Petra and the desert

On the roads we have traveled and even before we left on this leg of the journey, as soon as I mention I'm heading through Jordan, everyone says - make sure you check out Petra. As we sit watching the sun sink below the desert landscape in Wadi Musa, the town at the edge of Petra the site, I'm pretty excited thinking about the following day's visit – it’s so close you can almost smell the carved sandstone facades.


We arrive at around 8am, and the heat is already rising – its going to be warm toaday, but that’s the way deserts should be. After entrance formalities, we stroll down a small road towards the entrance to the Siq (valley), a 50 metre deep rift that looks like a wily tongue stroke into soft ice-cream. It winds back and forth, teasing and wowing all at once… and then it comes into sight, a glimpse of the legendary Treasury. The mind falls quiet and we contemplate – I’ve seen so many photos but they don’t do it justice. After loitering around, and of course taking heaps of photos, we carry on to explore the rest of the site.


The site is really big, and before long we’ve spent nearly 9 hours wandering. In the late afternoon, we stroll back along the Siq, it feels more like London's Oxford Street than secluded desert scenery - there's people everywhere along with horses, ponies and carriages. At best it's busy... and at worst, it's stifling and harrowing. I don't enjoy crowds at the best of times, but thousands of tourists barging their way down the Siq to see the Treasury (i.e to tick a box) really pisses me off. The irony is not lost on me - I'm a tourist contributing to the crowd. However, since I've seen Petra minus the crowds, I feel sad for the harried people (me included) struggling along the Siq to or from the Treasury. Visitors at this time of the day miss out on the best part of the site - with so many people to share the experience with, the special silence of the desert is lost.

I've heard whispers from traveller's coming north about a place around a hundred k's south of here - a Bedouin reserve where you can grab a jeep to tour the desert, sleep in tents and really feel the silence of the desert. It's called Wadi Rum and its only accessible only by 4wd, so there shouldn't be the same number of tourists as Petra - meaning the silence of the desert is retained. We organise a jeep and accommodation from Rum village (no rum unfortunately) and disappear off the tarmac into the great unknown with a couple of kiwi's and a young Arab driver.


Bedouin tribes have traveled through this area for thousands of years, and I can see how they would be entranced by the beauty and silence. Although our driver doesn't speak much English, I can feel his confidence increase as we head further into the desert - he's in his element out here, comfortable and relaxed. I can’t help but wonder how he keeps his white flowing garments clean – we’ve been climbing sandhills and rocky outcrops but no matter where we walk, it stays pristeen.

At around mid-afternoon, we arrive at camp and escape the heat under craggy overhang to await dinner. Before long, the sun sets and the stars begin to come out. It’s a special sight, the sky full horizon to horizon with stars. Surrounded by stars and silence, I contemplate the wide open spaces of home.

Amman and the Dead Sea

After the ancient city of Damascus, Jordan’s capital seems a little, well normal. Amman is a good base to explore the rest of Jordan but after Syria, the city sights are not that spectacular… still worth a couple of days.


From Amman, we grab a bus to the Dead Sea. The landscape is raw, dry and appears lifeless, like a burnt earth, and bus continues to head down, down, down – and at 422 metres below sea level, the shores of the Dead Sea are the lowest place on the planet… on dry land anyway. After a bit of haggling and a few dinars, we charter a taxi to take us south to a small natural spring - the sea is hyper-saline so a fresh water wash after a dip is a must.

At first, it’s hard to remember that you don’t need to swim – it’s so salty that you literally can’t sink! Just don’t get it in your eyes, it really, really stings. Around the world, mud from the Dead Sea is used for therapeutic purposes, so we grab some from the source and plaster it on.

We’ve travelled down here with 2 Scandinavian girls and before long, the bank is teeming with friendly Jordanian adolescent males showing off and taking photos. Most of them are harmless, but it’s a bit daunting for the ladies, so we move up the bank and away from the throng. I feel a bit sorry for these young lads – unless they have sisters, they don’t get to interact with females of their own age at all. As they strut around, I realise that while we come from vastly different cultural and religious backgrounds, we are not that different.

All roads lead to Damascus

The old adage 'all roads lead to Damascus' has been haunting me for a couple of weeks now, and especially now as the lights of Damascus glow on the horizon.

I'm excited at the prospect of exploring the ancient souqs of this legendary city, nearly as old as human habitation itself. I'm imagining a mish-mash of modern and ancient, a fusion of the old and the new, and as always, people living, working and playing - exactly as they have done here for the past 10 to 12 thousand years. And although my imagination was right in one sense - the fusion of old and new coupled with people living daily life - in another sense, my imagination did not cover in necessary depth the auditory and visual overload that accompanies the first visit to this new but oh so old city...

Taxis haggle for space and customers, tooting their horns incessantly. You want taxi? they yell to everyone and no one in particular. Newspaper sellers holler their daily news, and a man demonstrates the latest in leather wallets to a crowd of interested, prospective buyers. We enter the souqs, an expansive, sprawling, high roofed market, where all manner of goods are bought and sold, the scene manic yet somehow controlled. My Arabic has improved since we entered Syria, and I can now respond to 'What's your name?' and 'Where are you from?' in native tongue - not a big step, but it certainly gets a good response. Shopkeepers and touts ask (in Arabic, of course) if we speak Arabic, and I respond by holding my thumb and index finger close together and replying 'small' in Arabic. They respond in crazed delight, laughing and shaking hands. It's fantastic!

A small, hole-in-the-wall sells falafel rolls piled high with fresh salad, hummus and lemon, and the merchant beams each time we saunter up the lane to his shop for our falafel fix. But falafel is not the only delicacy in Damascus – delicious lemon, vanilla, mango and berry ice-cream topped with crushed pistachios. I’ve found heaven on earth packed into a crisp cone –call it a fetish but I’m somewhat aroused as I write about these iced delights…Mmmm, ice cream and pistachios.

The Ummayad Mosque – the largest in Damascus, and one of the largest and oldest in the world, is a breathtaking sight. We enter, and I’m impressed by the variety of people in here: it’s packed with families, worshippers and holy men, demonstrating to me the lived-ness of Islam here in Syria. Like Muslims in Turkey, people pray here 5 times a day, and I'm touched once again by the evident devotion and commitment Syrians show to one of the world's most misunderstood religions.

The real Syria - where are all terrorists?

Next stop is Hama, around 1.5 hours south of Aleppo, home to some famous waterwheels and not much else. Hama is much more chilled than Aleppo. Wrong time of the year for waterwheels though – the water has not flowed here in what looks like years and all that’s left of the river are fetid bubbling green pools. Hope there’s more than waterwheels then…

As always, travelling to new places and experiencing different cultures challenges pre-conceived notions, and this is especially the case in Syria. Syria received a special mention by a former US administration (what was his name again?), which caused a huge drop in tourism... A quick check on the Australian government website suggests exercising a high degree of caution due to possibility of terrorist attacks in Syria.

However, despite these doomsday warnings, my experience suggests that terrorists don't await in Syria. On the contrary, Syria exudes a unique version of Middle Eastern hospitality and actively welcomes all visitors to their country. Syrians know a few words of English – mostly 'Where are you from?' and 'Welcome to Syria!' Its pretty standard for someone to hang out of a passing car or bus and yell 'Welcome to Syria', and the welcome is refreshingly genuine. People will stop you in the street to ask these 2 questions at least half a dozen times a day. Its hard not to feel welcomed by these people – each greeting is so warm and gracious.

This part of the Middle East is well known for its crusader history, and theres a massive ‘fairy tale’ castle, Crac de Chevaliers, a hundred kilometres south of Hama. The Crusaders knew something about location when they selected the site for this castle – it looms imposingly over the surrounding plains.

The rumours of the Crac being a fairy tale castle are true – this place looks exactly like I would dream it. Unlike sites in the western world, you can climb all over the walls, though the battlements and up and down all the passageways. Its also dirty, damp and dark, adding to the mystery and suspense. Only two stairways are blocked off – both are tiny spiral stairways disappearing into the dark bowels of the castle. And the view is spectacular from the top - you can see for miles.

In the evening, we go in search of a feed with a few fellow travelers, and meet a US basketballer playing in the local league in Hama. I didn’t imagine that basketball would be popular in Syria, but Chris is making serious cash – about US$6K per month plus all living expenses. According to Chris, that’s the low end of the pay scale – a friend of his in Iran is on US$50K per month…

Away in the desert are the Byzantine ruins of Palmyra, an ancient sprawling city set on an oasis. We head out here for a couple of nights with the intention of moving further east toward the Euphrates in a few days. Palmyra is amazing - there are 10 metre high columns in perfect line running parallel for hundreds of metres, a massive stone towers looking out across the surrounding valleys and another imposing crusader castle looking out over the entire city. Although the ruins are interesting, I find the desert just as interesting. It's so quiet and peaceful, but there’s a powerful energy out here. The moon is almost full and as the sun sets in the west, the moon is rising full and round in the east. It’s breathtaking sight to see.

South to Syria

Night bus was mental – the thought of ‘saving time’ did not return good dividends. Won’t be doing that in a hurry again. To add insult to injury, the dude at the bus company gave a special price – I’m pretty pissed at being ripped off and powerless to do anything about.

Antakya passes in a blur – its getting warm and skies are blue and clear, but I’m delirious after getting next to no sleep on the bus. I’m really nervous about the upcoming entry into Syria – we don’t have a visa and need to blag it at the border. I’ve heard horror stories of 24 hour delays and administrative nightmares. We decide to do it on our own steam too – flagging the package bus direct to Aleppo, we get a combination of micro-bus, taxi and shanks pony to cross the border. It’s hot, and tough going with our fully loaded backpacks on. I know I’m backpacking, but carrying the bloody thing for an extended time in the hot sun is not my idea of a holiday.

We pass through both borders with relative ease – the Syrian border official takes an obsessive interest in every page of my passport, and I realize he’s checking for evidence of Israel entrance. Any traces of excursions there mean no entry to Syria. And the visa, cushioned by a large ‘baksheesh’ payment, is no issue either. By 5pm, we’re strolling the streets of Aleppo, the northern Syrian city. Its way more in your face than Turkey, and more than once I have to shoo off predatory men intent on harassing Steph. Although she’s wearing a headscarf, there’s more attention than either of us would like and memories of India come flooding back.

At the end of the street where we are staying, there’s a falafel stand and holy shit, it’s really really good. At 25 pence per ‘sandwich’, it’s easy to hook into at any time of the day, and by the end of our time in Aleppo, we are regulars. The souqs, or markets, are a labyrinthine collection of covered alleyways, passages and tunnels, and there’s a shop for anything you want to buy. At first, its difficult to see any order in the souq, but after a while I get used to the way things work, although I’m not so good at getting my head around Arabic.

After Turkey, Syria makes me feel like a rich man - we change our Turkish Lira for Syrian Pounds and get about 18,000 pounds - one English pound gets around 65 Syrian pounds. The hotel costs us 960 pounds per night, so I won't be rich for long...