotiated us a carriage price. i'll skip here (sorry about the skipping. it's a bunch of poor horse whipping, taking us to one photo spot, forcing us to drink coke, and finding out that because we did the photo op, it's too late to get in the pyramid. yes, grrr.), and go to the end of the ride. which was at the sphinx. which according to our "tour guide" was "too far to walk to". in reality is was MAYBE half a mile. yes, that's right, half a mile. i was pissed. not only could we have walked around for an hour and half and covered most of the pyramids, but we took a carriage, which will give our tour guide bakshish and screwed us over.

i actually confronted our "tour guide" about this, and she pretended not to understand my english, giving me answers that had nothing to do with what i was telling her. after a while, i (we) decided to let it go. we got in the van, picked up our stuff from the hotel and headed out to the train.

again, i have to pause here. the pyramids were AMAZING. really beautiful. growing up in israel, even though it seems right across the border to Americans, it's NOT so for Israelis. so, actually seeing them was awesome. we got some great shots, and by this point were starting to make fun of how bad this situation is... so, it wasn't all bad. i was determined - and succeeded - in not letting the above circumstances spoil the day for me.

ok, train. nice train, not bad. two sleeper rooms - one for sasha and i, and another for tom and penguin. we were all super tired, and after they brought us our yummy dinner of (only) rice (for us, and meat for the boys), we set up the beds early, since we learned that Mazada lied to us by telling us the train was arriving at 8am. in fact, it was arriving at 5:30am. sigh. so, a pair of ear plugs later, we both sank into our respective beds and sleep, only to be occasionally awakened by the smoke coming from the people smoking the hallway (well, it DOES say no smoking in the rooms, outside of rooms is ok, yes?). the good news is  that was all slept MUCH better than the night before, and were actually pretty refreshed and ready to see Luxor when we got off the train. we were told by our friends at the Mazada Tour company to look for someone with a "Hytt Tours" sign. he should be waiting for us when we get off the train. when we asked them in advance for the person's name and number, we were told, in no two words by Muchmud, the guy who picked us in Taba that his boss told him "not to give us the other guy's number, only Muchmuds". well, arriving at 5:30, we understood why. we figured their plan was to lie to us (um, again?), and simply have us waiting at the station until 8 am, or really, until the guy shows up.

thankfully that theory was incorrect. Atef, our new "tour guide" was only 30 minutes late. apparently the train usually comes in at 8am. he doesn't know why it came early today. ah ha.

ok, more good news: Luxor was very interesting, and much better than our previous day in Cairo. the sights were less crowded (especially at 6am, that part was awesome...), and Atef was a much better "tour guide" than the Cairo one. but.. i still us put "" around the words because he also kept trying to take us places that would give him kickback, or when we'd get to a place, he would give us a 5 minute explanation outside of whatever temple we went into, and would "go wait outside under umbrella until we were done.". so, nice guy, not the best tour guide ever.

we had a GREAT lunch, based on a recommendation from the book pegnuin had on India at a restaurant called El Hussain. great vegi stew, and it was nice to actually have food cooked with vegetarian in mind, and not just the side dishes.

several temples, and several hooka smokes with our guide (yes, several. on his insistence every time...), i'm now sitting in an internet cafe near downtown Luxor, typing out this blog.

as i'm writing this, i also realize how angry this sounds. and... we were quite angry. but, although it's been such a rough acclimation for us from the very laid back Jordanian people to the very busy, very dirty, very pushy egyptian travel people, as we call them, we did enjoy aspects of egypt.

i just wish that:

1. Mazada tours would go out of business. they have no business taking people's money.
2. We wouldn't have booked anything with anyone. we could have figured this out on our own just fine.

so, tonight we are catching the train back to Cairo from Luxor, and tomorrow we will be going to the Cairo Museum, and cathedral. THEN, at 11:30 pm, we are getting on our flight to India. we should be arriving at mombai, than wait a few hours and fly to Goa. so, overall, 4 nights with no hotel (or shower!) should put us to sleep like.. well, if you made it all the way down here, you should understand.

i hope to go back and write a lot more about our Egypt experience. but for now, this is it. as they say here in Arabic, Halas.

Wadi Rum and Other Misadventures

Sasha:

We told almost everyone we talked to the even before -Guide Hisham, Driver Hisham, Ibrahim, and Atta our schedule for the next day; 8am-11am hike to the monastary, 11am Machmud pickup at the visitors center for a ride to Little Petra, 12pm head to Wadi Rum, 2-4 jeep ride around Wadi Rum, 6pm arrive in Aquaba at the hotel Barracuda. This is how our day actually went:

7am: Press snooze on the alarm clock

7:45: Head down for breakfast, only to find out breakfast is on the 4^th floor

8:30: finish breakfast, head to room to brush teeth

8:50: hotel lobby to wait for a driver, driver tells us the hike to the Monastary is 45 minutes.

9:05 Arrive at the gates to Petra, start sprinting down the hill past all of the other tourists who are stopping to take photos.

9:45: Get to the bottom of the hill where we expected the Monastary to be, only to find out that the Monastary is actually a 45 minute hike from that point up a set of stone steps.

9:46: Pout

9:47: briefly toy with the idea of taking a “taxi” (donkey) up and back, but decide not to.

9:48: start making our way back up the hill to the visitor center.

11:10: arrive at visitors center where we see Penguin and Driver Hisham, but no Machmud.

11:25: Arrive at our hotel, where a different driver, Ramsi is waiting for us with a different car.

11:30: Head to Little Petra with Ramsi, and all of our luggage in the trunk.

11:50: Little Petra! Almost no other tourist, more caves, carvings, and lots of scampering up stairs. The cliffs are like a jungle gym, and a lot of fun to expore. We sit and have tea with a beduin woman.

1:00pm: Get to the car to drive back to Wadi Musa, before getting on the road to Wadi Rum

1:10 Adebe calls, and asks Ramsi to ask Ra for $100. What?

1:15 Adebe is on the phone with Ra, telling him that we have to pay for the guide that we didn't use. Ra is not impressed

1:20 Adebe says he is willing to fogive us, and will accept a ½ price discount, and only wants $50. Ra is not impressed.

1:22 Adebe tells Ramsi to pull over

1:23 Ra tells Ramsi to keep driving

1:29 Adebe calls, Ramsi pulls over again, and says he cannot drive any further unless we hand him the $50

1:30 We hand him the cash.

1:31-2:30 We are all very very quiet in the car ride to Wadi Rum

3:00 We park next to a Toyota pickup truck with bench seats and an awning over the truck bed

3:20 Running around barefoot across the red and yellow desert sand

3:45 Bouldering up a wall to peak into a cistern, obsessing what a great place this would be to go rock climbing.

4:20 Sitting on top of a rock formation drinking beduin coffee as the sun sets. Seriously awesome.

5:00 Back in the car with Ramsi playing kareoke sing along to “lady in red” “everything I do I do it for you” “I will always love you” and other movie hits from 2, 3, and 4 decades ago that he had on his MP3 player

7:00 Aqaba. Does anybody know where the hotel is?

7:05 The police officer does not know.

7:10 The guy at the restaurant does not know

7:12 Call Ibrahim, and he knows where it is, but Ramsi is discouraged by how far out of town it is.

7:15 All of us stop to have our first meal since breakfast, my legs are trembling I'm so tired.

7:20 I discover that the toilet is a hole in the floor with two places to put your feet.

8:20 FINALLY find Hotel Barricuda after driving 18km, and making 3 u-turns

8:21 Ramsi gives back the $50 we gave him earlier in the day for Adebe. We are still mystified.

8:40 Our showers are cold and there is no Wifi

9:00 We ask for glasses so we can drink our bottle of wine

9:40 Hotel staff brings us 2 buckets of ice, and 4 frosty cold mugs. Clearly not wine drinkers.

10:30 Bed faceplant.

* As a side note, I will say that Beduins have an interesting sense of humor.  My word of advice is, if one asks you if you want him to put some makeup on you, I would decline unless you want to look like a clown

The Rose Rock of Petra

Sasha:

After a five hour bus ride, a short ride on a taxi, and paying our way out of Israel, we arrived in Jordan. We walked the hundred feet of no-man's land between borders and looked in through the gates on the other side. The welcome sign was missing a “D” so in fact it was welcoming us into “JOR AN.” The most eventful part of our journey was at the xray station on the Jordanian side where Ra and I had to explain the strange objects strapped to our backpacks- Ra got to demonstrate how to use the massage hook he brought to work on his shoulder and hip, while I got to take off the fire staff we inherited from Erez, and did a short routine. The soldier offered to light it on fire for me, but I told him we were lacking in kerosene.

We came out of the passport control at 2:20pm to an almost abandoned parking lot. Soon a white car with the words “southern border” arrives, driven by a man with a thick accent who wants to know if we need a taxi. When we let him know that we already have a car arranged, he wants to know exactly who the driver is. We discuss weather this is an aggressive taxi driver or some kind of border police, but after two taxis show up and he seems to direct them, we figure he's just trying to keep the taxi racket organized. At 2:35 a man in a maroon car arrives, and walks in our general direction. He converses with the taxi guys, then approaches us shyly.

“Runn?” He asks.

“I'm Runn,” Ra replies, “Adebe sent you?”

The man nods, then they shake hands. “I'm Machmud.” We all shake hands with him, and give him our names in return. It would take me nearly 2 ½ days to realize that his name is not in fact Mohamud, but the two syllable synonym.

He takes us past the bristling taxi drivers to his car, and drives us to Aqaba so we can change money, or pull Jordanian Dinars from an ATM. While Tom, Penguin, and Ra attend to that, I stay in the car. After it dies once or twice, Machmud pops the hood of the car and pokes around. The hood is still up when Ra and Tom arrive. Machmud explains that the car is too hot. When everyone gets into the car, Ra encourages him to find somewhere that sells coolant so we don't end up stuck on the side of the road somewhere between Aquaba and Petra. Ra also turns the heat up on full blast to let the heat escape the engine, and blow in our faces instead. This successfully brings the engine temperature to average, but leads to an extremely uncomfortable drive in the desert heat. We stop at a gas station where we all poke around and discover that the fan is out of place, not working, and in fact grinds against the car when pushed. Machmud seems undeterred from our journey now that he has been shown the heating vent trick that has brought the engine temperature down, and for him there is no longer a problem.

The drive across Jordan is stunning. There are baren mountains, deeply carved gorges, and colored expanses of desert. We stop at a vista where looking out makes you feel like you are in an old school hollywood soundstage- the landscape is so painterly, so otherworldly that it looks more like a backdrop than like real life. We took pictures despite knowing that they could never really capture to sheer awe we felt.

Our first hotel in Petra, the Valley Stars Inn, was managed by a man named Ibrahim. A slight man, handsome, perhaps in his mid twenties- he spoke beautiful English, no doubt in part because he was studying to get concurrent degrees in IT and English Lit while also managing the hotel, and trying to open up another resort with his brother. We had an interesting discussion of Jordanian politics- starting out with a village in Jordan who admired Saddam Hossein so much that they wanted to name a street after him. When the national government wouldn't let them, they decided that for one month, and new baby born to the village would be named Saddam Hossein. Ibrahim told us that he too though that Saddam was a good man, and that he was set up by the Western world so that they could get to the oil. To say that open admiration of Saddam Hossein is a bit of a shock would be an understatement. The conversation turned to the bombing of Israel, the extermination of the kurds, the unreliability of the media, and our general dislike of the George Bush's, and finally to Ibrahim's conclusion:

“I don't watch the news anymore, unless it is the local news. I don't hate anybody. In the end, people are the same; whether they are Israeli, or Arab they are the same. They need to eat the same, they live the same. Man or woman, we are all the same. You sitting here with me, talking- that is the most important thing.”

Ibrahim arrange for us to go on the night tour of Petra- what would be our first glimps of the sight. After showering, we took a beat up orange van down the hill to the entrance. We were accompanied by a New Zealander named Geraldine. A septuagenarian who was on a solo trip through England, Egypt and Jordan. She aknowleged to me that this would be her last international trip, and that the people she was staying with in England she would be saying goodby to for the last time. Despite her admission, she was in amazing shape, and we suspected we were holding her back on the hike more than the other way around. After a 15 minute hike, lit with candles in paper bags, we arrived at the Treasury, and epic columned structure carved into the towering sandstone walls. There were rows of carpets on the ground that we were told to sit on. We sat and waited for the hundreds of other people- both independent travelers and tours of people in matching hats- joined us on the desert floor. Eventually we were all told to be silent for the beginning of the show. A beduin man sat in the midst of hundreds of candles in paper bags, and began to play a stringed instrament on his knee with a bow. Behind us were two arab men in their early twenties who talked and laughed through the entire performance despite countless dirty looks, shushes, and requests to be quiet. They were only outdone by the people behind them who were eating something out of the crinkliest bag imaginable.

After the show ended, we hiked up the hill, caught our ride, and were dropped off at a mediocre tourist restaurant, where the waiters hovered nearby and watched us eat our disappointing food. At the end of our first day in Jordan, we collapsed into our beds, and passed out.

Petra

While having breakfast at our hotel in Wadi Musa (the closest village to Petra) our tourguide shows up. His name is Hisham, and he has been sent to us by Adebe, who was in turn recommended to us by Ron, a good friend of Ra's family. We were told that we HAD to have a guide arranged before we got there. As it turns out, at that time of year there were any number of people who would be happy to arrange a guide, a driver, a hookah, or any number of things for us. Hisham tells us what we are going to do while at the hotel, then again in the car when we arrive at the gates at Petra (where he also informs us that we have to go in separately and not mention to any of the officials that he is our guide on our way in.) Once inside, he takes us to where the horses are, tells us that they are included in the price of our tickets, and would we like to ride them for the first 700 metres. We say yes, and each of us takes our turn mounting the Arabian steeds. Penguin takes the first, a reddish one, I take the next- a white arabian with a small cut on his shoulder and a sullen disposition. Ra's is a dappled gray who doesn't care much for being held back and would rather charge down the hill. Tom's brown also had a desire for speed. I watched as all of the other's horses passed mine. Almost at the bottom of the hill, the handler who was leading my horse starts telling me the imporance of tipping, of giving bakheesh. Got it, the ride is “free” but the tip is not. I think that I had one Dinar, and the smallest bill that Tom had was a 5JD. The handlers were not happy to be tipped 6JD. We scampered off before they were able to say anything else.

Petra, also know as the Rose Rocks is a city, a series of tombs and temples, and a geological phenomenon made up of cliffs and canyons of sandstone. They place itself is 45 km2, and one of our guides told us that he has only seen 50% of it in his lifetime. The most photographed feature is the treasury, a great collumned structure with Castor and Polux carved into the stone, along with Isis and other gods. Beyond that there are also the tombs of the less weathy, tombs for the kings, and tombs for a Roman prince? Who decided that he would rather be entombed in Petra rather than carried back to Rome. There are niches containing idols to various gods- Nabotean, Egyptian, Greek alike. Then there is the cardo, the main city where the Nebotean people actually lived, and built their homes from the stones carved out to make the magnificent tombs. The scale of the place puts the ruins of Greece to shame, and predates the Castles of Europe by a thousand years. Truly truly awe inspiring.

In Petra, the soundtrack is one of people in shops saying Happy hour! Good price!

The older boys leading donkeys saying, “Taxi! Ride to the Monastary? Air conditioned!”

And the youngest kids holding packets of postcards and cheap stone necklaces in your face saying, “One Dinar! One JD!” At the end of the day, we even had one little boy pathetically following us with his postcard in the air as he fake-cried as a means to try to get us to buy them from him. Every hundred yards was another shop of postcards and chachkis, with a sign saying Happy Hour! Even way up the winding stair paths would be a beduin woman with kafiyas, water, and necklaces.

Despite ordering a guide for a full day in Petra, Hisham left us at noon. We wandered into a covered area that the Byzantines had turned into a small church to eat lunch. While sitting on the stairs we met another group of people who seemed to know the place extremely well, and greeted the chachki salesman like a brother. Turns out our visitors were Jane Taylor http://www.janetaylorphotos.com/books.html- THE author of books on Petra and Queen Noor's personal photographer when she comes to Petra- and Tom Paradise, a stone restoration artist who spent years working in Petra. Tom also had his wife Gail and daughter Sandy? Samatha? Tom began telling us about restoring the mosaics on the floor, and how the green stones were egyption emeralds, a stone found on Cleopatra's island in Eygpt who name is where we get the word for “gem,” and how this is the only ancient mosaic in the world that utilizes them. Here was a man who so clearly loved his work and was so excited to talk about it. Jane wanted to know if we had bought her book yet. We talked to them about what Adebe had booked for us on the next day- a hike from Little Petra, to the Monistary, and back to the treasury. They tell us that this would be a 12km hike including lots of stairs and narrow ledges. Hmmm.

We finish our day by leaving Penguin at a cafe while Ra, Tom, and I hike up and up and up to the sacraficial altars on the top of a cliff. The stair climbing was challenging, and we lost the trail once, confused by the beduin woman who had decided to fall asleep in the middle of the pathway. Once we got to the top, it was all worth it. It was a stunning aerial view of all that we had seen, and so much more that we hadn't trekked to yet.

Once we were done for the day (and by done I mean exhausted) we taxied back up to our original hotel to sort out our next nights accommodations. The Valley Stars Inn was all booked up, so Ibrahim booked us rooms at his cousins hotel- giving us the same rates as his hotel despite the fact that the second hotel was in fact fancier and newer. He gave us a lift to check out the other hotel, then a ride to an ATM to pull out cash, then a ride back up to the hotel. We were still figuring out whether we wanted to stay one or two more nights in Wadi Musa before heading to the border, so Ibrahim said to give him the answer by 9pm.

Our new hotel gave us a ride down to the restaurant that Jane Taylor had recommended, Qantara. As it turns out, our driver's name was also Hisham, which we joked must be the next most popular name after Mohamed/Machmud/ Achmed which are all the same name. The restaurant was clean, well decorated, and instead of having a menu, we were told that there was a fixed price menu, and alcohol. It also had one host named Mohamed, and another named Hisham(!!) We ordered 2 vegetarian entrees, Mediterranean chicken rolls, a beef dish and a lamb dish, and were also served hommus, tahini, turkish salad, beets, pickles, spicy sauce on request, and an extra bowls of rice. The small plates were fantastic, while the veggie dishes were alright. Our wine was so good, we asked for a bottle to take back with us.

We decided over dinner to spend one more night in town, then see the Monastary the next morning, take a jeep tour of Wadi Rum, and stay our last night in Jordan at the border town Aqaba. We went up to the Valley Stars Inn to settle our bill with Ibrahim. At this point, it was a pleasure to spend time with him. It is not all business with people here- they want to hang out, talk, relax before you bring out the cash or “get to the point.” These are journey people, not destination people. Ibrahim helps us find a hotel in Aqaba, and recommends that instead of making an online reservation, we should haggle in person since it is off season there, and they'd be likely to give us a good offer. After all the time and effort that Ibrahim spent with us, we handed him some money as a tip, but he wouldn't take it. He gives us a ride up to our hotel for the evening, where his brother, Atta, is kicking it in the lobby.

We order a shisha (hookah) and Ibrahim's older brother comes to join us. Atta tells us that he and Ibrahim are two of 20 brothers and sisters who grew up in Wadi Musa. How his father? grandfather? used to be the mayor of Wadi Musa. He talked about how honest and hard working his brother Ibrahim was, how they way they were brought up, honest is the only way to be. Also, how 15 years ago, before the peace agreement with Israel there were 8,000 people living there, and now there are 40,000. Atta talked to us about visiting Syria (where so many of the New Zealanders, Greeks, and other people we met there have also traveled.) He gave me his number and email address in case I'd ever like to visit Syria and wanted help arranging it.

Hisham (the guide) also joined us in the hotel lobby. He was there to settle the bill for our tab with Adebe. We had negotiated with Hisham (the driver) to take us around and back to Aqaba the next day, and to forgo the second tourguide and round trip with Adebe. Ra and Adebe haggle over the phone where Adebe tells him that they had already paid for 2 days with the (overheating/broken) car, and that if we went with a different driver, we would need to give him $50 even if we used somebody else. Fine, Ra agrees to go forgo our trip with Driver Hisham, and to risk the over heating car, along with paying the extra premium for a side trip to little petra, and a couple hours at Wadi Rum. The arrangements are made, Guide Hisham takes the money and says good night. Ra turned to Atta and asked if he thought that Adebe had in fact paid in advance for the car, and Atta wrinkled his nose and shook his head no.

We finished the evening, and our Shisha with an odd taste in our mouths.  We were so grateful for the hospitality we received in Jordan, minus a small exception. I came away with an extremely positive opinion of Jordanians- they are warm, open, and even laid back out in Wadi Musa. There were things we didn't get to do in Petra, but I'm pretty sure we will come back.

What to Wear in Jerusalem

Sasha:

Jerusalem is an interesting mix of people- the Arabs, the orthodox Jews, and pilgrims from all over the world converge in Old Jerusalem, and each has their own fashion challenges.  Modesty is (mostly) the name of the game in the Old City- and is interesting to see the contrast of how everybody interprets it.  Both the Arab women and the Orthodox women have an imperative to cover their hair.  The Jewish women will wear a wig, a fall, a snood, or a scarf around the bulk of their hair, while the arab ones cover every trace of their hair, and their throats with either a scarf that they hold in place with a strait pin, or a special kind of veil.  The more conservative Arab women tended to wear a lightweight floor length suit jacket.  Some of them were really interesting- with all kinds of asymmetric collars, pleated lapels, pocket detailing- almost matrix meets steampunk.  The younger Arab girls could also be seen in everything from jeans to flowing skirts in addition to the head scarves, but with sleeves down to their wrists and not a single ankle showing.  While the Jewish girls were still careful not to show any elbows or knees, there seem to be fewer rules for them.  The majority of them worked with lots of layers, and frequently wore tights in the 75-80 degree weather.  I really appreciated how people made their style their own, whatever the guidelines.

And then there were the tourists. . .

 Designer Jackets for Arab women

Wow, lime greens shoes to match your shirt?

 Tourist at the Western Wall

 Military girls mugging for the camera at the Western Wall

Orthodox man at the Western Wall

 I liked the way this girl mixed modest with her own personality. . .

 . . .and this one even more so (at a mall just outside of Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem)