So who brought the coke?

I booked a tour of Wadi Rum through the Valentine Hotel. I wasn’t sure if this was a rip off or not, but after arriving in Petra it seems that people were paying twice as much as I paid for the same tour. We have six people crammed in our Land Rover Discovery SUV. There is no AC just windows-down driving.



There are many other SUVs along our same tour and we end up seeing a lot of the same people over and over again. I meet up another American, Eric, who was on the same route toward Egypt. We ended up seeing each other at most of the various stone formations. At the rock bridge we both end up meeting a third American, Thu, a Seattleite who was visiting Jordan while she was working in Alexandria, Egypt.





When I was talking to Thu she talked about how she had just met another American from Kansas City. I described Brian and it turns out that they had met each other previously. I ended up having to leave hatefully from the last attraction because our group was late for another appointment. But Brian and Thu ended up see each other again and Brian was able to give me her contacts.



Our next stop is a Bedouin camp. Here we will spend the night in the tents and see both the sunset and sunrise. The Wadi Rum sunset and sunrise was amazing. The visibility was far and the landscape was bare and peaceful. The red rock color slowly changed various shades of red and orange. I took a barefoot walk around our Bedouin camp exploring all the wildlife that lived around us. There were countless lizards, 4x4 wheel tracks, snake tracks and lizard tracks throughout the area.



The night at Bedouin Camp is cold. When the sun sets the dry hot environment changed to darkness and cold. The atmosphere became completely quiet and there were no lights to be seen. The landscape felt calm and peaceful. This is the reason this place is called the Bedouin meditation camp. The moon lit the surroundings and we all decided to take a talk by moonlight. It was surprising how well lit the moon light was and desert was clearly visible.



That night we all sleep under double blankets. They were so heavy that it felt like you were trapped under the covers. I had the best sleep ever that night and nearly missed the sunrise. Dawn approaches by laying a layer of fogginess across the desert. The colors are grayed and slowly increase in saturation as the sun appears. One of the most beautiful sights so far. I would probably rate this higher than Petra.

Petra: Its A Small World Afterall!

That morning I was talking to Yoko in the lobby when a familiar voice says my name. It turns out that Brian, a friend of a friend, that I had met in Dubai is also at Petra. We decide to check out Petra together and all jump in the truck for the morning ride down to the entrance. During the ride down, Yoko realizes that she has forgotten her ticket.



It is best to view the Treasury, which is usually the picture most people associate with Petra, in the morning. The light doesn’t reach the canyon crevice until 8-9am. Luckily it is best to view the Monastery in the afternoon.



Petra was absolutely amazing. The sheer size of both the Treasury and Monastery are incredible. You really have to see people next to both the carvings to see their true size. I ended walking up to the Monastery with Brian. Then around early afternoon we had explored most places in Petra. Brian headed back and I stayed to wait for the sunset at the “World’s End” which is near the Monastery.



Around sunset I meet up with a group of students that were on a trip to visit Petra. After taking some pictures for them at the “World’s End” we all trek down towards the entrance. It is about a 45 minute walk from the end to the entrance and they end up being late and running towards the entrance. It was kind of interesting to see. I say good bye to that group of acquaintances, I head towards my hotel.



After a long walk back up towards the hilltop hotel of Valentine, I see two familiar figures walking towards me. It was Nick and Paulina, the two Aussies I had traveled with in Morocco. I knew they were going to try to meet up with me either here or in Egypt. We hit a hookah stand after dinner and get some tea. That night we said our goodbyes as I am leaving tomorrow and they are staying to check out Petra.



The funny thing is that the entire time I’m meeting people at Valentine they always bring up how much of a bitch the female owner is. She’s even notoriously mentioned in the Lonely Planet as being less than polite or friendly. One of the first things that Paulina and Nick mention is that very fact. In my experience, the owner was really nice, but then again I was checked in by the husband and not the wife.

Like Kris Kross I also Missed the Bus

Yesterday I grabbed a minibus back from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Back at the Faisal hostel I hear news that the Japanese Journalist has returned to grab his things and is now being deported back to Japan and blacklisted from returning to Israel. I don’t have too much time to talk and ask questions as I am taking the fast track back to Jordan. I miss the bus back to the Allenby Bridge Crossing and end up staying the night there.

The next morning I travel back to the border and move through much quicker this time. I take another minibus ride to the capital city of Amman and then finally a minibus ride down to Petra. After getting into Amman a taxi driver tries to rip me off by taking me the wrong station which is closer but doesn’t offer services to Petra. Luckily I shared the taxi with a Jordanian that lived in San Francisco and she caught on to it. Half way during the ride another Muslim woman and the former San Franciscan started yelling back and forth in Arabic. Finally they she turned to me and disclosed the fact that this guy was going to drop me off at the wrong station and they were arguing in my favor to get to the correct bus station.



I arrived in Petra in the evening. It was already dark, I was hungry, and I had heard that Valentine Hotel was at the top of a decently steep hill. At the drop off point a man in a truck was sitting there waiting for me. He said that he works for the Valentine Hotel and drops people off between the bus station and hotel. I suspiciously ask who much he charges and it turns out to be free. At the top of the hill I find Valentine Hotel and take a moment to breathe in enjoy the view. Tonight the hotel offers an all you can eat dinner and I can’t wait.



That night I realize that a two day Petra entrance pass is a better deal than the single day. Then you can always sell the second day. This is exactly what another group of Americans are doing. So I buy the second day off of them for a huge discount. That night I also discovered Petra beer, which looks amazingly similar to Coors Light.

Tel Aviv'in It Up

This morning, Wakako, a Japanese journalist, and I take a minibus to Tel Aviv to meet up with Yoko who is already there. After getting off the minibus we had to enter a mall to cut to the other side of the street where the bus station is.





Most public buildings in Israel have some sort of security. At the mall entrance sits a single security next to a metal detector. She goes through both of my backpacks only briefly enough to see the top items and lets us through the beeping metal detector. At the other side we find a bus that is heading towards old Tel Aviv.



The public bus in Tel Aviv looks like any other normal bus, however the clientel is quite different. There are Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and Soldiers carrying firearms and large duffels bags. We arrived at the old part of Tel Aviv called Jaffa. Here we get off the local bus at an amazing looking clock tower and trek towards our hostel.



The beaches of Tel Aviv start next to Jaffa and stretch all the way to the high-rise buildings of new Tel Aviv. It is winter here and the waters are still warm to swim, however I am told that the beaches are the most empty. The overall feel of this city is completely different from that of Jerusalem. It feels soul-less compared to the ancient city of Jerusalem and the modern feel of the city makes it seem like I can be anywhere in the world right now.




I meet up with Anna, a Spaniard, who I met on the Jerusalem walking tour. She is out here doing geological research for school and we decide to check out the beach and walk around the city. There are still a lot of people on the beach, especially for winter and it makes me think how great it would be to live in a place where I can hit up the beaching during Christmas. I’d imagine that it would be must like Christmas in Australia where families each sea food and go to the beach for the holidays.



That night at the hostel I meet my first Chinese traveler. She is staying in the same room has Yoko and is only here for the night and I finally get another chance to practice my Mandarin. The nights are quite cool and without a kitchen I am forced to eat at the local street food stands near our hostel. For being in the middle of the Arabic quarter of Tel Aviv the food here doesn’t hold a flame compared to Jerusalem.



I’ve met and talked to several Israeli people while I was in the city. Four out of the five have told me how Israel is the greatest country in the world within five minutes of meeting them. Yet they don’t really ever justify their statement and the discussion of their country usually ends with that statement.



The walk back from the main city to old city of Tel Aviv takes about forty five minutes. Check out this license plate I found while walking home. It is actually from Sedgwick County which is where I’m fromI usually return after sunset everyday and walk along the beach. The sunsets here have been some of the most colorful I’ve yet to see. The temperature drops immediately after the sunsets and the entire city shuts down.

Jerusalem Walking Tour

I am not really a religious person and being in such a religiously iconic city I decided it was be a pity if I didn’t get anything out of it. Thus I decided to take one of those free tours that I’ve been accustomed to back in Europe. The meeting place is towards Jaffa Gate and I leisurely stroll past the open air markets.



I arrive early at the meeting point just inside Jaffa Gate at half past ten and have half an hour to kill. So I browse around the shops near that area where everything is about double what I pay near Damascus Gate. I site opposite the two tour guides that look like they’re picketing with two huge red signs advertising the free walking tour. By 11 o’clock there is a fairly large group of tourists gathering around that area and I move from my bench where I was enjoying a circle shaped sesame seed bread and coke.





The tour was very informational and full of religiously important sites. We also toured the many different quarters of Jerusalem where Jews, Arabs, Christians, and Armenians all co-exist. Jerusalem has such a significant presence in so many religions that we are only able to cover a fraction of what the city has to offer. There are other different walking tours that are more dedicated towards certain topics.





One of the discoveries on the tour was a small coffee shop connected to a hotel that is inside the city walls. This cafeteria for the hotel is raised up above the busy and noisy streets of Jerusalem. There at the top is garden, tree providing shade and an aura of peace that is hard to come by in this city. It is amazing how quite a few meters make and I can even hear birds singing. This coffee shop would be visited many times during my stay in Jerusalem.

Israeli Po po's

Tonight after coming back from Mount Olive, we each split up to gather cooking ingredients from the markets around our hostel. We get back to the hostel and cook a meal for eight people in a kitchen just large enough for two grown adults to stand in.

Our hostel is on the Japanese backpacking trail and currently there is a huge number of Japanese backpackers here. We all gathered for dinner and half of them assume that I too am Japanese and converse freely with me in Japanese, until I tell them that I can’t understand Japanese. Then its quiet the rest of the time.

During the middle of our dinner four civilian dressed men came into the hostel with one man dressed in Israeli soldiers’ uniform. They are all carrying firearms and the soldier is holding an Uzi. They check all the dorm rooms and then find an elderly Japanese guy. I was talking to him earlier and he was a Japanese journalist on vacation in Israel. They cuffed and shackled him and the rest of the guards searched his bags. When he protested and told the soldiers to be careful with his belongings, one soldier strikes him on the back of head with his rifle.

The hostel owner and the soldiers are yelling back in forth. I can’t be sure they’re yelling because Arabic and Hebrew all sound like angry languages to me. The hostel owner then comes over to our table and assures us that everything is okay as the Japanese guy is bleeding profusely from the back of his head. Then the soldiers gather his bags and drag him out cuffed and shackled to an H2 hummer sitting outside.

It was an unbelievable experience and I had an urge to take some pictures from our balcony he was escorted out. It was just really hard to get a good picture since the sun had already set and it was dark outside. The entire experience was surreal and the danger portion of it didn’t really settle in until after they had left. I wonder what happened to that guy.

Mount Olive

I talked to more people at our hostel and they all recommend that I check out the sunrise and sunset at Mount Olive. It is my understanding that Mount Olives marks the point where Jesus will return. This is why the hillside is filled with tombstones of people who want to be buried at that exact location.



Since I am not much of a morning person I rule out the idea that I’ll see a sunrise. Instead I opt for a sunset visit and trek towards the road leading up to the top. I walk along the ancient walls of Jerusalem past Damascus Gate. I still have not grasped the idea that I am actually walking along something this ancient. A left the intersection and I start to march up a steep 45degree hill. This steep uphill climb is well worth the effort for the view over the city.