(this is a little bit of a treatise on Islam, the middle east and religious forces. I wrote it in Jordan mostly, edited a bit in Egypt and I finished editing it in Australia and this text completes my middle eastern blog at least!)
What you meet as Islam traveling in the middle east is a such a big part of that culture... but also, what is obvious is that Islam is a relatively new religion. Before Islam, people worshipped the gods here, they worshipped the goddess, or they were Christians or were part of those decadent places what we know as Babylon or Sodom or Gommorah!
So Islam is like a cultural overlay. It is very clearly not this apriori thing which defines who people are here... at all really. But why do we have (or I have) this impression that it does at all?
I am not the only one who has commented the the sense of there being an element of penitence in Islam, maybe related to a kind of collective cultural guilt related to previous ways of life. You could say this about Christianity too - the Roman's would have had lots to be guilty about too - and they were the one's who shaped this guilt ridden, "sin" and "judgment" based form of Christianity. (Interestingly, I recently read in Rob Brezsny's book "Pronoia",that before the Roman's adopted Christianity in 300 AD, there were many book available written about Christianity, which were all destroyed or suppressed by them at that time)
I think we too easily forget that before the Roman's came, the white people in Europe, were for the most part, nature spirit and goddess worshipping farmers; who lived in comparative simplicity and gentleness compared to the Romans and the rather obviously war mongering and "sinful" civilisations of the middle east.
Christianity, again, is very much a cultural overlay to the white people, whose ancient spiritual roots lie more in nature worship and the goddess.
Christianity derives from a middle eastern Judaism and the at times, very obscure teachings of a middle eastern prophet. What the quite clearly misguided and penitent Roman's and Europeans distorted this into, became something quite monstrous and misleading I feel.
So what I feel about Islam is pretty much what I feel about all the religions.
I think ultimately, we don't don't know and cannot know... not really. It is really beyond us. Anyone who tell you otherwise is a liar. There is no "way that is", not really. So any of the descriptions is just a story, which we don't need, and in fact can prevent us from being in the obvious present moment unfoldment of the intelligence and beingness. Spontaneity.
And the future is not ours to see. Jesus kept saying judgment day is around the corner, the Qur'an is very much about judgment day as well, but who is to say what is around the corner and what form that will take?! Surely, the way forward is truly bettering ourselves in obvious and non-obvious ways and not just holding out for these things to happen. This is a big phenomenan with the whole 2012 thing too. I really just feel that as we get to 2012, it really just signifies a sense of new beginning. But many people seem to be quite hung up about it .
It seems quite clear these religions prevent us from living in the moment, as ourselves, with each other in potential forms of communion and relationship. I feel that a lot of the time, the "good" is just empty, not vibrant or with rich force and so remains a repressive force. The "religious good" is dutiful, but it is not filled with life, because it restrains the "bad"
And I feel only by going into "the bad", and harnessing these these forces, rather than trying to repress them is where we can really access life and what it can offer us.
And really, what are these forces... sex, money and power? I really think we should be engaging into these forms of life, and engaging with the physical world, but not in a selfish or greedy way, but in a way of intellgence, listening, give and take - for the good of all, but also in a more true sense of selfishness, which is expanded and much greater in its boundaryless scope.
So I think that sex, money and power can be spiritualised in a sense... in that we cannot deny these forces in ourselves, and only in transmuting these forces do we become useful to ourselves and each other I think. Really, when the heart of it is that what we are all really trying to do is attain greater degrees of wholeness and integration of the different aspects of what we are. When the veils and illusions of our survival circuitry is undone - this is revealed as the prime motivating factor and in it, refines what we experience as will.
In this, self recognition can occur... and then potentials for openess and communion, which are to my mind, the key aspects of the human experience that western society usually neglects or really doesn't understand yet. People here in the middle east, understand that much more it seems to me.
But really, I think the only religion should be perhaps to prompt us to engage more deeply with ourselves and with each other in respect and care and graciousness for what we have. And in the west, we don't have that... as it is often just this consumerist free for all. I have generally felt that here, people take pride in a moderation, and being around people who are prompted to pray and worship god at certain times of the day has felt very good.
But really, nothing need prompt us, if we are really in it or have engaged with it.
And an obvious depth of self examination is hard work. Ultimately, I feel the religions are more geered to token gestures of the right thing being done, rather than really confronting what our living nature enails to us and others.
So it seems that this new, innate, global language is coming, which will enable us to go much deeper into ourselves, to actually communicate in a way that acknowledges the deeper human unity, and enable us to really acknowlege in a more conscious way, the spiritual energies of our relatings.
In a way, it doesn't matter "who or why or when" but I've come to understand that it is through a man and a woman that this message will come through.
Nothing has really changed for me about the proclamations given on my web site... this was material that came out of very, very deep work with the tryptamines over many years.
And I KNOW the way forward is by accepting and receiving the feminine intelligence and also that power being acknowledged and accepted will really give humanity the boost to face the challenges ahead. (which are clearly very great challenges!)
And so I believe that in order to really come to peace with all of these issues between the different races and religions - we really just need to come into a deeper and more multidimensional realisation of who and what we really are and what we are really doing - beyond the obvious.
And this living thing - I think it will take over and people will cease reading the books which tell them how it is and just live it. To a degree, this is already happening - but I just feel in the arab world, a more heightened sense of maybe "they" need a more firm understanding which will really make people unafraid to face themselves, their light and the responsiblities of that; which seem to me to be old descriptions and stories which I think really masks a deeper insecurity and uncertainty.
And that ultimately insecurity is the truth! Which we should be seeking, or at least be ready to reveal that. And also apprehensions of divine truth.
These religions I think really abnegate responsibiltiy and also the human being, whose potentials for life are poo pooed, that you should just be "good" and not give to much though to the lower life of the physical!
But actually, the physical is where we are atbvand it is in and through the physical that we can experience the spiritual, not by denying it! It may sound obvious, but apparently it has not been!
So all these religions, I think they deny the physical and in essence, abnegate the challenge of being a human being into many compromises and concessions, which are not based in a full comprehension and appreciation and also manifold responsibilities and values. All this is work and it will lead you out of realm of the mind and in essence, out of normal control.
And religions, which are generally the most obvious forms of "leaders" establishing a sense of control over people... people "getting out of control" is not what they want. Yet, to get out control in its truest sense, is hard, and possibly even painful in the short term. In the long term as you learn the ropes it is easier, but it is much harder path than control, yet much more fulfilling and rich.
True freedom is the reward. Not in a basic and sordid American sense, but actually having a sense of one's own inner power and deep inner spiritual values and able to direct them appropriately, rather than fulfiling greedy "negative" and narcisstic values which exploit the possibilities of superficial enjoyment. Then we are often actually seek a sense of discomfort, which is confronting pain and imbalance in the world and dealing with it, taking responsibility for it.
But also, if we have the privildege of being able to enjoy the material things in life, rather than just surviving, then we should do so without guilt I feel. But again, not in this grabby "i'll get what I can take" ethos. And you just can't pay money for life's real riches, life has to grant you those type of riches. You have to earn them through a kind of work.
When you turn from service to the self, to the service of the all (i.e. the truth!).... things change - what you put into it is what you get out.
So I think Islam itself, has a lot of really admirable qualities, people are called to help each other here and they do. Crime and so on is really almost non-existent sometimes it seems. It is a refreshing sober religion, (the rest of the world just seems to be dancing around the golden calf at times!) which I think instills people with the essence and importance of turning to the divine. And I feel this is really important.
But America, or the west as a whole is not suddenly going to convert to this religion! BUT, I feel that the essence of it, may well be the remedy to a lot of the problems that America, in particular, faces. Strange as it may sound, this is what I genuinely feel.
But I also know that life evolves, and Islam is also evolving, humanities relationship to religion is clearly changing. I do feel that religion represents training wheels of some sort, which must be removed at the right time in order that we are able to ride the bike unhindered.
It seems to me that most, if not almost all are not responsible or mature or even seeking their own responsibility or maturity to really utilise money, sex and power for the sake of all - for the sake of present beingness - not just ego based enjoyment, perhaps not even real enjoyment.
And yet, examples of that maturity are quite hard to come by, in my mind at least. Whether Islam as a whole likes it or not, people are breaking ranks here from tradition more and more, especially the wealthy - who look like they could be living in New York or Sydney and act like they do too!
So, in this journey, I have come in the spirit of understanding, to this place in the world, which from western eyes, seems to represent the source of a lot of the potential and present problems in the global politic.
And I have felt myself to be an ambassodor of sorts, and I have felt very recognised and seen for the most part.
And yet, there is so much more than most anyone ever imagines there to be...
I am aware that what I am about to say, will not be believed by many people who read this, and that doesn't really concern me.
So, almost as soon as I arrived in Egypt, in awareness that Albert Hoffman had just died, Isis appeared before me in my hotel room, in front of my eyes, not in human form, but in her elemental form as pure art. And we interacted.
I was in tears and wonder, kneeling before this goddess, expressing hundreds of times more respect than I have ever yet to muster to any human before. (it was an unpractised respect I can tell you!) Most of the time, I just had to stop myself from falling into complete astonishment and just focus on the interaction.
So, we have forgotten or given up this worship of these beings, to the goddess, to a faceless male-like form, who we can apparently never apparently really know.
So I have known Isis, and she revealed much more of herself to me than I have ever experienced in any human being, and thus I was able to reveal myself.
And I was given a gift, but this gift too was to be shared, and that is its nature.
So she visited me, because, apparently I had made the grade and had impressed.
And these sorts of experiences leave one extremely grateful and glad - and I think an innate will to integrity occurs, when you know you are being witnessed all the time, by gods and goddesses, who can bless or reward you, and bring you to new levels.
This is one of the most true motivating factors I have experienced in playing out the human game, again, it is one that many ancient cultures based their civilisations upon.
I think it is something that we would do well to observe, and realise that we not just alone, and also that our fate is not just in our hands alone.
In these moments of surrender and devotion, arrogance disappears and you are just left with what you can give, what you can receive, how you can be, how you can relate. All else is then rendered obsolete.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
From Sinai To Cairo To Brisbane
Egypt was much more interesting that I was expecting.
So I spent a week staying in my $10 AU a night hotel room in Dahab... in a strange way it was the cosiest hotel room I had stayed in on this trip, with a good fan, cosy bed and smooth cotton sheets... lots of character, embedded in this little tourist resort run by "Jimmy", who was like an Egyptian "Ali G", whose high fives left me with sore palms!
Dahab and the surrounding area is very well set up for backpackers and the like, with all the restaurants and accomodation is right on the water. The best snorkeling I experienced in the area was straight out from some of the main restaurants.
And the vibe is authentically relaxed there, even though it is on the verge of being too busy for its sake!
The quality of the sun is interesting there - there is this golden quality to it. You can see in my photos, the quality of the light is very clear.
I did go out to coloured canyon with a tour group (and I vowed to avoid doing tours ever again!), which was good to get out there a bit into the desert and visited Sharm el-Sheikh... a much bigger and more impersonal resort which was strangely fascinating... but I didn't climb Mt Sinai in the end! (maybe one day, but I am not in a hurry)
After Dahab, I spent two days in Cairo and I was really bracing myself for this place, with 10 million people and the worst air pollution in the world... but I really enjoyed my brief stay there.
I stayed at the Windsor Hotel, which is an old British officers club, turned into a hotel which was kind of quaint.
I spent an afternoon at the Egyptian Museum which was worthwhile. I got the clear impression the Egyptians were much more advanced as a civilisation than we give them credit for.
So this present culture had three thousand years of that culture behind it and that is something you can really see. People have this backbone of pride and understanding of who they are, which I found to be similar in Peru, who have the Inca's as their ancestors.
People here are often so poor and just barely scratching out a living... a lot of things you see around look like they are from 1971. But the people maintain an inner vibrancy and humour and are often quite happy.
Cairo is a very vital place... and I felt strangely quite at home there, like it was an old friend. It is strange, because I thought I would hate it with all the dirtyness, noise and overcrowding... but I didn't and thought that it was a very unique and alive and strangely civil.
People had told me over the years that I had past lives in Egypt in the upper echelons of that culture and I didn't really think much of it... but the way I seemed to click in with people and what is going on here, that made sense to me.
I visited the Pyramids at Giza of course, and like a lot of these things... only when you go and see them do you really understand them. Funny, I was there walking around the pyramids mostly alone. You just get this impression that they are actually so solid inside with these bricks too and the images we see only really convey the surface.
But I don't feel any particular "energy" at Giza (and I'd consider myeslf pretty sensitive to such things)... what I did feel is that the pyramids influenced all of Egypt, in a way it affects all the the land in a wide radius energetically, and also in an archetypal way and also it did give the people a sense of pride, that they largely came from a people's persistent enough to build these things!
I think if I went back to Egypt, I would spend time on the Nile... and get off the obvious beaten track there more. I felt it was largely a very "sane" place.
The cars in Cairo are something else... and not really possible to explain what the traffic is like until you have experienced it.
Watching the couples walk on the street in my taxi back from the pyramids was something else... the women would wear different coloured head covering and the mean usually jeans. And most of the time, they would not be all that attractive, but the way they were animated to each other and looking in each others eyes, was not sentimental, just very animated and with so much character of what man and woman is... so much humour and understanding.
All the time in Egypt I had these experiences in people who communicated an honest and true sense of "namaste", (I honour the divine within you), just walking in the street, men (mostly men) would just look at me with this still and bright recognition, with such an edge of humour to it.
Compare this to any western country and you just have these stone wall people who are afraid, who seem unable to reach this inner place in which they are able to "expend" the energy to recognise someone - a "stranger" even.
So all the Egyptians I felt quite sociable towards, which is rare for me and I would go out of my way to talk with them and make jokes and so on. They are often very quick and witty, but in a very innocent and playful, and quite sophisticated way. Not this duelistic and rather shallow "brit wit" which seems to pervade the speakers of the english language.
As a country, Egypt is very poor and economically, there doesn't seem to be much hope for them as a whole, as there is almost 80 million people there, with 20% of their GDP coming from tourism. And as a country to go to as a tourist, I think it has more to offer than most other countries and so I would highly recommend to anyone as a destination of exploration.
After flying out of Cairo, I had a quick overnight stopover in Barcelona, before taking my flight to Australia. It was so obvious how the people in Barcelona were so much more divorced from each other, so much more focussed on bourgeois persuits of the superficial. The inner sensation of the city, as I walked through it to my friends apartment in the old city - was this stoney narrowness, where flow was not permitted, nor so much celebrated in big and small ways! And Barcelona is one of the more lively European cities I know of.
Coming back to Australia, this organic perception of the narrowness and shallowness of western life was amplified. I felt in my time in the middle east, I had come to an understanding of certain types of human balance and integration.
I felt my interactions with people in Australia to be somewhat cardboard cut-out... and I felt myself without the same traction and co-ordination I found in the middle east.
Australia is a much sicker culture than it thinks it is... a penetrating and also flimsy arrogance pervades and masks a deep insecurity and also primordial fear few seem interested in addressing.
I found myself becoming narrowed in these routines of excuse... disabled... whereas, in the middle east... I think, there is more of a culture of saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Coming back, I suddenly feel muted and even not as supported in what I have to say.
Maybe I just miss being a movie star....(!)
Last night, I have dreams of Syria... the spirit of that country still communicating to me.
I feel like saying "I Believe in Australia" like Bashar says he believes in Syria...
At least, in this country we are well established in the material paradigm, and actually have a chance to address ourselves in a whole way, unbound by tradition, in an often very livable climate.
But complacency and a lack of real effort really shits me... in other countries, where life is typically more difficult in different ways - you really have to try harder. We are lucky in that we really don't have to try in the same way. At times, it seems as if everything is given to us on a plate and what are we really doing with that?
I.e. all the elements are there to make a truly better life and instead we continue to follow the painfully anal bottom line and follow the global herd, and fail to strike out and create the truly new and fresh culture we could.
All this, while surburbia becomes more and more terrible and the inner city becomes ever more conceited and self satisfied in this false material glee - and the true landscape is abandoned and left to bland monoculture.
In Australia, there often seems to be quite of lack any higher sincerity and focus, everything is muffled and meated through the rumbles of the pack... the guffaws of the gossiping pack and their rickety admonitions, and baselined reductions - the easy and cowardly way of facing life.
But at least it is a sane place, in many ways, places like Egypt are not sane, tied down to grinding traditions and poverty.
I see Australia as being the only hope for the world. They used to call America the world's "only and last hope" but this gormless behemoth seems incapable of any real change at the moment, gripped by its own senselessness, ignorance and again - insecurity and arrogance.
If we are to move forward globally, I feel it is importance to come naked, in deep humility, while the orientation that many want is separation from the masses, they want to be above the others, in a specialness you can pay for, when they are a billionaire, then not having to take responsibility for life and simply exploit their environment for their own ends and fears and insecurities.
And this is the obvious error of capitalism, that the apothoasis of life comes from things you can buy when you are the successful billionaire. This is the carrot on the stick driving so many people, and it is so clearly an empty illusion. And yet, sadly, without that carrot, many are unmotivated and not able to motivate themselves in any way beyond this flimsy story of self aggrandisement.
I read a little story in an English magazine in Syria which stayed with me, even though I had heard the story in other variations and so a little bit trite!
The rich local businessman on the dock sees a local fisherman, lying in his medium sized boat in the sun with his arms behind his head, relaxing and catching some sun on a beautiful day. The businessman stirs the fisherman and says "why aren't you out there catching fish?"
The fisherman says that he has already been fishing today.
The businessman said, "You know, if you had a bigger boat, you would be able to catch more fish, and then perhaps even buy a fleet of boats and make enough money to really enjoy life!"
"What do you think I am doing now?" said the fisherman.
So I spent a week staying in my $10 AU a night hotel room in Dahab... in a strange way it was the cosiest hotel room I had stayed in on this trip, with a good fan, cosy bed and smooth cotton sheets... lots of character, embedded in this little tourist resort run by "Jimmy", who was like an Egyptian "Ali G", whose high fives left me with sore palms!
Dahab and the surrounding area is very well set up for backpackers and the like, with all the restaurants and accomodation is right on the water. The best snorkeling I experienced in the area was straight out from some of the main restaurants.
And the vibe is authentically relaxed there, even though it is on the verge of being too busy for its sake!
The quality of the sun is interesting there - there is this golden quality to it. You can see in my photos, the quality of the light is very clear.
I did go out to coloured canyon with a tour group (and I vowed to avoid doing tours ever again!), which was good to get out there a bit into the desert and visited Sharm el-Sheikh... a much bigger and more impersonal resort which was strangely fascinating... but I didn't climb Mt Sinai in the end! (maybe one day, but I am not in a hurry)
After Dahab, I spent two days in Cairo and I was really bracing myself for this place, with 10 million people and the worst air pollution in the world... but I really enjoyed my brief stay there.
I stayed at the Windsor Hotel, which is an old British officers club, turned into a hotel which was kind of quaint.
I spent an afternoon at the Egyptian Museum which was worthwhile. I got the clear impression the Egyptians were much more advanced as a civilisation than we give them credit for.
So this present culture had three thousand years of that culture behind it and that is something you can really see. People have this backbone of pride and understanding of who they are, which I found to be similar in Peru, who have the Inca's as their ancestors.
People here are often so poor and just barely scratching out a living... a lot of things you see around look like they are from 1971. But the people maintain an inner vibrancy and humour and are often quite happy.
Cairo is a very vital place... and I felt strangely quite at home there, like it was an old friend. It is strange, because I thought I would hate it with all the dirtyness, noise and overcrowding... but I didn't and thought that it was a very unique and alive and strangely civil.
People had told me over the years that I had past lives in Egypt in the upper echelons of that culture and I didn't really think much of it... but the way I seemed to click in with people and what is going on here, that made sense to me.
I visited the Pyramids at Giza of course, and like a lot of these things... only when you go and see them do you really understand them. Funny, I was there walking around the pyramids mostly alone. You just get this impression that they are actually so solid inside with these bricks too and the images we see only really convey the surface.
But I don't feel any particular "energy" at Giza (and I'd consider myeslf pretty sensitive to such things)... what I did feel is that the pyramids influenced all of Egypt, in a way it affects all the the land in a wide radius energetically, and also in an archetypal way and also it did give the people a sense of pride, that they largely came from a people's persistent enough to build these things!
I think if I went back to Egypt, I would spend time on the Nile... and get off the obvious beaten track there more. I felt it was largely a very "sane" place.
The cars in Cairo are something else... and not really possible to explain what the traffic is like until you have experienced it.
Watching the couples walk on the street in my taxi back from the pyramids was something else... the women would wear different coloured head covering and the mean usually jeans. And most of the time, they would not be all that attractive, but the way they were animated to each other and looking in each others eyes, was not sentimental, just very animated and with so much character of what man and woman is... so much humour and understanding.
All the time in Egypt I had these experiences in people who communicated an honest and true sense of "namaste", (I honour the divine within you), just walking in the street, men (mostly men) would just look at me with this still and bright recognition, with such an edge of humour to it.
Compare this to any western country and you just have these stone wall people who are afraid, who seem unable to reach this inner place in which they are able to "expend" the energy to recognise someone - a "stranger" even.
So all the Egyptians I felt quite sociable towards, which is rare for me and I would go out of my way to talk with them and make jokes and so on. They are often very quick and witty, but in a very innocent and playful, and quite sophisticated way. Not this duelistic and rather shallow "brit wit" which seems to pervade the speakers of the english language.
As a country, Egypt is very poor and economically, there doesn't seem to be much hope for them as a whole, as there is almost 80 million people there, with 20% of their GDP coming from tourism. And as a country to go to as a tourist, I think it has more to offer than most other countries and so I would highly recommend to anyone as a destination of exploration.
After flying out of Cairo, I had a quick overnight stopover in Barcelona, before taking my flight to Australia. It was so obvious how the people in Barcelona were so much more divorced from each other, so much more focussed on bourgeois persuits of the superficial. The inner sensation of the city, as I walked through it to my friends apartment in the old city - was this stoney narrowness, where flow was not permitted, nor so much celebrated in big and small ways! And Barcelona is one of the more lively European cities I know of.
Coming back to Australia, this organic perception of the narrowness and shallowness of western life was amplified. I felt in my time in the middle east, I had come to an understanding of certain types of human balance and integration.
I felt my interactions with people in Australia to be somewhat cardboard cut-out... and I felt myself without the same traction and co-ordination I found in the middle east.
Australia is a much sicker culture than it thinks it is... a penetrating and also flimsy arrogance pervades and masks a deep insecurity and also primordial fear few seem interested in addressing.
I found myself becoming narrowed in these routines of excuse... disabled... whereas, in the middle east... I think, there is more of a culture of saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Coming back, I suddenly feel muted and even not as supported in what I have to say.
Maybe I just miss being a movie star....(!)
Last night, I have dreams of Syria... the spirit of that country still communicating to me.
I feel like saying "I Believe in Australia" like Bashar says he believes in Syria...
At least, in this country we are well established in the material paradigm, and actually have a chance to address ourselves in a whole way, unbound by tradition, in an often very livable climate.
But complacency and a lack of real effort really shits me... in other countries, where life is typically more difficult in different ways - you really have to try harder. We are lucky in that we really don't have to try in the same way. At times, it seems as if everything is given to us on a plate and what are we really doing with that?
I.e. all the elements are there to make a truly better life and instead we continue to follow the painfully anal bottom line and follow the global herd, and fail to strike out and create the truly new and fresh culture we could.
All this, while surburbia becomes more and more terrible and the inner city becomes ever more conceited and self satisfied in this false material glee - and the true landscape is abandoned and left to bland monoculture.
In Australia, there often seems to be quite of lack any higher sincerity and focus, everything is muffled and meated through the rumbles of the pack... the guffaws of the gossiping pack and their rickety admonitions, and baselined reductions - the easy and cowardly way of facing life.
But at least it is a sane place, in many ways, places like Egypt are not sane, tied down to grinding traditions and poverty.
I see Australia as being the only hope for the world. They used to call America the world's "only and last hope" but this gormless behemoth seems incapable of any real change at the moment, gripped by its own senselessness, ignorance and again - insecurity and arrogance.
If we are to move forward globally, I feel it is importance to come naked, in deep humility, while the orientation that many want is separation from the masses, they want to be above the others, in a specialness you can pay for, when they are a billionaire, then not having to take responsibility for life and simply exploit their environment for their own ends and fears and insecurities.
And this is the obvious error of capitalism, that the apothoasis of life comes from things you can buy when you are the successful billionaire. This is the carrot on the stick driving so many people, and it is so clearly an empty illusion. And yet, sadly, without that carrot, many are unmotivated and not able to motivate themselves in any way beyond this flimsy story of self aggrandisement.
I read a little story in an English magazine in Syria which stayed with me, even though I had heard the story in other variations and so a little bit trite!
The rich local businessman on the dock sees a local fisherman, lying in his medium sized boat in the sun with his arms behind his head, relaxing and catching some sun on a beautiful day. The businessman stirs the fisherman and says "why aren't you out there catching fish?"
The fisherman says that he has already been fishing today.
The businessman said, "You know, if you had a bigger boat, you would be able to catch more fish, and then perhaps even buy a fleet of boats and make enough money to really enjoy life!"
"What do you think I am doing now?" said the fisherman.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
JordanKnee
here is the link to the entire set of Photos of Jordan on Flickr!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25797682@N03/sets/72157604977159596/
--
I spent a few days in Amman not doing that much... getting to grip with Jordan and recovering from Lebanon... shuffling from hotel to another, as the town is pretty much fully booked up.
I felt Amman was a bit of a flat place... it reminded me of Spain a bit, but also America. One time a taxi driver took me into a huge shopping mall instead of downtown like I asked him. The supermarket was just this excesssive and garish place with no individual character whatsoever. (and usually they do?)
One night time I went into eat at the Royal Society for Conservartion of Nature cafe... near downtown, and ironically enough, the Australian embassy was holding a cocktail party in the gallery there!
It wasn't hard to get in, and look at the photos of the diggers building bridges and other things in Jordan in the 1st world war, grab some wine and finger food!
A lot of the people there were retired army officer turned ambassadorial types and their wives.
Then I went to a turkish bath. It was very metrosexual. A lot of the men there get mud sea facials and full body mud covers.
When I enter the steam room, you can see through the little glass holes in the ceiling... two of the very jovial men start singing and clapping in this way I have noticed a lot of people here do, especially school children. It is something I would like to record one day, because I have never heard anything quite like it.
One of the men, when they finish, exclaims, "Psychedelic!!!"
Then we are served this icey fruit drink, kakerde, which is actually a hibiscus infusion... very good!
Then I am put in jacuzzi, talking with the guys there and thoroughly scrubbed by a big man, all the dead skin taken off and then given a 30 minute massage, and opted for the dead sea mud on my face.
The whole experience was pretty good actually, but I was told I missed the best Turkish Bath, which is the old town of Damascus.
One day walking in the old town, I met a pale skinned man in his 50's who showed me where to go... I got talking to him and he said he had a shop. Usually, at this point, I would be trying to get away, but I said to him I would like to see his shop. He says he is a glass blower. Turns out he is Armenian, and makes intricate handmade and painted glass objects and glasses.
His work is a favourite of the ambassodors and once Laura Bush (Dubya's wife) bought a few pieces from him as well as the royalty here. But he said the locals don't understand his work, and only want new things.... not handmade, distinctive pieces. He is a sweet guy and I spend a couple of hours talking to him and having tea, buying a few pieces from him.
I go to some old ruins above the city, and what strikes me are the flowers here... they are very unique and distinctive here and I spend some time with them, listening to them, thinking I will come back another time to make some essences.
I once go to this groovy hangout/restaurant at night and all the rich young people are there... not a head covering in sight. Very western and modern thing that they have hooked into here. So it seems, if you are rich, you can disregard this religiousity for the most part!
Hiring a car in Amman, is not easy, as most of the over 100 hire car companies don't have any cars! This is peak season... eventually I manage to hire a car from Hertz and off I go, up north.
Driving in Amman is quite easy really... but even here, some of the hire car companies will actually drive you out of town so you can avoid the traffic.
Outside of Amman is very built up, the north of the country is quite lush and green and most of the rest of it is desert, so this is where most of the people live.
I go to Jerash to the old Roman Ruins, and again, and the flowers which impress me more. I think at this point, i have been "ruined out" and don't spend much time there.
Then I drive around the hills around Anjoun and find an old pilgramidge site. Before that, I found a spot in the country which effected me quite a lot. I felt that this was a holy place.
Then I go to Anjoun nature reserve, a bit late, so they won't let me go on a walk... but I walk around and look at the flowers more. They are really quite impressive here... I have not seen anything like them before. Turns out the place is King Hussein's old pomegranate orchard...and it is not that big!
Then I drive down the hills, going through a checkpoint, and along the Israeli border and then south to Madaba, where I stay that night.
The next day I go to the Movenpick resort to swim in the dead sea and get wrapped in mud.
The movenpick resort is quite swish, but no real cliched rich people here... but lots of stressed American men talking on their cell phones, mostly just obviously very unhappy people.
Swimming in the dead sea is a bit of a trip... it is very salty because of evaportion over many years, and you can literally stand upright in the water!
I have booked in for a mud wrap as I have heard how therapeutic the dead sea mud is and have never done this before. And I am assuming there is something to having people who know what they are doing, and so I decide to pay not an insignificant amound of money to do this!
So I am put on this massage table like surface on plastic and then covered in mud, which they add local herbs to. Then I am wrapped up in plastic! So then my dude leaves the rooms and leave me there, and I momentarily feel like my dead sister "Laura Palmer"(!)
And actually, very quickly, I sink into the deepest relaxation and state I have experienced for many, many years... and I am into all kinds of things that promote different states of consciousness. I am close to sleep, but don't sleep and my guy (which is dressed like a nurse in white!) comes in the room and unwraps me.
Then I spend the rest of the day using the spa's, swimming the dead sea, getting some sun and using the gym there.
I put some dead sea mud on myself near the sea and let it dry for half an hour, but it doesn't feel nearly quite the same! But clearly quite good for the skin.
The next day I go to the baptism site of Jesus, right near the Israeli border. In fact, it is so close, that there is one point on the site where the only thing that separates Jordan and Israeli is the very narrow River Jordan. And so you are literally 5 metres from Israel! And on the Jordanian side is one guy with a big automatic weapon, and on the Israeli side, a whole military compound flying an Israeli flag.
The actual baptism site looks like somewhere that used to be very official and set up, with romanesque mosaics and what is clearly some sort of step into the water... this is not the image that we genearelly have of Jesus's baptism... more something along the lines of John pouring water of jesus's head in the middle of the river in the wilderness! I didn't really find out that much about it all as the tour was given in Spanish!
I find a tree near the VIP area of the center (not that there are any VIP's around apart from me!) there and make a flower essence from it. I take some of the mother tincture then and it effects me right away.
That night I drive up Mt Nebo, where Moses first saw the holy land and drive south, into Wadi Mujib, a huge canyon which reminds me of the grand canyon. I wasn't expecting it to be like this actually... I arrive quite late and find a hotel near Karak.
The owner tells me of a place where I can have dinner which he recommends. Falafel here is so good... and so cheap, less than $1 AU for a falafel roll.
No falafel I have had elsewhere really compares. Also, hummous here is a bit of a religion. When you order hummous, it is spread out over a plate and you eat it with bread. Unfortunatley, the hummous again, is very, very different to what is called hummous in Australia. (or anywhere else)
The owner of the restaurant is very kind and makes the falafel rolls for me himself, (when usually he has his lackeys doing it!) and he gives me some sesame and coconut bars for free when I leave.
People are generally like that here, very giving and sharing to outsiders. Once I had a haircut, one of the most thorough I have ever had, and the guy said he didn't want any money for it. This is also common, I haven't totally figured it out, whether it is some kind of demonstration to the outsider that they are beyond money in their service to you. Or maybe, they feel this is a virtuos and they are gaining some kind of karma points... but in every case, they don't want to make a big deal about it. Usually, I insist that I pay and they accept!
Here, people who are providing a good or service to you, generally want to do right by you... at least this is what I have found, they don't want to rip you off or take all they can, but only what is fair. This is with reasonable people of course, there are always people trying to take advantage of tourists in different ways.
The next day I go driving off the beaten track a bit... the first time I have had really had the oppurtunity to do so, as in Jordan, unbeaten tracks are not that easy to find.
I really find driving around freely, with everything I am traveling with, very freeing... knowing that I can go anywhere I want and just follow my nose as I wish. It is in fact, one of my favourite things.
Around Midday, I end up going past some villages down a dirt road and end up driving along a precarious one lane road, with a tractor with three bedouins heading towards me. It is one of those roads, in which there is a quite a sharp distance to the bottom.
The guys on the tractor cannot believe it when I pass them... and wonder why I am coming down here. I keep driving and this spike of fear hits me... the road is very precarious and I don't really know where I am going, but I push past it and keep going.
Soon, I realise I am going down into Wadi Mujib! But from the other side I approached it the night before. There are bedouin families with goats along the side of the road and eventually I reach the bottom, where there is a very narrow river and pink flowers growing on a bush. The locals are very interested in me and I feel my presence here is quite precarious too. They watch me above a cliff and I just wave at them.
I then drive off, hoping to go all the way back to the highway, via the dirt road that goes along the river.
Soon, I stop near a beduoin tent on the fork on the road and they come over to me, a man and his son, a bit surprised to see me.
They don't speak any english and indicate that I am welcome to tea! So I park my car and walk past their yard, containing baby goats and go inside their tent. They ask me if I would like to eat and I say yes, as I have been getting quite hungry and didn't bring any lunch with me.
Soon they bring me tea, and three big bowls, one containing goats milk, yoghurt and cheese, and also some home made bread.
The milk makes me almost throw up actually... and I have to really fight not to do so as I surrepticiously gag! They don't seem to really notice however. The cheese is very good... very salty though, and I dip the bread in the cheese. It is very rich and strong. The yoghurt is extremely good however, and I drink three cups of this.
As before, the woman is in a different part of the tent and I barely saw her... and cushions are generously provided for me.
There are little goats running around the tent... what seem to me to be sick babies, as there are some needles around... I ask him to pass the medicine to me and it is "ivomectin". I tell him I have taken Ivomectin before when I was sick, in some bizarre form of sign language and we all laugh.
Soon, I have enough lunch, even though he is quite insistant I eat more. Then I have some more tea and then take some photos of the man, as well as the goats and tent.
Soon, I leave, giving the man a headlamp I don't need... (as I have two and actually travel with four torches!) I figure the beduion are SO generous and often almost that is being taken advantage that it is important to give back in kind.
These people are not totally poor, he has an old truck! But I don't even know you could buy a headlamp like this in Jordan, and they are very grateful and I leave.
He told me before (in sign language of course) that I couldn't keep going on the road as it was too hectic, and he was right... so I turn around and go back along the road and out back to Karak.
This time I stay at this hotel right near the castle there.. .which is a crusader castle.
A visit seems compulsory seeing as it is right there... and so early the next day I check it out... these castles are so huge... really the crusades were a much bigger deal than I previously knew, lasting hundreds of years. And these castles are very impressive, but really none too exciting.
The next day I plan to go to Dana Nature Reserve, which is apparently the showpiece of the jordanian RSCN. I stop in Talifa to buy some snacks and cigarettes to give to any beduoin I may encounter again.
A small group of boys about 18 or so stop and ask me where I am from, one of them wants to have his photo taken with me. They are very bright and intelligent young guys who are in the last year of their high school. And like most boys their age, they are obsesssed with girls.
They tell me I should go and see the girls coming out of the university down the road, which is one of the best, if not the best university in Jordan. I say, I have already seen them! I ended up there, because my car got a flat tyre and I just turned into somewhere safe I could change the tyre.
Most of the girls there were wearing headscarfs and most were very, very good looking... at first I couldn't understand why this was so as I hadn't seen such creatures here before, until after I changed the tyres and had to drive past the university entrance in order to turn around.
They would not look at you, and would feel you looking from the car and almost, and sometimes literally turn away and scowl a bit.
Only later did I realise how full on it is for these young women... any sign of eye contact is perceived as flirting. And as my young friends told me, they could not just approach a girl if they liked her. As far as I could ascertain, you have to arrange a meeting with their parents with a view to marriage!
The boys told me that if you approached her, or that you talked to her or anything, you could well be beaten up by her brother!
I suggested that the brothers would have to make a truce, if they wanted to have open relations with girls and maybe there would have to be thousands and thousands of martyr's... killed by brothers defending the family honour!
The boys did not seem too impressed by this, as I could tell, they themselves were likely very much hooked into this story with their own sisters, which for them is not a story. It is just reality.
But this is how I sincerely feel about it... if the young people want change, they themselves have to make those changes and be prepared to fight for it and make sacrifices.
The boys told me, in a somewhat condemnational tone about teenage pregnancy in the west... I said I thought teenage pregancy was a very minor problem, at least in Australian society, maybe 183rd in the order or priority.
And I said that in liberal countries where boys and girls are really taught a very frank and open sex education, like the netherlands, it is rarely a problem, because it doesn't happen nearly as much as in England or Australia. And I said, the dutch boys and girls are very sexual with each other and I have found it to be a very sane and reasonable society.
The boys show me their English textbooks, and they tell me this is the first time that most of them have ever spoken with someone who speaks English as their primary tongue! Soon, I tell them I have to go and we exchange some email addresses and I go.
I pick up two young teenage hitchers just out of town, and then on the way to Dana, I have a crash... or something like a crash.
I am going down a windy road at maybe 60-70 k's an hour, approach a blind turn, which is very steep, which I cannot see so easily and brake... the car begins to skid and goes straight... I am thinking the car will stop soon, but it goes off the road and almost over the edge! Stopping, leaving me and the two boy hitchers on edge as the car seems to begin to go over! As we finaly stop, I say, "We made it!" in an exclaimative, excited way and tell the boys to get out as the back wheels of the car are hanging in the air. It is not like in the movies and there being some kind of 100 metre cliff below us, but it is still quite steep.
I initially think, maybe I can back up the car, but the boys show me that there are big rocks embedded underneath the car which would prevent that! And so the boys call the police, who are very nice and eventually we get a truck to pull the car out. (the truck driver does not want any money for his services, makes it clear he wants NOTHING! but I give the police some high end french cigarettes which they all light up happily!)
Then I have to go with the police to the police station. Initially, I thought, there are much better things I could be doing. But watching and interacting with the police is highly entertaining! I get the impression there is not much crime in Jordan. The police are the most boisterous and happy go lucky people I have met here! The men, when they see each other, kiss each other on the cheeks quite passionately and called each other "loved one" and "dearest" in arabic! (which is normal here btw, it just made an impression on me with these men with guns and in uniform acting this way. And of course there is the element of my sick western mind projecting "village people" connotations on the whole thing!)
They are all interested in me, and chat happily and ask a lot of questions and one of them says he has a cousin who is married to an Australian woman, who works in Canberra as a lawyerl
The police report is a laborious process and takes forever, and then I have to drive to the main police station in Talifa to pay for the police report, which is maybe 30 kilometres away. Funnily enough, there is a police woman there in the office I am taken to... there are a lot of police woman in Jordan... .you can often see them directing traffic.
So finally, I drive back to Dana, and am taken down into the main camp. It is perched right on the main mountain divide between the highland and the lowland. Most of Jordan is on the highland, and Israel (and the lusher land by the coast) quickly begins after getting down into the lowland. Jordan used to be a lot of this land and half of Jerusalem, but the Israeli's claimed this land themselves in the war of 1967. It does seem a bit of a no brainer to just give all this land to the Palestinians...
I get off the bus down to the main camp-site and right away, go on a walk. I am aware they can be quite officious here with their natural spaces and for most of the walks you need a guide. I just start walking on a track which seems innocuos enough and off I go!
It is funny, there is a saying in Arabic, "hell is where there is no other people!" and so this is how the majority of Arab's live. Even these spaces where you can be alone, it is difficult to actually be alone here. I get this sense of distrust about what you will do, alone on the land and they want to watch you. I got this when I was in Wadi Mujib too... a certain unease that the locals have... some of it is protective, but also, I feel they are trying to protect something too.
Dana is silent. Absolute silent and still. It is one of the most peaceful places I have ever been, I cannot wait to get further away from the camp... and head up a hill which looks quite easy with good views and there are obvious tracks.
Soon I get to the top and lie down and just absorb the stillness... like a lot of this land, it effects me being here and I feel I can reach something in myself. There is a clarity gained and I can feel the meridian system in myself, and release energies, mostly just this fear through the shaking of my jaw that I do.
On the way down, I stop at various points, go into the bush and just absorb the stillness... once I distrub a huge black snake that slivers away very quickly. Funny that, I NEVER see snakes in Australia and I go into the bush all the time.
Soon, when I am lying down, I hear a voice shouting, "JULIAN!!!".
Ah, well, they are onto me, and clearly have figured out that I have gone off walking by myself, and know my name from my registration in the guest book.
The guide looks a bit frantic actually... I tell him I'm fine and he says he has spent the last two hours looking for me. As we go back to camp, an American says, "did you find him?" and the guide points to me and I tell him I am an Australian and also Crocodile Dundee's son!
Then the guide gives me mint tea and soon, we take the truck back up to my car and I drive away, on my way to Petra. I get there at night and by sheer miracle, find a good hotel room for two nights. Petra is PACKED this time of year.
I remember seeing my father's slides he took in the late 60's of Petra and being very impressed and have always wanted to go there since then.
Many would also know Petra from the Indiana Jones and the last crusade, towards the end.
Petra is a Nabatean city that existed for some centuries around the beginning of the millinium, mostly gaining its wealth from controlling trade of spice and so on.
In its day, it was said to be very impressive, with plaster and colourful patterns, the Nabateans incorporated all the different styles of all previous civilations - the greeks, the romans and so on.
What is left of their city is some ruins and also, carved into the rock are some tombs, which is the main attraction for most visiting Petra.
I wake up a little late and enter Petra with a lot of the tour groups around 9am... they really are very annoying and I regret it later.
Very quickly, I realise I don't need two days here as my guide books keep saying! (I always travel with two guidebooks to cross rerence what they say!)
Interestingly, (or not so interestingly) as soon as you get off the main tracks, you are virtually alone.
I think that Petra as a natural site is impressive enough... the tombs and carving and ruins don't really impress me as much as I thought I would.... the place itself is wonderful... and the concept of creating a city, within and around the chasm and tunnels around mountains was a great idea.
Towards the end of the day, I go off around the back and actually walk through the mountain via a very narrow openended chasm. It is very nice here... quite a special place.
That night I do the petra by night tour, which is mostly good to go through the sique alone.
The next day I go to wadi rum, which is where they filmed a lot of lawrence of arabia... I get a bedouin to drive me out to T.E. Lawrences house (he was a good bricklayer!).... and walk from there. There are jeeps and 4wd's everywhere here zooming through the sand... and I go on a good three hour walk in the canyons and dunes of wadi rum, and go check out some old inscriptions in the stone.
Then I basically stay in Aqaba two days, doing some snorkeling there, and return my hire car (i have to pay for minor damages to the underside of the car!)
I do some research on the ferry ride to Sinai in Egypt and they all highly recommend not to take the ship! It technically should only take an hour... but is very late and takes hours and hours and would be about the worst ferry I have ever been on.
Arriving into Egypt is very, very, very hectic, on the boat, a guy takes up your passports and then gives them to you on the other side. But he is not just there.... you have to go and find him in an unsigned office where he gives you back your passport, and you have to find the bank and then pay for a VISA, with luggage over stones and dirt this is really tricky and I actually go through "customs" and then have to go back, expecting to be confronted by a desk at some point!
So then I haggle the taxi drivers and eventually get a ride to Dahab in a big white combi van, driven by a boy all dressed in white.
The landscape in the sinai is very impressive.I arrive into Dahab and am dropped off at a really nice and cheap hotel. Dahab is like some kind of pseduo-hippie backpacker heaven, which all these restaurants on the water and so on. But it is mostly a place where divers and snorkellers come to stay on the cheap!
It is all strangely refreshing... novel. Lots of russians here! Eventually I decide to stay here a week and chill out, explore, snorkel and stay in one convenient and bright place before going to Cairo and then back to Australian from Europe.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25797682@N03/sets/72157604977159596/
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I spent a few days in Amman not doing that much... getting to grip with Jordan and recovering from Lebanon... shuffling from hotel to another, as the town is pretty much fully booked up.
I felt Amman was a bit of a flat place... it reminded me of Spain a bit, but also America. One time a taxi driver took me into a huge shopping mall instead of downtown like I asked him. The supermarket was just this excesssive and garish place with no individual character whatsoever. (and usually they do?)
One night time I went into eat at the Royal Society for Conservartion of Nature cafe... near downtown, and ironically enough, the Australian embassy was holding a cocktail party in the gallery there!
It wasn't hard to get in, and look at the photos of the diggers building bridges and other things in Jordan in the 1st world war, grab some wine and finger food!
A lot of the people there were retired army officer turned ambassadorial types and their wives.
Then I went to a turkish bath. It was very metrosexual. A lot of the men there get mud sea facials and full body mud covers.
When I enter the steam room, you can see through the little glass holes in the ceiling... two of the very jovial men start singing and clapping in this way I have noticed a lot of people here do, especially school children. It is something I would like to record one day, because I have never heard anything quite like it.
One of the men, when they finish, exclaims, "Psychedelic!!!"
Then we are served this icey fruit drink, kakerde, which is actually a hibiscus infusion... very good!
Then I am put in jacuzzi, talking with the guys there and thoroughly scrubbed by a big man, all the dead skin taken off and then given a 30 minute massage, and opted for the dead sea mud on my face.
The whole experience was pretty good actually, but I was told I missed the best Turkish Bath, which is the old town of Damascus.
One day walking in the old town, I met a pale skinned man in his 50's who showed me where to go... I got talking to him and he said he had a shop. Usually, at this point, I would be trying to get away, but I said to him I would like to see his shop. He says he is a glass blower. Turns out he is Armenian, and makes intricate handmade and painted glass objects and glasses.
His work is a favourite of the ambassodors and once Laura Bush (Dubya's wife) bought a few pieces from him as well as the royalty here. But he said the locals don't understand his work, and only want new things.... not handmade, distinctive pieces. He is a sweet guy and I spend a couple of hours talking to him and having tea, buying a few pieces from him.
I go to some old ruins above the city, and what strikes me are the flowers here... they are very unique and distinctive here and I spend some time with them, listening to them, thinking I will come back another time to make some essences.
I once go to this groovy hangout/restaurant at night and all the rich young people are there... not a head covering in sight. Very western and modern thing that they have hooked into here. So it seems, if you are rich, you can disregard this religiousity for the most part!
Hiring a car in Amman, is not easy, as most of the over 100 hire car companies don't have any cars! This is peak season... eventually I manage to hire a car from Hertz and off I go, up north.
Driving in Amman is quite easy really... but even here, some of the hire car companies will actually drive you out of town so you can avoid the traffic.
Outside of Amman is very built up, the north of the country is quite lush and green and most of the rest of it is desert, so this is where most of the people live.
I go to Jerash to the old Roman Ruins, and again, and the flowers which impress me more. I think at this point, i have been "ruined out" and don't spend much time there.
Then I drive around the hills around Anjoun and find an old pilgramidge site. Before that, I found a spot in the country which effected me quite a lot. I felt that this was a holy place.
Then I go to Anjoun nature reserve, a bit late, so they won't let me go on a walk... but I walk around and look at the flowers more. They are really quite impressive here... I have not seen anything like them before. Turns out the place is King Hussein's old pomegranate orchard...and it is not that big!
Then I drive down the hills, going through a checkpoint, and along the Israeli border and then south to Madaba, where I stay that night.
The next day I go to the Movenpick resort to swim in the dead sea and get wrapped in mud.
The movenpick resort is quite swish, but no real cliched rich people here... but lots of stressed American men talking on their cell phones, mostly just obviously very unhappy people.
Swimming in the dead sea is a bit of a trip... it is very salty because of evaportion over many years, and you can literally stand upright in the water!
I have booked in for a mud wrap as I have heard how therapeutic the dead sea mud is and have never done this before. And I am assuming there is something to having people who know what they are doing, and so I decide to pay not an insignificant amound of money to do this!
So I am put on this massage table like surface on plastic and then covered in mud, which they add local herbs to. Then I am wrapped up in plastic! So then my dude leaves the rooms and leave me there, and I momentarily feel like my dead sister "Laura Palmer"(!)
And actually, very quickly, I sink into the deepest relaxation and state I have experienced for many, many years... and I am into all kinds of things that promote different states of consciousness. I am close to sleep, but don't sleep and my guy (which is dressed like a nurse in white!) comes in the room and unwraps me.
Then I spend the rest of the day using the spa's, swimming the dead sea, getting some sun and using the gym there.
I put some dead sea mud on myself near the sea and let it dry for half an hour, but it doesn't feel nearly quite the same! But clearly quite good for the skin.
The next day I go to the baptism site of Jesus, right near the Israeli border. In fact, it is so close, that there is one point on the site where the only thing that separates Jordan and Israeli is the very narrow River Jordan. And so you are literally 5 metres from Israel! And on the Jordanian side is one guy with a big automatic weapon, and on the Israeli side, a whole military compound flying an Israeli flag.
The actual baptism site looks like somewhere that used to be very official and set up, with romanesque mosaics and what is clearly some sort of step into the water... this is not the image that we genearelly have of Jesus's baptism... more something along the lines of John pouring water of jesus's head in the middle of the river in the wilderness! I didn't really find out that much about it all as the tour was given in Spanish!
I find a tree near the VIP area of the center (not that there are any VIP's around apart from me!) there and make a flower essence from it. I take some of the mother tincture then and it effects me right away.
That night I drive up Mt Nebo, where Moses first saw the holy land and drive south, into Wadi Mujib, a huge canyon which reminds me of the grand canyon. I wasn't expecting it to be like this actually... I arrive quite late and find a hotel near Karak.
The owner tells me of a place where I can have dinner which he recommends. Falafel here is so good... and so cheap, less than $1 AU for a falafel roll.
No falafel I have had elsewhere really compares. Also, hummous here is a bit of a religion. When you order hummous, it is spread out over a plate and you eat it with bread. Unfortunatley, the hummous again, is very, very different to what is called hummous in Australia. (or anywhere else)
The owner of the restaurant is very kind and makes the falafel rolls for me himself, (when usually he has his lackeys doing it!) and he gives me some sesame and coconut bars for free when I leave.
People are generally like that here, very giving and sharing to outsiders. Once I had a haircut, one of the most thorough I have ever had, and the guy said he didn't want any money for it. This is also common, I haven't totally figured it out, whether it is some kind of demonstration to the outsider that they are beyond money in their service to you. Or maybe, they feel this is a virtuos and they are gaining some kind of karma points... but in every case, they don't want to make a big deal about it. Usually, I insist that I pay and they accept!
Here, people who are providing a good or service to you, generally want to do right by you... at least this is what I have found, they don't want to rip you off or take all they can, but only what is fair. This is with reasonable people of course, there are always people trying to take advantage of tourists in different ways.
The next day I go driving off the beaten track a bit... the first time I have had really had the oppurtunity to do so, as in Jordan, unbeaten tracks are not that easy to find.
I really find driving around freely, with everything I am traveling with, very freeing... knowing that I can go anywhere I want and just follow my nose as I wish. It is in fact, one of my favourite things.
Around Midday, I end up going past some villages down a dirt road and end up driving along a precarious one lane road, with a tractor with three bedouins heading towards me. It is one of those roads, in which there is a quite a sharp distance to the bottom.
The guys on the tractor cannot believe it when I pass them... and wonder why I am coming down here. I keep driving and this spike of fear hits me... the road is very precarious and I don't really know where I am going, but I push past it and keep going.
Soon, I realise I am going down into Wadi Mujib! But from the other side I approached it the night before. There are bedouin families with goats along the side of the road and eventually I reach the bottom, where there is a very narrow river and pink flowers growing on a bush. The locals are very interested in me and I feel my presence here is quite precarious too. They watch me above a cliff and I just wave at them.
I then drive off, hoping to go all the way back to the highway, via the dirt road that goes along the river.Soon, I stop near a beduoin tent on the fork on the road and they come over to me, a man and his son, a bit surprised to see me.
They don't speak any english and indicate that I am welcome to tea! So I park my car and walk past their yard, containing baby goats and go inside their tent. They ask me if I would like to eat and I say yes, as I have been getting quite hungry and didn't bring any lunch with me.
Soon they bring me tea, and three big bowls, one containing goats milk, yoghurt and cheese, and also some home made bread.
The milk makes me almost throw up actually... and I have to really fight not to do so as I surrepticiously gag! They don't seem to really notice however. The cheese is very good... very salty though, and I dip the bread in the cheese. It is very rich and strong. The yoghurt is extremely good however, and I drink three cups of this.
As before, the woman is in a different part of the tent and I barely saw her... and cushions are generously provided for me.
There are little goats running around the tent... what seem to me to be sick babies, as there are some needles around... I ask him to pass the medicine to me and it is "ivomectin". I tell him I have taken Ivomectin before when I was sick, in some bizarre form of sign language and we all laugh.
Soon, I have enough lunch, even though he is quite insistant I eat more. Then I have some more tea and then take some photos of the man, as well as the goats and tent.
Soon, I leave, giving the man a headlamp I don't need... (as I have two and actually travel with four torches!) I figure the beduion are SO generous and often almost that is being taken advantage that it is important to give back in kind.
These people are not totally poor, he has an old truck! But I don't even know you could buy a headlamp like this in Jordan, and they are very grateful and I leave.
He told me before (in sign language of course) that I couldn't keep going on the road as it was too hectic, and he was right... so I turn around and go back along the road and out back to Karak.
This time I stay at this hotel right near the castle there.. .which is a crusader castle.
A visit seems compulsory seeing as it is right there... and so early the next day I check it out... these castles are so huge... really the crusades were a much bigger deal than I previously knew, lasting hundreds of years. And these castles are very impressive, but really none too exciting.
The next day I plan to go to Dana Nature Reserve, which is apparently the showpiece of the jordanian RSCN. I stop in Talifa to buy some snacks and cigarettes to give to any beduoin I may encounter again.
A small group of boys about 18 or so stop and ask me where I am from, one of them wants to have his photo taken with me. They are very bright and intelligent young guys who are in the last year of their high school. And like most boys their age, they are obsesssed with girls.
They tell me I should go and see the girls coming out of the university down the road, which is one of the best, if not the best university in Jordan. I say, I have already seen them! I ended up there, because my car got a flat tyre and I just turned into somewhere safe I could change the tyre.
Most of the girls there were wearing headscarfs and most were very, very good looking... at first I couldn't understand why this was so as I hadn't seen such creatures here before, until after I changed the tyres and had to drive past the university entrance in order to turn around.
They would not look at you, and would feel you looking from the car and almost, and sometimes literally turn away and scowl a bit.
Only later did I realise how full on it is for these young women... any sign of eye contact is perceived as flirting. And as my young friends told me, they could not just approach a girl if they liked her. As far as I could ascertain, you have to arrange a meeting with their parents with a view to marriage!
The boys told me that if you approached her, or that you talked to her or anything, you could well be beaten up by her brother!
I suggested that the brothers would have to make a truce, if they wanted to have open relations with girls and maybe there would have to be thousands and thousands of martyr's... killed by brothers defending the family honour!
The boys did not seem too impressed by this, as I could tell, they themselves were likely very much hooked into this story with their own sisters, which for them is not a story. It is just reality.
But this is how I sincerely feel about it... if the young people want change, they themselves have to make those changes and be prepared to fight for it and make sacrifices.
The boys told me, in a somewhat condemnational tone about teenage pregnancy in the west... I said I thought teenage pregancy was a very minor problem, at least in Australian society, maybe 183rd in the order or priority.
And I said that in liberal countries where boys and girls are really taught a very frank and open sex education, like the netherlands, it is rarely a problem, because it doesn't happen nearly as much as in England or Australia. And I said, the dutch boys and girls are very sexual with each other and I have found it to be a very sane and reasonable society.
The boys show me their English textbooks, and they tell me this is the first time that most of them have ever spoken with someone who speaks English as their primary tongue! Soon, I tell them I have to go and we exchange some email addresses and I go.
I pick up two young teenage hitchers just out of town, and then on the way to Dana, I have a crash... or something like a crash.
I am going down a windy road at maybe 60-70 k's an hour, approach a blind turn, which is very steep, which I cannot see so easily and brake... the car begins to skid and goes straight... I am thinking the car will stop soon, but it goes off the road and almost over the edge! Stopping, leaving me and the two boy hitchers on edge as the car seems to begin to go over! As we finaly stop, I say, "We made it!" in an exclaimative, excited way and tell the boys to get out as the back wheels of the car are hanging in the air. It is not like in the movies and there being some kind of 100 metre cliff below us, but it is still quite steep.
I initially think, maybe I can back up the car, but the boys show me that there are big rocks embedded underneath the car which would prevent that! And so the boys call the police, who are very nice and eventually we get a truck to pull the car out. (the truck driver does not want any money for his services, makes it clear he wants NOTHING! but I give the police some high end french cigarettes which they all light up happily!)
Then I have to go with the police to the police station. Initially, I thought, there are much better things I could be doing. But watching and interacting with the police is highly entertaining! I get the impression there is not much crime in Jordan. The police are the most boisterous and happy go lucky people I have met here! The men, when they see each other, kiss each other on the cheeks quite passionately and called each other "loved one" and "dearest" in arabic! (which is normal here btw, it just made an impression on me with these men with guns and in uniform acting this way. And of course there is the element of my sick western mind projecting "village people" connotations on the whole thing!)
They are all interested in me, and chat happily and ask a lot of questions and one of them says he has a cousin who is married to an Australian woman, who works in Canberra as a lawyerl
The police report is a laborious process and takes forever, and then I have to drive to the main police station in Talifa to pay for the police report, which is maybe 30 kilometres away. Funnily enough, there is a police woman there in the office I am taken to... there are a lot of police woman in Jordan... .you can often see them directing traffic.
So finally, I drive back to Dana, and am taken down into the main camp. It is perched right on the main mountain divide between the highland and the lowland. Most of Jordan is on the highland, and Israel (and the lusher land by the coast) quickly begins after getting down into the lowland. Jordan used to be a lot of this land and half of Jerusalem, but the Israeli's claimed this land themselves in the war of 1967. It does seem a bit of a no brainer to just give all this land to the Palestinians...
I get off the bus down to the main camp-site and right away, go on a walk. I am aware they can be quite officious here with their natural spaces and for most of the walks you need a guide. I just start walking on a track which seems innocuos enough and off I go!
It is funny, there is a saying in Arabic, "hell is where there is no other people!" and so this is how the majority of Arab's live. Even these spaces where you can be alone, it is difficult to actually be alone here. I get this sense of distrust about what you will do, alone on the land and they want to watch you. I got this when I was in Wadi Mujib too... a certain unease that the locals have... some of it is protective, but also, I feel they are trying to protect something too.
Dana is silent. Absolute silent and still. It is one of the most peaceful places I have ever been, I cannot wait to get further away from the camp... and head up a hill which looks quite easy with good views and there are obvious tracks.
Soon I get to the top and lie down and just absorb the stillness... like a lot of this land, it effects me being here and I feel I can reach something in myself. There is a clarity gained and I can feel the meridian system in myself, and release energies, mostly just this fear through the shaking of my jaw that I do.
On the way down, I stop at various points, go into the bush and just absorb the stillness... once I distrub a huge black snake that slivers away very quickly. Funny that, I NEVER see snakes in Australia and I go into the bush all the time.
Soon, when I am lying down, I hear a voice shouting, "JULIAN!!!".
Ah, well, they are onto me, and clearly have figured out that I have gone off walking by myself, and know my name from my registration in the guest book.
The guide looks a bit frantic actually... I tell him I'm fine and he says he has spent the last two hours looking for me. As we go back to camp, an American says, "did you find him?" and the guide points to me and I tell him I am an Australian and also Crocodile Dundee's son!
Then the guide gives me mint tea and soon, we take the truck back up to my car and I drive away, on my way to Petra. I get there at night and by sheer miracle, find a good hotel room for two nights. Petra is PACKED this time of year.
I remember seeing my father's slides he took in the late 60's of Petra and being very impressed and have always wanted to go there since then.
Many would also know Petra from the Indiana Jones and the last crusade, towards the end.
Petra is a Nabatean city that existed for some centuries around the beginning of the millinium, mostly gaining its wealth from controlling trade of spice and so on.
In its day, it was said to be very impressive, with plaster and colourful patterns, the Nabateans incorporated all the different styles of all previous civilations - the greeks, the romans and so on.
What is left of their city is some ruins and also, carved into the rock are some tombs, which is the main attraction for most visiting Petra.
I wake up a little late and enter Petra with a lot of the tour groups around 9am... they really are very annoying and I regret it later.
Very quickly, I realise I don't need two days here as my guide books keep saying! (I always travel with two guidebooks to cross rerence what they say!)
Interestingly, (or not so interestingly) as soon as you get off the main tracks, you are virtually alone.
I think that Petra as a natural site is impressive enough... the tombs and carving and ruins don't really impress me as much as I thought I would.... the place itself is wonderful... and the concept of creating a city, within and around the chasm and tunnels around mountains was a great idea.
Towards the end of the day, I go off around the back and actually walk through the mountain via a very narrow openended chasm. It is very nice here... quite a special place.
That night I do the petra by night tour, which is mostly good to go through the sique alone.
The next day I go to wadi rum, which is where they filmed a lot of lawrence of arabia... I get a bedouin to drive me out to T.E. Lawrences house (he was a good bricklayer!).... and walk from there. There are jeeps and 4wd's everywhere here zooming through the sand... and I go on a good three hour walk in the canyons and dunes of wadi rum, and go check out some old inscriptions in the stone.
Then I basically stay in Aqaba two days, doing some snorkeling there, and return my hire car (i have to pay for minor damages to the underside of the car!)
I do some research on the ferry ride to Sinai in Egypt and they all highly recommend not to take the ship! It technically should only take an hour... but is very late and takes hours and hours and would be about the worst ferry I have ever been on.
Arriving into Egypt is very, very, very hectic, on the boat, a guy takes up your passports and then gives them to you on the other side. But he is not just there.... you have to go and find him in an unsigned office where he gives you back your passport, and you have to find the bank and then pay for a VISA, with luggage over stones and dirt this is really tricky and I actually go through "customs" and then have to go back, expecting to be confronted by a desk at some point!
So then I haggle the taxi drivers and eventually get a ride to Dahab in a big white combi van, driven by a boy all dressed in white.
The landscape in the sinai is very impressive.I arrive into Dahab and am dropped off at a really nice and cheap hotel. Dahab is like some kind of pseduo-hippie backpacker heaven, which all these restaurants on the water and so on. But it is mostly a place where divers and snorkellers come to stay on the cheap!
It is all strangely refreshing... novel. Lots of russians here! Eventually I decide to stay here a week and chill out, explore, snorkel and stay in one convenient and bright place before going to Cairo and then back to Australian from Europe.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Lovely Lebanon
[this is the link to my full flickr set of photos from Lebanon.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25797682@N03/sets/72157604883389837/
I have embedded a few photos into this text too...]
Thursday, I leave my hotel in Damascus late... as I have been doing every second day or two. Syria is an intense place! It is good to spend some time alone in the hotel capsule, as it seems to refresh me and bring me to put more energy into what time I have, rather than trying to squeeze every little drop out of the time I have, which I find tiring and flags my enthusiasm.
Today, I get to the Damascus museum at 11.45 or so and it closes in front of me until 2pm! So I decide to leave Syria and head towards Lebanon, which has always been my plan. I get my bags from the hotel and take a taxi to the place where international taxi's depart.
It is madness there.
As soon as getting out I am mobbed by dozens of taxi drivers making me offers for a trip to beirut. One man says 700 Syrian pounds, which is 10 euros, which seems excessively cheap and I ask double check with this is just for me to go to Beirut and he says yes. By the time he puts my bag in the boot of his big car, he says that 5 times 700 = 3500, which is like 50 euro for me to go to Beirut. (about $90 AUS)
I am not really willing to do that... the problem is that there are no gringos who are going to Beirut. I find a group of five Americans all speaking arabic to each other, but they have a full car. It is quite a scene actually and I am keen to just get out of there, but cannot justify a whole car to myself... and yet I don't really want to drive in a crowded car there full of people who possibly don't speak English. (even though it would be cheap!)
After about half an hour I see a tall brown skinned woman surrounded by men all haggling for her attention. I say, "are you going to Beirut?" and she says she is. I ask her if she wants to share the taxi with me, and she says she does and so off we go!
She is an American born, of Peruvian descent, who lives in Washington DC and who I will call Verona.
We are both the first independant traveler that the other has seen in Syria and we have a good talk along the way. Getting into Lebanon is really easy in comparison to Syria.
She says she wants to go see Byblos (some ruins and a fishing town) straight away and I say that sounds good, I would be into that too, we can share taxi costs.
As soon as we enter Lebanon, everything feels different.
There is strange kind of atmospheric compression in Syria... not altogether unpleasant, but going into Lebanon, it is like the roof has been taken off!
As soon as we get into Lebanon, it is clear we are back in the western world - with Starbucks and all these little and big accutrements of consumer capitalism you only take notice of them, when you haven't had them present for some time!
So we get a good deal on a taxi to Byblos. And going out of beirut the first thing I notice is how many billboards there are here... it is really quite extraordinary.... many of them very risque, nothing that would be tolerated in Syria at all!
Byblos was quite lovely actually... and I wasn't expecting it. Flowers are growing everywhere, the sea is emerald and the people are at ease. The atmosphere is exotic and fresh... truly cosmopolitan. Having been a major trading port for many thousands of years, this makes sense I guess!
The roman ruins are the same as what you usually see... and after walking through them, we go walk by the sea and have a beer at Pepe's bar on the water. Pepe is dead now, but you could see photo after photo of him with "name your favourite star from the 30's to the 70's" They would have yachted there from all over Europe.
I find a very small christian church that night and also a Church where the people near the church invited us to a feast for St Germain that Thursday....
That night I am taken out to dinner with one of Verona's male friends, Giorgio, we are literally on the water and the waves crash 10 metres from us, while the band plays inside and people dance and smoke aromatic nargilehs. (nobody here knows what a hookah is!)
Then we go to a very crowded bar full of expats and other international types. The funny thing I am getting about the Lebanese, is that in Australia, I think we have all these ideas about who the Lebanese are. I have to say, the stereotypes and public image of Lebanese in Australia are not very good and I think quite distorted.
And being here, it is good to see and be with the very diverse people's here... especially, the boho Lebanese in this bar, with the women wearing makeup like it is the late 60's!
Again, it is a matter of breaking through this one dimensional, overtly mental view of a race of people's or a group of peoples, and just coming to understand the diversity and yet also the threads and similarities which make up these peoples as part of what human beings are.
Giorgio see's a cute Lebanese girl at the bar... and they are clearly having some flirty eye contact. Later, I ask him about the possibilities with Lebanese girls, considering their religion and so on.
He said, basically... nothing is supposed to happen in this society, but if you understand that and realise that it does anyway, in an invisible way and realise how to make any dynamic invisible... then it is just the same as anywhere.
Funnily enough, he talked about the women wearing the birka's and said he found that more sexy than a revealed face!
He also mentioned that cosmetic surgery to create a hymen, for women who want to appear virgins at marriage, is a huge business in Lebanon. I suspect Lebanon makes a great deal of its money by being the most liberal country in the middle east.
As we stayed up to 3am that morning, it is a late start the next day, but Verona and I hire a car and go to Baalbek, the biggest temple complex the roman's ever built. It was actually their last "hurrah", before Christianity took hold.
On the way there, we find a very beautiful mosque which we take photos of.
And then when we get there, it seems we are the only one's there! (turns out there about 8 other people there!)
Baalbek really is quite something, and looks like it would have been as impressive as the Vatican in its day. Apparently the Roman's really wanted to impress the locals with their might... it is estimated 100,000 slaves worked on the site over 150 years and it was never really finished, and kind of semi-converted into a Christian place of worship as the romans gave old "baal" was given the shove for Christ!
Being in Lebanon without tourists is great! Everywhere else, this place would be swarming with tourists.
And I actually feel very safe in Lebanon. Unless the Israeli's decide to invade, it is very safe place I think. There are lots of checkpoints and once, I drove straight through one... until I was waved down and Verona told me to stop! The dude picked up his automatic weapon half his size and came towards us a bit ominously... but when I told him I was from Australia and this was my third checkpoint, and he smiled and waved me through! People in the middle east are good like this... they generally don't bother you with petty beurocracies or cause you any problems because everything is not in "order".
When I got my visa into Syria, I didn't have an address for my visa application. I tried to remember the name of the hotel, but couldn't. I told the uniformed guys my dilemma and I brainstormed with them for a little bit until they chuckled and said not to worry about it!
Whereas, I have friends who have terrorised by officials at American airport for hours because they forgot to bring a written address!
On our way back to Beirut, we go to a ruined Ummayad city Anjaar... which has some quite interesting arches I take some photos of.
Then we eat out at this huge restaurant where they serve us, among other things, ballooned potatos!
And then I drive back to Beirut. Driving in Lebanon, especially Beirut, is something else. The rules are there are no rules. People usually don't use their indicator and basically, you really have to push and shove to get anywhere.
Also, it is quite common for people to go extremely fast, not just speeding, but really taking it to the limit on city streets. It is common for cars to be going directly towards you on the wrong side of the road (seriously, all the time!).....added to this, there are always *two* teenage boys on little scooters without helmets swerving around madly in front of you, and people just sauntering across the road without a care in the world, and then there is the very common driver just crawling along at a snails pace, and the squeeling tyres of some hotrodder in a souped up car and you have a lot of potential trouble. But strangely enough... everyone seems to get to where they are going.
People are quite regularly braking quite suddenly, swerving around, screeching their tyres, backing up, lurching forward very fast and suddenly. Nobody uses their horn much...maybe because it is all horn.
I realised, driving in Beirut, you just have to fall in into this warfare in order to survive and NOT end up scared, stuck, in the middle of a traffic island, being assaulted from all sides, escape not being possible. You just to say storm forward and engage that inner cavalier spirit of the charge.
Whereas in Syria, driving was more a zen calm of syncronised parts all being one big whole... in Lebanon, driving is like all the parts magnetically opposing one another in frenetic conflict in order to achieve this always pre-assumed a to b.
Actually, in driving in downtown Beirut, I found myself becoming very gung ho (which is not easy to do in a Nissan Sunny!) and checked myself at one point.... because in Australia, if I drove like this, the cops would pull you over if they ever saw you.
As it is, in Lebanon, at the constant military checkpoints, the guys with huge automatic weapons seem to remind you that how you are driving perhaps isn't as important as other issues the "authorities" are trying to address. (Not that there is any sitting government in Lebanon at the moment, or a president either... but it all seems to work quite well. They have an interesting system of shared power in all the different community groups which seems to work for now. )
The constant experience of being in traffic is swearing like a trooper in amazement and awe, with a tone of condemnation that people can continue to drive like that and maintain a impact free vehicle and also their lives.
Strangely enough, at least 33% of the cars are Mercedes Benz's, another 27% BMW's, 20% are various american, korean and japanese cars, 10% assorted 4wd's, porches, lamborginis, infiniti's and so on... the other 10% are the cars that survived the decades long cival war in one piece!
I figured that actually, it is not ALL about having a good car in a superficial way of appearance. I think it really helps to have a good car to deal with spontanous friction of what is out there. And also, it is much harder to push your way in front of a gleaming, huge black BMW 730i saloon, than your average diarrhea coloured, oil saving, japanese bullet ridden shitbox from the 1970's.
But on the other hand, I am told people here like to get stuck in the traffic in front of the late night bars, so other people can see what cars they are driving.
I asked an ex-pat who lives here, "where are people getting the money to buy these cars?". He said they are often second, third hand. And also that it is known that a lot of wealthy people are basically bankrupt. That buying a Porsche and having it was the most important thing... whether you can really afford it is besides the point. I was told of one guy who owned a luxury car outlet in town, who sold heaps of cars and yet was basically bankrupt. As soon as the money comes in, it is spent!
There is this nightclub you can go to, where if you pay $3,000, it will buy you a huge bottle of Moet I think it is. Then the music will stop, other music will play, a spotlight will focus in on you and your group and some sort of opening the bottle ceremony will proceed for 45 seconds or so.
Asked how anyone could afford this... the owner said they often paid in installments!
I think a good key to understanding the Lebanese is that they are the descendants of the Phoenicians... mercantile, sea trading people - variously conquored by many over thousands of years. And very much used to hardship and forms of oppression, but they just keep persisting, in an optimistic and bright way!
The next day I go with Verona and her friend Saul to Tyre, which is in southern Lebanon.
Saul tells us that in 2006, you couldn't drive to Tyre as the Israeli's bombed all the bridges and the roads. Also, they cluster bombed most of southern Lebanon... and as 10% of cluster bombs don't go off, there are teams still destroying 30 cluster bombs a day...which are found everywhere. And these bombs still maim and kill people who accidentally set them off.
All this attack two years ago was started, because two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah, who wanted to a swap these solidiers for some of their guys.
5,000 people in total died and in the end, the Israeli's were eventually repelled, never actually retrieved their soldiers and nothing was really achieved except more blood and more bad blood here towards Israel and increased support for Hezbollah. (who are already quite popular, seeing as they run hospitals and have a good track record of actually getting things done for the people, so people say!)
Funnily enough, Hezbollah has created computer game, where you are a Hezbollah militants attacking the Israeli forces! Saul says he actually plays the game on his computer and it is loads of fun.
In Tyre, we go to look at the old roman city there, which contains a huge old roman hippodrome, where they used to race chariots. There are stone coffins everywhere, and in a few of them, I find piles of human bones. I go to pick up one of the bones...but think, I wouldn't want my bones picked up by a tourist in the future and so don't.
We then go to a beach, which is actually really nice. The waters are surprisingly clear and very refreshing, and bikini's rather than birka's are the what the women wear at the beaches here!
Then we try and go visit a Palestinian refugee camp, but the border guards won't let us in. Saul has an official UN like card, but it is clear they don't want no tourists going in and checking out the scene there!
And then have grilled Barracuda's and mezze on the waterfront, near all the fishing boats. Saul has been here 18 months, and we are all economist readers(!)...so we have some good talks and understand more of the political situation here in Lebanon.
All that is way too much to go into in such a blog as this... needless to say I have more understanding of what people think and feel here about what is going, and different people's perspectives on the whole thing.
The next day I just spend in Beirut... looking around at the buildings and the street life. The entire downtown area is new, and there are not many people there at all. Building work is taking place everywhere.
I try to take photos of the what is left of the old city and just through that you can see how beautfiul it would have been. My father, who came here before the war told me how beautiful it was and I didn't believe him. I have also seen photos too which show this.
If any of the military guides saw me taking photos of the old buildings, they would usually tell me to stop. Once I was able to convince a guy that this was a necessary photo, and he let me and once I had to delete a photo.
Then I take a walk along the entire cornische, which is a walkway that goes around the shoreline of the entire city.
Ah, Ronny, is there anywhere you don't feel comfortable? Even in front of a poster of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah...
All the days I have in Beirut are lovely weather and I feel strangely invigorated and refreshed being there. My only regret is not going to the BO18 nightclub... this place that goes all night, in an underground bunker, where the tables are coffins and the roof literally comes off during the night.
In fact, I only went out once... and didn't push past my "I just don't really feel like going out and want to save myself for tommorow" story... and regret that, because you can see that the Lebanese really know how to party. In fact, I can't think of any other group of people's off the top of my head who seem so dedicated to this persuit.
I read some stuff online where a few people said they thought it was the best place to party in the world, and they have been everywhere. Not that I'm really into that paradigm (I went to Ibiza and didn't go out once either!), but it would have been very interesting at least.
So the next day I go to this cave complex called "Jeitta". I have to take a taxi there and it costs a fortune, but is worth it. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos inside the caves, so I can't show any photos... even if you could, it wouldn't really show much of what it is really like.
Some of the staligmites are just huge.... it is something which is not easily explainable... all of it is lit up with huge spotlights, huge caverns and stalictites everywhere.
Then there was this other part of it, where you take a little silent boat on the underground river through the caverns. A lot of the people in boat are just saying things like, "this is unbelievable!" and various exclamations over and over. It is very impressive...pure natural art and I would highly recommend it to anyone if they ever get to Lebanon. (anyone?)
Then I have my taxi take me to the airport, I get out expecting a flight every hour to Amman in Jordan. Turns out I have to wait until 11pm for a flight with Royal Jordanian.
Always getting into a country is a new experience... and Jordan is no exception. Finally, I was getting into a country in the middle east which was not war torn or had been suppressed or oppressed by its leaders or other countries for decades... and that in itself was relief. Although, almost immediately, I missed the stimulation of Lebanon.
Amman strikes me right away as this very spread out, car dominated, very modern city. And not modern in any middle eastern comparitive sense... but just plain modern, but I feel also, it carries with it all the perils and complications of western life which i was not expecting to find in the middle east.
(fast forward four days)
Today, a young guy show me where I can buy fresh juice and then buys me an orange juice.
When he gives me his email address, I can see on the bottom of his left arm is a big raggedy barcode tattoo.
He gives me his email address, it is is "white_wolf_dead_soul@hotmail.com"
And then he says he has to go.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25797682@N03/sets/72157604883389837/
I have embedded a few photos into this text too...]
Thursday, I leave my hotel in Damascus late... as I have been doing every second day or two. Syria is an intense place! It is good to spend some time alone in the hotel capsule, as it seems to refresh me and bring me to put more energy into what time I have, rather than trying to squeeze every little drop out of the time I have, which I find tiring and flags my enthusiasm.
Today, I get to the Damascus museum at 11.45 or so and it closes in front of me until 2pm! So I decide to leave Syria and head towards Lebanon, which has always been my plan. I get my bags from the hotel and take a taxi to the place where international taxi's depart.
It is madness there.
As soon as getting out I am mobbed by dozens of taxi drivers making me offers for a trip to beirut. One man says 700 Syrian pounds, which is 10 euros, which seems excessively cheap and I ask double check with this is just for me to go to Beirut and he says yes. By the time he puts my bag in the boot of his big car, he says that 5 times 700 = 3500, which is like 50 euro for me to go to Beirut. (about $90 AUS)
I am not really willing to do that... the problem is that there are no gringos who are going to Beirut. I find a group of five Americans all speaking arabic to each other, but they have a full car. It is quite a scene actually and I am keen to just get out of there, but cannot justify a whole car to myself... and yet I don't really want to drive in a crowded car there full of people who possibly don't speak English. (even though it would be cheap!)
After about half an hour I see a tall brown skinned woman surrounded by men all haggling for her attention. I say, "are you going to Beirut?" and she says she is. I ask her if she wants to share the taxi with me, and she says she does and so off we go!
She is an American born, of Peruvian descent, who lives in Washington DC and who I will call Verona.
We are both the first independant traveler that the other has seen in Syria and we have a good talk along the way. Getting into Lebanon is really easy in comparison to Syria.
She says she wants to go see Byblos (some ruins and a fishing town) straight away and I say that sounds good, I would be into that too, we can share taxi costs.
As soon as we enter Lebanon, everything feels different.
There is strange kind of atmospheric compression in Syria... not altogether unpleasant, but going into Lebanon, it is like the roof has been taken off!
As soon as we get into Lebanon, it is clear we are back in the western world - with Starbucks and all these little and big accutrements of consumer capitalism you only take notice of them, when you haven't had them present for some time!
So we get a good deal on a taxi to Byblos. And going out of beirut the first thing I notice is how many billboards there are here... it is really quite extraordinary.... many of them very risque, nothing that would be tolerated in Syria at all!
Byblos was quite lovely actually... and I wasn't expecting it. Flowers are growing everywhere, the sea is emerald and the people are at ease. The atmosphere is exotic and fresh... truly cosmopolitan. Having been a major trading port for many thousands of years, this makes sense I guess!
The roman ruins are the same as what you usually see... and after walking through them, we go walk by the sea and have a beer at Pepe's bar on the water. Pepe is dead now, but you could see photo after photo of him with "name your favourite star from the 30's to the 70's" They would have yachted there from all over Europe.
I find a very small christian church that night and also a Church where the people near the church invited us to a feast for St Germain that Thursday....
That night I am taken out to dinner with one of Verona's male friends, Giorgio, we are literally on the water and the waves crash 10 metres from us, while the band plays inside and people dance and smoke aromatic nargilehs. (nobody here knows what a hookah is!)
Then we go to a very crowded bar full of expats and other international types. The funny thing I am getting about the Lebanese, is that in Australia, I think we have all these ideas about who the Lebanese are. I have to say, the stereotypes and public image of Lebanese in Australia are not very good and I think quite distorted.
And being here, it is good to see and be with the very diverse people's here... especially, the boho Lebanese in this bar, with the women wearing makeup like it is the late 60's!
Again, it is a matter of breaking through this one dimensional, overtly mental view of a race of people's or a group of peoples, and just coming to understand the diversity and yet also the threads and similarities which make up these peoples as part of what human beings are.
Giorgio see's a cute Lebanese girl at the bar... and they are clearly having some flirty eye contact. Later, I ask him about the possibilities with Lebanese girls, considering their religion and so on.
He said, basically... nothing is supposed to happen in this society, but if you understand that and realise that it does anyway, in an invisible way and realise how to make any dynamic invisible... then it is just the same as anywhere.
Funnily enough, he talked about the women wearing the birka's and said he found that more sexy than a revealed face!
He also mentioned that cosmetic surgery to create a hymen, for women who want to appear virgins at marriage, is a huge business in Lebanon. I suspect Lebanon makes a great deal of its money by being the most liberal country in the middle east.
As we stayed up to 3am that morning, it is a late start the next day, but Verona and I hire a car and go to Baalbek, the biggest temple complex the roman's ever built. It was actually their last "hurrah", before Christianity took hold.
On the way there, we find a very beautiful mosque which we take photos of.
And then when we get there, it seems we are the only one's there! (turns out there about 8 other people there!)
Baalbek really is quite something, and looks like it would have been as impressive as the Vatican in its day. Apparently the Roman's really wanted to impress the locals with their might... it is estimated 100,000 slaves worked on the site over 150 years and it was never really finished, and kind of semi-converted into a Christian place of worship as the romans gave old "baal" was given the shove for Christ!
Being in Lebanon without tourists is great! Everywhere else, this place would be swarming with tourists.
And I actually feel very safe in Lebanon. Unless the Israeli's decide to invade, it is very safe place I think. There are lots of checkpoints and once, I drove straight through one... until I was waved down and Verona told me to stop! The dude picked up his automatic weapon half his size and came towards us a bit ominously... but when I told him I was from Australia and this was my third checkpoint, and he smiled and waved me through! People in the middle east are good like this... they generally don't bother you with petty beurocracies or cause you any problems because everything is not in "order".
When I got my visa into Syria, I didn't have an address for my visa application. I tried to remember the name of the hotel, but couldn't. I told the uniformed guys my dilemma and I brainstormed with them for a little bit until they chuckled and said not to worry about it!
Whereas, I have friends who have terrorised by officials at American airport for hours because they forgot to bring a written address!
On our way back to Beirut, we go to a ruined Ummayad city Anjaar... which has some quite interesting arches I take some photos of.
Then we eat out at this huge restaurant where they serve us, among other things, ballooned potatos!
And then I drive back to Beirut. Driving in Lebanon, especially Beirut, is something else. The rules are there are no rules. People usually don't use their indicator and basically, you really have to push and shove to get anywhere.
Also, it is quite common for people to go extremely fast, not just speeding, but really taking it to the limit on city streets. It is common for cars to be going directly towards you on the wrong side of the road (seriously, all the time!).....added to this, there are always *two* teenage boys on little scooters without helmets swerving around madly in front of you, and people just sauntering across the road without a care in the world, and then there is the very common driver just crawling along at a snails pace, and the squeeling tyres of some hotrodder in a souped up car and you have a lot of potential trouble. But strangely enough... everyone seems to get to where they are going.
People are quite regularly braking quite suddenly, swerving around, screeching their tyres, backing up, lurching forward very fast and suddenly. Nobody uses their horn much...maybe because it is all horn.
I realised, driving in Beirut, you just have to fall in into this warfare in order to survive and NOT end up scared, stuck, in the middle of a traffic island, being assaulted from all sides, escape not being possible. You just to say storm forward and engage that inner cavalier spirit of the charge.
Whereas in Syria, driving was more a zen calm of syncronised parts all being one big whole... in Lebanon, driving is like all the parts magnetically opposing one another in frenetic conflict in order to achieve this always pre-assumed a to b.
Actually, in driving in downtown Beirut, I found myself becoming very gung ho (which is not easy to do in a Nissan Sunny!) and checked myself at one point.... because in Australia, if I drove like this, the cops would pull you over if they ever saw you.
As it is, in Lebanon, at the constant military checkpoints, the guys with huge automatic weapons seem to remind you that how you are driving perhaps isn't as important as other issues the "authorities" are trying to address. (Not that there is any sitting government in Lebanon at the moment, or a president either... but it all seems to work quite well. They have an interesting system of shared power in all the different community groups which seems to work for now. )
The constant experience of being in traffic is swearing like a trooper in amazement and awe, with a tone of condemnation that people can continue to drive like that and maintain a impact free vehicle and also their lives.
Strangely enough, at least 33% of the cars are Mercedes Benz's, another 27% BMW's, 20% are various american, korean and japanese cars, 10% assorted 4wd's, porches, lamborginis, infiniti's and so on... the other 10% are the cars that survived the decades long cival war in one piece!
I figured that actually, it is not ALL about having a good car in a superficial way of appearance. I think it really helps to have a good car to deal with spontanous friction of what is out there. And also, it is much harder to push your way in front of a gleaming, huge black BMW 730i saloon, than your average diarrhea coloured, oil saving, japanese bullet ridden shitbox from the 1970's.
But on the other hand, I am told people here like to get stuck in the traffic in front of the late night bars, so other people can see what cars they are driving.
I asked an ex-pat who lives here, "where are people getting the money to buy these cars?". He said they are often second, third hand. And also that it is known that a lot of wealthy people are basically bankrupt. That buying a Porsche and having it was the most important thing... whether you can really afford it is besides the point. I was told of one guy who owned a luxury car outlet in town, who sold heaps of cars and yet was basically bankrupt. As soon as the money comes in, it is spent!
There is this nightclub you can go to, where if you pay $3,000, it will buy you a huge bottle of Moet I think it is. Then the music will stop, other music will play, a spotlight will focus in on you and your group and some sort of opening the bottle ceremony will proceed for 45 seconds or so.
Asked how anyone could afford this... the owner said they often paid in installments!
I think a good key to understanding the Lebanese is that they are the descendants of the Phoenicians... mercantile, sea trading people - variously conquored by many over thousands of years. And very much used to hardship and forms of oppression, but they just keep persisting, in an optimistic and bright way!
The next day I go with Verona and her friend Saul to Tyre, which is in southern Lebanon.
Saul tells us that in 2006, you couldn't drive to Tyre as the Israeli's bombed all the bridges and the roads. Also, they cluster bombed most of southern Lebanon... and as 10% of cluster bombs don't go off, there are teams still destroying 30 cluster bombs a day...which are found everywhere. And these bombs still maim and kill people who accidentally set them off.
All this attack two years ago was started, because two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah, who wanted to a swap these solidiers for some of their guys.
5,000 people in total died and in the end, the Israeli's were eventually repelled, never actually retrieved their soldiers and nothing was really achieved except more blood and more bad blood here towards Israel and increased support for Hezbollah. (who are already quite popular, seeing as they run hospitals and have a good track record of actually getting things done for the people, so people say!)
Funnily enough, Hezbollah has created computer game, where you are a Hezbollah militants attacking the Israeli forces! Saul says he actually plays the game on his computer and it is loads of fun.
In Tyre, we go to look at the old roman city there, which contains a huge old roman hippodrome, where they used to race chariots. There are stone coffins everywhere, and in a few of them, I find piles of human bones. I go to pick up one of the bones...but think, I wouldn't want my bones picked up by a tourist in the future and so don't.
We then go to a beach, which is actually really nice. The waters are surprisingly clear and very refreshing, and bikini's rather than birka's are the what the women wear at the beaches here!
Then we try and go visit a Palestinian refugee camp, but the border guards won't let us in. Saul has an official UN like card, but it is clear they don't want no tourists going in and checking out the scene there!
And then have grilled Barracuda's and mezze on the waterfront, near all the fishing boats. Saul has been here 18 months, and we are all economist readers(!)...so we have some good talks and understand more of the political situation here in Lebanon.
All that is way too much to go into in such a blog as this... needless to say I have more understanding of what people think and feel here about what is going, and different people's perspectives on the whole thing.
The next day I just spend in Beirut... looking around at the buildings and the street life. The entire downtown area is new, and there are not many people there at all. Building work is taking place everywhere.
I try to take photos of the what is left of the old city and just through that you can see how beautfiul it would have been. My father, who came here before the war told me how beautiful it was and I didn't believe him. I have also seen photos too which show this.
If any of the military guides saw me taking photos of the old buildings, they would usually tell me to stop. Once I was able to convince a guy that this was a necessary photo, and he let me and once I had to delete a photo.
Then I take a walk along the entire cornische, which is a walkway that goes around the shoreline of the entire city.
Ah, Ronny, is there anywhere you don't feel comfortable? Even in front of a poster of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah... All the days I have in Beirut are lovely weather and I feel strangely invigorated and refreshed being there. My only regret is not going to the BO18 nightclub... this place that goes all night, in an underground bunker, where the tables are coffins and the roof literally comes off during the night.
In fact, I only went out once... and didn't push past my "I just don't really feel like going out and want to save myself for tommorow" story... and regret that, because you can see that the Lebanese really know how to party. In fact, I can't think of any other group of people's off the top of my head who seem so dedicated to this persuit.
I read some stuff online where a few people said they thought it was the best place to party in the world, and they have been everywhere. Not that I'm really into that paradigm (I went to Ibiza and didn't go out once either!), but it would have been very interesting at least.
So the next day I go to this cave complex called "Jeitta". I have to take a taxi there and it costs a fortune, but is worth it. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos inside the caves, so I can't show any photos... even if you could, it wouldn't really show much of what it is really like.
Some of the staligmites are just huge.... it is something which is not easily explainable... all of it is lit up with huge spotlights, huge caverns and stalictites everywhere.
Then there was this other part of it, where you take a little silent boat on the underground river through the caverns. A lot of the people in boat are just saying things like, "this is unbelievable!" and various exclamations over and over. It is very impressive...pure natural art and I would highly recommend it to anyone if they ever get to Lebanon. (anyone?)
Then I have my taxi take me to the airport, I get out expecting a flight every hour to Amman in Jordan. Turns out I have to wait until 11pm for a flight with Royal Jordanian.
Always getting into a country is a new experience... and Jordan is no exception. Finally, I was getting into a country in the middle east which was not war torn or had been suppressed or oppressed by its leaders or other countries for decades... and that in itself was relief. Although, almost immediately, I missed the stimulation of Lebanon.
Amman strikes me right away as this very spread out, car dominated, very modern city. And not modern in any middle eastern comparitive sense... but just plain modern, but I feel also, it carries with it all the perils and complications of western life which i was not expecting to find in the middle east.
(fast forward four days)
Today, a young guy show me where I can buy fresh juice and then buys me an orange juice.
When he gives me his email address, I can see on the bottom of his left arm is a big raggedy barcode tattoo.
He gives me his email address, it is is "white_wolf_dead_soul@hotmail.com"
And then he says he has to go.
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