I’ve heard that people visiting Petra should allot three days to adequately appreciate all of its meticulously carved majesty. Unlike being personally satisfied in one day by the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, which also has a reputation of needing three days, I do think Petra needs two or three. I was there for one, which was enough to see the surface of all of it but not nearly enough to explore it fully.

Most, most unfortunately my camera battery was nearly depleted and my adapter wasn’t working, so I couldn’t charge it. So, reminiscent of my wanderings around Chichen Itza, Mexico with no camera whatsoever, I committed much of Petra to my personal memory rather than my memory card.

I’ve already seen so many photos of Petra’s most famous sight, the Treasury, that I didn’t feel a need to take many photos of my own. I have no regrets.

The Treasury is the first building you see upon exiting the siq, a tall, long, narrow canyon of the most beautifully colored rock I’ve ever seen. The siq was actually my favorite sight in Petra.

Of course, Petra wasn’t without the quirky surprise sight either.

If you’re in good shape or not afraid of riding on the back of a donkey, you need to go up the 800 steps carved naturally into a mountain in order to see the monastery. This structure I thought was much more impressive than the treasury.

As my guide explained, the names of these buildings are misnomers, as no one knows for certain which buildings was used for what purpose centuries ago. It is believed that the treasury and the monastery were actually not treasuries or monasteries at all, yet their new monikers stick.

Petra is not all about ancient people living in an ancient city. Modern people still live there too. In caves! After I walked back down the 800 steps from the monastery, I ran into a Bedouin man smoking shisha who invited me to his mother’s for tea. I accepted his invitation, climbed aboard his donkey, and traveled up the mountain to his mother’s… cave! But I’m leaving that story for an upcoming post.

My trip to Jordan was sponsored by the Jordan Tourism Board, but all opinions are honestly my own.

Petra, Jordan – Worth the Time and Money? Definitely. is a post from: Solo Travel Tales and Tips from the Middle East and Elsewhere on the Globe

Every single thing in Muscat was new and shiny in my eyes in 2009, as I’d never before traveled to an Arab country. From the shapes and colors of the buildings to the sights along the roadways, to the clothing people wore to the language they spoke, I drank in everything. Because I didn’t have a travel blog back then, my photos aren’t of the caliber they are today, unfortunately. For example, I walked around for a while in the Muttrah souk, or marketplace, looking at the local wares, clothing and jewelry for sale along with its fascinating array of locals. Yet I took only four photos, the best of which is thorougly pitiful.

Very poor photo of the Muttrah Souq

Near the Muttrah Souq in the same area of the city, was the corniche, or boardwalk, along the Gulf of Oman. Along the corniche was a sight very common in the Middle East. Although there were one or two hundred people relaxing along the corniche this particular evening, every single one of them was male. Indeed, most public places you go in this part of the world are loaded with males with nary a female in sight. Where are all the women?!

Some of the most popular sights to see in Muscat, I’d read before I departed for my journey, are the many 16th Century Portuguese forts that once protected the city from invaders. Due to the language difficulties I had with the taxi drivers who were taking me from sight to sight, it took quite a while to communicate that I wanted to see a fort, but once we finally arrived at one, it was pretty impressive. Unfortunately, due to our tangled tongues, I don’t know which one it was.

Out of all the simply awesome sights of Muscat, the most incredible was the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.

The white outside walkways were made of a type of marble so shiny that it appeared wet. I had to get used to the idea that I didn’t have to take little mincing steps across it to keep from slipping.

I’ve now visited several more Middle Eastern mosques, including the unbelievable Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi, yet even that masterpiece wasn’t as impressive, in my eyes, as the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.

I haven’t been back yet, but when I do travel to Muscat again, I’m going to learn what forts I’m looking at as well as spend more time not slipping on the shiny marble walkways of the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.

My Pre-Blog Travels: Part II – Muscat, Oman is a post from: Solo Travel Tales and Tips from the Middle East and Elsewhere on the Globe

The only ferry departure point from Egypt to Jordan is in the south Sinai town of Nuweiba and the only port in Jordan where ferries arrive from Egypt is in the southern town of Aqaba. You can take a bus or taxi or ask a tour company to arrange for a shared minivan to Nuweiba, Egypt.

Once in Nuweiba, there are three separate ferries which can take you from Egypt to Jordan and back.

1. Charter ferry – This ferry departs Nuweiba every day at approximately 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. You can only get a ticket for this ferry through a travel agency at least 36 hours in advance. The cost is approximately 100 USD. The trip across the Red Sea will take approximately 1.5 hours.

2. Slow ferry – This ferry departs Nuewiba every day at approximately noon, although times vary. Tickets cost approximately 75 USD and can be bought at Nuweiba port. Sailing time is approximately eight hours.

3. Fast ferry – This ferry departs Nuweiba every day at approximately 2:00 p.m., although times vary. On the day I took this ferry, for example, we didn’t take off from the dock until 3:30. You need to buy your ticket at Nuweiba port. I didn’t write down the cost, but it was approximately 85 USD. I tried to buy a return ticket but was told they don’t sell them.

There are small shops at Nuweiba port where you can sit and buy food and drink while you wait for the ferry.

I took the fast ferry, which was very nice, perfectly modern, clean (even the restroom) and comfortable. They serve food and drinks aboard this ferry and do money exchanges as well, although I think the rate is not as good as at the ferry terminal in Aqaba.

At some point while aboard the fast ferry, although I don’t know about the other ferries, you will have to get in line to get your visa to enter the country or at least begin the process of getting the visa. I and other Americans as well as possibly other nationalities had to give our passports to the passport person aboard the ferry and didn’t get them back until we arrived at the port in Aqaba. Although there is a 20 Jordanian dinar fee for the visa upon arrival at the airport, at the ferry port there was no fee.

Once you disembark from the ferry you’ll walk up a hill to a building where you’ll get your passport back if they didn’t return it to you on the ferry. Whether your passport is already in hand or not, you need to go through this building to clear customs. Here you’ll find there are money exchange windows but no ATM machine.

You might want to arrange for your hotel to pick you up or otherwise arrange for transportation to take you out of the port as you’ll likely find dozens of aggressive taxi drivers waiting in the doorway as you exit the building. Apparently taxis in this part of Jordan don’t have meters, so if you want to take a taxi without being badly ripped off you will have to haggle hard. I managed to negotiate a trip to the JETT bus terminal for only 5 Jordanian Dinars.

Important Notes: The ferries seem to be somewhat unreliable. When I was returning from Jordan to Egypt, I had to go overland because there were no ferries running that day. The ferry company knew the day prior that there were probably going to be no ferries, so it was not a complete surprise to me. Be aware that you may have to go overland when traveling from Egypt to Jordan and back, even if you want to take a ferry.

If you need to take a taxi from the ferry terminal to the JETT bus station in Aqaba, be sure to tell your taxi driver that you need to go to the JETT station, not the bus station, because the two are not located in the same place.

Now that you’re in Aqaba, you can begin to enjoy Jordan!

How to Travel By Ferry from Egypt to Jordan is a post from: Solo Travel Tales and Tips from the Middle East and Elsewhere on the Globe

Wadi Rum is unlike other deserts I’ve seen in that it doesn’t consist of miles and miles of connected mountains or endless nothingness. This desert is literally decorated with hundreds of huge disconnected rock formations, no two alike. Rather than peeking into the sky as do mountains, the rocks of this desert are mostly flat on top. Why? Millions of years ago the entire area was under the ocean. As we drove through the deep sand in our four-wheel drive, I could easily picture these little mountains sitting on the bottom of the sea.

The first sight I saw upon entering Wadi Rum was the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a striking mountain with several distinct natural pillar-shaped rock compositions. This formation got its name from the T.E. Lawrence book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

My favorite sight in Wadi Rum was a giant hill full of what appeared, if you have an active imagination, to be small open doors and windows carved into rock. I could almost see miniature people running around inside, entering and exiting the rock by walking in the doors and peering out the windows at the world going by. Can you see what I mean?

Underneath the rocks of Wadi Rum lay enough water to keep Jordan going for 100 to 150 years. A project called Disi is currently underway, in which 330 kilometers, or 200 miles, of pipe is being built to pump water all the way from this desert to Amman.

My guide pointed out rock carvings left by the tribe of Thamud, which lived in Wadi rum from the 5th Century B.C. to the 6th Century A.D. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life aside from a museum exhibit.

Although I loved driving around this gorgeous area, one of the best parts was stopping at a large tent for Bedouin tea. I’ve had this type of tea often while living in and taking holidays in Egypt, but I still never get tired of the taste or of the experience.

Fortunately, after the tea came more of the unique mounds of rock that are Wadi Rum.

Whether I sail by ferry from Egypt to Jordan as I did on this trip or end up researching cheap flights to get me back into the country, I know when I return I’ll be heading back to Wadi Rum.

My trip to Jordan was sponsored by the Jordan Tourism Board, but all opinions are honestly my own.

Wadi Rum, Jordan Through the Eyes of an Anti-Desert Person is a post from: Solo Travel Tales and Tips from the Middle East and Elsewhere on the Globe

I spent my first morning here walking around the old city section of Amman and was later told this very busy, rather gritty area is only 20 percent of the capital city. It may be just a fraction of Amman, but I’m very glad that this is where I got my first impressions of Jordan because, honestly, I am loving it. Here’s why:

Amman looks just like I’d always pictured: Closely-built whitish-brown buildings built on hills. I love the look.

It has a very nice little fruit and vegetable souq…

…at which literally the first thing I saw was an amazing, unidentified fruit. Does anyone reading this know what this fruit is?!

A little-known thousand-year-old architectural wonder called the Nymphaeum appeared in front of me as I was walking down the street. In how many countries of the world does something like this suddenly loom in front of you in a busy downtown area?

I also ran across a really nice gold souq with dozens of shops selling thousands of pieces of gold jewelry, with none of the pushy salesmen you’ll find in souqs elsewhere in the Mid East.

A guy selling coffee out of metal cannisters on the street was so nice that he gave me a cup free of charge. Now, how many people would do the same?

And last but not least, I am loving Amman because it has the occasional quirk which helps keep things very interesting.

Amman, I’ll see more of you tomorrow.

First Impressions of Amman from a Jordan Sceptic is a post from: Solo Travel Tales and Tips from the Middle East and Elsewhere on the Globe

It was a memorable time but, unlike Christmas in my home country, in Egypt this holiday doesn’t last six weeks, with trees, tinsel and mistletoe everywhere you look and millions of people going further into debt to buy gifts. This was a very toned down version of Christmas, with a sweet simplicity.

Taha and our Christmas turkey

I am told that a traditional Christmas for Coptic Christians consists of going to a midnight Christmas Eve mass, followed by a large meal, eaten either at some point the next day or immediately after returning home. No decorations, no caroling and no presents, except for sometimes gifts for children. My group didn’t go to the midnight service, instead arriving at Joseph and Annet’s apartment at that time. At 1:15 a.m. a turkey came out of the oven, we added heaps of rice and the traditional Arab salad of diced cucumbers and tomatoes and ate our Christmas dinner. Incidentally, this was the best turkey I’ve eaten in my life.

Mina and our middle-of-the-night Christmas dinner

With Arab music playing over the computer, courtesy of our impromptu DJ Mamdu, everyone drank a little Egyptian Sakara beer and talked for a while, until heading home about 2:30 am. Yes, this was the most unusual Christmas I’ve ever spent in my life, and not one I am ever going to forget.

Our Coptic Christmas DJ, Mamdu

Merry Coptic Christmas from Egypt! is a post from: Solo Travel Tales and Tips from the Middle East and Elsewhere on the Globe

Oman is an oil-rich nation just across the Persian Gulf from Iran, east of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with the Arabian Sea running along its eastern edge. It was just so exotic, with sights I’d never seen or heard of and people dressed in a way I’d only seen on TV news or in magazines. I could hardly believe people really dressed like this. I didn’t want to take photos in the faces of these conservative people, so I snapped pictures of men in their long white dishdashas and women covered in their abayas, sheilas and burqas on the sly instead.

It was in Muscat that I learned how incredibly hard it can be to get around in the Persian Gulf. With the exception of Dubai, public transport in this region is pretty much nil except for buses full of nothing but Arab men, which I was too intimidated to try out. My hotel in Muscat found two taxi drivers who drove me around to different sights, but neither spoke good English. Getting from place to place was frustrating but ultimately fruitful, as I managed to see everything I’d hoped for. One of the many new and amazing sights I saw as we were whizzing down the roads was the many roadside decorations common in Muscat.

You can smell frankincense burning all around Oman, as this is one of the few parts of the world where frankincense trees grow. This roadside burner looked like a giant tribute to the practice of burning incense.

Giant decorative pitchers such as these I found along one road are rather common in the Arab world. I’ve yet to find out why.

One of the first places I had my taxi driver take me was a beach. It was late September but the sand was so hot it was impossible to walk on it barefoot. When I stepped into the waters of the Gulf of Oman for some cool relief, I found that the water was nearly as hot as the sand. I stepped right back out and strapped on my sandals, giving up on the idea of a casual stroll along the beach.

Oman is too hot even for Omanis, explained one of the guys who worked at my hotel. Opening a door to the outside literally felt similar to opening the door to an oven, with a wave of heat engulfing me each time. Thankfully, air conditioners were blasting in every building and automobile I entered in Muscat. One cool spot for locals to relax was an area in the corner of the lobby of my hotel, with colorful cushions on the floor. This arrangement is pretty common in Middle Eastern countries I now know, but then I was surprised and delighted, although too hesitant to take a photo, when I saw a man in a dishdasha and a woman covered from head to toe in black sitting on these cushions and burning incense.

As you might imagine, there are mosques all over the place in this Islamic city. The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque was only the second mosque I’d entered in my life and still the most spectacular I’ve seen to date. So spectacular is it, I’ll wait until later to post photos of it. Until then, here’s another beautiful mosque I saw along the road in Muscat. This city is largely unexplored by Westerners, but that really should change.

My Pre-Blog Travels: Part I – Muscat, Oman is a post from: Solo Travel Tales and Tips from the Middle East and Elsewhere on the Globe

So what is Christmas in the Middle East like? you may wonder. Not at all like the USA, the only other country where I’ve spent Christmas. America may have had this Christian holiday overtaken by secular consumerism, but at least we have holiday decorations everywhere, a festive workplace atmosphere, and family get-togethers. In the Middle East, we’ve got knee-high pitifully decorated Christmas trees, a lone holiday song emitting from some store speaker somewhere, and stray dogs lying around drapped in tinsel.

Last year I traveled to Bahrain just before Christmas. Not the perfect place to head if you want some Christmas joy. When I arrived at the airport to depart, though, I really actually did run into some major Christmas spirit, as the terminal I was in was totally decked out. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?” I asked a white man who was texting as I was spinning around in wonder, taking it all in. “Oh, I’ve seen it before,” he replied in a Texas accent. “They never have displays with Jesus or anything, but they do put up Christmas trees and stuff. It’s really not that uncommon in the Mid East.” Well, I didn’t know that.

Indeed, when I arrived back in the UAE, I went to Emirates mall in Dubai one afternoon, where I discovered a floor-to-ceiling Christmas tree, replete with large resplendently-wrapped packages. It may have been fake, but it was a nice Muslim effort.

Tonight I’m going to a Christmas dinner at a friend’s house with other Western Christians. I, to my great surprise, found some gingerbread cookies in a bakery here in Dahab, in the shape of Christmas trees and bells. The only Christmassy treat I’ve found anywhere at all, this year or the last, I’ll be taking these along with me.

Yes, Christmas in the Middle East may not be the month-long extravaganza that it is in the West, but at least it exists. Merry Christmas from the Middle East!

Merry Christmas from the Middle East is a post from: Solo Travel Tales and Tips from the Middle East and Elsewhere on the Globe

Koshary

From their carts these men sell not only their entrée of koshary but a desert of rice pudding as well.

Rice Pudding

I’d never heard of koshary and never liked rice pudding, but now both of these dishes play a pretty big culinary role in my life.

I soon made friends with the man whom I, and others, think makes the very best koshary and rice pudding in Dahab. His name is Ali, and he invited me to his home one night to see how he does it. “It’s not because of the business,” Ali says of his several daily hours in his family kitchen, “I like to do this.”

Many nights a week Ali makes 100 bowls of koshary with rice, tiny spaghetti, lentil, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and chickpeas. While he begins the process at night, he wakes up at 6:30 or 7:00 each morning to complete it. If you’re at all familiar with Dahab and its laid back late night vibe, you will realize that these hours, both to locals and tourists, are considered the middle of the night, not morning.

Alongside the koshary Ali also prepares the world’s best rice pudding consisting of water, rice, vanilla, sugar, cornflower and buffalo milk. “Cow milk will turn yellow, but buffalo milk stays white,” Ali says. He tops off his concoction with cinnamon and tiny dried grapes. The cinnamon and dried grapes on top of these desert is an amazing taste, I can tell you personally.

If you travel to Dahab, around 11:00 a.m. each day except Fridays start looking for Ali, who will be pushing a cart decorated with the flag of Egypt along Dahab’s boardwalk. He’s been cooking koshary and rice pudding for Dahab for 18 years, he says, because “I eat something good, I have to give it to the people.”

The Amazing Koshary and Rice Pudding of Dahab, Egypt is a post from: Solo Travel Tales and Tips from the Middle East and Elsewhere on the Globe

After months of media reports on the Egyptian Revolution and its aftermath, it may seem as if violent demonstrations and protests are second nature to Egyptians. After all, this country is in the dangerous and volatile Middle East, right? What besides revolution can you expect from its people? Actually, Egypt is not now violent at all and Egyptians are not accustomed to turmoil. The surprising ordeal I undertook to check into my hostel two weeks ago in Cairo gave me a tiny bit of insight into how unusual the current situation is for the Egyptian people.

Mohammed Mahmoud Street, leading to Tahrir Square

Cairo was behaving as its normal wonderful bustling with chaos self as my Egyptian friend and I took a subway ride from one end to the other then walked through its streets on the way to the Cecilia Hotel two Fridays ago. I’d stayed at this hostel, on El Falaky Street, the only other time I’d been to Cairo, in October 2009, and knew it was a ten-minute walk from Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the Egyptian Revolution. However, I didn’t realize that it stood directly on Mohammed Mahmoud Street which, like Tahrir, was ground zero not only to the revolution but mid-November’s renewed demonstrations in which 42 people were killed and many others permanently blinded by a police sniper who shot out people’s eyes. As my friend and I neared the hostel, we came to a barricaded street where we had to show our passports to a solider before passing any further. We then began our walk through subsequent streets sealed off with 10-foot-high concrete blocks, barbed wire, soldiers and army tanks.

El Falaky Street which runs through Mohammed Mahmoud Street in Cairo

I was shaking by the time we finished walking through this war zone. Not out of fear but because I’d never experienced anything remotely like this in my life. Are you sure you want to do this? asked my Egyptian friend, as we stood inside the front door of the hostel, waiting for the elevator to the lobby. The most stoical person I’ve ever known, even he was a bit shaken by what we’d just seen. No, I said, I’m not sure. As we tried to shake thoughts of city streets occupied with tanks out of our heads, we turned to notice several Egyptian soldiers lying on the floor inside the door, wool blankets pulled over their heads in an attempt to sleep. I knew I couldn’t think properly in this setting. Let’s just go upstairs, have coffee and see how I feel then, I said.

Barrier blocking Mohammed Mahmoud Street

This is worse than I thought it would be, I said to the smiling man at the Cecilia’s front desk as I got off the elevator with visions of tanks still dancing in my head. But you are so safe here. If anyone tries to mess with you on the street, it is over in one minute, said the man, Mohammed, trying to put a positive spin on the situation.

Burned-out car on Mohammed Mahmoud Street

While the once unknown Tahrir Square and Mohammed Mahmoud Street are now famous worldwide due to the revolution, they are still just old, familiar neighborhood names for locals. This is very unusual for us, the Cecilia’s manager Waleed pointed out to me as we stood on the balcony taking in the sight of streets usually throbbing with careening Cairo traffic but now barricaded and barren. What he said and the way all of these people had acted then really hit me. Egyptians aren’t snuggled up warm and cozy next to memories of their revolution and thoughts of a changing Egypt. Many of them are just as shaken by what’s happening in their country as Americans would be if we went through a similar situation in ours. While it’s easy for us to watch them struggling all the way across the world and say Isn’t that awful, they actually have to live through the change, come up with coping mechanisms and solutions just to survive in their new uncertain world.

Corner of Mohammed Mahmoud and El Falaky Streets in Cairo

One cup of coffee and lots of talk later, I decided I would stay at the Cecilia Hotel despite its current unfortunate location. Knowing that Egyptians are having to do something far more difficult than sleeping inside a military zone for a couple of nights made the decision not so difficult after all.

My favorite room at the Cecilia Hostel

Why I Felt Comfortable Spending Two Nights Inside a Military Zone in Cairo is a post from: Solo Travel Tales and Tips from the Middle East and Elsewhere on the Globe