Author: Gallivantrix

Spring Break 2015 Vol. 8: Goodbye Dubai

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

Even now, as I sit in my office at school trying to wrap up this story before the next one starts, I wonder: can she do it? I’ve been saying all along that I’m putting the accommodations in a separate post, which has now migrated into a post for all the hotels/hostels for both the February *and* the March trips, so all I have left is the final day and a half of Dubai. I used to think keeping a blog was a breeze, what could be so hard about just getting your thoughts and experiences out there? I’ve written about a million papers for school and those require reading and analyzing and research and thinking. I’ve written works of fiction that require creating worlds and people and events out of nothing. So writing stuff that actually happened to me personally should be a breeze, right? NO. Turns out, putting your own life and thoughts down in black and white is HARD, at least if you don’t want to sound like a rambling 5 year old. However, I think it’s a great experience — not just for sharing my tales and adventures with you (which is awesome, I love sharing), but to help me assess my travels, what I’ve done and seen and how it’s affecting me, to cement these stories in my mind by viewing and reviewing them, and to create something lasting I can look back on later. So thanks again for joining me for the ride. You keep me accountable to my writing and to myself even when I’m tired, busy, rushed or just not feeling it.

Day 3

Despite having been up till all hours at the Global Village the night before, I still had a full day planned. The tour buses start around 9ish, but I had looked at the map and realized that I couldn’t possibly take the tour bus all the way from the Marina to the Dubai Museum in less than 2 hours, so I opted to catch a taxi to my first stop of the day and then take the bus from then on out. As I exited the hotel in search of a taxi, a nice hotel employee asked if I was looking for a taxi and I said yes. A lot of hotels will help you flag down a taxi and some even have arrangements with the local drivers, so I didn’t think this was unusual. He said they had hotel taxis that had meters, reassuring me more than once about the meter. It turned out to be a meter that charged almost double what the city taxi meters did, so add that to the list of things I don’t like about the hotel.

The driver also didn’t have a clue where he was going! It was like Saudi again, but I couldn’t believe this was happening in Dubai. I wasn’t even going to some out of the way place, I was going to the Dubai Museum, there’s only one. Fortunately this one at least had some concept of how to use his phone to find a place he wasn’t familiar with, so we got there after all, and after a brisk fare argument, I found my way into the museum.

Dubai Museum

IMG_1701I love museums. I go to them whenever I can. I was lucky enough to live a short distance from the Smithsonian as a child which has given me a lifelong love even if very few museums in the world can quite measure up. I try to appreciate them for what they are. There were museums in China that had random artifacts open to the not at all climate controlled air and taxidermied animals that (up until recently) I thought must have been fake. Given how BIG and glamorous everything is in Dubai, I had some pretty high hopes of it’s museum. How wrong can one girl be?

And yet, this museum could have been built at the very first sign of the city’s transition from humble pearl diving village to richest, biggest show off and never again updated. I took a picture of the outside of the building in December, and I think that might have been the best view. IMG_1687The museum started off with an outdoor courtyard display of boats and a sort of palm frond and mud shack. There was some kind of art shop off to one side, but it wasn’t like original or traditional art, so I wasn’t really sure what it was doing there. Everything was small, cramped, old and generally the opposite of Dubai. I think my pictures make it look better than it did in person, because looking back at them I don’t remember being impressed at the time. It was also very crowded, a couple busloads of Chinese tourists had all stopped there at once.

I finally found a door that led inside which took us to a spiral staircase down. Presumably the majority of the museum is underground, because it did take up more square footage than the topside appeared to. IMG_1692Hanging from the ceiling as we descended the stairs were several worn out stuffed seagulls. They were really quite pathetic looking, gray and dusty, feathers out of place and hanging at odd angles. As I looked down I saw that the floor had been painted to resemble the coastline and reasoned that the birds must be there to provide a perspective of flying over the beach, but I just couldn’t understand why these birds were so old and shabby. Dubai! Closer to the ground there was a dead flamingo in a similar sad state of taxidermy.

There followed displays of Arab waxworks, but unlike Madame Tussaud’s, these were not great works of near human art. IMG_1696They were awkward and the displays seemed completely out of time, not because they portrayed the past, but because they did it in such an ungainly way. There were scenes of Bedouin drinking coffee, selling goods, at one point there was a blacksmith forge that had a little movie of fire playing behind the wax people. IMG_1699The ocean room was not too bad, a larger room that used a mirror on one wall to make half a boat seem like a whole boat. At one point there were glass sheets at different depths with fish painted on them to appear more 3D. There was a waxwork pearl diver and a pair of legs coming down from the ceiling next to the bottom of a boat, as if we were underwater looking up. It sounds cool in concept, but the execution was just so tacky.

There were more stuffed animals, desert foxes and other creatures, just as badly stuffed and cared for as the seagulls had been. And there were more wax people displays of nomadic life in the desert. All of this was cramped and close together with tiny aisles between the displays. It was very dark, so they displays were hard to see, and it didn’t actually take too many people before the rooms felt crowded. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to get out a museum so much,  but somewhere between the grotesque wax people, the sad stuffed animals and the claustrophobic rooms, I could not remotely enjoy myself.

When I finally got to the gift shop, I was happy to be done and decided to find the bathroom before I got on the bus, but I was told that the bathroom was in the middle of the display tunnels. So now I had to fight my way through the narrow, crowded path backwards to find the small, hot, crowded bathroom. I seriously felt like nothing about this museum was even remotely Dubaiesque anymore. IMG_1700On my second time out, I noticed a room off to one side near the gift shop that more or less resembled a museum. It was spacious, cool and nicely lit. There were artifacts and scale models on display around the walls and on plinths or tables. It was actually a little bit of a relief to stand in it, until the hordes of tourists arrived. So I scurried past the gift shop, noticing as I did that there didn’t even appear to be any unique souvenirs there. I had to wait a while for the bus and the only shade was inside a phone booth, but it was still better than being inside. (more pictures)

Dubai is a pretty cool city, with lots of neat stuff for people to see, but I was so disappointed in the museum. I can’t even imagine why the Saudi King has made an infinitely better museum in his capital than the Emir has made in his, but there you go. Score one for Saudi.

Back on the Bus

My second morning starter having been so much less satisfying than my first, I plopped down in the air conditioned part of the bus and consulted my map. My next stop was the Heritage Village and Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum’s House/Museum. I wasn’t too sure about this anymore considering how things had gone at the first Museum, but I’d seen the Heritage Village stop last time and it was definitely much bigger. It had looked like a full recreation of an old style village, perhaps similar to what I had seen in Old Al Ula. Once again, I am about to be surprised at the fact that Saudi is doing a better job of historical tourism than Dubai.

The bus had a stop or two before mine, and I glanced up as more people shuffled on and off, then I noticed that Urška had just gotten on and sat a few seats ahead of me. I called out to her and she was happily surprised to see me. So we moved closer and swapped stories of our evening before. I told her all about the Global Village, and she told me that she thought her husband was starting to feel better. We compared itineraries again, but it looked like the only stop we were both taking that day was the Heritage Village and after that we’d be parting ways. Still, it was nice to have company even if just for a little while.

Heritage Village

IMG_1704We got off at the stop and had to ask the driver for instructions on where to go more than once because again there were not clear signs. We found the entrance to the village, but it was pretty empty. It looked like maybe sometimes there were events there, people selling food or souvenirs, but there was nothing happening when we visited. There were some shops, a lot of buildings that just stood empty, and almost no other people at all. Maybe the Global Village had tainted my perceptions, but both the Museum and the Heritage Village seemed impossibly fake. I told Urška how strange it felt to be going to all these replicas of desert life, as though it were something from the distant past, when it’s still going on all over the Arabian Peninsula, and I had just been in the middle of it.

IMG_1706We gave up on the village pretty quickly and went in search of the Sheikh’s house. This turned out to be a very beautiful, large building (former house) overlooking the canal. Inside we could see a multitude of rooms that seemed full of posters with quotes from the Quran (in English). IMG_1708There was a small theater set up in the courtyard where people could sit and watch the big screen television, but nothing was happening there. We found our way up some stairs to the second floor and were promptly invited into an office. I’m not entirely sure who the gentleman was, but as he was seated behind a desk piled with books and a computer, I assumed it was his office. He offered us tea and talked about the hospitality traditions in Islam.

He seemed quite interested in having a conversation about Islam with us. I’m no scholar on the subject, but I know a bit, which seemed to make him happy. I can remember the first word and complete some of my favorite quotes. He talked about the importance of being tolerant to all religions (“to you your religion, to me mine” is a famous quote from the Quran) and slowly drifted over to the topic of offensive remarks in media. The Charlie Hebdo incident wasn’t that old yet, so I knew what he was referring to. It was not a subject I was terribly comfortable with.

He said that people should not want to cause offense to others, that we should respect each other’s beliefs, and of course I agreed. should being the key word. People should love their neighbors, and not lie, steal, cheat or murder, but they do. Sometimes the government steps in, for example: theft and murder are both illegal all over the world. So he asked me why shouldn’t the government step in when it comes to religious tolerance and offensive speech. I tried to explain that although I agreed that respect and forbearance were the ideal behaviors, and that even most Westerners would agree with that idea, almost all of them believe it is a personal choice and not something that can be enforced.

I really wish I could write more about these notions. How we view free speech, tolerance and respect as personal or governmental issues, but I’ve been avoiding posting anything about this topic because I don’t want my views to ever be mistaken for an insult to Islam. Also, by this time we were two cups of tea and a bottle of water into the conversation, and were getting restless to move on.

We made some polite excuses, which were not at all false since we did need to be getting on for time’s sake, and took our leave of the gentleman. As we wandered further down the balcony, we came across several rooms that were filled with beautiful Arabic calligraphy. IMG_1709There were many different styles and little plaques that explained the details of each one. I’m afraid I’m not well enough versed in the varieties of the artform, but I really enjoyed seeing so many distinct styles. Islam does not condone the rendering of living things into art, so there are no pictures of the Prophet (PBUH) or any scenes from the Quran, or even any scenes of nature. But that does not mean that Islam is without art. Beautiful geometrical patterns and stylized calligraphy such as we were looking at more than showcase the appreciation for beauty and creative talent of the Arab world.

Finally, we’d made a complete circut of the House so we decided to head back to the bus stop. Although the Village wasn’t that impressive, I’d say the Sheikh’s house is definitely worth a pause. (more pictures)

Gold Souk

My next stop for the day was the famous Gold Souk. A souk (or souq) is simply the old word for a sort of jumbled collection of small stalls in a market place. In the past, many of these were not permanent. They would form only on certain days of the week or holidays, made of of some local traders, but largely of caravans passing through. Over time, some of the most famous became daily events, and some traders stopped hauling in carts and started building stores. Now, some souks are little different from strip malls or shopping centers while others remain more wild. Often there is a blend of permanent and transient shops. The gold souks are simply markets where all the jewelers congregate. There’s generally one in every Arab town, even Tabuk has one, although much smaller than the one in Dubai.

Hopping off at the appropriate stop, I bid Urska goodbye and promised to keep in touch (which so far is working quite well). The bus stop was not in sight of the souk entrance, and I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for, but I was sure it had to be more than the meager collection of shops on the main road. IMG_1714After a few blocks and a couple turns and about a million people trying to sell me knock off fashion purses, I finally found the entrance. There’s actually quite a large gate emblazoned with the words “city of gold” so that was helpful. Once past the gate, it was hard to tell I was still outside. The streets were all covered over, keeping the pedestrians in shade, and no cars were allowed on the roads either. It reminded me of certain parts of the Balad Souk in Jeddah, except that every single window was full of tens of thousands of dollars of gold.

I’m not actually a huge gold fan, I prefer silver jewelry, but there is something madly impressive about that much wealth just laying around. There were some truly amazing pieces in the windows, too: necklaces that could easily have covered as much of the front as a shirt, bracelets designed to cover the whole lower arm in gold, and even a sort of suit of armor made of gold. All the shops sell various purities of gold all the way up to 24 (although it’s hard to find jewelry that pure because of the softness of the metal). They sell men and women’s ornaments, as well as coins and bars. It’s all the gold.

The main roads are wide, well marked and full of higher end stores (if you can use that for a place with all gold shops). There were also people wandering around with trays of cold beverages for sale (juice, soda, water) and the occasional vending machine, but there were no food stalls in between the gold shops at all. There were also a lot of barkers trying to attract tourists from the main streets to the shops off in the alleys. I actually had to get rather gruff with at least one of them who was being very pushy while I was still trying to get my bearings. But in the end, I found one who turned out to be helpful, so they’re not all bad.

An interesting fact I learned about the Dubai gold souk: the day’s market prices are displayed on large digital posters all around the area and the shops are mandated by law not to exceed the market price. How, then, do they make any money, you ask? They add premiums for the shape of the worked gold. So the jewelry will be weighed, and that price calculated, and then depending on the type of workmanship, there will be an added premium. I was just there to scout investment gold, not jewelry pieces, so I was looking at coins and bars. Turns out it’s far more economical to buy in large bars than small ones. Not only are many shopkeepers willing to offer a discount on the market price if you’re buying a lot, but the premium for a single bar doesn’t change much whether it’s small or large. So if you buy a 2 10g bars, you’ll pay nearly double the premium than if you buy one 20g bar, even though you’ll pay the same per g market price.

I also went around to several different shops to see what their prices were, and even though the market price is set for the day, the shops vary quite a bit in premiums, so it’s worth shopping around and asking for discounts. Most shops expect people to be buying small amounts, so I didn’t feel at all out of place even though I generally consider my own economic status sort of upper low class. Some of the shopkeepers looked at me a little oddly, but I think it was more for being a woman alone. Once I told them that my father had sent me, they all relaxed.

It was definitely an interesting experience. I think even if you don’t want to buy any, it’s a once in a lifetime display blending extreme wealth and grimy back alley shopping. And hey, if you do buy, now you know how to look for a good deal.

Snack Break

It was a long ride from the souqs to my next stop in Jumeirah and I had to transfer buses on the way. The transfer station was at Wafi, and remembering the bakery from the day before, I decided to stop and refresh myself. Touring is hard work, lots of walking, and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast in my hotel room. I decided that I could get something nice from the bakery and then sit on the balcony with a nice cup of iced coffee. I bought a small loaf of olive studded bread and a chocolate croissant. The staff were very polite and had no problem at all with my plan.

When I asked for some butter to go with my bread, I was brought a little plate with two small covered pots. One contained the most amazing fresh sweet butter, and the other, an olive tapenade, which went just beautifully on my olive bread. Picture 276The croissant was everything you dream of pastry being. Those things they sell in grocery stores as croissants are sad paper imitations. This was the real thing: flakey and chewy and crispy in turns, perfectly layered puffs and deep dark chocolate melted into the center. My latte was no let down either. Served beautifully, it was delicious and refreshing. Instead of granulated sugar, it came with chilled simple syrup on the side so I could sweeten it to taste. The earthy rich coffee perfectly counterbalanced the croissant while accenting the olive. There’s a small part of me that equates luxurious world travel with the slowly enjoyed outdoor cup of coffee, so no matter how much I want to see, I think that’s always an important part of any trip.

Jumeirah Mosque

IMG_1719Mosques are often quite beautiful. I visited the Floating Mosque in Jeddah and was not at all disappointed, so when I saw the Jumeirah Mosque on the tour route, I decided I would make it a stop. The Jumeirah Mosque is part of the “open doors, open minds” program. Typically, in the Middle East, non-Muslims are not welcome inside Mosques. I’ve only been inside one at all because I went in Seattle as part of a research project for school. This mosque is famous for being the only one in Dubai that is open to the public. However, it’s only once a day at 10am. I’m not sure how “open” that is, but either way, I didn’t get there until the afternoon, so I was relegated to the outside as with every other mosque.

It’s pretty. One of the first things I noticed was a large banyan tree in the grassy yard with some of the migrant workers napping beneath it. There were also many other tall trees surrounding the building. The grounds were very peaceful after the bustle of the city. I wandered around admiring the architecture and taking pictures, but in the end I think I missed what makes this mosque stand out most, it’s “open doors”, because the bus drove past many many many more mosques on the Jumeirah which were, if anything, more beautiful on the exterior, which is the only part I can see. (more pictures)

Burj Arab

IMG_1737This is another one of Dubai’s famous landmarks. It is the world’s only 7 star hotel. There’s actually a helicopter pickup service from the airport for guests. However, after getting off at the bus stop and walking up the block and down the street, I discovered that no one can walk anywhere near the hotel without a reservation either for a room or for a meal, and the dinner minimum was several hundred dirhams. While I think that might be a worthwhile experience (similar perhaps to the Globe restaurant in Riyadh) the tour bus company did not provide the information in advance, so I had neither time nor budget for such an event, although the staff at the gate house did offer to call up to the restaurant for me if I wished. So it was that I took a couple pictures from a spot next to the security booth (where the staff pointed out was a great place to get a view) and headed back to the bus stop. I think if I go back to Dubai again, I’ll try to make it inside. I was impressed at how courteous the staff were even to passersby, and there was a cool water park there too that looks like it would be a fun way to spend a day before heading inside for a 7 star restaurant experience.

Traffic

I was starting to feel like my whole day was a little bit of a wash. Other than the gold souk, I’d pretty much been let down by or missed out on everything else I’d tried to see. Yet one more reason the Big Bus company really needs more info on their tour apps so their guests can get the most out of limited or scheduled events. When I had come in December, I caught only a few seconds of the famous fountain show, so I scheduled my last bus stop for the day to be at the Dubai Mall, which was not terribly far from the Burj. Except, I forgot to account for rush hour traffic. The fountain show starts at 6, but goes again every 3o minutes until 11, so I knew I didn’t need to worry about being right on time and tried not to let the traffic get to me.

Soon, however, the bus was completely packed, and we were crawling along at less than a walking pace. My only solace was that taking a taxi would not have been any faster. There was a British couple in the seats in front of me that had tickets to the Burj Khalifa and I felt rather sorry for them, since although they’d left themselves over an hour to get there, the traffic was taking us far longer.

I checked Google maps a few times, and realized that while the distance was slowly shrinking, the estimated time of arrival was not. It took us over 2 hours for what at any other time of day would have been 15 or 20 minutes. Future note, do not plan on going anywhere in Dubai during rush hour. I didn’t even see the metro running on the monorail above us the whole way.

Dubai Mall Fountain Show

Picture 331I did finally make it to the mall, and despite myself, the enforced rest actually seemed to have helped me. I’d been running non-stop all day, and I felt quite refreshed by the time I arrived. I was further bolstered by the snare of a fro-yo kiosk where I got a small bowl of peanut butter and chocolate swirl with nutella sauce. It’s spring break, I can have ice cream for dinner if I want.

I got outside in between shows, which was nice because I had an opportunity to stake out a good viewing perch. It did mean standing for a while, since it gets pretty crowded, but it was worth it. The fountain is more like a fountain complex built into the man-made lake. The show is water and lights set to music, and as I discovered, if you wait around, each one seems to be different, so it’s not as if you catch just one show and take off. The first show I saw was set to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and may have made up for the entire rest of the day. I caught the whole thing on video from my great seat too.

After the amazing show, I went to find a bench and sit again for a while before deciding what to do next. Of course, I can’t go anywhere for long without meeting new people, and this was no exception. A couple of older European gentlemen asked if I could take their picture against the backdrop of the night-lit Burj Khalifa. I like taking pictures, and that building is soooo tall, that I crouched down to be able to get more of the building into the frame. This small photographic acumen drew comment from one of the men whose daughter did photography semi-professionally. We talked for a while about the industry, but I had to admit I’d been out of it for too long to know much. He was just as interested in my teaching, and asked if he could give my email to his daughter in case she had any questions about working in the Middle East. I was actually sort of impressed by the networking. I’m not a networking expert, or anything, but those guys probably had a whole rolodex of contacts for anything they could ever want.

They soon had to go, and shortly after the lights in the lake began blinking, signaling the start of the next show. I had waited at the bench a little long, but was still able to slide into a narrow spot at the railing. TPicture 300he next show was set to more traditional Arabic music. It was quite a long show, so I was able to take a handful of still pictures and another video. Like so much in life, they don’t do it justice. There’s a cool breeze that comes off the lake from the force of the rushing water, and the fountains reach so high. They only look small because the buildings around are ridiculously large. All I can really say is “wow”. (more pictures)

Nightlife

I was unbelievably tired, also hungry. Perhaps you have noticed that the only food I mentioned all day was a croissant, some bread and some fro-yo? It was getting late, after 9pm. The rush hour traffic was gone, so I caught a taxi back to my hotel. I wasn’t then sure of what my evening would hold later, but I knew that food and a hot bath had to be first. My feet were still swollen quite badly from several days of extended hiking and multiple flights, so I drew a bath while I waited for room service, and then indulged in another ridiculous luxury by dining in the bath.

All of the other problems that hotel may have, their restaurant wasn’t one of them. The food was quite delicious and very generous. Even as hungry as I was, I couldn’t finish more than half of the dish I had ordered. I expected a full tummy and a warm bath to send me straight to sleep, but it seems instead I caught a light second wind, and decided to go out to the Barasti once again. It was Thursday night, after all, the end of the work week and beginning of the weekend, so I couldn’t pass up a look at another beachfront club.

Barasti Beach Bar Couples Night

I had forgotten however that it was also Valentine’s weekend. Living in Saudi has made me really out of touch with “western” holidays, since they are all illegal. Without stores full of pink candy and red hearts, it had completely slipped my mind. There was a bit of a line at the security check, but it seemed to be moving fast, so I didn’t mind. On my way up, I was approached by a young man who explained to me that it was couples night at the club, and he couldn’t get in without a partner, and asked if I would help him get in. I didn’t really see the harm in it so I agreed. We chatted amiably in line. He was from Syria, but had left before the current mess began. The security asked me how many we were and I replied two, pointing to the young man, and they waved us in. Once inside, we parted ways, for which I was a little glad. I didn’t want someone assuming “date” privileges just because I’d helped him get in.

The club was crowded, but not oppresively so. I got myself a beer and walked around people watching for a bit. There was a DJ set up on the stage and people dancing in the sand. Others lounged around smoking shihsa from tall hookahs. Eventually I wandered down toward the water, where a security guard politely advised me not to go past the signs. I guess drunk idiots and open water aren’t the best combination. I think I was too tired for dancing, but the beach was nice and I was still glad to have come out. In the end, I spent most of the evening talking to the two security guards, one was from Africa and the other a former Soviet bloc country, but past that my memory fails me. I do remember that the Slavic man was actually living in one of the Emir’s palaces because the whole group that had been brought in for work had arrived before the accommodations were finished, so he was working at this beach bar shooing drunk tourists away from the water while living in a palace! Dubai!

Fairly quickly my second wind died down and I headed back out. On the way, I got asked by about 5 more guys to help them get in, and several offered me drinks or money. It occurred to me if I was more awake, I could have partied pretty well just going back out for a new guy every time I needed a new drink. I think the Dubai night scene is great, but not after a week of non-stop sightseeing, so I have to add that to the list of things to do next time.

Day 4

Seeing as how my last day in Dubai was a Friday, it was a very hard decision to forgo a second shot at the Friday brunch of awesome. If you haven’t read that one, well, just make sure you’re not hungry when you do. However, brunches all start at 11:30 or 12:00 and go on for 3-4 hours, not counting the post brunch lazing hour+ where you slowly finish your drinks, desserts and coffee as the staff cleans up around you. Meaning I wouldn’t leave for the airport until close to 6pm, and not be able to book a flight before 8pm, and get back to Tabuk actually sometime on Saturday. sigh

So with a heavy heart and a deep sense of responsibility, I booked a flight for 3pm and did not go to a champagne brunch. However, since the dinner at Barasti was so delish, I decided that a beachfront breakfast would be a decent close second. I actually arrived a mere 5 minutes before they stopped taking breakfast orders, and got myself a “breakfast bap”, which is apparently a British name for a breakfast sandwich. I also ordered a single glass of sparkling rosé, so I could do up Friday brunch a little more Dubai-style.

Picture 334The bap came with a polenta bun, on one side a fried egg and some kind of southwestern sauce, on the other, a pile of bacon and sausage. I’m not one of those expats who whines all the time about not being able to eat bacon in Saudi, but I have to admit, after 6 months without it, I really enjoyed my bacon that morning. There were also two golden rounds of hash browns. It could have been greasy spoon fare, but it was all done with a gourmet flair, and accompanied by a stunning view of the beach complete with swimmers and passing boats. It was the perfect farewell to Dubai and end to an amazing week.

Picture 336

And that wraps up the whole week of Spring Break 2015. In just 2 days, I’m heading back out for more adventure, the Royal Decree Holiday Week, an unexpected bonus week of no school courtesy of King Salman. Red Sea Beach Resort here I come! Thanks again for reading, I hope you’ve enjoyed the stories and don’t forget to check out all the extras on Facebook 🙂

Spring Break 2015 Vol. 7: Dubai Again

/ Gallivantrix / 2 Comments

I feel like the slowest storyteller second to George R.R. Martin, I’ve been back from this holiday for over a month, and I have another one in a few days and I’ve still got 3 days of Dubai to share! Thanks for hanging in there with me. 🙂

Arriving in Dubai

My flight out of Jordan was an overnight, so I got into Dubai around 9am. Knowing that my hotel was unlikely to let me check in until 2pm, I decided to take care of some shopping errands and check out the city’s fancy metro system. And boy is it fancy. I got a “day pass” for about 7$ so I could hop on and off at my various errands. The stations are all large, air-conditioned and very clean. There are shops with meals and snacks at reasonable  prices. There are also separate cars for women (and children) only, as well as VIP cars for an extra fee.

When I got on at the airport, the cars weren’t very full. A man who had started talking to me at the platform invited me to join him on the ride, but I went to the women only car instead. I’m really glad I did because the cars got just as full as any Beijing subway, and I did not relish the idea of being sardined in with a bunch of GCC men. The women on the metro seemed annoyed that I had a backpack, perhaps it’s a breach of metro etiquette to carry on large bags? I also looked really scruffy from my last two days in Petra (with no shower), but no one was outright rude to me.

When I got off at the Dubai Mall stop, I soon realized that the station wasn’t actually all that close to the Mall. There is a 1 mile long skybridge that connects the metro to the giant mall with moving sidewalks and beautiful views of the city and the Burj Khalifa. I think on another day, I might have found this really cool, but after my Petra hike and overnight flight, I just couldn’t understand why in the world anyone would put a metro station a mile (about 2km) away from the main attraction of the stop. Reminding myself that finishing my shopping that day would free the rest of my stay for fun excursions, I stood sleepily on the moving sidewalks as tourists and shoppers used them to walk speedily by.

Relaxing and Unwinding

I finally got to the hotel around 2pm. I’ll say more about that place in my accommodations post, but this was the fancy almost beach front hotel I’d gotten a 60% discount deal on, so I was pretty excited. They chided me for checking in “late” (between 2 and 3pm) and had already given away my room! To make up for this, I ended up in a 2 bedroom 4 bathroom suite. It was freaking huge. I think 2 families could have shared it. But the water was hot and the bathtubs were deep. I tossed all my laundry in the washer, and settled in for a cleansing soak.

There is a serious problem with washer/dryer combo machines. They take FOREVER. Even after my bath and nap, it wasn’t done. I wanted to go out, but the hotels around the Gulf all require the room key for power. It took me a really long time to convince the front desk to give me a second key so I could leave the room with the dryer running.

After some google searching, I found a beach front bar walking distance from the hotel and headed for it. The Barasti Beach Bar was quite nice. There was a happy hour special and I got a frosty daiquiri and headed down to the lounge chairs on the waterfront. I chatted with some random Scottish dudes but they had to take off because the club was doing ‘ladies only’ from 6-9pm. Eventually, I spotted another lone guest and wandered near to say hello. She was quite open to company and we soon discovered that we were both from Seattle, our homes being only a couple miles away from each other!

Maiya has a rather amazing story, but I won’t tell all of it here because it isn’t mine to tell, but here’s the gist. She was born in Bangladesh and adopted into an American family. When I met her she was returning from a visit with her birth mother in Bangladesh, which was her last, as her mother has passed away since then (send her family some good mojo, prayers and thoughts). All of the servers and cleaners at the bar were Bangladeshi and they were fascinated to learn her origins, and gently teased her about not speaking their language.

IMG_1464We sat on the beach drinking too much and talking about our adventures until we were hungry enough to move up to the restaurant. (the food at Barasti is really good, by the way. I got a giant hamburger because I hadn’t had one in half a year, and she got a Cesar salad which actually had fresh anchovies in it). During dinner she told me about the village in Bangladesh that she had been born in, and how she came to be American, how she had found her birth family and been welcomed back by them. She’d started a non-profit organization to raise money for the schools in the village, for a playground, for materials, and for subsidies to pay the children so their families could afford to have them come to school instead of going to work.

Turns out she’s a little bit geek too, so we bonded over some nerd stuff as well as our love of travel, and have vowed to get our next drink together in Seattle when I come home.

When we finally decided to call it a night, it also turned out we were staying in the same hotel. So we walked back together and wandered into the Carrefour. My room had a full kitchen, so I decided I’d pick up some food for breakfast at the store instead of ordering room service. Maiya wanted to pick out some “exotic” candy for her son, who’s burning question for her travels had been, “Mom, what’s the candy like?” (this is pretty standard, I personally remember my childhood time in Japan primarily through the lens of strange candy).

Seattle has a really good selection of imported candy, though, so this is actually a little challenging. Finally, I spotted some Kinder Eggs! For those poor deprived Americans among you who have never had one of these, I’m sorry. I remembered them with great fondness from my time as a child in Germany, and although I had seen a few places in Seattle with Kinder bars, I had never seen the eggs. I told her as much, so she got several for both her kids. I have no doubt that if they survived the flight, they were much enjoyed.

It just never ceases to amaze me that we can travel around the world to meet people from down the street, and that everywhere I go, the universe finds a way to put amazing people in my path. Thank you Maiya, for sharing your time and your stories. I look forward to that beer in September!

Day 2

The first time I went to Dubai in December of last year, I got a one day pass for a hop-on-hop-off tour. It turned out to include many many admissions and attractions that I didn’t have time to do then, so this time around, I got myself a 2 day pass, and used the map from my first trip to plan out what I wanted to see and how best to get there. The new line that had been added had a stop just down the street from my hotel, and although the hotel had no idea, and there was no bus stop sign, I did manage to catch it anyway.  I used their google maps feature to GPS myself, but even that turned out to be a little off. Fortunately, the driver saw me running for the bus and waited.

My organizational brain has me considering writing a proposal to the company to hire me for a short term project to update all the information on their app with directions to and from each stop/attraction as well as photos of the stops that aren’t well marked. I can’t tell if this failing is in the company (which also operates in Europe) or just because the people in the Middle East haven’t gotten used to doing everything with a smartphone. Either way, I don’t think it would take more than a couple of weeks to ride to every stop and collect the information for future riders and it would sure make the trip easier (especially with photos for those who don’t speak English or Arabic).

The Marina Boat Cruise

My first stop that morning was for the Marina Boat Cruise. Last visit, I’d done the Dhow Creek Cruise and enjoyed it, so I wanted to see another part of the city from the water. Sadly, the bus dropped us off only a couple minutes too late to catch the 10am boat, so I had to wait there until the 11am one. So, I found a cafe to get some coffee at and sat down to chat with an Irish man who’d been living and working in Dubai for several years. I’m still not sure where the actual native residents of Dubai are. I’m pretty sure everyone I met both times I was there was an expat worker or a tourist, but logic says they must exist somewhere.

The boat ride was really quite beautiful. It took us past the marina hotels (so I could see my hotel and the Barasti Beach Bar), through an area of very tall skyscrapers with quite unique architecture, under some bridges and all the way out toward the Palm Island so we could see Atlantis and the Burj Arab before turning around. In the end, I think I liked the Dhow Cruise better, but it was an excellent and relaxing way to spend my morning, and the ticket had been included with my tour bus ride. (more pictures)

On our way back up from the docks to the bus stop, I noticed that one of the ladies had on my walking shoe of choice, the Converse high-top, so as I walked past her I commented, “nice shoes”. She looked a little confused, so I pointed at my own and grinned. We laughed a little and struck up a conversation. Her name is Urška and she is from Slovenia (where I now plan to visit later in the summer). She was also travelling alone, since her husband was back at the hotel and not feeling well. We compared our plans for the day and realized we were going to all the same stops on the bus, so we decided to hang out and be travel buddies for the day.

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Driving Through Dubai

I had given some thought to stopping off at the JBR, or Jumeirah Beach Residence, because my students last term told me it was quite excellent. However, since my cruise had been delayed an hour, I no longer had time if I still wanted to do the aquarium and desert tour. But we did drive through the JBR on our way out to Atlantis. It was a very beautiful shopping district along the beach. I’m not overly fond of shopping, however, so while I was glad I got to see the famous area, I wasn’t sad at all that I wouldn’t be spending any time in it.

Urška was very friendly on the bus ride. She had brought a bun with her for a snack and insisted that I take half of it, so I broke out the fruit I had brought for my own snack and shared that with her and we both had a nice little blood sugar boost on the way. Because Atlantis is on the outer edge of the palm island, our bus route took us all the way up the main trunk where we could see the ultra luxury condos and vacation homes on the huge man-made island. (more pictures)

The Atlantis Aquarium

IMG_1486Atlantis is a branch of high end super luxury hotel resorts. It’s also one of the more famous landmarks in Dubai. It’s all the way out on the outter edge of the man-made palm tree shaped island and includes it’s own water park, a Dolphin Lagoon (where people can buy a visit with the dolphins), a plentitude of shops and restaurants, and the Lost Chambers Aquarium. Our ticket to the aquarium was included in our bus tour ticket, so Urška and I snapped our landmark pictures of the hotel as we drove up, then disembarked to check out the aquarium. It was a little tricky to find our way from the bus, since we had to stop at the Big Bus stand to trade our bus ticket stubs for an aquarium ticket voucher, then again at the aquarium ticket office to trade in for an actual ticket.

I read a lot of reviews about the aquarium before I went, and wasn’t really sure what to expect. Dubai has a tencency to do everything over the top. I’d already seen the huge aquarium tank in the Dubai Mall, and several reviews said the displays of fish weren’t all that at Atlantis. That’s sort of true, but incredibly misleading. The Atlantis aquarium is Atlantis themed. It’s less about showing off a variety of marine life (as you might expect in a normal aquarium) and more about creating a sense that you’re walking through the ruins of the sunken city of Atlantis.

We started out at a large cylinder full of silver baitfish, the ones that travel in huge swarms in the sea, flashing silver as they all turn in unison. The tank was lit with blue light and the fish circled endlessly, like a living lava lamp. Unfortunately it was too dark for me to get a good picture, but Urška was kind enough to share hers (credit!). Then we moved into an area with some smaller displays, the backdrops were carved stones, like sunken ruins. As we steped into the first large chamber, we were greeted with a wall sized view of the main tank that we would see in several chambers from different angles. The room also had Atlantean relics, suits of armor, statues and some “technology” that looked somewhere between steam punk and sci-fi.

We walked through a tunnel that was constructed of strange metal shapes and inhabited by lobsters, again giving the impression that we were walking through the ruins under water. The main tank contained much larger blocks, walls and pieces of buildings. There was also a huge cauldron in the middle that would burst up bubbles every few minutes, looking like the smoke of a sacrifice ascending to the heavens.Watching the variety of sharks, rays and other fish swiming alone or in schools through the ruins was enchanting.

Each room had traditional Arabic seating on the floor in front of the display tanks allowing people to sit and enjoy the view without blocking those behind them. I took as many pictures as I could, but it was very dark, and I’m afraid most of them did not turn out well. Urška took some as well, and was kind enough to share them, so now I have double memories!.

Room after room circling around the main tank and showed off smaller tanks full of mysterious ruins or imagined technology. Carvings of an unknowable alphabet graced many of the displays. There were vast vaulted ceilings and elaborate lamps and fountains. In one of the last views of the main chamber there was what looked like a small space-craft, or at very least an air-craft. So yes the fish are not much more than you could see at any aquarium, but the setting makes you feel like you’re walking through the ruins of that lost city. Definitly a worthwhile trip.

On the way out we passed by a small scale model of the Atlantis compound, stood under the most beautiful ocean themed ceiling murals, and nearly got lost in the mall maze of shops. We also took a picture together in the giant Atlantean Throne. In the end, we made it outside just in time to catch the next bus which would take us back to Wafi where we would embark on our desert sunset tour.(more pictures)

Desert Sunset Tour

IMG_1534Wafi is another one of Dubai’s high end shopping malls. It has an Egyptian theme, so there is a large pyramid, and the outside is decorated with huge replicas of famous Egyptian statuary. At the bus stop itself is a beautiful little Arabic garden with all the lovely geometrical patterns, a fountain and pathways through the flower beds. We had only a short time before the desert tour bus left and we were ravenous. We ran into the mall to find a bathroom, but couldn’t see any fast food places around. Fourtunately, Paul’s (a fancy french restaurant chain) had their bakery open as well as their restaurant, so we grabbed some goodies from there to munch on the bus.

The bus was so full that by the time we got on, there weren’t two seats together so we split up for the ride. It took about an hour to get there, and the bus guide fed us little tidbits of information on the way. Among those was the fact that we drove past the villas where the Emeratis live, spending huge amounts of money to preserve their lifestyle of 50 years past. When we finally arrived, it was … a place that had clearly been specifically built as a tourist representation of a desert fort. It was almost comical after seeing the real ruins of Madain Saleh and Petra. It was like the whole village recreations of colonial or old west times that are found on the American coasts.

There was a little red tent that we all passed through to be offered dates and Arabic coffee. I wondered for how many of the tourists here it was their first (or maybe only) experience with this tradition. After that, we all had the opportunity to pose with a hawk. There was a (ostensibly) Bedouin man who had a hawk perched on a sort of mit that he would place on the hand of each tourist while we posed for pictures. There were also camel rides, but like in a little circle maybe 10 feet (3 meters-ish) across. I did pose with the hawk, but did not ride a camel. As we walked up into the “fort” we passed a little meadow with some beautiful white (yes gray whatever) horses. The fort itself was full of more shops, mimicing the souq style with bins of spices and hanging skeins of cloth, but still selling tourist stuff.

We picked up some complimentary juice and tried to avoid the sales pitches as we headed over to the seating area that faced west toward the impending sunset. There was also a lovely lady doing henna hand art. It was included in the price of the ticket, but I did make a point of mentioning to the tourists around that tips would be appropriate. DSC_0985I somehow got to be an official photographer for a group of nordic tourists, which was kind of fun, and also gave me a chance to delicately let the others know that they should avoid showing her face if they took their own photos. I could tell a lot of the people there just didn’t know what the appropriate behavior was, being new to Arabic culture, so I was trying to find a way to let those who wanted to know know while not lecturing anyone on their behavior. She was astonishingly fast, creating detailed works of art, each one unique, in only a matter of minutes! I can only imagine how many thousands she must have done to be able to turn them out so perfectly with such variety. It was just as fun to watch her work on others as it was to take my own turn.

With our hands hennaed, we sat down on a squishy cushion to await the sunset. As the sun drew nearer to the horizon, I suggested we walk out a ways and up a nearby slope for a better view. Each type of landscape has it’s own special sunset qualities. In Seattle, we get mountiain sunsets which are beautiful in a completely different way from desert sunsets. There’s something really cool about the vast flat horizon meeting the glowing orb of light. The dry air also changes the perception of color a little as well, giving a much more golden quality than pink or red. I think I’ll get tired of the desert a long time before I get tired of desert sunsets. There was also a little rivulet of water draining out from somewhere in the fort. It created a tiny river that turned into a silver thread against the darkening sand as the sun sank lower and lower. Urška joined me for a duo-selfie with the sun right between us. I think it might be my favorite picture from the whole group.IMG_1553

After the last golden sliver sank below the horizon, we wended our way back toward the front of camp, taking a few more pictures of the fort lit up for the night. (this one is also courtesy of Urška, since she captured a much lovlier night view than I)

11063262_10203876875378429_2019972989_n We rode back to Wafi and there we parted ways. The bus tour stopped running around 6:30, so we were done with that part of the day. Urška was headed back to her hotel to check on her ailing husband, and I was planning to catch a ride out to the Global Village for the rest of my evening. On the ride back we made sure to trade facebooks so we could keep in touch (which we have done). I’m pretty psyched to visit with her in her home country later this year. (more pictures)

Global Village

IMG_1596A lady friend from Facebook who lives in Dubai had given me a long list of cool things when I was planning my December trip and I obviously couldn’t do all of them then, so I put a few more on the list for this trip. One of them was the Global Village. I’d researched it last time, but just couldn’t fit it into the scheudle, so I was determined to make it out there this time around. The Global Village only operates during the “cooler” months because it is mostly outdoor, or open air buildings. Each region or maybe country has its own pavillion with very … sterotypical national decorations. The only way I can really describe it is Disney meets Model U.N. It’s mostly a shopping place, but there are many restraurants, food kiosks, an entertainment stage and an amusement park. I really only meant to stay for an hour or two, just to check it out and not to do any shopping, but I ended up staying until after 1am! There was just so much to see!

IMG_1573The entrance fee is actually really cheap, only a couple bucks. When I first came in there was a “Bedouin Camp” display. They had made a little brick hut in the desert scene and there were actually men dressed up in thobes and shemagh sitting around having tea and cigarettes but clearly part of the display. I moved further in to the park and saw a huge bright glowing globe off to one side, like the Epcot globe. I still have no idea what it’s for. The first region I came across was “Africa” which somehow incorporated every sub-Saharan African stereotype ornament in one giant facade, as if designed by very un-PC Disney Imagineers.

IMG_1577I went inside and there were rows and rows of tiny stalls, each saying the name of the shop and the country of origin. There didn’t seem to be anything country specific about the goods they were selling as there were booths with animal bone and hide ornaments, carved wood ornaments, jewelry and even Bob Marley/Rastafarian stuff (I guess slave colonies count as Africa, right?).  I was greeted very quickly by a nice young man running a booth near the front. Maybe he was bored, or maybe walking around looking scruffy and carrying a backpack means you’re broke, either way he didn’t try to sell me anything, he just wanted to talk. He invited me to sit with him in his booth and we traded stories. I tried to help him with a few sales, but it was pretty slow.

Since the Global Village is only active about half the year, all the shopkeepers will return to their home countries when it’s over each spring. Muhammad, like many people I meet travelling, dreams of a better life. He asked about improving his English, but I felt like his grammar was fairly good, so I told him to check out videos on voice coaching for actors learning accents. I’d had a long day, so sitting and chatting was nice, but I’d only just started to explore the village and soon had to move on.

IMG_1582Next I came across China, which ended up looking like a cheap Chinese knock off of the Silk Market in Beijing. Of all the countries represented, I felt it was the most accurate at least in terms of how China represents itself to the world. I found one inestimable treasure however. Haw fruit! This small red fruit is very sour and I’ve never seen it anywhere outside of China. Some import shops sell haw flavored candy, but it’s not the same. One of the most ubiquitous treats in Chinese street food is the sugar coated haw on a stick. Among the food stands selling what is basically Middle Eastern fair food there was one stand that had a display that drew me in.

I actually asked the shopkeeper about the haw fruit in Chinese, but I don’t think he heard my words, because he started explaining them in English. He got as far as “this fruit is called” when I interrupted with excitement. He was equally excited though, since I was the first customer he’d ever had who knew what he was selling. I explained about my time living in China and how much I loved the treats (in Chinese) and an Arab man who had also been standing at the booth blinked in bemusement and said (in English) “well, that was unexpected”. They were a little pricey, but I guess it’s not cheap to import a fresh fruit that has no real demand in an area. Yum!

I wandered and wandered and wandered. I discovered that most of the pavillions were just full of shops, after the first few I stopped going inside them and just admired the huge facades that represented each place. Jordan, of course, was a smaller than life model of the Treasury of Petra. Egypt had replicas of Luxor. Cambodia showed off the beautiful temples. Some were more abstract. Kuwait was a scalloped pattern, I’m not really sure what was up with that. Europe was funny, sticking France, Germany, Spain and England together, but Italy got it’s own separate facade. I think there was a small Notre Dame. Spain was for some reason represented by windmills (which I have always seen associated with Holland). It took me a while to understand, but eventually I spotted a statue of Don Quixote and Sancho and it made more sense.

I noticed that there was some dancing on the main stage so I headed over. They had a troupe of dancers doing what I *think* was a Turkish style (maybe Greek, there was some “opa” going on), but I only caught the tail end of the show. Here’s a link to a short video.IMG_1628 There was an intermission and the entertainment resumed with a “Circus Circus” act, sort of a highly stylized dance routine with circus costumes and “acts”. They were quite entertaining to watch and I probably killed close to an hour between the two shows without meaning to.

Around one side were some “pay extra” exhibits. Most of them were not terribly appealing to me, but there was one called “Illumination World” which caught my eye. So for a couple extra dollars, I was allowed in to see the array of larger than life paper lanterns. It was beautiful, but kind of funny to see what represented each country. There were mushrooms and butterflies for Holland, dragons and pagodas for China, the Sydney Opera House and boxing kangaroos for Australia and many others. The Middle East was represented by a scene from Aladdin’s Lamp, some pyramids, and of course… camels. France had a beautiful Eiffel Tower, and America was a Statue of Liberty… flanked by a cowboy and an Indian. No I don’t mean Native American, or First Person, this was super old-school red-indian kind of sterotype. That’s America: liberty, cowboys and Indians. Thanks Dubai.

It made me curious, since I realized at this point that I hadn’t seen any pavilions for the western hemisphere. Asia, the Middle East and Europe were all well represented, and although all of sub-Saharan Africa was relegated to a single pavilion, they at least had something, but where were the Americas?

I set off to find out, vowing it would be my last stop because it was well after midnight already and I wanted to get an early start in the morning. But I was hungry too, so I paused at one of the “heritage” food stands I’d seen around. It turned out they were making another kind of food I really love, although I did not know it existed here. Its a kind of huge crispy crepe made on a massive round skillet. In China, these skillets spun, but here they were stationary. The fillings were also different, I got egg and cheese where in China it would have been egg and vegetable. But it was really delicious and nice to find. It reminded me that I’d seen a similar wheel skillet in a shop in Tabuk and clearly needed to investigate further.

Finally, I found the pavilion I’d been searching for (although I had to go to a reference map to do so). There was only one for the entire western hemisphere, and all of both North and South America were lumped together, seemingly represented by Brazil.IMG_1684 The shops inside were clearly struggling with a theme and no surprise since there aren’t a lot of tourist type goods produced in North America and I guess they don’t really understand Latin America at all because there was just nothing from that country bloc. Most of the goods for sale were very generic and probably made in China for “American” companies, however there was a whole big store full of crocs (yeah the shoes) and that said a lot about our image overseas too.

Completely wiped out, I finally wended out of the park and tracked down a taxi. I noticed as I was walking from the exit to the taxi stand that there were little mule drawn rickshaws lined up along the exit area. After reading a few of their signs I realized they were charging for rides from the gate to your car in the parking lot. I had to remind myself that the village was both an entertainment venue for small children and people who would do a lot of shopping (leave with a lot of bags) to make this service make any sense at all, and it’s still pretty strange. (more pictures)
That wraps up the first couple days, to be continued in Spring Break 2015 Vol. 8: Goodbye Dubai. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to check out all the photos on the facebook page! 🙂

Spring Break Vol. 6: Tales of the Bedouin and The Journey Back

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Sometime during lunch, I stopped to actually check my phone (not just take pictures with it) and noticed that I’d gotten a message from Eagle at about 10am telling me that the price for the “back way” tour would be 50JD. If you remember, my helpful hostel manager had told me her price was 60JD, so that was actually low enough to be a good deal without being so low as to be cause for concern. However, since I was now at the Monastery, it was too late to take the offer. I messaged him back to let him know that it was too late and felt a little sorry as I did.

After a leisurely lunch at the Monastery, I decided that it was time to head back into the city of Petra. We’d spent about 3 1/2 hours on our way through Petra and up to the Monastery and about another hour exploring the area and relaxing. With three hours left to keep my bus schedule, I took my leave of Bernard, who was planning to stay another day and had no pressing need to return to the gate as I did. I knew if I went fast enough, I could probably get to the gate in as little as 90 minutes, however I wanted to take my time and enjoy the new views that the afternoon sun would reveal. Plus, I’d promised to do some shopping on my way back down.

Trading with the Bedouin

wpid-20150307_105340.jpgOn the way, the ladies I had promised to return to called out to me, saying they had been waiting for me. From the first (well, last met/first returned to) lady, I bought a lovely Pashmina scarf. While I know these are imported, I was looking for a new and more colorful hijab, so it’s something I actually get some use out of. The one I got was a lightweight silk blend with a fetching taupe and blue floral pattern. I didn’t bargain terribly hard, and got it for a little less than $15. wpid-20150307_105718.jpgAt the next, I turned my eye to jewelry and finally settled on a nice traditional silver piece, that kind of dull and black rimmed look that old silver gets, although I’m fairly sure it is simply a silver colored alloy, set with rough shaped polished stones. For this one I paid closer to $20 which is somewhere between reasonable and a steal depending on what website you look at. They both tried to get me to buy something from their neighboring vendor, offering discounts for multiple items, but I explained that I had promised yet another lady my patronage. I also had at least one vendor claim to remember me from the trip up even though I had not stopped to talk to her. I suspect it may be a common tactic since tourists are mostly unable to remember individuals from the many ladies who chat and offer tea along the way. However because each one of the ladies I bought from had made a special impression on me, I stuck to my plan and finished my shopping at the stall of the first lady we’d sat with and with whom I’d shared the “secret” of lemon lightening hair.

After trying on a few necklaces, I found myself drawn to a simple loop made from fired but undyed camel bone discs. The colors were rich and varying in a natural way, and the shapes of the overlapping discs were pleasant. wpid-20150307_105643.jpgWe haggled price for a bit and finally settled on 13JD, but I only had a ten and a fifty in my wallet and she had not yet made a sale that day, so didn’t have enough change. We tried to ask a few passing tourists if they could break my larger bill, but no one could. She tried to get me to buy enough more items to make up the difference, but the JD is actually worth a little more than the dollar. I’d already spent 25JD at the other shops and couldn’t really justify more expense even if the deal was good. Then she asked if I had some lotion or lip stick for her. So I pulled out my lip balm , almost new, and after checking how much was left, she decided to accept the 10 in cash and the other 3 in trade. That necklace is now my favorite souvenir for the whole trip.

As I continued down, I thought back to the girl at the Roman Theater who had tried to get me to give her my hair clip for the postcards. It seems as though the Bedouin women are happy to take trade for beauty items and cosmetics that aren’t easy to come by in their remote village. Now I have a plan to bring a bag full of sparkly hair clips, small bottles of lotion, perfume and other make-up goodies to see what I can trade for next time.

Walking Back

The view on the way back down was no less spectacular than the it had been climbing up, although somewhat more populated. I spotted a herd of goats grazing alongside the path, as well as a young man and his mule resting higher up near one of the widely interspersed carved caves.

One of my favorite parts of travelling is meeting new people. I suppose it’s an advantage of being an extrovert, I’m just not shy about greeting strangers or jumping into conversations. And people who are travelling to remote parts of the globe often have their own unique and interesting stories. This trip was no exception. I met some new walking buddies on the way, a man and his wife from the Dominican Republic and another man from Israel (who I think was a relative of theirs). They admitted that they’d taken a donkey ride up the steps and were astonished that I had not. I also ran into the touring ladies from dinner the night before, and an older couple that had been globe trotting for several decades. I love hearing stories of other people’s travels, especially comparisons through time, so I spent a while walking and sitting with them, even though they were moving a bit slower than me. And one other of the people I met actually studied Petra so she was a fun tour guide to follow too.

IMG_1423When we got back to the Temple, there was a group of locals doing what was supposed to be a reenactment of a Nabatean military drill. Sadly, if somewhat humorously, they looked like kids in Halloween costume armor playing make believe. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), we all stopped to watch. To be honest, I’m still not sure how I feel about the performance. On the one hand, I know it can be a good tourist draw and informative entertainment to have historical recreations. On the other, since this performance had no basis in history and no independent entertainment value (such as beautiful costumes, good music, or skilled athletic performance) it seemed rather sad and tacky… like the stuffed camel souvenirs.

Royal Tombs

As promised, the sunlight was shining brightly on the Royal Tombs and they presented a spectacular view as we passed back through the Gate. I discovered via one of my walking buddies that there is actually a path up to the tombs that allowed you to get a good up-close view. Yet one more reason why I really think Petra needs 3 days. Looking mournfully at my clock, and checking in with my aching feet, I realized that such a climb would have to wait until the next time.

Around this time, Bedouin started to recognize me from being in the village the evening before. It was kind of interesting because it seemed to exempt me from the intense sales pitches and instead net me some more generalized friendly greetings. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of folks still followed us around proffering stuffed camels, beads, postcards and whatnot, but the camel and mule drivers became much more amiable as word passed around.

Then, while seated on a bench listening to the older couple relay some of their past adventures, Eagle walked by. His face lit up when he recognized me, and I smiled back. He stopped to talk and we discovered that somehow my message from the night before had not been delivered to him until that morning. We blamed the poor service in the general Petra area. I was genuinely glad I had a chance to see him again and find out what had happened and I told him so. He said he was happy to see me too and looked a little wistful. Then he said that he had some customers and had to go, so we waved farewell.

Lost Phone Scare

The last of my walking buddies left me at the Treasury having decided they were tired of walking and wanted to take one of the carriages back to the entrance. So I walked through the narrow shady passage alone, enjoying the silence and respite from the sun. About halfway through, I realized I was really flagging in energy, so I sat on a bench to have a small snack. The hostel had packed more lunch than I could eat in one sitting, but that turned out to be a good thing, because now I had a juice box and candy bar to pump me full of sugar for the final leg of the long walk out of Petra. I took my phone out of my pocket to check something, but instead of putting it back in a pocket or bag, I set it next to me on the bench. This is a true sign of how tired I was.

After my rest, I set out again, only to realize about 10 minutes later that I’d forgotten my phone! Adrenaline added to the sugar boost and I rushed back. My mind was racing with obstacles and solutions, how could I get the phone back if someone had already picked it up? I’d purchased a remote security app after my last lost phone scare, so I knew my data would be safe and that I could even track the phone’s location, but I was leaving Petra in an hour! Was that enough time to track down the phone and retrieve it? I’d have to get out of the park and back to the hostel just to get online to look for it. How could I complete my travels without it? I rely on the internet so heavily for everything from maps and bus schedules to airport check in. Oh please let it still be on the bench!

Just then some of my walking buddy travelers rounded a bend coming toward me. One woman called cheerfully to me as soon as she saw my face, “Hi! We found your phone!”, pulling it out of her pocket and waving it in the air. I was flooded with relief and thanked them profusely. They asked if I’d gotten all the way to the gate before realizing it was missing, but thankfully it had only been a few minutes up the trail. Even more thankful that I had met these good people who then recognized me from the photos on the phone and were determined to get it back to me. They told me if they hadn’t caught up to me in the park, their plan was to find me on Facebook and mail the phone back! How awesome is that?

We kept pace the rest of the way out, talking about our evening plans. They were staying in Wadi Musa (the town near Petra) and talking about local bars, restaurants and the ice cream selection at the Movenpick Hotel. Apparently there’s a “Cave Bar” right outside the gates of Petra built in, you guessed it, a cave. I, however, had a bus to catch back to Amman, and later a flight to Dubai. Since the woman who’d found my phone lived in Jordan, her friends asked her to advise me on some cool things to do at night in Amman while I waited to go to the airport. She did do this, and I’m sure they would have been awesome, but between the long day and the cold after-dark weather, I was all explored out.

Return to Amman

I did manage to bargain with a taxi to drive me up to the hotel and wait while I grabbed my bag then drive me back to the JETT bus stop (which is also right outside the Petra gate). I made it in plenty of time, and the bus ticket was cheaper than the online price, so that was nice. The seats were very comfortable and leaned quite far back. The bus wasn’t even half full, but because it was a charter bus and not a public one, it left on time. I ate the last of my packed lunch and settled in to doze.

By the time we got back to Amman it was full dark and getting cold. Since most of my holiday was in warm places, I hadn’t packed any jackets or sweaters, so I just layered on some more shirts. I wasn’t sure which bus stop to get off at as this was not the same type of bus I’d left Amman on, so I pulled out my phone to check the map. I’d decided that I was simply too tired and cold to seek out any more adventure that day, and that I would just head back to the hostel I’d stayed in two nights ago. I could get dinner there at least, I thought, having remembered seeing a restaurant below it. I hoped I could catch a taxi from the bus station, but when I stepped off the bus, there was a man holding a sign with my name on it.

The hostel had actually sent their driver to pick me up! Clearly, these folks know their trade. I gratefully accepted the ride back. I discussed airport times with the manager when I got back, and quickly got some dinner and coffee ordered. I also met a nice young lady from Australia named Fiona who was drifting around between permanent settings and on her way to London to meet up with her boyfriend. She was also flying out of Amman that night, so we decided to share the ride fare to the airport when it was time to go. It was way too cold to go out and explore the neighborhood (although I might have done so if I’d had proper clothing), so we stayed inside and filled our evening hours with conversation.

The dinner turned out to be soup with bread: a huge bowl of soup that was primarily composed of something that looked like really big couscous and tasted delicious served with a heaping pile of different types of bread. Thanking the food gods that whatever it is in American wheat that makes me sick doesn’t seem to extend across the Atlantic, I dug in and polished off the whole thing. A big pile of carbs after a whole day of hiking does not make me feel even slightly guilty. Fiona beckoned one of the younger staff members, addressing him as habibi, a term of endearment in Arabic. The young man enjoyed the familiar attention from a pretty girl, and we got some free coffee out of it.

A Bedouin Crush?

I also got some more texts from Eagle during the evening. His spoken English is much better than his written (“living” means “leaving”), but the general tone was that he really enjoyed seeing me and would like to do so again.

I admit, I was flattered. Eagle had been nice company. He was friendly without being pushy, and like many of the young Bedouin men, quite nice to look at also. However, I’m not really into one night stands, or long distance relationships, which makes meeting interesting guys while travelling a more platonic experience. Often, I have no compunctions about telling someone I’m not into to buzz off, but I really didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I tried to be as clear as I could that yes, I had enjoyed meeting him, but I also had to leave.

He’s actually sent me a few messages since then, just checking in, once to make sure I’d gotten to Dubai safely, and another to check on me in Saudi. I tend to assume the best of people until they give me reason not to, so it wasn’t until about 4 days ago when while browsing facebook I found a page about the Bedouin men of Petra that it even occurred to me that his messages were anything but sincere. It was a facebook page dedicated to helping the women who’d been seduced by Bedouin men find each other and deal with the betrayal. Eagle wasn’t on the site, but other men from Petra were listed, photo’d and had apparently had multiple tourist girlfriends who they would con into giving them money.

Now, I’m pretty liberal minded, so I think if a girl wants to have a one night stand or short fling with a pretty Bedouin man, then as long as she’s protected, she should go for  it, have fun. But really girls, they’re not likely to be interested in marrying you unless you’re Muslim, and do you truely want to live in a cave? Is this scam so prevalent that it has it’s own Facebook group? I was also really disappointed to think that Eagle had only been running a con on me (which I’m sure is how cons work, no one wants to think its happening to them). He hadn’t asked me for anything, though. He didn’t try to even hug me, let alone anything “romantic”, and the only time we talked about money was for tour services that was actually a reasonable tour guide price.

So I did some more research and I found a pretty wide range of experiences. Yes, it seems like a lot of the Bedouin do like talking to pretty foreign girls, but like all humans, some of them are jerks and some of them are nice. This woman had a pretty negative experience, but the men she met were really slimy from the sounds of her story. I realized in reading it that this could easily have happened to me when I’d decided to walk alone into the mountains with Eagle, but then I found another story that was really quite positive. That woman had couch-surfed her way into a furnished Bedouin cave! And that made me really happy to know that many of the people of the village were genuine and friendly and not just out to scam foreigners for sex and money. I also noticed that the facebook page is almost entirely populated by comments from one person, it’s admin, so while some people do have negative experiences, there’s not actually an army of scammed and jilted women out there.

The last time we chatted was about two weeks ago. He texted me from his cave in Petra to say he wished I could be there.

When I talked about going back in the summer, I a) didn’t know about the March holiday yet and b) hadn’t done all that Bedouin research. I knew I wanted to go back to Petra again because of all the things I hadn’t seen, and I also thought that it might be nice to have some friends and guides there, so all of that was my ham-handed attempt to stay friends without “leading him on”. I’m stuck in some awkward half wish state because I really hope his feelings and kindness were genuine and not the beginning of a scam, but I also don’t want him to actually think of me too much because I’m not really available. Yes, women are crazy.

I am going back to Jordan briefly in March, and probably again in July. But I think unless I go back to Petra itself, I don’t think I will try to reconnect with Eagle. Men in the Middle East don’t generally know how to have inter-gender friendships, and I like him enough as a person that I don’t want him to get the wrong idea about his chances as a suitor. So, I’ll be content to join the small ranks of people lucky enough to have a good experience with the Bedouin of Petra and leave it at that.

Leaving Jordan

Fiona and I spent about 3 hours in the lobby of the hostel, but it didn’t seem like a “wait” at all because we were having fun just talking. When we got to the airport, we found out she couldn’t check in for her flight yet, so I checked in for mine and decided to wait up front with her until I had to go board. The Amman airport has a very peculiar security design. When you first enter, there are a small number of shops, followed quickly by a perfunctory security gate which simply checks passports, but doesn’t do anything with them. We passed through this gate and went to the check in counters, which is where we discovered she couldn’t check in yet. From the check in counter area, there is another security point before there are any more shops. However, without a boarding pass, Fiona couldn’t go that far, so we turned around to go back out through the first checkpoint to get some coffee. The security personnel there didn’t want to let us go back out, which I couldn’t understand since it’s not like we could do anything in the airport without passing his checkpoint again. I pointed to the cafe on the other side of his cordoned off area and said “coffee”, which he seemed to accept and let us go by.

It was now after midnight, so we were both starting to yawn a bit, but we traded facebooks before I headed off, so maybe if we’re ever in the same city again, we’ll stop and say hi. Soon it was time for me to head to my boarding gate. Dinner had been about 4 hours ago, so I checked out the shops at the gate to see what I could take with me. I almost caved in and bought a beer (since I still hadn’t had a drink even though I’d been out of Saudi for two whole days), but decided that it could wait until I got to Dubai, after all. So, armed with a chocolate croissant and an apple, I boarded the flight.
The plane was nearly empty, and it seemed like each passenger had a whole row to themselves. I remember there was a meal served, but I was barely conscious for it, and soon after, I stretched out across the seats and dozed again until the flight attendants told us it was time to land. We’d arrived in Dubai and it was 9am.
To be continued… I spent 3 days in Dubai doing more sight seeing and meeting more awesome people, so look out for more Spring Break 2015 and don’t forget to check out all the photos on facebook! 😀

Interlude: About Becky

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

The other day while I was in the craft supply store looking for construction paper and dry erase markers, I came across some embroidery floss. Although I had a fling at embroidery and cross-stitch when I was a kid, embroidery floss has a slightly different memory association for me, maybe you did them too in high school or college, –hair wraps. We used to put them in our hair as a way to pass the time and add color and I thought, well why not? It’s not as if I can’t have hair decorations here and it could be fun. I picked out some shades of green I thought would compliment my hair tone and forgot about them for a while. When I came across them today, I decided to take the plunge. But as I was relearning how to create this icon of youthful rebellion, I couldn’t help but think of the girl who had taught me in the first place.

Becky and I went to high school together. We were not friends, but not enemies either. I was a nerd and a little too fat to be popular and she was, well there’s no nice way to put it, Becky was the class slut. She had an amazing body, a beautiful face, and no self esteem at all. Although rumors can be hyperbole, I don’t doubt that she did have sex with way more people than is good for a high schooler of any gender.

When our drama department decided to put on ‘Lil Abner to involve non-theater folks in thespian activities, football jocks were cast as the village yokels, cheerleading choir princesses got leading lady roles, and Becky was cast as “Stupifyin’ Jones”, a female character whose whole job is to be a sexy bombshell. She came to more than one performance drunk, and nearly everyone avoided her. Somehow, I ended up in the garden behind the theater keeping her company while she threw up. I remember because she chided me for not knowing that you have to hold someone’s hair back to keep them from getting vomit in it. But she was also grateful to have someone there who wasn’t lecturing her or trying to take advantage of her.

She was also quite brilliant. She scored a 32 on her ACTs. For those of you in any other standardized testing zone, the ACT is a basic college entrance exam, like the SAT. The highest possible score for the ACT is 36 (I did have one know it all friend who got this by the way, wore a jersey with 36 on it the day the results came in). I myself didn’t study very hard in high school but never scored higher than a 29. Becky got a 32. She didn’t advertise it, but I knew that her blonde bombshell routine wasn’t all she was.

We had gym class together and I remember her telling me she was jealous of my butt. I couldn’t believe that someone so beautiful could be jealous of any part of my awkward teenage body, and maybe she was just being nice, but it was one of the first and only body image positive things anyone said to me in high school. After that we didn’t talk much. We’d say hello in the halls but we didn’t share any other classes or activities. Then we graduated and moved on.

I was 17 when I graduated. My best friend was a month younger and a year behind me, so she was still in high school while I was starting college. I had gone to visit her at her house one day and as I was leaving I saw Becky on the sidewalk. Not, I should point out, strolling down the sidewalk, but on it. She looked like a total mess. I called out to her and I’m not really sure she recognized me, but she said hi and started talking. She’d left her parents house and been hitchhiking around and homeless. She hadn’t eaten in a while, and someone had thrown her out of a moving car at some point and she’d broken one of her front teeth on the pavement.

My mother is a woman of infinite patience. My sister and I both have a habit of bringing home bedraggled creatures in need of help. When we were children it was kittens and baby birds, but as we grew older it was people. My mother let her use the shower and we found her some clean clothes. Becky was vegetarian at that time, so my mom even made a fresh pot of lentil soup for her to have something wholesome to eat. She slept in our house that night and the next day she came with me to work because I didn’t know what else to do with her and couldn’t just put her back on the street without a plan. I was trying to talk her into contacting her parents and letting us take her home, but she wasn’t ready yet.

At the time I worked in a family run candy store. I’m sure my boss would have flipped out if she’d known I brought in a homeless girl to spend the day with me there, but since it was a Saturday, my boss wasn’t in. The store was pretty quiet most of the day, so we had a lot of time to ourselves. We talked about different things, although for the life of me, I can’t imagine what my 17 year old self could have said that would have been useful. She smoked a lot of cigarettes, but looked better than she had when I’d found her. Once her hair was clean and brushed, I could see the colored wraps that she’d put in it. When I asked about them, she decided to teach me how to make them.

She started one in my hair, warning me that she was doing it in a way where it wouldn’t slide out easily, so it would last a long time, but I’d have to cut it out when I was ready. Once it was started, she taught me the simple “4” shaped knot that makes the spiral pattern all down the wrap, and how to switch colors and tie in beads or charms. My hair is really long, so it took us all day with lots of interruptions.

I think she stayed with us for a couple of days. Eventually, I guess something changed in her, because she told me she was ready to go back to her parents. She called them from our house, although they only lived a few neighborhoods over. I don’t know the contents of the conversation, but that evening I drove her to another suburb full of beautiful homes and watched her enter one. Somehow, it didn’t seem like my place to go with her anymore.

I never saw her again.

From that time on, I’ve made dozens of wraps. I’ve taught others to make them and even put some in the hair of friends and lovers. There’s a small piece of her in each one, whether I realized it before or not. It’s been over a decade since I have worn one or seen one for that matter. I have no idea why the embroidery floss jumped out at me in the craft store just now, 20 years and half a world away from that day at the candy store, but as my hands retraced the once-familiar movements, the memories returned.

Why am I telling it here? Well, I could give you some sap about International Women’s Day and how important it is for women to pick each other up, but really it’s just because this story wanted to be told.

Spring Break 2015 Vol. 5: To the Monastery

/ Gallivantrix / 2 Comments

Before going to Petra I had tried to do some research online about how long it would take to see the place. The consensus seemed to be that two days was the best, although it could be done in 1, but that three days was too much. I disagree. Even if my first day in Petra had been a full one, I still think I could not have seen everything in two days. There is a single long trail from the entrance to the Monastery and back. It takes about 3-4 hours to walk it (depending on how often you stop for photos or rests) and includes somewhere between 800-900 stairs. However there is no official park exit there, so you have to walk all the way back to the main gate. Considering rest stops, photo ops and lunch, that’s pretty much an entire day. Beyond this there are several side trails including the High Place of Sacrifice, a trail that goes up to the Royal Tombs, and several others throughout the park. I suspect one could easily spend another couple of days exploring these, and still not see everything. I suppose it depends on your motivation for visiting Petra, but I personally am looking forward to returning one day to see the things I missed.

My second day was not truly a full day since the bus back to Amman left at 4:30 sharp and my bag was stashed at the hostel. I knew I had to leave the park between 3:30 and 4 to get back to my bag and then to the bus stop in time, otherwise I would be stranded in Petra or have to pay a private taxi to drive me back to Amman. Thus it was that I wanted to start as early as possible. My hostel ran a shuttle service down to the gate at 7:30 and 8:30, but I knew it would take me 6-7 hours to get to the Monastery and back so I vowed to skimp on sleep again and catch the early shuttle. This had me awake at 6am trying to repack my bag and get upstairs for breakfast on the terrace.

I checked my phone for a message from Eagle, but still nothing about the price or arrangements needed to take the “back way”. I generally don’t fight the universe too hard about my adventures, so I figured it simply wasn’t meant to be and carried on with my front entrance plans.

Over a lovely Arabic breakfast of eggs, pita, lebnah (my new favorite dairy item), veggies, rusks and jam (lebnah and apricot jam on biscuits or toast is awesome btw, ate that with breakfast both days I was in Jordan) I met up with one of the guests from dinner the night before who was also staying in the hostel. He was another American with a travel bug, but rather than working abroad, he simply scheduled international vacations whenever he could. We exchanged some travel stories and headed down to catch the shuttle. Thus it was that Bernard became my walking buddy all the way to the Monastery.

I try to be conscious of not intruding on other travelers just because we happen to be in the same space. Some people (like me) love to meet fellow travelers and have erstwhile company, but not everyone does, so I’ve gotten in the habit of trying to watch for signs and give people polite outs if they don’t want my company. But Bernard stuck with me and was fun to talk to, plus it meant we could take pictures for each other which is always nice.

We got back into the park around 8am and began the long walk through the entrance and Siq, running the gauntlet of Bedouin horsemen and trinket sellers. Sure enough, they tried again to say that the price included with the entrance ticket was only good for that day. Bernard laughed appreciatively when I told him they’d said the same thing to me the day before.

The Treasury was no less stunning the second time, although the anticipation of seeing it around the corner was different from the unexpected surprise of the first day. I also took more time to really look at it today. Bernard told me that some locals had a legend that there was treasure in the round carving near the top, and that all the bullet holes were a result of them trying to shoot it open. I told him that in Madain Saleh the bullet holes were the result of people hiding out in war-time.

In front of the Treasury there is a pit, covered by a chain link fence allowing us to see in, but not fall/climb in. It showed yet more carvings and entrances below the ground level. We took turns taking pictures for each other in front of the monument, which is nice because it gives a great sense of scale and better scrapbook material.

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We fended off some more camel drivers and I ran into the boy who’d tried to sell me silver bracelets the day before. When he recognized me, I asked him why he wasn’t in school like he told me and he quickly ran off to find another tourist.

We toyed briefly with the idea of trying to climb up to the high place of sacrifice, having seen several tourists coming down the trail, but after a few minutes of really steep climbing, we thought it was best to save our strength for the 800-900 step climb to the real goal, the Monastery, and so continued along the main trail instead.

The Street of Facades, The Roman Theater and the Royal Tombs

I made a much more thorough inspection of the Street of Facades this time as well, actively comparing the facades to the carvings in Madain Saleh, and pointing out the similarities to my walking companion. Most of Petra actually looks very little like Madain Saleh, or at least the parts that are open. Since the city at Madain Saleh is still yet to be unearthed and all we can view are wells and tombs, there is no way for me to know what the city centers, government buildings or other public sites looked like. The Royal Tombs have several common traits, but the Facades really show the connection best.

The two pillars to either side of the cave mouth, the triangle peak above them, and the five stepped ziggurats at the top are clearly visible. The one on the left is Madain Saleh, and the one on the right is Petra.

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The way that they incorporate multiple tombs into a single cliff face is also very similar, although as I pointed out, in the Royal Tombs of Petra there is a much stronger Roman influence, and you can often see the architecture of the Treasury and Monastery echoed in the tomb faces. Below you can see a collection of tombs in Madain Saleh as compared to a similar collection in Petra, and further contrasted with the Royal Tomb’s very different construction. You can see all the pictures here.

As I was playing amateur archaeologist, admiring the nuances of carving along the street, a young girl approached me and began to chat. She was clearly selling postcards (several other small children were doing so as well, it seemed to be the starting trade for the younger children). This girl alone gets an honorable mention because her trick basically worked. Even after I turned her down, she chatted amicably, asking my name and where I was from, saying she wanted to take a picture with me. This happens to me a lot when I travel, so I didn’t actually give it any thought.

IMG_1335During the picture posing she pressed one of her books of postcards into my hand. There’s a horrible human reflex where we automatically grasp things put into our hands, and therein lies the trick. See, once it was in my hand, she let go. “A gift for you.” yeah. right. Then she asked me for a gift. I didn’t really want the postcards, but she’d worked very hard, and giving them back would have basically involved me dropping them on the ground and causing a scene (part of the plan, I’m sure) so I gave her 1 Dinar (the price the other children had quoted). She tried to ask for more, and when I refused she tried to get me to give her my hair clip in trade. The clip being worth rather more than the postcards which I had been tricked into holding, I was unwilling, and told her if she wasn’t happy with the exchange, she could take the cards back. With rather bad grace, she accepted the 1JD and slunk away. But at least there was no ensuing trouble from an older brother. In the end it turned out to be of some benefit, as I could then use the cards to ward off the dozen or so other small urchins selling the same thing.

IMG_1337I wish I could be more excited about Roman Theaters. I worry that by the time I get to Rome, I’ll be amphetheatered out. However, they all do kind of look the same, and since we couldn’t go climb on this one, it wasn’t terribly attractive compared to everything around it. The only real point of interest for me was that it was in direct sunlight as we passed, where it had been in shadow the day before.

The Royal Tombs had also all been in shadow, but in the morning as we passed by them again they still were. It wasn’t until the afternoon returning to the main gait that I really got to see them well, and there are more stories to be had at that time, so for now, we look onward to the Colonnaded Street.

The Colonnaded Street and the Temple Complex

I’d enjoyed the colonnaded street the day before, but not in any detail, since I was walking with Eagle and the sun had already fallen behind the high mountains.On this day I took more time to wander down the street and admire the detail in the ruins where the sunlight displayed what twilight had kept hidden in what was once the largest structure in all of Petra city.

It seems like only about half of the street remains, the rest having been lost to sand and time, and scarcely anything remains of the tremendous buildings off to the side. According to the signs, there was a lower area that consisted of a large paved courtyard flanked on either side by triple colonnades. This would have been the “street” we were walking on. Of the over 60 columns that once stood, only a half dozen or so stumps still lined the left hand side, and none at all stood on the right. Of the limestone caps carved in intricate shapes, only a small sample remained in disarray on the ground. The upper area was accessed by two sweeping staircases and contained a small semicircular theater which was most likely used for council meetings or judicial hearings. It seems as though Brown University may still be conducting ongoing excavations there, so we were unable to get up and explore the upper area, but it was nice to have some informative signs, nonetheless. Apparently, there were also underground drainage systems and some bath houses nearby.

I can imagine what it must have been like to enter the area, wide and smooth paving lined with giant pillars, carved and painted to display the wealth of the royal family and the glory of the gods. There were probably arches connecting the pillars, leaving a pedestrian feeling as though they were walking through some vast stone forest canopy with the great arch ahead leading to the Temple itself. For us, from the road, we could see the bases of a few remaining pillars, the beginning of the stairs that led to the upper area, and some fallen decorative carvings that had escaped destruction. (see more pictures here)

The Temenos Gate, or remains thereof, is intensely impressive in its own right. It stands as a barrier between the colonnaded street and the Temple Qasr al-Bint. This archway would surely have put anyone passing beneath it in appropriate awe of what was to come. Once it would have been the crowning jewel at the end of the long paved pavillion, now it stands out as the tallest remaining pillars in an otherwise open valley.

Qasr al-Bint, the Grand Temple itself, would once have stood about 34 m tall (a little over 11 stories high) making it taller than any other structure in the city. It’s remains are less than a third of that height, and from a distance it looks like nothing so much as a bombed out concrete high rise. There were no signs warding off trespassers and no fences either. This occurrence being somewhat unique on the main trail in Petra, we quickly diverted from the path and began exploring the temple grounds and interior.

Against one wall was a space so clearly reserved for idols that I would have known that was its purpose even if I hadn’t read where we were. I could almost see them, towering larger than life statues, painted and gilded and draped with fine cloth while plumes of pungent frankincense (the main export of the Nabatean empire) filled the air. The great arch of the main doorway still stood, although the wall above it was gone however, leaving just the archstones in the air.  Beneath its apex, my head tilted back to stare straight up, I could imagine the thrill of the sacred that a supplicant to the temple might feel when passing through the same arch.

IMG_1375In places the bare brick walls had a few patches of their facade still clinging, showing us that the walls of the temple would not have been mortared brick, but smooth expanses filled with raised geometrical shapes that were almost certainly painted or otherwise decorated. It’s easy to forget that our ancestors did not live in a world of earth tones. The ruins all appear sand beige or stone brown because the paints, precious metals and fine fabrics have not survived time and thieves. But traces found at many historical sites around the world tell us that they painted, gilded, dyed, lacquered, polished, inlayed or tapestried every surface they could afford to. There is no doubt that this temple matched or exceeded in grandeur and color the most ostentatious of Renaissance cathedrals.

It was hard to differentiate because of all the rubble, but I think there were several rooms. I don’t know very much about the Nabatean religion, but it seems like it’s not as well recorded as say, the Roman religions, so I don’t feel too bad. I have no idea what all the rooms were for. I have trouble imagining a 11 story building that didn’t have at least a few floors because vaulted ceilings only go so high, but I had to be content to stumble around the rubble and look at signs in the stones of the walls and floor for clues. In one corner, a lone pale grey donkey stood patiently waiting.

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To the Monastery

At the middle of the park, just past the Temple is a cute little restaurant (we didn’t go inside, but the outdoor seating we walked through was nice looking), and a surprisingly clean toilet. I’ve grown accustomed to the toilet facilities in remote places/tourist sites being pretty scungy, so when I walked into a large, bright, clean and fresh smelling restroom in Petra, I was pleasantly surprised. Also at this collection of buildings is a museum. I normally never pass up a museum, but I did want to make sure that I had enough time to get to the Monastery so I opted to press on and now alas, it is added to the list of things to see next time.

From this little rest area, the long climb to the main attraction commences. Although, I gathered from many tourists that a lot of visitors simply don’t bother because the climb is so long and the Treasury is so impressive, they seem to think it’s not worth it. I have mentioned in the past that I believe myself to be an achievement junkie, so climbing stuff because later I can say I did is more than a little appealing to me. Plus, I had two Taoist mountains full of Chinese stairs under my belt (7.5 hours to climb Hua Shan with oh so many rest breaks) so I was not about to miss out on the Monastery because of a mere 800-900 stairs. The number varied depending on the person telling us, and at first we thought the increasing numbers were a sales tactic by the mule drivers offering rides up the steps, but as we continued walking, it became clear that counting the steps is trickier than it seems since some of them are clearly carved, some made with stones and mortar and still others just natural rock formations that resembled stairs.

I’m not an athlete. I don’t charge down trails and bound up mountains. I walk at a measured pace with lots of breaks. What I lack in oomph I make up for in stubbornness. I was determined to walk the trail and not to ride. Many erstwhile hiking buddies have left me in the dust because they simply wanted to move faster. Some of it may also come from childhood hikes with my mother who would stop and admire flowers, leaves, rocks, birds, animals or insects wherever we went, pointing out nature’s wonders to us. Maybe it’s because I’m more intent on the journey than the destination. Or maybe I’m just out of shape. Either way, I stopped often on the climb to admire the view or chat with a traveler going the other way, or take pictures or just to catch my breath. Bernard stuck with me the whole way, so kudos to a very patient hiking buddy!

IMG_1394Around the halfway point, there were a couple little shops selling trinkets and snacks and after that an ever increasing number of little stands run by Bedouin women selling bits of new and antique jewelry, statuettes, stones and camel bone carvings, and other “native” sparklies. The women would call to us to stop and have a cup of tea, and eventually I lost track of how much tea I drank, but it certainly meant there was no hurry to climb. Of course all of them were hoping we would buy something from them, but their hospitality and offers for tea were ice breakers not tricks.

Bernard was a bit hesitant at first, I suppose watching me get conned by the postcard girl early on may have made him suspicious of “gifts” but I reassured him that tea was a custom all over the Arabic world and that it placed us under no obligation. There was one woman who made a particular impression. She offered tea and invited me to sit next to her, which I did being somewhat in need of a short rest. She also offered us some bread that she had made herself. It was the flat bread so common in the area, but had quite a nice flavor. We chatted about this and that, the normal questions of where are you from and what do you do. She commented on my hair which I’d worn in two long braids that day and said that she loved the color but could seem to get hers light enough for the henna to take.

She actually took her hijab off to show me her own hair, which was quite long, thick and black. I asked her what she’d been using and talked about different ways to lighten hair. She told me about a bad experience she’d had at a salon that had used bleach and damaged her hair quite badly, so she was reluctant to try again. Remembering the lemon grove from the day before I asked if she’d ever tried using lemon juice. Surprisingly, she had never heard of the idea of using lemon and sun to lighten hair. For me, this was one of my earliest hair transformation experiences, long before my mother would let me anywhere near bleach or dye, I would douse my hair in lemon juice and sit out in the backyard on sunny afternoons. So I told her about this method and she was very interested. I also suggested that she could use a little olive oil if it dried her hair out, since that’s another thing they have ready access to at the village.

After a while it was time to move on, but I promised to come look at her wares on our way back down. There were two other ladies who made good positive, if not as deep, impressions on the way up as well. I generally dislike souvenir stands, but I always like to support local business. These ladies all lived in the caves and village like the Bedouin I’d met the day before. And most of what they sold was handmade, if not by them personally, then likely by others in the community. I learned about Bedouin silver and the firing technique they use to color the camel bone. There were also some antique coins, and items carved from the rocks around Petra as well as an infinite supply of Pashmina scarves (which all the ladies themselves wore as hijab). So I decided I would make the effort to return to the three ladies who had been the nicest to us on our way up and find something to buy from them.

IMG_1395The last several shops told us cheerfully that we were almost there, and just as I was starting to doubt the translation of “almost”, the open area came into view. The first thing we noticed from that distance was the restaurant and rest area which lay just beneath another high peak with a large sign that read “view” atop it. We were debating how much further of a climb it was to that point, fairly sure that we would have to get there to see the main event when we rounded another bend and were struck silent by the looming mass of the Monastery.

The approach is from behind, so you cannot see the Monastery until you turn the final corner. The architects of Petra certainly had a great sense of the dramatic. I couldn’t help but wonder how religious pilgrims ascending through the mountains from the city below must have felt trekking the hundreds of steps through the majestic red rocks to be greeted by the vast bulk of grandiose carved stone. What rites took place in the wide open space in front of the cliff that housed the house of the gods? Was it a hushed and solemn place or a temple of color and music? Were the monks austere and grim or did a market bustle at their gates? As far as I can tell, the answers to these questions are not really available, but it’s quite magical to imagine.

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All thoughts of the climb or lunch or anything else simply fell away in the draw of the artifact. Although in photos the Treasury does indeed look more spectacular, because it is more intricately carved, the Monastery is much bigger and we were able to approach it much closer. There was no doubt for me that the climb had been worthwhile. We wandered around, admiring the work and taking photos.

Picture 159bSelfies are entirely impossible with such a monumentally large backdrop, but I’m including this one because you can see Bernard in the background right up close to the door. Yes, that little speck. When I approached the door myself I could barely see over the lintel because it’s about 5ft high.

However we did take some nice photos for each other as we had done at the Treasury, and after satisfying ourselves with the up-close views, we retired to the restaurant’s balcony seating to have a rest and enjoy the panorama.

I ordered us some fresh lemon mint juice because Bernard had never tried any before and broke out my packed lunch. Despite the very plain fare (cheese and tomato sandwich on pita), I think that lunch gets to go up on a special list of awesome lunches for the view. We were also instantly beset by a large community of cats who turned out not to be picky at all and enjoyed some of my tomatoes. The weather was absolutely glorious. Although I had gotten a little sweaty on the climb up, the combination of sunshine and cool breeze made the seating area a really pleasant place. I looked with some longing at the “view” sign behind us, but in the end, I decided to just relax and soak up the experience at hand.

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To be continued…

See all the photos from Petra on my Facebook Page, and read about my first day in Petra in Spring Break 2015 Vol. 4

Spring Break 2015 Vol. 4: To Jordan, to Petra…

/ Gallivantrix / 1 Comment

After having to break day 2 up into two posts to fit everything in, I thought I could get all of Jordan/Petra in one place, but that was a dream. So here’s the story of my first day in Jordan including a small peek at Amman and Petra. Don’t forget to check out all of the photos on facebook. 🙂

Amman and the Roman Ruins

To get to Petra, I first had to fly to Amman, a large city in Jordan filled with ancient Roman ruins and quaint, steep hilled neighborhoods that make Queen Anne look flat. My flight had changed so I arrived in Jordan at about 3am and shuffled bleary-eyed through customs and passport security to meet my hostel’s driver. (awesome hostel, by the way, I’ll be doing a full write-up on them in another post) I had booked a room in a female dorm, and at nearly 4am, crawled into my top bunk as quietly as possible and fell asleep.

I knew there was no way I was going to catch the 6:30am charter bus to Petra, so I came down for a leisurely breakfast and a think about my plans. I checked on costs for taxis and car rentals, but in the end I decided I’d just go ahead and take the public transportation. But first, since the hostel was a mere 30 meters from the Roman Theater, I decided I should have a look before I left on the 3 hour bus ride to Petra.

IMG_1271Lo and behold, I walked about a block and turned the corner into an ancient Roman ruin of the kind we usually identify with Italy. I spent about 20 minutes poking around the public areas, had to politely pry myself away from a would-be tour guide who wanted to drive me up to some of the other ruins nearby. I was also tentatively greeted in English by a group of Jordanian ladies.

The Muslima fashion in Jordan is quite different than Saudi. Most girls wore skinny jeans and boots with varying lengths of jackets (because it was cold). Some more modestly covered their hips and bottoms, but several wore tops that showed off their assets quite well. Hijabs were in many colors and seemed to be concealing either a cone-head, or the alien skull. This one is about an average size, but some were bigger! Seriously, I have no idea what those girls have under there, but there is no way it’s only hair. Prosthetics are clearly involved.

Eventually decided that if I had more time, a ticket inside would be nice, but I didn’t want to feel any more rushed, so I hailed a taxi to take me to the bus station. (more photos)

Taxis and Buses

I’m still trying to figure out why I’m such a commodity in the Middle East. Men never hit on me this much in the West. At least this one wasn’t as clumsy as the guys in Saudi. It was certainly an interesting test of my Arabic skills. I realized during the ride that I’d really picked up more than I thought. I still can’t form sentences worth a damn, but I can understand a lot more than I used to, and generally make myself understood too.

He tried to get me to come stay at his house, offering to share beer and saying it was nicer than a hotel. But he was good natured about being turned town, and kissed my hand sweetly when I left the taxi.

At the bus station, I knew I needed to find the bus by asking around, since there are no signs or schedules. I found a bus going to Wadi Musa which is the town next to Petra and another enthusiastic taxi driver who helped by telling the bus driver where my hotel was so he could drop me off at the door for an extra Dinar. He also gave me his number and said I should call him when I was heading back so he could pick me up and take me to the airport. When I explained my flight was hours after I’d be returning, he offered to take me to his house where his wife would cook a wonderful dinner for me. (I never called that guy)

The buses don’t run on a schedule, but rather just wait until they are full, then leave. I had arrived just as one full bus was leaving and was the first person on the next bus, so it was a long wait. But I did save over 100$ (US) by taking the bus instead of a car, so I feel like an hour was worth it.

The drive was long and the driver stopped briefly but repeatedly to drop passengers off along the way, seemingly at random. About halfway through, we stopped at a little rest area with a small cafe, a convenience store and a public bathroom. I picked up a cup of sweet hot Turkish coffee and took the opportunity to nab my hijab out of my bag and tie it on. I felt fine walking around Amman without it, but I had noticed that all the other women on the bus were wearing hijabs, and while no one had said anything, I felt more comfortable once I wasn’t standing out so much.

I was really surprised at the landscape. Despite the fact that it isn’t that far from Saudi, it didn’t feel like a desert at all any more. In fact, shortly before we arrived in Wadi Musa we seemed to hit a green belt and were surrounded by beautiful evergreens for the last part of the drive. The mountains snuck up on us slowly, we drove through foothills that had so many ups and downs that it was easy to loose track of the fact that we were gaining elevation until we were suddenly surrounded by mountains on all sides.

True to his word, the driver pulled up right out front of my hotel and let me out. It was already almost 3 in the afternoon and Petra closes at sunset, so I wanted to get a move on. The hotel staff were quite accommodating, getting me checked in quickly and even giving me a lift down to the Petra gate when I couldn’t find a taxi.

Petra

Petra is the famous capital of the ancient Nabatean civilization. It’s also the place Indiana Jones went in Last Crusade (don’t worry, I didn’t drink out of any fancy chalices). Not only is it an amazing site on its own, it is also related to the sites in Saudi that I had just seen at Madain Saleh.

The single day entry fee to Petra is 50JD and the two day is only 55JD, so even though I only had a couple hours of light left, I decided that it was worth an extra 5JD (about 7USD) to go in that afternoon. The ticket sellers were reluctant to sell me a  pass, even though it was for two days, trying to explain that I “didn’t have enough time” (nearly 2 hours). I managed to convince them anyway, but they closed all the ticket windows as soon as I had paid and turned to find the gate.

While Madain Saleh is a restricted and private area that we basically had to ourselves and a couple other guided groups, Petra is the classic definition of tourist trap. Even before you get to the gate there are rows and rows of souvenier stalls selling stuffed camels, “authentic” Middle Eastern clothing, hookahs, caps, hats, pashmina scarves, beads, magnets, and other gew-gaws.

Upon entering the park, you are accosted by Bedouins trying to sell you a horse ride. These claimed that the price was included in the ticket, and that it would not be free the next day. Don’t you believe it. They’ll ask for a tip or a gift or something. It’s not free. It’s also not much of a ride, just a trot up and down the first few meters of the park. Even if you have small kids, I’d say skip the horses and hold out for the camels. If you really need help with the long walk, skip the camels and hold out for a mule.

I walked through the open area, following the trail and politely declining about a dozen offers of a ride. Several also told me that I didn’t have time, even though I knew that the walk from the gate to the Treasury was between 30 and 45 minutes, and I also knew that I didn’t have to be out the gate at precisely sundown. But I bet they make a lot of money from the kind of tourists who never read travel blogs before they go.

There were a few carvings that looked similar to Madain Saleh, but nothing spectacular. You have to walk for a long time to get to the spectacular.

The Siq

IMG_1308The next phase of the walk is called the Siq. It is a narrow passage between two towering cliffs. The mule drivers came out here and started trying to sell me a ride and even mule drawn carriages that go to and from the Treasury. The later are obscenely expensive, by the way, considering it’s only about a 20 minute walk, and such a beautiful walk at that. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to go in a covered carriage and miss the upward view!

If my narration seems interrupted every couple sentences by someone trying to sell me something, that’s because the experience was interrupted every couple of minutes by someone trying to sell me something. Petra is beautiful, but it’s hard to take in the awesome splendor of the ages when someone is pestering you to spend money. I had read on another blog that the best way to deal with these merchants is to maintain a polite and sunny attitude and simply say “no thank you”. It was actually surprisingly effective. I think they’ve been conditioned to respond to “thank you” with “you’re welcome”, like a Pavlovian English response, because most of them did just that and moved on. A few were more persistent, but for the most part it worked quite well.

It probably also helped that this was February and none of them were trying quite as hard as they might during the height of tourist season.

IMG_1310The Siq gives this sensation like you’ve fallen down a crack in the earth. The path is very smooth and comfortable to walk however, and there are a couple rest benches and trash bins along the way. I spent most of the walk just gazing upwards, staring at the vertical landscape, ribbons of color in the rocks, waving and jutting formations and the shifting sliver of late afternoon sky far above. Finally, I rounded another bend and in the narrow gap ahead a tiny shard of the vast bulk of the Treasury soared from ground to sky.

The Treasury

The close walls and immense height of the cliffs of this part of Petra make one feel exceptionally small, like a mouse in a giant’s home, and the Treasury does no less. The sheer scale of the monument is unbelievable. I have pictures, and even have some with humans for size perspective, but it can’t convey the way that standing in front of something so immense makes you feel.

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And then someone tried to sell me some silver bracelets. Kids who live in the Bedouin village are put to work early learning to fleece tourists. This one probably spoke better English than my college students back in Saudi, and had a whole list of reasons why I should buy from him that day, one of which was that he could only work on the weekend and had to go back to school tomorrow. I’m sure these all would have been harder for me to deal with if I hadn’t spent so long in China where fleecing tourists seems to be the national past time. As it was I replied, Ah school! Good for you! and he ran off to find someone less teachery.

The treasury was really stunning, and I was very glad I decided to come into the park even if just for a couple hours because I’m sure I would have felt horribly rushed if I’d really tried to see everything in one day. What am I saying, I still didn’t see everything. I only managed to walk the main path and had to turn away from all the tantalizing side trails. Maybe if I’d known the layout better, I would have tried to visit the High Place of Sacrifice that evening, because it’s a one way trail that leads to a high platform, but then comes back to the treasury area. (more photos)

And then someone tried to sell me a camel ride. I’ve actually left out most of the sales attempts from this narration, but some are amusing. This on tried to tell me what an interesting experience riding a camel is. MERS aside, I’ve ridden a camel before. Interesting is the perfect word, about halfway between when a small child shows you a scribble of lines and shapes and you say, oh my how … interesting and the old Chinese proverb about interesting times. I’m A-OK not riding more camels. Ever. So I thanked him and declined, saying I’d already had the experience, and that I saw camels every day in Saudi. This created some amusement among the camel drivers around, perhaps they thought it was strange for a lone white woman to talk about Saudi camels?

The Street of Facades, The Royal Tombs, the Roman Theater and a Bedouin named Eagle

Picture 115I wandered around the corner and saw the Street of Facades and the Theater. There isn’t much Roman influence in Madain Saleh, but Petra is covered with it. Not only are the columns more frequent and ornate, but there is a full on Roman Amphitheater against one cliff.

IMG_1326The Street of Facades and Royal Tombs are really neat because it is where you can see the most resemblance to Madain Saleh. There are two pillared doors with peaked arches and five step ziggurats of the necropolis are echoed in this part of Petra quite clearly, like a bridge in time between the earlier developments of Nabatean culture into Roman and even later Christian influences that came into Petra.

Here another young man tried to sell me a mule ride, although his attempts at salesmanship were a little half-hearted. However, after accepting my disinterest in riding (it was getting close to closing time after all) he paced his mule along side me and began chatting. I like meeting new people on my travels, and since he wasn’t trying to sell me anything anymore, I was fine with this. He introduced himself as Eagle and told me that he had actually been born in one of the caves of Petra. He also still liked to live in a cave there most of the time. He was a part of the native Bedouin tribe that had been very gently relocated to a nearby village that the King built for them when Petra was made a National Park and UNESCO Heritage Site.

Picture 128Eagle walked with me from the Roman Theater, past the Royal Tombs and along the Colonnaded Street. He shared tidbits of information about the things we passed, playing tour guide and boasting about his home. He showed me where to walk along the crumbling ancient roadway. He pointed out the two-humped camel rock in the cliffs on the horizon. And he even took some pictures for me on the road in front of the tombs. I asked him questions about his life in Petra, how he had come to learn English, whether he was happy there, and he asked me questions about America and Saudi and how I came to be travelling alone.

The sun began to set and I walked much farther into the park than I had originally meant to, but I knew the path back was clear, so wasn’t too worried about getting lost even if the light faded. Plus a cell phone makes a handy emergency flashlight. He told me how beautiful Petra was at night and I asked about the candlelight tour that I had read about online. He said it wasn’t really worthwhile, since the people operating it were very strict about where people could go and always trying to get everyone to be quiet but failing. But he said that the Bedouins often came into the caves of Petra at night to eat, drink, sleep and enjoy the night.

Picture 133I like meeting people, but I’m not sure I could have stayed in the park at night with only the native Bedouin, so I shifted the subject. The other Bedouin sales people, camel and mule drivers were all packing up and meeting in a central spot before heading home. We walked into a clearing that was filled with camels. Eagle told me that his village was a short walk up the hill and that he could get someone to drive me back to the hotel for 2-3JD (about the same as a taxi would cost from the gate) and that I was welcome to walk there with him so I could see a new view and have some company instead of walking back to the front gate alone.

I decided that was safe enough, plus I wanted to see where these people lived. Some of my favorite travel experiences have been hanging out with natives, not just taking in the tourist attractions, so we set off up the hill toward the village.

To the Bedouin Village

The rock formations in Petra really are stunning and I got to see some of the amazing colors in the deep red rocks. The shapes and colors reminded me of nothing so much as sleeping dragons. We passed a few more tombs, caves and carvings along the way as well as a little lemon grove that the Bedouin cultivated. I was told they also grew olives and made very fine olive oil.

The walk was much farther than the 20 minutes I’d been told, but I don’t think he was being intentionally misleading. We were walking at a leisurely pace, and were passed by many other Bedouin driving camels and mules back at a brisk trot, so I expect it normally is about 20 minutes for him. Eventually, the climb became quite steep. I’d hiked all over Al Ula just the day before, then flown to Jordan and only had a few hours of sleep before setting out again, so my energy was flagging and I finally accepted the offer of a ride on the mule, whose name was William.

Picture 141Watching the sun set in Petra and seeing the first few evening stars appear over the cliffs as we ascended toward the village is not something I will ever regret or forget. As the Maghrib Athan began I realized for the first time why everyone always tells me that they imagine Athan as this haunting and beautiful experience. In Saudi it’s often just a side note in my day, but here in the red striated cliffs and golden light of the fading day as the call to prayer drifted down to us from the village mosque above, I felt the beautiful connection of divine, human and natural meeting in one moment.

Picture 126

We left Petra proper, passing by the park police. It felt a bit strange to be walking out of the park this way, but the guard at the gate nodded and exchanged greetings with Eagle as we passed and seemed to find my presence unremarkable. As we continued up the road, Eagle told me about another route up to the Monastery called “the back way” that included a site called Little Petra. He said if I wanted he could help me arrange a tour up to that part of the park so I could approach the Monastery from that direction and then descend again through the front part of the park.

While I always want to believe the best of people, I am a natural skeptic, so I was unwilling to commit to such a thing until I had a chance to verify the story. Sadly, I’d read accounts online of the Bedouin extorting visitors (though never hurting them or anything) and didn’t want to fall into a scam or trap no matter how nice Eagle seemed. So he gave me his number and told me to call if I wanted to go in the morning.

In the village I met several of the children that had been selling postcards or bracelets in Petra, as well as Eagle’s brother who also spoke excellent English and told me that he had a wife in France. Then true to his word, he had another friend give me a lift back to the hotel, letting me know that I could give him 2-3JD for the ride. I gave him 5. (more photos)

Dinner at the Seven Wonders

Back at the hotel, I quickly checked in with my host there about dinner, since we were supposed to go up to her husband’s hotel (a Bedouin style tent encampment up in the mountains) for a group dinner which sounded way cooler than dinner alone in my room.

While we were waiting to be picked up, I asked her about the Bedouin in the village, what she knew about them and their interactions with tourists. I explained about the invitation and asked her advice, figuring since she’d lived there for five years, she’d know. She told me that mostly they were fine, but to be careful about staying with them after dark. Although the gates of Petra close at sunset, the actual curfew is midnight, so sometimes visitors stay with the Bedouin there and drink in the caves, but the Bedouin get drunk and don’t want to leave, resulting the the tourists being stuck or getting in trouble with the police for being there after curfew.

She also said the back way was legitimate and that she herself charged tourists 60JD for that tour option so as long as I wasn’t paying more than that, that I should be perfectly safe going that option with Eagle and his friends.

Waiting for the ride I met a couple more tourists, one who lived in Jordan and her friend who was a nurse in Portland, but had gone to school in Seattle (small world gets smaller!). The path to dinner was a dark road out of the town of Wadi Musa and into the mountains. The stars were completely out by this time and simply filled the night sky. If it weren’t so cold, I probably would have stood outside and stared at them forever, but Jordan is quite chilly in the winter and combined with the desert climate and mountain altitude I couldn’t stand to be outside for more than a few moments before I caved and went into the fire-warmed tent.

Picture 145The rocks around the permanent camp had been decorated with paper lanterns, similar to what is used in the Petra by Night experience. It was really quite lovely, the dots of soften firey glow-light around the cliffs, offsetting the patterns and edges and casting a gentle light into the camp that showed us the path without interfering with the starlight.

The other two girls were actually staying in that “hotel”. Apparently there are individual tents in the area that are also fire-warmed, as well as hot showers during a few hours each morning and evening, and a generator to provide wi-fi as well. I had actually looked at it when booking online, but decided that while it might be really cool in summer, that during February I would opt for something indoor and thus wound up in the wife side of the husband/wife businesses.

In the main tent it was indeed quite warm with a large cast iron fire pit in the center that had a suspended sort of chimney/flue above it to funnel smoke up and out of the tent. We joined several other guests in the tent and sipped hot sweet tea and enjoyed the fire while we waited for dinner to be ready. It was a nice evening, chatting and sharing stories. I wanted to send Eagle a message about the tour the next day to find out how much his friends would be charging, but it took me a long time to figure out what I had entered incorrectly. What’s App is great for international SMS, but it’s very picky about how you enter a number into your contact list. I finally got in touch with him, but didn’t get a price quote that evening.

The dinner was fairly standard “Bedouin” fare, similar to what I had in Saudi before, kabsa and salad (though not as good as what I had in Madain Saleh), there was a stewed vegetable dish that was quite tasty and some of the cream cheese filled pastries made of the vermicelli-like pastry dough. It was mostly amusing to me to watch the new tourists marvel at the “strange” food which has over the last six months become quite familiar to me.

By the time I got back to the hotel it was after 10pm and I’d vowed to try to catch the 7:30 shuttle to the Petra gate that morning, so I cranked up the heater, set my alarm for 6am and fell asleep.

This story is continued in Spring Break 2015 Vol. 4: To the Monastery and Back. Don’t forget to check out all the photos of the trip on my facebook page!

🙂

Spring Break 2015 Vol. 3: The Continuing Adventures in Al Ula (pt.2)

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment
This story picks up on day 2 after a quick stop for lunch.
If you missed the first part of the day, check out Spring Break 2015 Vol.2

plus see the full photo albums for the Dadan and the Dinner as well as for Old Town and the scenic sunset on my facebook page 🙂

The Dadan

Unless you’re up on your Bible study, this tribe may not be familiar to you. I actually didn’t know about it at all until we visited the site, and I had to do a fair amount of digging to get any information at all online. The Dedanites were an older version of the Lihyanites, and are basically only mentioned in the Bible and obscure archaeological texts. If anyone reading this knows more sources, I’d love to see them in the comments.

Mr. Fayez told us that the Dadan predate the Nabateans (seems to be true) and that their habit of carving tombs into the rocks was the inspiration for the necropolis at Madain Saleh. However, little else seems to be known about them, probably again from the complete lack of archaeological study in the Arabian Peninsula before the late King Abdullah. Inshallah, one day we may know more.

Like everywhere around Al Ula, the landscape was striking with huge jutting rocks and rich native greenery. In addition, the Dadan ruins were in the midst of several date palm farms, adding extra green to the scenery. The colors in the bright afternoon were stunning: dark green palms, red rocks and sand, and a deep blue sky with streaks of white clouds. The heat was intense in the late afternoon. Nothing, I’m sure, compared with the summer, but it made me glad that I had chosen to come in February because I simply could not imagine being outdoors in the late afternoon in a warmer month. The sun is simply scorching!

From a distance, Mr. Fayez pointed out some faint dots on one of the high rocks and told us those were the Lion Tombs of the Dadan, and that we were going to walk up to them.

IMG_1147Once again, my shoes filled up with sand as we trekked to the base of the towering rock and then up the stairs that had been added later for the benefit of tourists. Indradeb gave up once he got close enough for his zoom lens to capture the tombs, but I persisted in spite of the heat, and once more found myself face to face with history, my fingers tracing the outlines of ancient carvings left for thousands of years. The climb in my black abaya in the afternoon sun was intense, but worth it.

The lions were quite simple, and there were no pillars on the doorways of the tombs, but it was fairly obvious that the style had inspired the necropolis at Madain Saleh. And the view from the top that took in the entire landscape we had traversed to reach them was breathtaking.

After climbing back down, we drove a short distance (thankful now for the cooler full of cold water and juice that had seemed unnecessary in the cool morning) to the ruins of a village that was in the process of being excavated. IMG_1181Archaeologists don’t work all the time in Saudi. In fact, there don’t seem to be any native Saudi teams at all, only teams of foreigners who come in to the country for a few weeks at a time to dig and catalog what they can before returning to their own countries to analyze it. However, the stakes and strings were still in place, and the village was clearly in the process of being uncovered.

IMG_1189I walked to the edge of one hole and was able to see down into what had been a building of some sort. The village well was fully uncovered in the center, and off to one side, there was a thick round stone that bore similar chisel marks that I had seen in the tombs. The stone would have been used for grinding grain.

When I was a kid, Indiana Jones seemed like the coolest job ever, and although after discovering that real archaeology meant hours in the dust and sun sifting pottery shards I decided maybe it wasn’t the career for me, I’ve never really lost my love of ancient cultures. I feel in many ways like we are isolated from these discoveries because we only see them in photos or behind glass in museums. I understand the absolute importance of studying and preserving these things, but damn it’s cool to come face to face with them in such an authentic environment.

Old Town

Having completed our tour of the ancient civilizations, Mr. Fayez wanted to show off the history of his hometown a little bit. Al Ula has obviously been inhabited for a really long time, but the modern Arabs who have become Saudis have a history too.

One of the things I think I will always be grateful to King Abdullah for is his encouragement of history and archaeology. I saw too often in China where people had lost their history after the Cultural Revolution and had to rebuild ancient sites from a few scattered notes and drawings, and it was sad. The strict form of Islam that Saudi was founded with was not particularly interested in any history other than that directly related to Islam, and even then, they were less interested in good historical investigation and preservation than with the production of hagiographies.

I had read several books on Saudi before coming here and was generally advised that any and all archaeology didn’t exist here. Ilhamdulilah this isn’t true. There was the beautiful museum in Riyadh, and I met a whole team of British archaeologists in the airport once on their way to a historical site near Tabuk. Madain Saleh and the old souk Al Balad in Jeddah have both been declared UNESCO World Heritage sites and the Saudis are starting to take some serious pride in their whole history.

And so it is that that the “old town” of Al Ula is being slowly reclaimed and restored from the dust.

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Like so much in Saudi, the influx of oil money caused a great expansion and building of infrastructure. New town Al Ula is modern and comfortable with many public services, parks, recreation areas and a bustling if small souk (shopping) area. But families living there can trace their roots to the the small collection of stone and mud buildings in Old Town, and some of them decided to restore the little village. The process isn’t yet complete, so we were able to see the slow changes.

IMG_1195The whole town in enclosed in a wall, the gates to which were closed up at night for safety against raiders. The Arabian peninsula was a very violent place until the last several decades. The houses were build with shared walls between them and the streets were covered by a roof made of whole palm trunks thatched with palm fronds and covered in mud. This kept the sun out of the town making it a cool refuge in the heat of the day. In fact, I noticed it right away when we stepped though the gate that the temperature inside the village was lower than merely standing in shadow outside it. It was like stepping into a cave.

IMG_1208We saw a mixture of original and restored in doors, walls, ceilings and steps. There was even a house that had some relics of tightly woven date frond floor mats and an old metal storage box. It’s very likely that some of the older folks in Al Ula had actually lived in these houses before the oil money came in and the new town was built up. Mr. Fayez told us that he learned most of the history of the town from his grandmother who had seen it change so much.

IMG_1222The old town also boasted a stone watchtower, built on one of the natural rock formations that overlooked the whole area and would have allowed them to see any danger long before it reached the walls. From this vantage point we could clearly see the progress of the houses that had been fully rebuilt and the ones that were still waiting for attention.

Change of Plans at the Viewing Platform

At this point, my guide, Mr. Fayez, had to leave me and drive my co-explorer for the day back to Madina. Indradeb was actually enjoying his last day in Saudi Arabia and should be back in England even as I am writing this. (waves!) However, not to be a bad guide, Mr. Fayez had arranged for a friend of his to continue the remainder of my tour and make sure that I got to the airport safely. His friend happened to be a member of the Police Intelligence whose name I shall not be sharing out of respect.

So we drove back to the hotel where I once again tried to divest my shoes and socks of sand and enjoyed a brief cup of Turkish coffee in the courtyard before setting off for the final stop on my tour. Little did I know that my day’s adventure had so much more in store for me.

The officer was plain clothes, dressed in a traditional Saudi thobe and shemagh. He didn’t speak much English, possibly even less than I speak Arabic at this point, but we managed to have a sort of conversation on the drive out with our limited vocabulary and some charades. He was actually very open minded and well traveled and quite pleasant company. I hope that he’s a good example of Saudi police, but honestly he’s the only one I’ve ever talked to, so I have no way of knowing.

When we reached the last stop, a very high peak overlooking the whole town of Al Ula, we were right behind another tour group that we’d passed a couple times throughout the day. In fact, it was the same group we’d talked to at Madain Saleh. The lady worked at the Swedish Embassy in Riyadh and her husband was one of the few male dependent spouses among the expat community. Her parents had come in on a family visa for a visit. (Apparently it’s easy enough to get visitor visas for parents, but not for siblings, so Mom, Dad, lemme know if you wanna come visit).

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We had come to the site to overlook the city and all the places we’d been during the day and to get a great view of the sunset. Their tour guide exchanged idle ribbing with my escort, teasing him that police officers were becoming tour guides now. The Sweds and I chatted idly about our experiences in Saudi and for the day’s tour as we snapped photos and waited for the sun to paint the sky. We were not disappointed.

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Dinner in the Desert

As I mentioned before there are only a few flights in and out of Al Ula every week, so they were heading out on the same evening flight as I was. We thought we were parting ways until the airport, but their tour guide told me that they were all heading to a Bedouin dinner in the desert before the flight and I was welcome to come along. Since it wasn’t even 6pm and the flight was at 10pm, I said sure.

So we piled into the cars and drove back out to the cliffs of Madain Saleh. While we couldn’t enter the historical site at night, we pulled off right across the road and went up a small hill toward some more stunning giant rocks that had been light from below with electric lights. There was a Bedouin tent set up with carpets inside and a fire crackling. We took a little while to explore the rocks, finding a little stairway that led up to another viewing platform, then returned to the tent for hot sweet tea and dates while we waited for dinner.

The dinner was a home cooked meal made by some of the local ladies, traditional foods like kabsa and jareesh and kofta and tabuleh and sambosa (yum). However it was also substantially late. Our poor guides were beside themselves since they had expected the food to be waiting for us when we arrived and it didn’t show up until after 8pm! Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, but they were especially worried that we wouldn’t make it to the airport. I can’t say that they would have been so worried if half of the guests weren’t carrying diplomatic passports, but regardless they were quite vigilant that we catch our flight.

While we were waiting for our meal, we found out that the French Cultural Attache had been misplaced. He was in town visiting the French archaeologist at the dig site in Madain Saleh, but no one could find him and his phone seemed to have gone dead or been turned off. My ersatz guide began making phone calls to the town police to set up a search party. No one likes to loose diplomats.

After a long day of walking and hiking, we set to the food with a will when it did arrive. I don’t think the lack of time to eat was actually an issue since we were all quite hungry and ate with what can only be described as gusto. The food was also excellent. I feel like its a real shame that younger Saudi women aren’t learning how to make these dishes because I fear the cuisine may be lost.

Their version of kabsa was especially nice. The traditional cardamom spiced rice had been augmented with a mixture of caramelized onions and sultanas and the chicken was both sweet and savory. Jareesh is going to be one of my favorite foods forever now, even though I know I won’t be able to eat it in America (silly Monsanto wheat!). This one was so creamy and rich I could only eat a tiny bowl but it was amazing! The kofta meatballs were huge and made of a velvety texture that only the best meatballs ever achieve, soaking in a spiced broth that was ideal to slurp up with the broken up kofta. The tabuleh salad was cool and had fresh greens and a light tahini taste and the sambosa were quite generous as well, filled with spiced meat and chopped vegetables. I didn’t try the okra stew, since I’m not a huge okra fan and all the other foods were so delicious.

That One Time I Helped Rescue the French Cultural Attache (ok, so that may be a tiny exaggeration, but it sounds cooler this way!)

After dinner we quickly reshod our feet and hied back to the cars to get to the airport on time. There was still no sign of the missing diplomat, but there wasn’t really anything I could do, so I watched the traffic and the clock, hoping that if we were late for check in at the airport my police escort might help smooth my way.

Then the officer escorting me got a phone call and pulled over behind the vehicle in front of us. It turned out that one of his officers had found the Frenchman (Cyrille is his name) and we were stopping to pick him up and add him to our airport caravan. Cyrill hopped in the backseat quite flustered and two things soon became apparent: 1) Cyrill spoke no Arabic, and 2) he’d lost his passport sometime during the day.

He told me that he had a strong interest in history and archaeology (a Ph.D worth of interest to be precise) and that in addition to visiting his country’s resident archaeologist, he’d been doing some exploring on his own when his car became lodged in a sand dune. The sand out here is tricky. One moment it’s packed like a dirt road and the next its a shifting sliding slog. The two don’t always look different either, a fact I’d noticed on previous outings off road in the Kingdom.

While he was stuck only 5-6km from the hotel, it was an unpleasant terrain and on top of that his cell phone battery had died! He had been rescued by some people passing by (another testament to the hospitality and the power of charades) and driven back to the hotel by them where he was able to then get yet more folks to come and help him dig his car out. In the ensuing confusion, however, he’d left his camera bag (with diplomatic passport) in the car of the first helpful group.

Most unusually, I had been seated in the front of the officers car while he drove me around, figuring that no one was going to stop us and ask for papers since he was the police. (it’s not ok for me to do this normally, only wives or relatives can sit up front with the male drivers). And when Cyrill saw me communicating with the officer driving us, he leapt to the conclusion that I spoke Arabic and somehow I became the defacto translator between them.

Thankfully, the story of the missing passport/camera bag and some kind of vehicle description had been relayed to our escort by one of the other folks in the phone chain, because I cannot be sure I would have been able to convey all of that, but once I established that he knew what the problem was, we were able to discuss the plan of action.

To help you further understand the insanity of this situation: Our flight was at 10:20 pm. Check in for flights closes an hour before take-off. Yes, ok, I knew from previous personal experience that this wasn’t an absolute, and I was fairly sure that we could be a little late and that between the police presence and diplomatic presence, we’d be allowed to board, but it was already after 9pm at this point and both Cyrill and I were becoming a little anxious. Since he was just flying back to Riyadh, he wouldn’t need the passport to board, but then it would be lost in Al Ula, which is not what you want to take back to your Ambassador, I’m sure.

I gleaned that the plan was to have the unis track down the camera bag and bring it to us at the airport. So here’s me with something like 30-40 Arabic words to my repertoire trying to navigate the complex explanations of our host whose English parts of the explanation included “camera” and “passport” with a French diplomat relying on me to help translate his needs and concerns, and to reassure him that the passport was being recovered and we would make the flight on time. I cannot make this stuff up.

The officer had stopped several times to talk to uniformed police as we continued on our way, and we were growing increasingly anxious about the check in time. Cyrill and I continued to talk on the way, perhaps he was trying to keep his mind off the missing passport, I know I would be going nuts if I lost mine. Within a minute of the cutoff time we pulled into the airport parking lot and headed inside. Let’s check in, I told him, then we can take our time following up with the passport.

However, like so many people in the modern world, Cyrill’s flight information was safely tucked away in his phone, which was dead. Me to the rescue again with my trusty back up charger! I got this spare battery basically with solar panels and all because I thought it would be horrible to be out travelling and not able to charge my devices that I depend on for everything from music and camera to document storage, to translation dictionary. Turns out it is horrible. So I hooked up Cyrill’s phone and got him back up and running.Shortly after that the officer told me that the camera bag had been recovered and was on its way. Not surprisingly we also met the Swedish delegation at the check in counter and got to relay the whole thrilling tale to them as well.

Once the bag and passport were safely returned, we profusely thanked and bid farewell to our guide and host and gratefully flopped into the seats in the lounge to await the flight. And now I have a French diplomat in my contacts list and an invitation to whatever event happens to be going on at the Embassy the next time I’m in Riyadh, so we’ll just have to see how that pans out next month.

So that wraps up the first full day of adventures for this vacation. I don’t think it could have been any more fully packed if we’d used a prybar but it certainly was amazing and unforgettable. Some people may say tourism in Saudi isn’t worth it, but I find that every time I set out for a trip I get all that I could have dreamed and more. One of the guides told me that the reason Saudi isn’t open to tourism is because they want to finish developing all the roads and access to the tourist sites so that they can present an image that is commensurate with the country’s great wealth, but I know it won’t be the same by then and while I will always encourage others to see this country as more than the home of Osama bin Laden or the place where oil grows,  I know that we will loose something if they turn all these sites into wealth-showing attractions, and I will always treasure my time here in these days of change.

Spring Break 2015 Vol. 2: A Morning in Madain Saleh

/ Gallivantrix / 1 Comment

I spent a whole day in transit to get to a city only 3 hours by car away from the one I live in. Why go through so much trouble and pain just to see some old ruins? Because Saudi Arabia is closed to tourists.

Madain Saleh may have been inhabited as early as the 3rd millennium BC, but very little is yet known about the people or the civilizations that predated the Nabateans (who we know all about by studying Petra in Jordan) because it’s only been in the past few years that archaeologists have been allowed to enter and excavate the site. In fact, the French archaeologist Dr. Laila Nehme was there at the same time I was. I didn’t meet her, but I did have in interesting run in with the French cultural attache who had come up from Riyadh to check on her that day (more on that later).

So, as a pure achievement junkie, I could not imagine coming so close to such an amazing piece of history and missing out! The only other time that I could have gone would have been in the summer heat after the semester ended, so I took two days of my precious vacation, and spent one of them simply travelling so that I could walk these grounds.

As it turned out, my adventure was way more than I’d bargained for, but in a good way. Read about it here and see all the photos on facebook!

Arriving on one of only two inbound flights for the week on Friday evening, my guide picked me up at the airport. You have to have a guide to see Madain Saleh. (disclaimer: Lot’s of Westerners don’t, because all rules in Saudi are malleable, but it’s a safer option than travelling all that way and possibly getting turned aside or lost). Particularly since I cannot drive in Saudi, a good guide was important to me. I searched a long time to find one, since tourism isn’t yet a big deal and locals who want to go to Madain Saleh just drive themselves!

Mr. Fayez

After emailing everyone on the official tourist guide website, and scouring Trip Advisor, I found Mr. Fayez. Who, by the way, is awesome and I’ll be happy to send you his contact info if you need a guide.

Mr. Fayez spoke very proficient English and had not only agreed to be my guide to Madain Saleh, he also arranged all my transport, the necessary permits to visit the sites, and helped me with meals! He even sent me a message shortly before my vacation began to verify our plans, a true rarity in Saudi where everything is “Inshallah”.

Knowing I was a single lady travelling alone, he brought his niece and nephews with him when he picked me up at the airport (at night). This may sound odd, but its actually very courteous. It is a protection both of his reputation and of mine to ensure not only that nothing untoward happens, but that no one will talk bad or spread rumors. We drove around a bit and I got a sneak preview of the amazing rock formations that surround the town of Al Ula. He told me that the hotel had a restaurant but that it was very expensive and offered to take me to another restaurant that was much more reasonable.

Of course, he’s friends with the restaurant owner, this kind of thing is standard in lots of places with local guides, but it really was a better price and very good food with such generous portions that I ate the remainder for breakfast the next day. Sadly, the restaurant owner says he’s tired of running it because kids come by and tag the walls with paint all the time, so he’s selling the space to a traditional kabsa restaurant.

During our time talking, I also discovered that Mr. Fayez is 37 and planning to get married in just a few weeks. His bride is only 20, but this age gap is fairly common, since men have to finish their education, get a job and save up money before they can get married, while women only have to be legally old enough. He told us that his young bride really didn’t know anything about running a home, she didn’t even know how to make tea yet! To me, this is just another example of how the oil wealth has really changed the younger generations in Saudi, making them dependent on servants to do anything that resembles “manual labor” including simple household tasks like cooking or sewing a button.

IMG_1059Mr. Fayez is one of many tour guides in Al Ula, but he is the only one who makes guiding tourists his full time job. All the other guides have “day jobs” (which doesn’t amount to much real work for Saudis) and take tourists around on the weekends. He said that the reason he charges less than the others (and he does) is so that he can attract more customers, but that the other guides give him a hard time because he is making their prices seem too high (which they are). It made me happy to be supporting a Saudi who wanted to make a success of his own business and work hard to achieve his goals. I feel like that’s a rare quality in the Kingdom nowadays, so I may be shamelessly plugging for him as a great choice if you visit Madain Saleh.

While we waited for Isha prayers to end so we could pick up the food, Mr. Fayez took me by one of the towns public parks. It was a beautifully grassy area just alongside one of the prodigious rock formations with a nice walking path, and a playground for children. On a Friday evening, many families were out enjoying the mild weather, and it was really neat to be able to see the community. In many ways it reminded me of the Corniche in Jeddah. When I told Mr. Fayez this he laughed and said except there is no sea.

Al Ula is a very small town. I’m not actually sure why it has an airport except for the UNESCO fame. Some blogs I read said that there were smaller hotels or hostels around, but they were single men and had more options. As a woman (single or not) the only real option was one of the towns two hotels. Yes, two. I chose the Al Ula Arac Resort because it was only slightly more expensive and a lot nicer looking. And as with so many things in Saudi, looks are all. I’ll be doing a separate post on all the accommodations of my trip, so for now I’ll just leave it at that.

We were scheduled to set out at 9am, joined by a man from the UK who had also booked Mr. Fayez for a tour. My day trip companion was Indradeb (you may notice the name is a teeny bit Hindu), and he arrived decked out with a large professional looking camera and a loaded backpack.

On the drive out, Mr. Fayez explained to me that we would start the day with Madain Saleh, since it closed fairly early, the we would see the Ottoman Train Station, Elephant Rock, the Dadan ruins, Old Town and finish with a sunset view from an overlook rock. Quite a full itinerary, but traffic was minimal and Mr. Fayez had made all the arrangements so everything went smoothly.

He also told us the origin of the name “Madain Saleh” which means Saleh’s Town. Although I have found that this story is fairly well known by Muslims, I cannot speak to the Quranic veracity of this version of the story, I can only relate it as it was told to me.

The Story of Saleh and the Camel

It comes from an Islamic belief that the Prophet Saleh (PBUH) entreated the people to follow a single god, Allah. The people ridiculed him and treated him very poorly, demanding proof of Allah’s power. Finally, Saleh prayed to Allah to send a miracle to convince the people. Allah turned a giant stone into a pregnant camel (also giant) who then gave birth to her calf.

Allah instructed Saleh that the people should alternate days in using water for themselves and for this camel. Drinking one day, and watering the camel the next, but that they could then drink the milk of the camel.

The giant camel came and went from the town as she pleased, seen by the people only when she came to get water and give milk. They were instructed not to follow her when she left.

But people being human, some of them were still not satisfied with the miracle, and desired to kill the camel. So they followed it into the mountains one day, and killed it while the calf escaped. Allah was so displeased with them that he sent a plague. On the first day their faces all turned yellow, on the second day red, and on the third day they turned black and died.

Only the people who believed Saleh (PBUH) and left the town with him were spared.

The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) tells his followers this story when they camp at a site somewhere one the road between Tabuk and Madina, and makes them leave the place because it is cursed. Many Muslims today believe that Madain Saleh is that place, although there is still room for question as we await further archaeological discoveries.

As a consequence, some Muslims avoid the historical site, believing it to be the cursed place told of by the Prophet.

Madain Saleh

This is known to be the southern capitol of the Nabatean civilization which Petra is the main capitol of. Everyone knows Petra from Indiana Jones, and I was planning to visit it next, but was excited to see the contrast between the two.

The actual town of Madain Saleh is still underground, yet to be excavated fully, and is not open to the public, so we contented ourselves with the necropolis and temple.

The rocks around Al Ula are tall jutting mountain sized boulders, leftover from when the whole area was under water. In fact, I could see clear signs of water erosion on the rocks that the tombs were carved into. It made the tombs stand out even more, since they were smooth and flat in contrast to the pocked, uneven stone they had been carved from.

The tombs range in age and size. The size depended mainly on the wealth of those to be buried within. Mr. Fayez told us that the builders would start at the top and carve the facade, then excavate the inside of the tombs. We saw several that had been only partly finished and this method was obvious.

Also, unlike many historical sites, there was nothing preventing us from walking right inside the tombs where we could see the tool marks left by the Nabateans over 2,000 years ago. There were niches in the walls that had been carved out for single bodies, and deeper pits that had been designed to hold several bodies together.

The front of the tombs were decorated almost without variation by two pillars, a peaked triangular shape connecting them, and five stepped ziggurat shapes carved above that. Some had urns above the pillars, there were also many eagles as central adornments. A five petal flower was also quite popular. Mr. Fayez explained that five was a sacred number, and that the steps on the ziggurats represented the steps ascending to the gods or descending to the netherworld.

We also saw one tomb that had two small sphinxes guarding it above its pillars, indicating some influence of the Egyptian culture.

The grounds that cover Madain Saleh are quite large, and while we walked around many areas, we also drove between several. The temple area was quite astounding. A narrow passage between two high rocks led past a deeply carved gathering place for worship. Mr. Fayez showed us how the people had used the rocks to funnel the rain water into cisterns to be used in holy rituals.

We passed through the high rocks (a walk that echoed the long passage at Petra leading to the Treasury) looking at the small niches and carvings along the way, small spaces to place statues or offerings. We also climbed one of the tall rocks within, affording us a spectacular view of the whole area.

I’d cast off my hijab in the morning, deciding that I didn’t really need it if we were isolated from the crowds, but I was still wearing my abaya this whole time. Climbing around on the rocks in a flowing black dress is not easy. We ran into some tourists (who turned out to be from the Swedish Embassy in Riyadh) on their way back down from the view point, and I noticed the younger woman had doffed her abaya too. We had all done as much on our trip to the Edge of the World, and it was getting quite warm with the shinning sun and climbing, so I took the opportunity to shed mine and tie it around my waist, promising Mr. Fayez that I would put it back on if we ran in to anyone Saudi.

After admiring the view and posing for a few more pictures we moved on to some of the more “quintessential” spots in Madain Saleh, the ones you’ll see if you search Google Images. It didn’t seem to matter how many of the tombs I saw, I didn’t get tired of them. They shared general characteristics but were all unique. Here there were two serpents, or two lions, once a scowling face. Some had become two-storied in an effort to use more of the rock’s interior space. Some of the tomb faces in this area were pockmarked with bullet holes, reminders of Saudi’s bloody unification.

In a daze I drifted in and out of the ancient monuments, feeling an intimacy with the past that we so rarely experience in the modern era. Finally we arrived at the crown jewel, the Unique Palace. It stands alone in a single huge rock, taking up nearly the entirety of one face. It is the only tomb in Madain Saleh to have four pillars, and despite its opulence, it was never completed. Only the facade was carved, and no one was ever buried inside.

The ground around it was a striking shade of yellow, in stark contrast to the rich red sand all around. There were steps leading up to the door that Mr. Fayez said had just been added yesterday. Further evidence that the site is changing as Saudi attempts to build interest in tourism.

We also visited a couple of excavated wells. Apparently the land around Madain Saleh still has a lot of natural water. And the red sand is rich for agriculture. In fact, we saw a few wood and mud remenants of houses that had been modern Saudis living in the area until only a decade or two ago. The government had paid them to move, and torn out all the farmland to return the Heritage Site to it’s natural state.

The Ottoman Train Station

On our way out of Madain Saleh, we stopped at the train station, now defunct, where there was a restroom and small mosque. Duhr prayer call had passed while we were taking in the tombs and Mr. Fayez needed to pray. I was amazed that even out among the ruins we could still hear the Athan although only faintly.

Sand is pervasive. The sand out here isn’t like beach sand. It can range from the larger gritty crystals down to a fine talc-like powder. My shoes and socks were full of sand from my hours in the ruins, so I took some time in the bathroom to try to shake them out. On the way out, I got caught up talking to a man from Africa, because I can’t go anywhere in Saudi without men trying to talk to me and get my number, but Mr. Fayez returned from prayer and rescued me from further awkwardness.

The train station looks exceptionally British. Indradep remarked on the similarities to train stations in London. I suppose by the 1900’s the remains of the Ottoman Empire had been highly affected by British colonialism. We stood around with some other tourists, taking pictures and being generally amused at the contrast between the ancient sites behind us and this nearly modern train.

It reminded me of the old West tourist sites in California, carefully preserved or even replicated relics of that were less than a century old. The date on the trains wheels was 1914.

Elephant Rock

Ok, it really looks like an elephant. That’s kind of all, but it was a short side trip, and I can’t imagine ever getting tired of the amazing rock formations around Al Ula. It’s especially stunning to see sand dunes drifting right up to the bottom of these rocks. The whole landscape looks like it’s barely changed since it was under water 50 million years ago.

I think at this point we finally stopped for lunch. Mr. Fayez had brought along juice and some snacks, which was very thoughtful, but it was a lot of trekking, even with the car. We went back to his friend’s restaurant and had a quick sit down lunch of kebab, grilled meat, green salad, humus and pita, then back in the car again to try to stay on schedule!

To be continued in Spring Break 2015 Vol. 3.

Don’t forget to check out all the photos on facebook!

Spring Break 2015 Vol. 1: The Madina Airport

/ Gallivantrix / 1 Comment

Why am I writing about the airport? Because this day’s experiences, while not ideal spring break activities, show some very important aspects of Saudi life and culture, so hang in there and take the whole trip with all its ups and downs along with me.

The first day of my vacation was spent in airports for the very simple reason of the Saudi driving ban and gender segregation. Madain Saleh is only about 2-3 hours drive from the town I live in… by car. But since I can’t drive here, and can’t take a bus between cities alone, and can’t hire a (male) driver without extraordinary expense, I instead spent over 11 hours in airports and in the air.

I tried to find a driver, but they were all going to be more expensive than the airfare. My students and local co-worker were surprised to hear I was flying, but they all have husbands, brothers, fathers, or uncles who can drive them where they want to go. The driving ban doesn’t strongly affect them, since it’s only a hardship for those women who don’t have a strong family structure (like divorcees or immigrants and who really cares about them? right?)

There are only 4 flights in and out of Al Ula (the town nearest to Madain Saleh) every week, and they are either to Riyadh or Madina. The one on Friday I took connected through Madina, a city closed to non-Muslims. As a result, I spent the entire 7 hour layover inside the airport. Now, some people will say that this was unnecessary, because I could have easily caught a taxi there and gone out. Like all laws in Saudi Arabia, they are only applicable if you get caught, but the penalty for getting caught is severe. So, while I would love to see the holy cities, I don’t think alone and with minimal Arabic skills is the way to go.

The highlight of my waiting time was my conversation with the Filapina bathroom attendant. She was bored too, as you can imagine, and after seeing me over a course of a couple of hours, approached me to chat.

A thing to understand about KSA, the underclass of immigrant laborers is treated very poorly. There is rampant slavery (withholding of wages, withholding of passports, forced to live in employer provided housing, no transportation and limited contact with others are all very common), and female employees are often subjected to unwanted sexual advances by their male sponsors (heck, even young men can be pressed into homosexual activities). There is no place for these folks to turn. They are promised wages, and often they *are* making more money than they could at home (when they get paid), but they have no way to leave. Exit visas must be granted by the sponsor, flights are expensive, and their Embassies are overwhelmed and underfunded.

As a consequence, I try hard to be nice to these people whenever our paths cross. This lady was in many ways very lucky. Her job in a public (and very holy) place meant that she was protected from some of the worst treatment that immigrant workers are subjected to. She had also become friends with some of the Saudi women who also worked in the airport, and they looked after her to an extent, bringing her small gifts of chocolate and sheltering her from the worst consequences of being Filapina in Saudi.

She had a college education. She spoke her native Tagalog as well as a family village dialect, English and Arabic (the last she taught herself). In the Philippines she had a white collar job doing manager level work, but still did not make enough money to send her two sons to college. This alone is a travesty. She tried some other countries before finally landing in Saudi, where she is content to work cleaning up bathrooms after entitled Saudi wanna-be queens because it allows her to provide the education she wants for her sons (despite the fact that the same education did her no good economically speaking).

She told me that when she first arrived in Saudi she didn’t speak Arabic and was treated very poorly. She determined to teach herself so that she could confront the people who were talking bad about her and making her life harder than it needed to be. Her first step worked. Once the people around her figured out that she could understand them and talk back, she got fewer insults and even a few overtures of friendship.

Then she told me she had converted to Islam from the staunch Catholicism that is practiced by most people in the Philippines. However as we talked more about it, she admitted that she did not partake in the required five times daily prayers, but still prayed in her own time. A few other hints and clues led me to believe that her conversion may have simply been born out of loneliness or a desire to fit in, at best to have a spiritual community to belong to. I don’t blame her. I’ve spent my life without a spiritual community, but I see how important it is to others, and sometimes I envy them. It would be interesting to see if she keeps her faith in Islam once she returns to her homeland and is surrounded by Catholics again.

She told me a story of one of those self important Saudi ladies who had come into the prayer area without removing her shoes. The whole purpose of the sajjaada (prayer rug) is to make sure that the floor you are praying on is clean. The airports often have permanent carpeted areas in the prayer rooms, and this one also had a little shelf for shoes just outside the carpeted room. So the woman walking on the rugs with shoes is very disrespectful and inappropriate. When the Filapina tried to ask her to remove her shoes the Saudi lady became hostile, and physically hurt her by grabbing and pinching her arms, then told her she would make a complaint and get the Filapina fired and deported.

Sadly, this is a real threat. If a Saudi (or other upper class foreigner like, say, an American) makes a complaint against one of the near slave underclass immigrant workers, there won’t be an investigation or a warning, the worker will simply be ejected. If the complaint is bad, they may be jailed, whipped or fined too. This is why I was hesitant to complain about the taxi drivers in Jeddah, because despite their obnoxious behavior, I didn’t think they really deserved such harsh punishment.

Her employer took her papers and she was not allowed to come to work for 15 days while things were being decided. She was sure it was the end of her stay in Saudi and her dreams of providing college to her sons. However, by this time she had, with her Arabic and conversion, made friends among many of the other airport employees, and when they found out what had happened, they appealed to the bosses that the Saudi woman who had complained had a reputation of unreasonable complaints, and begging them to restore the Filapina.

This is wasta at work. Because some of the folks who spoke on her behalf were Saudi and higher ranking employees their word counted for something and her deportation was stayed. They airline told the Saudi complainer that her wish had been granted while quietly moving the Filapina to the international terminal for a while to reduce her chances of being seen by the complainer.

All in all, she has it better than most Filipinas in Saudi, yet she is still working far below her education and qualifications, and living apart from her family and community. She told me that whenever she is alone she cries, because she misses her home and family so much, but when she is around customers at work she always puts on a smile because she wants to bring happiness to others.

Broke my heart.

I like to believe as an educated American, I will never know what it’s like to have to take a blue collar job in a strange country just to provide for my loved ones whom I have left behind. I am fortunate enough to be travelling and working for myself and by choice, but I would be a fool if I didn’t take these stories into myself and let them change me.

It’s so easy to distance ourselves from those less fortunate, or to paint them into only the starving children of Africa or India who are so destitute they become a romantic tragedy, a plight for Angelina Jolie to bring aid. And they need it, don’t get me wrong. But so many more people around us, right next to us, people we pass on the streets and in the airports, are living “lives of quiet desperation” in a way that Thoreau himself could not have imagined.

So if ending world hunger seems like too much for you to tackle, think about those around you. When was the last time you talked to your company’s janitor? Or the bus boy at your favorite restaurant? I think we tell ourselves we can’t make a real change, but a small kindness like a bit of luxury chocolate, a friend who’s willing to listen when it seems too much, a friend who’s willing to speak up and lend a hand when the crazy bureaucracy threatens to beat their dreams down can make all the difference to someone struggling to find a dream.

This woman didn’t want anything from me but someone to hear her story. Friends she made in Madina did little things like bring her chocolate that she would never buy for herself because she was sending every spare cent home. And they fought for her when her job was in danger. Never doubt that even small actions can make a big impact when applied with love.

❤

Spring Break 2015: Overview

/ Gallivantrix / Leave a comment

My English program in Saudi is not a normal University program, but an intensive 21 week all day English course. This means we don’t get the regular university breaks. So aside from the religious holidays of Eid, and the State holiday of National Day, our only other holiday was a week between the two 21 week semesters. I have opted to think of this as “spring break”. I know it isn’t spring yet, but “winter break” has connotations of holidays and going to see family and is usually longer, whereas “spring break” is typically only a week long and used by most to run off an have raucous party times in tropical beaches (which I did at least a little of).

Today is my first day back from the vacation, and tomorrow school starts again, so I’m mostly laying on the couch trying to get my feet to unswell and gathering my strength for a new batch of students. One valuable thing I learned from this is that I really don’t have the fortitude to run around 3 countries in 7 days without proper rest. And I certainly don’t have time to stop and write about it. But since the summer travels will be restricted by money, rather than time, and staying put for a day is one of the least expensive things you can do while travelling, I should be able to take more regular downtime days where I can rest, reflect and share.

But for now, I have to do those things after the trip is finished. Over the next several weeks, I’ll be organizing my photos and stories and putting them here and on my facebook page. Until then, here’s a brief overview of the trip and what stories you can look forward to.

Day 1

This day was entirely spent travelling. There’s a sort of horrible irony to the fact that it took me almost 12 hours of travelling to get somewhere 3 hours away by car. Oh, Saudi. I had a loooong layover in the Medina airport, the highlight of which was meeting the Filapina bathroom attendant and learning the story of her life and how she came to convert to Islam and work in Saudi. Mostly it’s a story about insane economic inequality, but still worth hearing.

Day 2

This day was spent in Al Ula and Madain Saleh. I had to hire a guide because of the travel and driving restrictions in Saudi, but he turned out to be quite nice and very responsible. My original intent was just to see Madain Saleh, the southern capitol of the Nabatean civilization, but I ended up seeing some other cool stuff around Al Ula as well. I ended the evening with a Bedouin style dinner out at the base of some of the high rocks, and had an interesting encounter with the local police and the French Cultural Attache.

Day 3

I also spent mostly travelling. I had an overnight flight to Amman and only crashed for a couple hours in the hostel before catching the local bus to Petra (yay local public transportation). I made it into Petra before the park closed, and since a 2 day pass is only 5JD more than a 1 day, I decided it was worth it for a couple of hours. Petra is the northern capital of the Nabateans, and made famous by Indiana Jones. I met a local Bedouin man who was closing up shop for the evening and just spent some time walking and talking with me. I learned a great deal about the local Bedouin tribe there and even walked up to their village with him at sunset. Dinner was another Bedouin style tent affair up in the rocks, similar to the one at Madain Saleh, but more commercial. However the effect of the paper lanterns on the cliffside was beautiful, and the number of stars visible in the sky was stunning.

Day 4

This was an all day hike into Petra. I have to do some research to find out how far I walked, but it was a looong hike with many many steps carved into the rocks. I walked up to the monastery with another American I’d met in the hostel, and walked back with a variety of trail partners from many different places. I also sat and had tea with several of the Bedouin ladies who were selling handmade goods (and other trinkets) along the trail. Turns out, they still barter as well as haggle. In the evening I took a charter bus back to Amman and waited for my plane in the hostel with another traveler from Australia.

Day 5

Another overnight flight, I arrived in Dubai in the morning and managed to check out the metro transit system and finish up some shopping before having a short nap and heading to a nearby beach bar where I met a lady from two neighborhoods over in Seattle! She turns out to also have an amazing story, btw.

Day 6

Sightseeing in Dubai. I started the day with a boat tour of the marina, where I met a lovely lady from Slovenia because we both had matching high top converse “chucks”. We had the same itinerary for the day, so we stayed travel buddies, and so hopefully, I’ll get some cool pictures from her as well when she’s all done. We went to the Atlantis Aquarium and then ended the day with a desert  sunset  tour. That was especially strange as my third evening in “Bedouin style” entertainment, but Dubai was by far the most touristy and least authentic. Afterward, we parted ways and I went to see the Global Village, which I can only describe as Disney meets Model UN.

Day 7

More sightseeing in Dubai. I made it to the Museum, the Heritage Village, the Gold Souk, the Jumeirah Mosque, the Burj Arab and ended with the Dubai Mall dancing fountain show (I got video and pictures this time!). Traffic was abysmal, and by the time I got back to the hotel I was exhausted, but there  was so much music playing around, that I couldn’t sleep, so I headed back to the beach bar where I ended up sitting on the sand and watching crazy drunk people.

Day 8

Finishing off Dubai without a champagne brunch was sad, but I headed once more to the nearby beach bar and had a lovely breakfast with a single glass of sparkling rose overlooking the marina. Glorious. Then headed back to the airport for the long journey back to Tabuk.

READ MORE

This is all just the quickest of overviews, a teaser, a trailer, a tantalizing glimpse of the wonders I experienced in the last 8 days. Those of you who read regularly know that each tale will be spun in detail and color as time allows, and those of you who may be new or who I met on this trip, I hope you’ll come back and see the full stories.

🙂