Halva and Baklava

Although the distance between Jerusalem and Wadi Rum, Jordan is very small, there is a not-so-insignificant swath of land called the "West Bank" that makes traveling between the two complicated. As a result, back through southern Israel I went, entering Jordan at Aqaba.

On the bus-ride south-bound, I met another solo, round-the-world traveler named Stephen, from Australia. He was about my age, but had a somewhat different itinerary: his travel plans were geared toward the biggest parties on planet earth. He had been to the full moon party in Thailand, had gone to Oktoberfest and the World Cup, and next was heading to Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro. Out of nowhere he asked whether I planned to go to Latvia. "No," I said, "what's in Latvia?" In Latvia Stephen had made the mistake of having a 6 AM night-cap drink at a bar that, upon entering, turned out to be a strip-club. After having his drink, the bouncer proceeded to "bounce" him on the way out the door, breaking two of his ribs, stealing his camera, and forcing him to sign $2500 onto his credit card. His credit card company will not reimburse this because police reports in Latvia are difficult to come by ("So you say you lost your camera, then?"). Snap. I pass this along as my unofficial travel-warning for Latvia.

My first stop in Jordan was Wadi Rum. The guidebook made it sound like a popular tourist destination and this turned out to be absolutely false (in the winter, anyway). There are two restaurants in town, both serving one meal exactly. There are two areas in town to sleep: one is a decrepit "guest-house," the other has only tents. During my three-day stay in Wadi Rum, I saw exactly five other tourists. Luckily, two of them were Korean guys about my age, one of whom spoke English enough to get along, so the three of us spent our time there together. The scenery is unlike anything else I have seen: large islands of sandstone separated by vast expanses of desert. It gave the impression of being a miniature in a movie-set that was much, much too big. "Let's go to that one," one of us would say, pointing to a rock outcropping. An hour later, we would finally arrive at "that one." It is amazingly beautiful, and I think even more so for people (like me) who are not used to this sort of scenery. Two of the nights I spent in town, sleeping in a tent, and the third was spent in a Bedouin tent out in the desert, organized by a local tourist agency and something that many tourists do. All these nights were so cold that I could sleep in one position only. The stars are very clear in the desert.

Continuing in my tradition of quoting non-native English speakers who, for brief moments in time, manage to beautifully penetrate the tangles of the English language, I will quote my Korean friend, Mugo. Mugo spoke English better than he thought he did, but had some difficulty understanding me; he was the liaison between me and his Korean friend, Soo-Hyun. Sitting atop a sand-stone mini-mountain that we had all climbed as the sun was beginning to set, he lit up a cigarette and looked around. "The world is very, very amazing," he sighed.

From Wadi Rum we caught the bus to Petra. On the bus-ride north I met an American named William from Atlanta, also going around the world but in the opposite direction that I am. He had been invited to stay and work in Wadi Rum for a month, but after flipping a coin to decide whether or not to stay, he hopped on the bus. I thought this was pretty funny; this decision -- a very simple decision -- completely changed the course of his trip. We got along pretty well, but this was an otherwise un-notable meeting between travelers, except for one thing: we had been talking for about an hour when he pulled out "Lolita," by Vladimir Nabakov, the book he was currently reading. I laughed and said that it was coincidental that he was reading that book, as it was the last book I had read. He asked what I was currently reading, and I pulled out "Trinity," by Leon Uris. This turned out to be the last book that he had finished. Statistically this is a tremendous coincidence -- really, I cannot emphasize this enough. These books are no longer "popular fiction;" it isn't as if we were reading "The Da Vinci Code" and "Life of Pi." The odds against this are staggering. Sadly, although our initial meeting had such cosmic implications, we parted ways unceremoniously 48 hours later.

Before this departure, however, we visited Petra, the "City of Stone." The "Rose City." Some call it the eighth wonder of the world, but I'm not sure that I would give it that status. It's beautiful and strange, but most of the time I felt that I was just looking at it, just looking. This is probably a personal failure -- I didn't do much research or anything. I would recommend seeing Petra to anyone who is in the region.

William and I did have an amazing experience at Petra, though. We finished our first day by climbing to "The High Place of Sacrifice," which is a place where sacrifices were once made that is also very high (periodically I like to assume my readers are horribly, horribly stupid). As the sun was about to set we met Feriah, a Bedouin trinkets and jewelery vendor, who offered to take walk us back toward town on a route that required a guide. William and I were sceptical, but she insisted that she was not doing it for money -- she wanted to show us the walk.

Away we went, and,as you would expect from a local guide, there were spectacular views that most people do not see. At one point Feriah made a phone call to her brother, and after hanging up invited us to dinner at her house. Uh oh. This is straight out of the guidebooks (in most of the world, anyway); in s.e. Asia there are plenty of warnings about scams that begin exactly this way. But Feriah seemed genuinely nice, and genuinely concerned that we had concerns about this arrangement. I decided it was a good idea, and convinced William of the same.

I will admit that my heart-rate went up as the taxi began to leave town on a windy, mountainous road, and that my heart-rate went up even more as we entered a slum. I have seen poorer in my life, but this was pretty poor. Lots of children running around, a few animals loose that should not have been, and a lot of trash. Feriah led us right into the heart of it, turning into her "house": it was one, apartment-sized room where the entire family lived, ate, and slept. We spoke with Feriah for a while, drank tea, met many of her family members. At one point one of the brothers brought a portable fire-pit inside the room, filled with burning logs and embers. Amazingly, though it was inside, it was entirely smoke-less. Perplexed, William and I asked him how it was possible that he had made a smoke-less fire. He explained to us that he had simply removed the "smoking ones." This really didn't answer the question at all -- if it were this easy all of my fires would be smoke-free -- but we left it at that; I like it better as a Bedouin mystery.

The dinner was absolutely delicious: fresh chicken that had first been cooked, then boiled in milk; rice with an unidentifiable sweet sauce mixed in; and heaps of Bedouin bread (something like thin corn tortillas). William and I stuffed ourselves, then ate more at the request of our guests. Nobody else ate. We could not tell exactly why this was the case (was it customary? Would they eat the left-overs? Had they already eaten?), but we never found out the answer. When I thanked them for everything -- and I thanked them profusely -- the women behaved very deferentially, as if my thanks were unnecessary, or even making them uncomfortable. Feriah offered her only justification for the ridiculous kindness that all of them had shown -- the same line she had used all evening: "You are in my country," she said, "I want to do this for you."

Are you listening to this?

Back to Jerusalem, where things are cozy. Having gone to Jordan and come back, it was a very, very nice feeling to be returning. I can't explain how nice it is after four months of traveling to return to a city that I already knew, and to an apartment (Adam's) that was waiting for me. I am not speaking figuratively when I say that I had a skip in my step. My first stop was the market, and -- you guessed it! -- I went straight for the halva. The halva! Big, heaping blocks of it, cut to size.

For the next two days I treated myself like a king. Conor the Indulgent! By the end of my second stay in Jerusalem I actually had a pretty good relationship with the owner of a felafel stand near the market ("Where did you go? I have not seen you!"). I took full advantage of the fact that I was temporarily living above a market, making entire meals out of figs, olives, cheese, hot nuts, pressed fruits, real fruits, and so on. I watched movies, read quite a lot, and frequented the only cafe I could find in the place. At one point I was drinking tea, the space heater was on, and I was laying in bed watching a movie -- it was then that I realized I had reached the highest possible level of comfortability possible for that moment. This type of behavior is a blasphemous thing to do in a city with so much history, but I had seen enough for one trip to Jerusalem. I regret absolutely nothing.

Now I am in Turkey, and have been for a week. Obviously, then, I am a little bit behind, but this city makes it difficult to want to spend any time at all on a computer. I am not ready at this point to begin wildly throwing superlatives about to describe Istanbul, but they will certainly be coming when I next update this. I have been fueling myself with Baklava and Turkish Delight, tea and Turkish coffee. I think it is about time to ask you, my friends, to please send me a bag of insulin. Please. I am inducing diabetes, here. Unfortunately there is no one here to tell me not to eat Baklava for breakfast, so I am learning these types of lessons the hard way. Pity me, my friends. Please pity me.

Back flips and banana splits

Egypt, Egypt, Egypt. You dirty dog. Actually, I can't say that I really saw Egypt, as in the whole of Egypt. I spent some time in Cairo, then Dahab on the Red Sea, then left the country.

The Cairo experience, for me, was a disappointing one. Part of this may have had to do with the fact that I arrived from Thailand, where palm trees are (still) swaying, the touts are usually well behaved, and there are plenty of other backpackers around. My Cairo experience was not like this. There is virtually no hostel "scene," the city is busy (for better and for worse), and the hustlers are awful. Also, I have to admit that it was upon my arrival in Cairo that my sixth month summer officially ended (3 months in Seattle + 3 months in southeast Asia). And it was so nice being warm.


The Pyramids. THE PYRAMIDS OF ANCIENT EGYPT! The pyramids were the worst experience I have had as a tourist. I will use them to explain why Cairo frustrated me.

They were my destination on Christmas day, and I decided to do it as the locals do -- by taking a Cairo city bus, rather than a taxi, to see them. Stopping to check my map, I was approached by an Egyptian man giving me "advice" -- advice regarding the bus-stop, which I knew to be around the corner. This happens a lot in Cairo, and this "advice" is usually un-prompted and requires an exorbitant "tip" at the end of it. His "tip" was a request for me to buy him a bus-ticket. I politely declined, he asked again, I politely declined, he asked more loudly, I politely declined, and then he began yelling: "F*** off! Get out of here! GET THE F***OUT OF HERE!" It was causing a scene. So, you know what? I got out of there! "Welcome to Egypt!"

The bus dropped me off about 1/4 of a mile from the pyramids. On the way up, about a half-dozen men casually cut me off from walking up the road, explaining that the road is for cars and buses only. This seemed improbable -- it looked like the road to enter the Pyramids -- but it is not as easy as it sounds to contradict six calm, grown Egyptian men. I walked downhill with them, realized that we were now near a bunch of horse and camel stables, and told them quite flatly that this was very obviously not the entrance to the pyramids. "Yes it is." "No it's not." "Yes it is." "No. It is not." How to win this argument? It could not be won. They wanted me to rent a horse or camel for the day. I left, went back the direction I had come from, and lo and behold: the entrance.

At the entrance, I handed over the equivalent of $10 for a $5 entrance fee, received my ticket and student card back, and made it about ten steps before I realized that the attendant had never given me my change. This was my fault for not catching it -- and $5 is not a bad lesson -- but this was not an innocent mistake by the attendant, either. Next, a man approached me asking for my ticket to enter. I was about to give it to him, then realized that he did not work at the pyramids. "You don't work here." "Yes I do." "No you don't." "Yes I do, I need your ticket!" I walked past him, giving my ticket to someone who actually did work at the pyramids, and entered.

The next two hours at the pyramids were spent harassed by either camel/horse owners wanting me to ride one, or by some other variety of vendor. Again, I can take a lot-- southeast Asia has plenty of aggressive vendors. But these guys are really, really persistent... persistent to the point that I had to yell at a few of them. It would seem logical that the omnipresent "tourist police" would step in here to stop the harassment, but they do not. My only interaction with them was with a police officer who tried to lead me into a very obviously off-limits -- and not very visible -- area, so that I might give him a "tip."

The taxi-ride home from the pyramids ended with the driver demanding (and, I admit, receiving) 50% more than the fare we negotiated, and dropping me off nowhere near where I wanted to be. "Welcome to Egypt!"

I have presented the worst of Cairo -- probably the worst possible, save for physical violence -- but unfortunately this was how I experienced Cairo. To be fair: the city is beautiful architecturally, the Islamic Quarter is a very good place to wander, and I, like most westerners, really liked Egyptian food. Also, tens of thousands of people go to Egypt each year, many of whom have an excellent time. But it is the only place that I have travelled where I would actually recommend doing it as part of a tour-group. Hop on the tour-bus! Put on the blinders! And good luck going through the gauntlet.

Two of my four evenings I spent sipping beers with a 30 year old French guy with an impossibly French name (Guiler? Guillere?), sitting on the balcony of our 3rd floor hostel in the middle of Midan Talaat Harb, the busiest round-about in Cairo. Surrounding us were what would have been gorgeous buildings -- they looked like half-century old hotels -- were it not for the fact that nobody was bothering to rent the space or take care of them. In a very succinct, English-as-a-second-language way, he summed up the state of affairs of the city: "Cairo is like this beautiful city that is falling in on itself." Better than I could have put it.

Next stop was Dahab, Egypt, on the east coast of the Sinai Peninsula. During the ten hour bus-ride, the minority of Egyptians were pulled off the bus three times and fully searched; it was very thorough. Meanwhile, the foreigners stayed on-board and watched this take place. This is not a comfortable situation. It is a strange feeling to be in a country where terrorism is domestic -- i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood -- and where the non-nationals are the only group that is not considered a threat. In fact, we, with pockets full of gold bullion, must be protected from this threat. I can tell you that if I were Egyptian, I, too, would be pretty upset at being labeled a second-class citizen in my own country. But this is life in Egypt. Anyway, in Dahab I slept an incredible amount, did two very good SCUBA dives, and left for Israel.

I came up with a witty joke for my grand entrance to Israel, and it went like this: "What is your purpose for visiting the state of Israel?" "To find Jesus." "You are a Christian?" "No. I am a geologist." When it came time for the big delivery I handed over my passport and said nothing. I am pretty sure I would have been detained.

I stopped in Eilat, Israel just long enough to do a six-hour day hike on a very small portion of the Israel National Trail. I convinced a 24 year-old San Franciscan and 45 year-old Dutch man to go with me, both dorm-mates from my hostel. The first half of the hike was really, really beautiful, and after losing the trail, we were forced to follow a much blander car-path trail for the second half of the hike. Oddly enough, the guy from San Francisco went to high school with an old room-mate of mine from the University of Washington. "It's a world of laughter, a world of tears..."

(If this blog accomplishes one thing, my hope is that it leaves you with "It's a Small World" stuck in your head. Come on! Go ahead and hum it!)

Now... Jerusalem. There are a lot of reasons people come to this city. I came here to see a friend of mine from college, Adam, who I had not seen for over three years. I have spent nine full days in Jerusalem now, and just three of them were spent actually seeing the sights of the city. The rest were spent eating felafel and shawarma, watching one of the DVDs from Adam's collection, playing guitar, and going out at night. I spent entire days in bed, and it was wonderful. I did some very rapid traveling to make it to Jerusalem to see him, and relaxing at his apartment was a very nice break from this. His apartment is located right in a huge fruit/produce/meat/pastry market in West Jerusalem, and over the last nine days I have eaten approximately 1 1/3 pounds of Havla.

All three days spent seeing the city were in the Old Quarter, or immediately around it. I'm not going to try to explain anything about the Old Quarter. When it comes to history, this is it. You've made it. Take a look around. That is where King David is buried. That stone was laid by the Greeks, this by the Romans, that by the Mamluks, this by the Turks -- one right on top of the other. This spot -- right on this very spot -- is where Jesus did a back-flip and ate an entire banana split. How to take this in? It takes a lot of taking in. As usual, some of the better moments have nothing to do with anything historical. Today, while drinking coffee in the Muslim Quarter, I spent fifteen minutes watching a young (Palestinian?) boy ingeniously attempt to pull Israeli shekel coins out of a sewer by means of a magnet/metal-rod contraption. He was unsuccessful, but in the future I think he'll get it.

Tomorrow I am off to Jordan. I would be content to stay in Israel until the 18th, when I fly to Istanbul. But there is a must-see sight in Jordan that apparently must be seen, and it is called "Petra." So away I go.