August, 2003
I left Australia after living there for a few years and stopped in Kuala Lumpur on my way back to Florida for a week and a half. It was a short period of time, but good enough to get to explore the peninsula. What lied ahead, however, was something I did not plan on. I was flying on Royal Jordanian Airlines from Kuala Lumpur to Chicago via Amman, Jordan. I didn't do any planning even though knew that it was going to be a multiple-day stopover. I had some apprehensions about going to a country that borders Iraq in the middle of a full scale invasion. But that was the timing, and it ended up imparting a further interest in the Middle East.
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Amman, Jordan
August, 2003
Jordan's capital city is the biggest city in the country, but Jordan's main objects of touristic enjoyment are not here. One is the Dead Sea, where the water is so dense with salt that it is virtually impossible to sink. It's a short drive out of the city. The other is Petra in the South of the country. This one, probably most widely known from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (and more recently Transformers 2), is an ancient wonder not to be missed. Unfortunately, I missed both of them while I was here. I stayed in Amman the entire time. Although I wasn't entirely prepared for being a tourist in the Middle East during the Iraq War. My flight (on Royal Jordanian) had a planned stopover here for two days. The hotel the airport put me up in was literally in the middle of the desert. It did have a bus stop in front though. So after a shower, I hopped on the bus with vague instructions as to where it would drop me off (but later realized I had no idea how to get back). In the city, I started wandering aimlessly. The city is mostly colorless except for a huge flag pole with a huge Jordanian flag on it. The Parliament building was uneventful but some of the mosques were nice looking. I even found ancient Roman ruins, including an amphitheater. Shopping was pitiful here and walking around is very tiring as the city is built on a series of hills (think San Francisco without the trolley and cool weather). After I admitted to myself that I had been lost for hours now, I sat down along the road to rest and immediately struck up a conversation with a Palestinian refugee. He assured me (in somewhat decent English) that Jordan is a safe place to visit and I should bring all my friends here next time...and one day to Palestine too. After a while, I found a Ritz Carlton (the one that was bombed a few months later) and happily (and in English) negotiated with the door staff to get me a taxi back to the hotel in the middle of the desert. The rest of time my here was similarly daze-like with no agenda, direction, and a nagging worry that I was not supposed to still be there on a layover that long. But it all worked out. I doubt I'd go back to Jordan for the sake of Amman, but I would love to check out Petra.
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Chicago, Illinois
August, 2003
Leaving Kuwait, I found myself an object of humor for the airport security. As they searched my bags before boarding the plane, they found a copy of the Qur'an that a friend had given me in Kuala Lumpur. The security guard gave me the thumbs up. Then as he kept digging, he found a bottle of Jordanian wine that I picked up at the duty free shop for my parents (yes, liquid was still allowed on the plane at this point in the Mid East, 2 years after September 11). For this, though, the security guard gave me thumbs down. I explained it wasn't for me, but he just shoved it back in my bag, said "haram," and let me go. Arriving in Chicago, I got the full security rub down, having been overseas for years at this point with multiple trips to Muslim Indonesia and Malaysia during that time, and having just arriving from the Middle East. But it was just a random check...a coincidence that I was singled out after looking at my passport. Really... Although the Middle East was not high on my list of places to travel to, I knew that after my introduction in Jordan that I would be back to the region at some point.
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Bangkok, Thailand
October, 2007
Once again, I was planning to go back and visit family in Florida when the opportunity presented itself for a return to the Middle East on the way back. Trans-Pacific flights are long and boring, and you don't get to see anything on the way back. So flying over Eurasia and the Atlantic offers a range of places to intentionally stop at to break up the trip and get a much-needed shower along the way! After securing a cheap ticket from Bangkok to Alexandria, Egypt, on Kuwait Airlines, we flew up to Bangkok and started my more detail-oriented trip to Egypt via Kuwait. Although the actual trip planning was still fairly minimal, this stop was definitely on the itinerary.
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Kuwait City, Kuwait
October, 2007
Well, I can't say too much about Kuwait actually as this was just a transit in the airport. The airport itself had mediocre security (despite the heavily armed guards), but the facilities were nice (plenty of Wi-Fi networks floating about). From the tarmac (no jetways) you can get a good look at part of the downtown area of the city...which looks like most other Arab cities...monotonous in color. Really no color variation. It can be a bit depressing. Apparently, the popular thing to do here among locals and expat workers is to race luxury cars in the desert. Nothing else to do, I suppose.
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Alexandria, Egypt
October, 2007
Egypt's Mediterranean port city is quite European in many ways. However, it wasn't all that I had hoped for. There are a few spots of interest...most of them are crowded with other domestic and international tourists though. The new library was definitely interesting, even if only for its architecture. The Citatel and other ancient Greco-Roman sites are nice to see, particularly if you have not had much exposure to that in other travels. And the beaches are quite nice. It was interesting to see the fishermen with their extremely long and flexible poles fishing from a pier with the water about 12 meters below them. Yet, I expected more. One quirky thing we did here was to get into a taxi and agree to him giving us a half-day tour around town. We did not speak any useful Arabic, and he did not speak any English. Somehow, it all worked out though.
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Cairo, Egypt
October, 2007
Cairo is huge and, at least in architecture, had much higher Christian exposure than I expected. Both mosques and churches are built over the top in design. The city itself has several areas of interest for tourists and shopping. But the food is quite repetitive and, at least in my experience, most people are deceivingly friendly. They will be nice to you because they want something, or they will try to cheat you with a smile. A price agreed upon is subject to further additions. Even by asking someone at the train station 'which platform,' I was expected to give a tip! The air pollution is another downside to Cairo. You can really see the thick haze looking across the city skyline. The Nile, on the other hand, looked fairly clean. And what is it with all the 1970s Fiat cars on the road there?
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Giza, Egypt
October, 2007
This is definitely a site to see before you die. After waiting in the usual traffic jam to get there, I was tended to by this 6 foot 6 inch Bedouin who overcharged us for either a camel or horse to ride through the desert to get to the pyramids, other tombs, and the Sphinx. I took the horse since I figured I was less likely to break my neck falling off it rather than the camel. The ride through the desert was not as hot as I thought it would be. But the views, despite being hazy, were better than I thought. The horse was another issue altogether...but my sore rear end eventually healed. Nevertheless, it was so worth it!
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Saqqarah, Egypt
October, 2007
This pyramid (3 of them, actually) is older than the more famous ones at Giza, but it is only about 20 minutes down the road...so easily done together. You can enter these, unlike the Giza pyramids. But like everything in Egypt (even the simplest of things), there is a charge. The Imhotep Museum at the bottom of the hill (also a charge--about US$10) was pretty good; I spent at least an hour in here. There's also a video shown in a separate room. The pyramids here give you a view into an evolution of the pyramid structure, as ancient engineering improved. You can also see what happens when the pyramids fall here.
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Memphis, Egypt
October, 2007
There is a huge statue of Ramses here. It reclines in a building specially designed for it...or rather, built around it to protect it from the elements. The statue, however, is not a reclining statue...not sure why they decided not to put it upright. But the stone working on it is incredible. The surrounding building offers views from a second story, but even then, it is difficult to get it all in one photo shot. There are also other statues (some others quite tall too) here which are impressive. And of course, there are replica statues as well, like the Sphinx.
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Cairo, Egypt
October, 2007
After what seemed like a very long, short trip, the Egypt trip was done. From here, we would continue on to Europe before heading back to the United States. Our taxi driver that we had used for our entire time in Cairo never showed up on the last day to take us to the airport as planned. Another tally in the broken promises category for this trip (that's another story that borders on stereotypes...but proven true). Regardless, we got another taxi and ended up seeing a lot of neat places from the highway that we had missed. Oh well. The airport at Cairo is uneventful, and its A/C is pretty weak. Our flight was delayed for a bit. After we boarded, however, it was delayed even longer. Apparently, there were 2 people on the plane who illegal snuck into Egypt and got a ticket on our flight to go to Belgium. When the Belgian authorities got the passenger list, they refused us entry into the EU because these people were apparently on some sort of no-fly or terrorist watch list for the EU. Well, Egypt decided to play difficult too, saying that they would not let them off the plane and back into Egyptian territory as they did not want to accept them either. So we sat on the plane for an hour and a half. The flight attendants were actually very informative and funny. Sadly, I think this happens somewhat often. Eventually, Algeria agreed to take the two as refugees, and Egypt allowed them off the plane. We took off, ending my second MidEast (and first African) trip. More to come...? We'll see.
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