Middle East Odyssey - Part 3 (August, 2005)

August 29, 2005 / "Luxury travel" in a sleeper train

For $60 you get a pretty uncomfortable bunk or three narrow train chairs to sleep on, dinner and breakfast and 12 hours of agony from Aswan to Cairo. I decided to take the Sleeper train rather than travel in the first class of a normal train and now I'm beginning to think that 1st class would have been comfier... It's only one night, so I'll survive.

Most of today was spent sitting in a car and oogling at different Pharaonic temples actually built by the Greeks. I saw Horus' temple at Edfu, which is the best preserved Pharaonic temple in Egypt, as well as another temple at Kom Ombo. Besides that I spend several hundred euros on perfumes in a perfume shop in Aswan where they also showed me how they work the glass into those fragile yet amazing little perfume bottles you find here. I didn't buy any of the bottles, I'll do that in Cairo, but the perfumes and aromatherapy things I got were worth the money.
And of course I did the tourist trip thing and actually paid to look at granith... The guide took me to see the unfinished obelisk (which would have weighed 1168 tons if finished) which is basically a block of granith half chisseled out of the rock... Yes, as if there wasn't enough granith back home..
And then there was the Aswan High Dam, which is pretty impressive. According to Lonely Planet most visitors are disappointed with the High Dam, but I certainly wasn't. But then again, I was mostly thinking about its political implications way back when it was built. And the scenery is quite amazing. The Nile really is the most beautiful body of water I have ever seen. I also got a peak on the old Dam, which was built by the British at the end of the 19th century. The scenery there is lovely as well. As an info bit: when the High Dam was built, UNESCO organised an emergency temple evacuation thingy: several temples built in the area that now comprises Lake Nasser (the largest artificial lake in the world) were taken apart brick by brick and moved to higher grounds. One of the temples was actually moved to the Metropolitan Museum in New York!

August 28, 2005 / Rant: The world is not made for singles

A single hotel room is always more than half of the price of a double room. An excursion for only one person is way more expensive than for 2 people.

August 27, 2005 / Pharaos, dead tourists and checks

Early this morning I went to the West Bank of the Nile to the Valley of the Kings to check out some tombs. The tombs I saw were those of Ramses I, Ramses IV and Ramses IX. They were pretty remarkable, 3000 years old colours still as fresh as if they'd been painted 3 years ago and the attention to detail was incredible! However, the best tombs I saw were those of the workers who built the pharaoh's tombs. The tombs themselves were smaller, a lot smaller, but the pictures were incredible! The attention to details was even more precise than in the pharaoh's tombs and the pictures were different, too. We decided not to go to the Valley of the Queens, because the tombs there are similar to those in the Valley of the Kings, and the only tomb I personally really wanted to see there is that of Nefertari, and it's been closed for 2 years as they rotate the open ones to preserve the tombs. Legend tells that Nefertari's tomb is THE best tomb in all of Egypt. It also costs more to see it. As does Tutankhamun's tomb, which is quite funny considering there is actually nothing there. He was a nobody, a boy king, and all the treasures they found in his tomb are either at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo or in London. It costs E£55 to see 3 tombs in the Valley, if you want to see Tutankhamon's, it costs an extra E£70!
I also saw Hatshepsut's funerary temple, which was essentially just another temple rebuilt 40 years ago by the Polish. What made this temple interesting to me, is what happened there only a few years ago. In 1997 a group of Islamic militants opened fire on mostly Japanese and French tourists inside Hatsheptut's temple killing nearly 70 people and injuring many more. This is the blodiest incident against Western tourists in Egypt in recent years. Everywhere here it is evident how paranoid the government is about attacks againts tourists. The tourist police is in every corner, outside every McDonald's, outside every hotel. All hotels have metal detectors, all museums and sites have metal detectors, too (but they never check the tourists, usually only the locals). If there are tourist busses going from Luxor to Aswan, for example, they go in a convoy protected by the police. In Dahab I actually saw a bomb dog walking along the corniche! By now I'm so used to automatic rifles and men in uniforms that it doesn't even surprise me to see them everywhere, but neither does it make me feel safer. Lebanese soldiers are really the only ones that actually looked capable of using their weapons efficiently, their counterparts in Syria and Egypt just look ragged and useless. There are also, of course, road blocks all over the place. The funny thing is, that the only country where I didn't see any roadblocks was Syria, a member of the "axis-of-evil".. And in all the other countries they just wave your car along if it contains a blond woman.
I can't imagine what it feels like to live in a country where your own government is making your life more difficult by imposing roadblocks and security checks for the benefit of tourists who look at you and say "yet another one after money". (I actually heard an ignorant Englishman from Bumblefuck, England say that in a tomb when the tomb guard gave him a piece of cardboard to use as a fan in a tomb that seriously lacks fresh air.) I mean come on, I'm tired of being hassled too, but if a guard is happy when you give him the equivalent of 20 cents then what's the big deal?? It's a kind of a vicious circle really: the government puts an incredible number of checks on its citizens to get revenue from tourism to boost the economy which is supposed to then help everybody. Except that it doesn't seem to. All government ministeries must first have a glass palace of their own before you can do anything for the people..

OK, I turned this into an anti-government rant again. Oops :D

WRITTEN: August 17, 2005 / It's not about going forward

Reading back some of the things I've written, I realised I sound horribly negative sometimes! Maybe it's easier to rant about horrible or annoying things, maybe those are the ones the stick to your memory more eaasily or maybe I'm just looking at this part of the world through negative lenses! But then I don't think that I am. There are a lot of good, beautiful and great things about these countries too, and I guess I should try to remember to mention them more often rather than be blinded by my own prejudicies (it's a bunch of rocks!) or antipathies (have you never seen blond hair before?? jeesh!). For example, 99% of the people I have met have been incredibly kind, helpful and genuine. If you look lost, somebody will come and ask you where you are going, if you look tired waiting for a train at a station, somebody will offer their sear for you. You will be asked where you are from and then welcomed to the country; the phrase you hear most often is "ahlan wa sahlan" which means welcome.
I should remember to write about these things rather than bitch about disgusting Saudi men :D

Another thing I realised today when collapsing on my hotel bed exhausted is, that it seems the function of moving from place to place has become the face value of the trip rather than the idea of seeing things. I feel like every two days I'm packing up and moving along again never really having time to just sit back and relax. It's like a big race through as many ruins as possible. I've decided to change that. I will be in Aqaba for two nights as planned, and will probably go to Eilat for two nights as well (very little of the long history of Aqaba is actually visible, just a bunch of rocks and a castle :), but once I get to Egypt I will slow down. I will not rush through the Valley of Kings like I rushed through Petra, and I will give myseld luxorious time to oogle at Egypt from the top of the Aswan Dam. In two weeks I will be in Cairo for the final few days before boarding a plane to Europe, it's not like I have to race to make it to the finish line. This is not the Amazing Race, after all!

Then a little more about Jordan, and Amman especially.
As I said earlier, I arrived in Jordan thinking that the men are especially bad regarding Western women, but it has been no different to Syria or Lebanon (Beirut doesn't count). Yeah I do wanna shout at them sometimes to move it along, but as long as they stay at least an arms length away, I have no problem.
On the other hand, I arrived in Amman thinking that even though there wouldn't be that much history to see, it would still be a nice city to visit and spend a few days at. I have to say that I was a little disappointed. While Amman is pretty modern in Middle Eastern standards, it's also very big and very confusing and very divided into fancy and not-so-fancy areas. However, I am quite certain that if one would spend more time there, and especially know someone who lives in Amman, the experience would be much more positive and rewarding. I met up with a friend of mine from SOAS, Esma, for dinner Monday night and the picture of Amman that I got from her was very nice. And I can see what she means, even though my own experience was not that fulfilling. (In case you haven't noticed, btw, I am, too, guilty of double standars: I keep complaining about ruin-fatigue but when I go to a city like Amman with very little ruins, I immediately declare it to be boring and lacking in history...) Alas, maybe one day I'll have a chance to spend a little more time in Amman with someone who knows the city well to explore it's hidden treasures.

I have no special interest to go to Eilat in Israel except to see if people there are different to people here. For some reason I have this image of the Israelis being more European, "more like me" than their Arab counterparts, which is quite weird considering that I have very little patience for their cries over lost territory and what not. I will need to keep my mouth shut about the Gaza pullout or else I'll end up in huge trouble. I cannot even begin to explain here how little sympathy I have for the settlers. It's not like they'd been living there for hundreds of years and then suddenly someone came and kicked them out (like they did to the Palestinians, might I add) they purposefully went there to settle areas that were not theirs to settle. Neither do I believe, however, that this pullout is a step towards peace, it's simply a stunt providing Sharon with the upper hand (I pulled out, I'm the good guy). Besides, I'm sure most of the settlers will go to the West Bank and in a few years it'll be the same faces on TV again, complaining how they are driven out of their homes. Should have thought about that before moving there, dude!

August 26, 2005 / The hassle capital of Egypt, truly

I can't even begin to count how many people have tried to sell me something or getting to ride on a horse or take a feluca trip down the Nile or what ever. Walking a few meters down the street and someone will be tugging on your elbow for baksheesh or something. Mostly it just makes me laugh, and I keep coming up with the weirder places of where I'm from. Right now I'm telling everyone I'm from Peraseinajoki, tomorrow I think it's time for Bumblefuck. Also, if anyone asks about my toe (which is still sore as s##t), I tell them it was bitten off by a shark. More fun that way :)
Tomorrow I'm heading to the Valley of Kings and Monday a day trip to Aswan. I was gonna check out Karnak temple today, but walking is a little too painful for that, so heading there Sunday instead.

I have a few bits and pieces on my laptop that I've written in the comfort of my room, and I think here I can borrow a USB memory, so I'll try to get them online soon, if I can be bothered, it's too hot (+45) to do anything feasible really.

August 24, 2005 / The end of an affair in Dahab

It's time to move on from Dahab. My toe is reasonably OK, I can walk a little, but I may need a device to get around the temples in Luxor, however, as I still can't walk for very long without pain. So I have booked a plane ticket from Sharm el-Sheikh to Luxor for tomorrow morning. Leaving this gorgeous place at 6am and I'll be in Luxor by 10am. It's a little more expensive than bus-boat-bus combination, but it saves me several hours of sitting around in busses and bus stations.

Dahab has been nice, despite of the toe incident and a text message, but I am little tired of every single person asking what happened to my toe (got so tired of explaining about the oxygen tank that I started saying it was bitten off by a shark). Today when booking my plane ticket, I had several offers from young men to carry me so I wouldn't have to walk. Needles to say I declined them all..

August 22, 2005 / Kinda wish I could take back the last 24 hours...

...it's just so bloody boring to just sit around and not be able to do anything! This toe thing is really pissing me off. I wanted to go snorkeling today, but I can't go swim. Even if I protected my foot with a plastic bag, it would still probably hurt like hell when swimming. Oh well, I'll just read a book...

August 21, 2005 / How to ruin your holiday Anna-style

Well not so much ruin but complicate sightseeing by not being able to walk properly.
I started (and finished) my career as a diver today: This morning I excitedly went to my first PADI open water dive course lesson and by the time we were doing the equipment stuff, I was really looking forward to my first actual dive lesson. The minute I got under water, however, it stopped being fun. Diving just isn't for me. I succesfully completed all the skills we were doing, but all the while all I wanted to do was get up to the surface, and this was at 1.5 metres.. I just cannot stay calm under there. After the first set of skills I told the instructor I couldn't do it anymore and went happily snorkeling waiting for the others to finish. That wasn't the bang of the day, however. As we got back to the dive centre, I was carrying a 10kg+ air tank when I slipped and dropped it on my big toe. It hurt like hell (and still does). The people here called a doctor and he came over in 15 minutes and removed the nail from my toe. Now I can't swim (or take a shower..) for 4 days and walking is a little tricky. I'm probably just gonna hang here in Dahab for a few days 'til it gets a little better and then head on to Aswan & Luxor.

Dahab is great, and I was looking forward to going snorkeling at the Blue Hole tomorrow, but now I just have to sit back and relax.

August 20, 2005 / US soldiers, Finnish policemen, two rockets, a boat and diving (in paradise)

In Aqaba I went to Movenpick resort's swimming pool (cost 20 euros!!) and met 3 Finnish police officers training the Iraqi police in Amman. There were also a bunch US soldiers from the aircraft carrier and the other US warship that were in Aqaba. It was so clear they were soldiers with their haircuts and dog tags and whatnot :)

Yesterday when waiting for the boat from Aqaba to Nuweiba to actually get on its way, I got a message from one of the Finnish cops asking if I was alright cos apparently there had been an attack against the American ships (which we'd seen leave Aqaba when waiting at the boat). Eventually (through GPRS and YLE's wap service) we found out that someone had launched a rocket against one of the ships and one to Eilat airport. Both intended targets were missed, but it explained why the boat left 90 mins late: they removed all Iraqis from the boat.. Hopefully this will be the closest I get to terrorism anytime soon. (Not that we actually saw or heard anything, but it was kinda freaky to be on a boat not far from the US ships and know they'd been attacked.)
The boatride itself took only 60 minutes, but since this is Arabia, nothing is ever easy: To buy the ticket you first had to queue to say you wanted a ticket and wait 10 mins as a guy prints out a slip that you then take to the bank teller across the isle and pay for the ticket. Then you go back to the other guy and he stamps the slip, THEN you go queue for the actual ticket and when you finally have that, you go pay the departure tax and after that wait to get your passport stamped. Yes, it takes a lot of patience. It does help to have blond hair, though :)
Things weren't easy either when we got to Egypt, they didn't let us out of the port area to the bus stop until tourist police OKed it. The tourist police has to OK everything around here, they are that paranoid about attacks against tourists. All in all, it took 6 hours to get from Aqaba to Nuweiba and another hour from Nuweiba to Dahab in a cab.

None of yesterday's toubles matter, however, because I am now in PARADISE. Decided to hang out with an Aussie guy in Dahab rather than go to Sharm el-Sheikh on my own and this place is absolutely gorgeous. There's a little strip of a road by the beach with clusters of restaurants and hotels and everybody is just relaxing and enjoying the sun and the sea. There are no package tourists, only people interested in diving and chilling out. I actually went diving today for the first time in my life and it was pretty amazing. I did an introductory dive with a PADI dive instructor and saw some pretty amazing fish and corals just off the shore. I'm now pondering whether or not to do a 5 day open water PADI course and become a certified diver :)

Well my friends, I'm getting out of this cafe to enjoy the sun and lazy life of a dive bum, at least for a few days :)

August 17, 2005 / Petra & Aqaba

Public transportation in Jordan is abysmal compared to Syria or Lebanon. In Syria, for example, all you had to do was show up at the bus station and there would be something going your way within the hour. In here it's almost impossible to get to places by bus. Yesterday morning I left the hotel in Amman around 8.40am to get a bus to Petra because there are no busses in the afternoon. Today, when coming from Petra to Aqaba, I took a cab because the last bus left Petra at 8am! And of course I paid 25 dinars instead of 3.

I have to admit that what I saw of the magnificent ruins of Petra was nowhere near as much as one should. I was simply too tired to explore much of the huge site so I walked through the siq and checked out the Treasury and that was pretty much it. I know most people would be outraged at that, but no can do: I'm all ruined out. The siq is amazing, tho. It's a gorge through the mountains that has been carved by the forces of nature through the centuries, apparently originally formed in an earthquake at least 2000 years ago. The Treasury is also pretty amazing. Thus, I saw the highlights :D

Now I really need to go and rest. I've spent 5 hours today hanging around, waiting to sign up for some language classes and I finally got it done. I'm also still not feeling a 100% so I need to go eat some fruits and drink loads more water.
Btw, Aqaba is frickin' hot!

August 15, 2005 / Floating on the Dead Sea and trying to get connected

I did a little trip down to the Dead Sea yesterday. First took a bus to Bumblefuck (have no idea which "town" it was) and then a cab down to Amman beach on the Dead Sea. Did a little floating (it's impossible to swim) and sat there watching people cover themself in mud. There were hardly anyone there, only a bunch of Spanish tourists really. On the way back I shared a cab with two Japanese guys, and from Bumblefuck we got a ride to Amman in a truck. It took forever to get back as the truck was doing a steady 30kph all the way.

Now I'm sitting in a net café trying to get connected to WebOodi at the University of Helsinki to sign up for some classes but, as per usual, the system is in a standstill cos 10 000 other people are trying to sign up as well. I guess I'll keep imagining all the emails I didn't receive..

August 13, 2005 / Amman, "throughly modern" Middle Eastern capital (aka. there's nothing here to see

That is not entirely true, but yes, very little of Amman's history remains visible.
I got to Baramke station in Damascus before 9am and to my astonishment none of the service taxis going to Amman were there. After some discussion with one driver (he didn't have any people to go), I went to check the busses, but the one leaving at 9am was full and there were no other busses that day. So back to the taxi stands where I was approached by two Bahraini guys asking if I wanted to share a cab with them. I accpeted the offer and shortly we were on our way in a cab that had A/C. The two men turned out to be very polite and nice, and if all men are as polite in Bahrain as they were, I definetely want to visit. No staring of any kind was going on, which is incredibly refreshing, especially since they were from the Gulf. They were also very helpful on the border (not that I really needed any help, but when in Rome..) and after 3 hours we arrived here around noon.
Once I got my stuff to the hotel, I headed out to check out some sights. I went to the King Abdullah Mosque, which definetely makes it to my top 10 of nice mosques. It's relatively new, so it has no historical value, but it is very beautiful whilst very simple. The only thing I disliked about it were the two ugly concrete minareths. The guards let me in for free (after some discussion among themselves) when I flashed my ISIC card and I had to wear a black robe to visit the mosque.
Next stop on the tour was the Roman theatre, which is your standard Roman era theatre really. Nothing very spectacular, and after Syria, the admission fee of JD1 (~€1.13) seemed a little steep. But then things in generally are more expensive here. What is very refreshing, tho, is the fact that taxis have meters, and they actually use them, so you don't have to haggle over the price: just get in and go.
That was pretty much the sightseeing there is to do around here. I could go to the Citadelle, but this one only has a few pilars standing (saw it from the theatre) and I think I've seen enough stones and citadelles for a while. It is on a hill, tho, so I might go just for the views.

As a city Amman is annoying to navigate. It's spread out over several (apparently 19 currently) mountains (some as high as 800m from sea level) and there is no real centre. Everything is spread-out LA style, so to get from one place to another you need a cab. The good thing is that cabs are cheap. I must have taken 5 cabs today zooming around town for food, sights and post office (yes, already sent postcards!).
Another thing I have to mention is, that while I was expecting more harrasment and hastle from the men here, it's been nothing noteworthy, just your standard staring and a few too eager tourguides offering to take me to the Dead Sea. I've noticed that it's better to expect the worse and be positively surprised to avoid disappointment. I still don't trust men the slightest bit here, not that I ever really do... ;)
My plan is to head to the Dead Sea tomorrow, unless my cold, which has now turned into an awful cough, decides otherwise. I went to get some vitam C and cough med from a pharmacy today, tho, so it is getting better. It also looks like I am going to have to stay over at Petra, which I initially didn't want to do, because there are no day trips there unless you wanna pay JD60.

August 13, 2005 / 8.15am

In a few mins I'm walking out the door and heading to Baramke to catch a taxi to Amman, Jordan. Still got a little bit of a cold, but it's not too bad, it'll be gone in a few days inshallah.

August 12, 2005 / I've got the cold!

Sore throat, stuffy nose.. Sound familiar? Yes, I've got the cold.. Pretty glad I'm in Damascus where I can rest reather than in Amman missing out on all the sightseeing. Trying to get as much vitamin C as possible to get better soon. Heading to Amman tomorrow.

August 11, 2005 / I'm not the only one getting proposals...

...and at least no one has directly proposed sex to me. In Aleppo I was talking with a few guys, and they all said that they've been in situations where they've just casually been talking to a local man and suddenly the person they've been talking to has said that he wants to have sex with him! Just like that. No hidden proposals or anything. I have to say that the more I have to deal with men here, the more some of the Arab men have begun to disgust me, especially many from the Gulf. When I stayed at the al-Majed hotel in Damascus the last two nights, my room was in the basement and didn't have a bathroom so I was using the common bathroom. Every time I went there it was in a disgusting state, and I never saw a woman down there, it was mostly men using the bathroom. I mean really, how hard can it be to piss to a toilet?? I'm beginning to like the squat toilets more and more cos they're at least more hygienical.

August 10, 2005 / The sun shines again after a good night's sleep

It's amazing how sleep can make one feel so much better. I slept around 10 hours last night, almost without interruptions (for some reason I got a wake-up call at 7.10 am) so I feel like a new person again. First thing after I got up, I went to Austrian Airlines and changed my ticket to September 4, so I'll be coming home 3 days earlier and thus avoiding the election hassle of Sept. 7. After I get back to my hotel, I'm gonna make some calls and find a hotel in Amman so that I won't be in the same situation I was coming here. Also, from what I've read in Lonely Planet, Jordan appears to be worse for a lone female traveller than Syria. I guess I'm about to find out.

Aleppo was a pretty OK town. It's not incredibly big, but it has a lovely old city and a less touristy souq than Damascus. There is also a citadelle, which was pretty nice. The Grand Mosque in the old city is 10 years younger than the one in Damascus, so it dates from the Umayyad period. The city has been ravaged by earthquakes in the far past, tho, so a lot of the things have been rebuilt several times. I didn't actually get to go in to the Grand Mosque cos it was under reconstruction. The courtyard was quite nice and the minareth was quite funny as it was tilting to one side after an earthquake hundreds of years ago.
On Sunday I went on an excursion to the nearby Dead Cities with 4 other people. We started at 6am and didn't get back until around 7pm, so it was a very long day. The dead cities were OK, but not as interesting as I initially thought. The first site we went to, Ebla, had no standing buildings, so it was very boring. The next few sites were OK. It has to be said, tho, that they're not really 'dead' cities as people have taken up residence in the 400-500 year old buildings. One lady offered us tea in her house, which was about 450 years old, and told us a lot about their life. The men go herding sheep for 6 months over the summer (they do come back in cars sometimes bringing food), the 'village' has no electricity and water as well as all food has to be brought from the nearest shops.
The last of the dead cities was really weird, it looked more like a French village from WW II that had been destroyed in the fighting. The houses were 400 years old but they looked like modern farm houses. All in all it was a pretty interesting day but I was incredibly tired afterwards, and even yesterday still.

One thing that is very striking here, is people's interest in your family. When I'm talking to a local, especially a woman, the first question is usually where I'm from, the second how old I am and the third if I'm married. You should see their faces when I say I'm unmarried and not even engaged! This one girl was even more shocked when I said I was single... If a man asks me about my marital status, I usually lie to avoid the marriage proposals. I guess it would be easier to wear a wedding band and pretend to be married, but I'm a bad liar and I don't think I should have to lie about my marital status, I'm not getting in to huge trouble by being single.. When we were having tea with the old lady at one of the dead cities, she was very interested in my marital status and said that I would be very 'valuable' there. Hmm...

Itinerary updated.

August 9, 2005 / Not homeless in Damascus anymore

After 5 hotels I finally got a room in the same hotel we stayed at when I was here in October. I'm just glad I have a bed to sleep on.

All in all, it's been a pretty bad day. I'm hoping tomorrow will be better..

August 9, 2005 / Homeless in Damascus

I'm back in Damascus trying to figure out where to spend the next 2 or 3 nights. I've checked 2 backpacker places and they're both full. I guess I should go hunt for a bed. Also, I'm a little sick and very tired after yesterdays 12 hours excursion without food.

August 7, 2005 / Aleppo

I find myself in a Cham Palace again! I came to check out their bookstore cos I don't have a book to read (bored with Lonely Planet and I already read almost all of the New A-Z of the Middle East) and the bloody store is closed! There's nothing to do near here cos the place is far from downtown Aleppo, so I just figured I'd use their internet (they charge $6 for an hour, tho!).

It's only 2pm and I've already done all my sightseeing as well as bought a carpet... It was a little more expensive than I was going to spend, but it's a very nice carpet and the guy is actually sending it to Finland for me so I don't have to haul it around half the Middle East with me. The place was recommended by Lonely Planet so I think it was a good buy..

I'm staying in Aleppo for an extra day, going on a tour of some Dead Cities and what not tomorrow, and then on Tuesday heading to Deir ez-Zur and probably Wednesday back to Damascus. I think I'll relax in Damascus for a few days before continuing down to Jordan, Israel and Egypt. I need to feed myself properly cos I appear to forget to eat during the day (it's too hot to feel hungry) and I can feel my energy levels being too low. Also, I can wash some laundry there and go for a few drinks with a few friends.

I met a German girl yesterday on the train and by coincidence we are staying at the same hostel. I mentioned I was thinking of looking up the hotel my dad & Anssi stayed at when they stopped over at Aleppo during their flight from Helsinki to Cape Town. Turns out she'd heard about the flight but hadn't believed the story cos it sounded so crazy! Now she believes it. I haven't figured out which hotel they stayed at, so haven't found the place but I'm sure they left one of those stickers where ever they went.

A month from today I'll be at the airport in Cairo waiting for my flight to depart, hard to believe I've been here for 2 months.

August 6,2005 / 1970s Soviet train

I made it to Aleppo quite nicely in the first class of a 1970s Soviet train. The scenery is truly worth the 4 hours it takes from Lattakia to Aleppo. There were pine trees, mountains, canyons, fields; it didn't feel like the Middle East at all. I'd write more about the trip, but this is the weirdest keyboard I've used so far, it's in Chinese or Japanese or something and I keep hitting the wrong keys.

August 5, 2005 / It's a girl!

I just heard from my brother that my friend gave birth to a baby girl earlier today :)

They're having some kind of a weird contest by the beach. There are two teams (yellow & lilac) and first they had to walk through swinging balls with a tray of drinks and when I left they appeared to be throwing waterballoons or something. I only understood a word here and another one there so not sure what the deal is.
I need to go pack, heading to Aleppo by train (hopefully) tomorrow.

August 4, 2005 / On Arabs

Yes, I have too much time here and internet too readily available. That said, I've been thinking about a few things watching the Arabs holiday and prance around. My dad always used to tell me that in a fancy hotel you don't come down for breakfast wearing shorts, you always wear trousers. He also tought me a bunch of other coded of conduct, which apparently don't apply here. I was watching the people at breakfast this morning and it was everything from gallabiyas to skimpy bikinis. I've also noticed, that rich Arabs are very rude and unhelpful. They barge through the lift door without any regard for anyone coming out of the lift and expect to be served next even though they just showed up and the queue is very long. "Common people", on the other hand, are extremely nice and helpful, both in Syria and Lebanon. I guess rich people everywhere think they're better than the rest (so it feels like anyway).

The other thing I was wondering about whilst having dinner in the almost empty dining room tonight (I still haven't figured out what time people eat here, I'm always too early) was why Saddam Hussein is often called only Saddam. Nobody says 'George' or 'Tony' or 'Gerhard' or 'Jacques' but Saddam Hussein is usually just Saddam. Do we all really know him that well that we can call him by his first name or is it supposed to be degrading? I really do find this issue rather baffling ;)

OK, I'm gonna go sit in the bar and see if anything (or anyone) interesting happens. The most annoying thing about travelling alone as a woman is that if I would go to Lattakia and sit in a cafe smoking nargile, I would be frowned upon and it would not be a smart move in anycase. Besides, there's nothing to do in Lattakia centre even during the day, so at night even less...

PS. I do actually like being here, it's just easier to write about the weird and annoying things rather than the nice ones, those you can see in the pictures. :)

August 4, 2005 / The most useless "five" star resort in the world and other rants

This hotel is really turning out to be the worst "fancy" hotel I've seen in my life. The staff are unhelpful and useless, hardly any of them speak English and to get their attention you pretty much have to jump up and down in front of them. Except for the one guy who just keeps staring but never offers to help. I guess I'm not important enough since I'm not a sword-wielding-women-abusing-oil-drinking sheikh from the Gulf.
The clientele isn't much better, tho, but at least they are rather amusing; all the Gulf men with their zillion wives and at least one Asian nanny. You know, the nannies are not allowed to wear bathing suits on the beach, they all have to wear trousers and t-shirts (and most of them wear a scarf) when they play in the water with the kids while parents sunbathe on the beach smoking nargile. My mission is to find one alone and talk to her to find out what her life is like (I've heard some pretty awful stories). Not sure if I'll succeed tho, as they are kept with the children pretty tightly.
It's also rather amusing to watch grown men wear those inflatable thingies that kids have on their arms when they don't yet know how to swim. And then they all (the men) prance about the hotel in nothing but their swimming shorts or trunks while the women are quite covered even on the beach (a lot do wear bikinis, but also many wear very covering bathing suits). Yes, talk about equality...

I tried to find out about ferries to Cyprus today but to no avail. The staff here were so useless that they told me there is no port in this city (the biggest port in Syria!!!) and that maybe I could try Tartous. It also seems that general enquiries does not exist here (at least the phone switchboard in this hotel doesn't know the number). I then decided to try my luck in Lattakia proper, but I couldn't find a way into the port area or any travel agents, the tourist office was also closed. I know there is a boat from Lattakia to Alexandria that over the summer stops at Cyprus but I can't find any contact details. When I get back to Damascus I'll ask Abdulkarim, the trusted travel agent.

Now to another point I've forgotten to mention along the way, Border control: Border crossings are quite amusing. Usually pretty much nobody on the border (I'm talking about land borders) speaks English and hardly anyone of the people who check your passport once you've got it stamped can actually read (on the Syrian side of the border). Yesterday when crossing the border in North Lebanon, I had to spell my name to them twice even though they were holding my passport and looking at the page were all the relevant information is. Then the guy stamping the passport asked me if it had been issued in Stockholm even though it states clearly on my passport that it was issued in Helsinki.. He also asked me if a number on my visa (issued by the Syrian Embassy in Stockholm) was a 2 rather than a 5. Yes, I know they have a different alphabet, but shouldn't border guards be able to read English letters as they're dealing with a lot of Western passports? And many Arabs have told me that the soldiers can't read Arabic either.
I forgot to mention in today's "rant" that music videos here are just as raunchy as in the West.

I have to get out of this internet bit, the guy is playing his music way too loud again and I've reached a point where the word 'habibi' makes me feel sick...

August 3, 2005 / Update 2

Check out this BBC article. I'm glad these women and men are breaking some taboos. I am so sick of seeing all these Saudi/Gulf men come to Syria and Lebanon, single or WITH their wives, to have sex with prostitues while at the same time claiming to be "true" Muslims and insisting that their wife to be is a Virgin and covered from head to toe. It's so sickening. I don't care who they shag, but I despise the double standard they then enforce on women. You see it here everywhere. I think this quote from the BBC article sums it up "Boys I know have many girlfriends, even at the same time. One of my best friends told me he made love with his girlfriend and then said 'I won't ever marry her - she's not a virgin'," one 19-year-old female student said.

August 3, 2005 / Lazing by the Mediterranean

Today was a complete failure and waste of time, to put it shortly. Yesterday I went to the bus office to ask when there would be a bus to Lattakia. They said 12 noon today. So this morning I went to the bus stop early and bought my ticket for the bus. The bus never showed up. They kept saying 5 minutes, 5 minutes for about an hour before I gave up, got my money back and headed to the service taxi stand to get a cab to Lattakia. Of course I was the only one who was coming this way, and after 30 mins of waiting around there, I decided to just pay the whole cab, which was $30, rather than wait around the whole day. If I'd been smart, I'd gone straight to the taxi stand at 8am, then I'd been here way before noon. Now I am in Lattakia at the Cote d'Azur de Cham Resort, which is supposedly a 5-star resort, but by the state of the place I'd give it maybe 3,5 or 4 stars. The beach is nice, tho. Gonna hang out here until Saturday and then head to Aleppo.

I've met some pretty interesting people staying at backpacker joints. Last night I was hanging with 2 American guys and a Kiwi and pretty much all they talked about was scoring some pot and comparing where they'd smoked the best stuff. How very interesting. The pension where I stayed, Pension Haddad, was OK, but I didn't think it was as nice as Lonely Planet and people who'd written on their guest book made it sound like. And seriously, Tripoli is pretty awful. We even had a hard time finding the old city, which usually is pretty straight forward. And there really is nothing to do at night except smoke nargile and drink tea (that's all they do here, seriously).

OK, that's it. I do not understand why people have to play music so bloody loud in here! In the taxi, restaurant, internet cafes, busses, swimming pools, anywhere you can imagine they blare Arabic music as loud as the speakers can. It's driving me crazy.

August 2, 2005 / Tripoli

Well I left Beirut this morning and came to Tripoli. It feels much more conservative, almost Syrian, compared to Beirut and is kinda boring. I got here around mid day and went to Pension Haddad, the cheapest backpacker joint, to see if they had beds. They didn't, but the lady is letting me stay in one their family's rooms. After checking in there I've walked around, went to the port and the old city. Probably time to eat something now. Oh and they're playing awful country music at this internet cafe.
Tomorrow I'm off to Lattakia thus returning to Syria.

August 1, 2005 / Hi, kifak, ca va

The Beirutis are kinda weird. They speak English or French instead of Arabic (I mean is English or French really better than Arabic??) and they've built their city so that American car makers will forever be happy to sell all their SUVs here. I have seen more Hummer H2s (yuck, I HATE that car) here than in California. The pedestrian is an almost extinct species as crossing the road is the biggest risk you can imagine taking and valet parking is the norm even at McDonald's (and they have waiters at the drive thru...).

Yesterday I went to Beit Mary with Hanna and Glenn. It's a nice little village up the mountain with great views of Beirut. In the evening we went to Rue Monot for "one" drink. I got back after 3 am. If anyone received weird text messages my apologies, the bar tender played really good music (mostly Tiesto and Paul van Dyk) so I felt like singing.. (Btw, 8000 people were at the beach when van Dyk was playing here last weekend.)
Today I met Ghassan for breakfast and talked politics for hours and then went to check out the Pigeon Rocks (most Beirutis don't know that they're called Pigeon Rocks in English, they're called Raouche) and then to ABC Achrafiye which is one of the biggest malls I've seen. After wondering around the place I went to the movies (yes, actual movies!) and saw The War of the Worlds. Seriously, this film has the stupidest ending of any earth-is-almost-destroyed film I have ever seen (including ID4). Other than that the movie was entertaining, but why do people have to bring BABIES into the cinema???

Tomorrow morning I'm off to Tripoli for one night before returning to Nerd Monkey's Syria: going to Lattakia for a few days of the beach.

Beirut signing out. Oh, and I moved July's scribblings to July page.