Hi everyone,
In the last couple of weeks I’ve been getting a little fed up. I started to feel like I was rushing through the European leg of my trip, blurry-eyed, sleep-deprived and experiencing it all through a salt-damaged camera lens. I had spent five weeks exploring Israel alone, yet five weeks later I had visited eight nations and accumulated a further 3915 kilometres. The last two blog posts were little more than accounts of the towns and cities I hardly saw; no unique cultural anecdotes or interesting insights into the national psyche as I wasn’t around long enough to find any. In the last post I even managed to mistakenly label one of my Romanian hosts as Bulgarian! I was no longer a traveller but a tourist. I felt like I was constantly on the move, often forgetting which town (and occasionally which country) I was currently in. But then I did only have a month before Germany. I thought I should just keep going.
So on the 27th March I caught a minibus to Chişinău in Moldova. I was staying with couchsurfer Irina and her mother for a few days in their cosy suburban flat. The first topic of conversation concerned Irina’s numerous male admirers and her mum’s pride in the likelihood of her daughter bagging a foreign husband. I initially felt like I was being touted as a potential suitor, but my concern that I’d wandered in a Tennessee Williams play was alleviated when she confided that she wanted to live somewhere warm. After that, I had a lot of fun staying with this small, hospitable and friendly family.
I spent the day on Friday exploring the city, including a nice cathedral, a mildly triumphant ‘Arc de Triomphe’ and the very interesting but badly translated Ethnographic Museum (dinosaur bones were displayed in the anthropology section). In the evening Irina took me to a German pub complete with traditional Bavarian food, beer and ambience, including a live oompah band sporting reproduction-threatening leiderhosen. On Saturday I decided to visit Orheiul Vechi, though I was informed that Moldova’s premiere tourist attraction did not have a single bus heading there. I therefore decided to catch the first bus that was heading north on the A253, and jumped off at the junction. A sign informed me that I had seventeen kilometres of walking ahead of me and it was already lunchtime. The trip through small villages and rural communities was very rewarding, as I got to see the traditional side of the country (including stopping to have a cup of tea with an amiable local), but it was gone 4.30pm when I finally arrived at the town of Trebujeni, deep in a rocky valley. The Cave Monastery was already closed, but I managed to catch a minibus heading back to Chişinău. I’d completely missed Moldova’s biggest tourist attraction but the day’s trip had given me a slightly better sense of the country I was in. It was travel at the expense of tourism.
On Saturday I decided to go to Transdniestr. Though an internationally undisputed part of Moldova, this breakaway republic boasts its own government, flag, constitution, national anthem, currency, police and military. As one of the world’s last surviving bastions of communism, it is how I imagine a trip to the USSR would have been, with large imposing buildings, huge statues of Lenin and countless national flags depicting a yellow hammer and sickle of a red background. It is also fiercely anti-Western, with people having been beaten up or arrested simply for speaking English. The most interesting part of the trip however was not the place itself but the route there. At the technically non-existant Moldova-Transdniestr border I was yanked off the bus and interviewed for an hour by four different police officers. They all wanted to know my motives for entering the territory and, more importantly, what I was willing to pay for the privilege. I had been briefed about the likely bribes at the border so had kept some money aside while hiding the rest of my cash in my socks; this turned out to be a smart move as I was made to empty all my pockets and patted down as they searched for funds. I had kept 130 leu on me to ‘buy’ the required entry visa, but was asked straight away for 500. In the end, after a lot of fierce negotiation, I managed to get the chief police officer to accept 100 (about five quid); he was apparently unconcerned that, as far as he knew, I was then left with only 30 leu for a day in Transnistria and transport back, not to mention the bribe to leave the country. I spent the day in Bender and Tiraspol, Trandniestr’s capital or Moldova’s second largest city, depending on your viewpoint (ie. whether you’re from Transdniestr or from anywhere else in the world) then exchanged some of the hidden cash for a bus fare back to the border. I had been told the exit fee was normally higher than the entry, as visitors are essentially impotent when it comes to negotiation in this direction, so kept 150 leu in my pocket and the rest tucked deep into my pants. However, after being dragged off the bus and rustling my way into an interview room, the officer was distracted by a situation outside. He went out to investigate and left my passport on the table, so I grabbed it and, as nonchalantly as possible, strode back to the bus, telling the driver that it was “all sorted”. Five minutes later I was safely back in Moldova and retracted my sweaty currency.
I had planned to catch a midday bus on Sunday to Ukraine but discovered that it went back through Transdniestr, so I decided to hang around for the direct midnight bus instead. I arrived in Odessa at 6am the following morning and caught a taxi to couchsurfer Sasha’s flat. This was one of my most challenging couchsurfs. I had contacted him after seeing the following on his profile; “No Europeans or Americans! Your embassies humiliate Ukranian citizens when applying for visas”. I consquently wrote him a polite if mildly arsey message arguing that it was unfair to discriminate against entire nations based on the actions of their politicians, and that I’d like to stay with him and change his mind about his fellow Europeans. He reluctantly agreed, but by Monday evening I hadn’t succeeded, so he kicked me out. I felt I’d seen a reasonable amount of Odessa (including the April 1st “Humour Day” festival) so went to the train station and decided to get an overnight ticket to Kiev.
On the train I thought long and hard about why I was still travelling. I had planned months ago to head to Simferopol (Crimea) before Kiev, but having been unable to find couchsurfers or accommodation online I’d now chosen to bypass it. I thought back to my pre-couchsurfing days in Japan, where I never made sleeping arrangements in advance; I figured at worst I would simply have to wander the streets for the night, or find a park bench on which to get a few hours kip. I would never wimp out of visiting things just because it was a little difficult – if I’d done that in Jordan I’d have missed out on so much. My sense of adventure was obviously waining and I was craving comfort and certainty. I was growing tired of having the same conversations, and even generalising, exaggerating or bending the truth to save explanations; for the last month I’d been British not English, a student not a graduate and from London not Camberley. I made up my mind that I would spend a few days in Kiev and if the bad times were still outweighing the good I would look into flights home. This schedule was thrown out the window as my wallet was stolen on the Kiev metro and I was left with no cards, no travellers cheques and no cash besides a single twenty euro note. I didn’t even think about resolving the issue but simply about going home. I arrived at couchsurfer Anna’s at 8am and by 4pm I was on a British Airways flight headed for Heathrow.
So that was it. After 228 days, 3 continents, 2 sub-continents, 15 countries (plus 3 self-governing provinces), 71 major cities, 10 islands, 94 long-distance buses, 58 taxis, 33 long-distance trains, 17 hitchhikes, 16 ferries, 12 flights, 8 cable cars, 7 trams, 26 hotels, 25 couchsurfs, 16 hostels, 38 brands of beer, 24 blog posts (containing 31,871 words), 13 SCUBA dives, 12 naked saunas, 7 organised tours, 3 coats, 3 beards and 1 conjoined dog later, I arrived at Terminal 5. And I could have been back three hours earlier if I hadn’t bothered working that out.
I have absolutely no regrets; I know it was the right time to come home and my seven-and-a-half month trip was absolutely incredible. I have visited both the highest and lowest places on Earth. I’ve taught English to monks, been on safari, learnt to SCUBA dive, sailed on the Nile, slept in the desert, worked on a farm, been very nearly mugged and very actually sexually assaulted and tucked into some unusual local delicacies. Travelling alone has been a real challenge but it has been very good for me; I have become much more confident and mature and feel significantly further on the road to understanding who I am. I expected to return from my trip feeling more like a world citizen and less defined by nationality, but I have never felt more British. I already knew that people across the globe shared the same base instincts, emotions and desires, but I learnt that what really makes us unique – our mentality, our personality, how we interact – is a product of our influences, with nothing more influential than the culture we happened to be born into. Travelling has given me much more insight into what it is to be British, good and bad. Perhaps it is because you’re constantly asked where you are from – by border guards, hotel receptionists, locals and fellow travellers – and judged accordingly, or perhaps definition can be found in what you miss most about your own culture; the humour, the whinging, the etiquette, the four distinct seasons, the defiantly antiquated measurements. Maybe it’s seeing your compatriots throwing up in the streets of Tokyo, slowly turning to leather on the beaches of Sinai or cramming into English pubs across Eastern Europe. But I don’t think you ever feel your nationality more than when it’s under attack; when being taught about colonialisation and slavery in Asia and Africa, learning how the British Mandate refused Nazi-fleeing European Jews entry into Israel, or discovering that Winston Churchill was responsible for choosing the Japanese cities on which to drop atomic bombs. The fact that none of this is on the school curriculum is its own disturbing insight into the British psyche. I feel much more a product of my own culture, but not necessarily more patriotic. That said, I’m awfully glad to be home.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog. I know the quality has been a little inconsistent but I suppose that’s inevitable when travelling. As for the future, I have now been home for three days and feel it’s time to begin applying for jobs. I need to start taking responsibility and enter the real world. Perhaps I’ll wait until after Germany…
Cheers,
Joe x
PS. I am aware that as this post is after arriving home I shouldn’t be including it in the blog/word count, but it just feels so deliciously self-referential.
PPS. If you're interested you can click here to see my couchsurfing profile, with links to the profiles of all my hosts.
Sunday 6 April 2008
Friday 28 March 2008
Bulgaria & Romania
Salut,
Just two countries this time, which is hopefully more palatable. I arrived in Sofia mid-morning on the 12th and met couchsurfer Bogidar. From the profile picture I had expected a woman, so when my very male host turned up I tactlessly asked if he was "a friend of hers". The confusion continued as he nodded, and when I started to tell him about my trip he kept shaking his head at me. I was later told that this is because the gestures are opposite in Bulgaria – nodding means 'no' while shaking your head means 'yes'. I left his confusing household in the afternoon to explore the capital city and saw most of the unremarkable sites in a couple of hours. Consequently I spent the following day hiking on nearby Mt. Vitosha. After about half an hour I noticed I was being accompanied by a cute little puppy, who followed me for the next few hours all the way to the top and back down. Hermann and I became firm friends, though I started to wonder what I'd do with him when we got back to civilisation. Luckily we came across a couple walking their own dogs, and while Hermann was busy sticking his nose in their behinds I legged it down the hill, leaving the baffled couple with a new Germanic furry friend. In the evening I caught a train to Plovdiv, which I'd heard was much nicer than Sofia. I ran into trouble with a dog again; while I was waiting to meet couchsurfer Ivan I wandered into some nearby shrubbery to relieve myself, when an Alsatian came tearing towards me out of nowhere. Interestingly, although I was quite scared – due to my currently vulnerable stance – the flow just kept coming. The dog began to jump up at me so I was dodging from side to side, urine darting all over the place. But my embarrassment became my saviour as the dog retreated from my newly-declared territory. When Ivan finally arrived he very kindly didn't question why I smelt of piss and dog.
Plovdiv was indeed nicer than Sofia; I spent two days visiting the churches and museums of the Old Town, shopping for upcoming-birthday presents, eating lunch in an unusual restaurant (day one was 'lamb's head'; day two was 'smoked buttocks' – I never discovered whose) and climbing the Hill of the Liberators, home to a huge statue of a Russian soldier and some nice views of the city and its surrounding mountains. I also helped a woman put up a few 'death posters' – obituaries for the recently deceased that are plastered on all available wall spaces (including, rather heartlessly, over rival death posters). On Saturday evening I headed to Veliko Turnova, the ancient capital of Bulgaria. The city is absolutely stunning; from the ancient cobblestoned Gurko Street to the bustling central square to the huge Asanevs monument. The highlight however is Tsaravets Fortress, with amazing views over the town below and home to the ruins of over four hundred houses, eighteen churches and a Royal Palace, all built between the 5th and 18th centuries. It also houses watchtowers, an 'execution rock' and the amazing Patriarch's Complex – a renovated church containing gothic murals painted in the 1980s. It is one of the most interesting and unique churches I have ever seen. I stayed with five student girls in Veliko so on Sunday evening, after I had wasted three disposable razors getting rid of my beard and slicing into my cheeks, we went out to a trance club. It was an interesting experience (especially the dancers, male and female, who wore nothing but a light wrapping of clingfilm) but a very long one; we entered the club at 1am and emerged in the sunlight. Incidentally trance music is everywhere in Veliko – it plays in shops, cafés and can even be heard in the backrooms of churches! When we arrived home one of the girls paid me a compliment by saying I had "nice eyes", though immediately undermined it by adding "with really big pupils"...apparently I look like a Japanese cartoon. I was also berated for not shaving my armpits like Bulgarian men. On Monday afternoon, after a few hours sleep, Milena (the actual couchsurfer) and a couple of her friends took me to nearby Arbanasi, with a great view over Tsaravets. One of her friends was trying to become a prostitute and was currently "practicing" her trade by sleeping with anybody who'd have her. Though I was initially appalled, the more I spoke to her the clearer it became that this was not a choice forced upon her by another person, or by difficult circumstances, but was rather a considered adult decision. Prostitution is actually a common choice for women in Bulgaria and girls often enter the industry straight from school...I couldn’t help but imagine the meeting with the Careers Guidance Counsellor. In the evening I experienced a traditional Bulgarian meal of sausage and baked beans in a clay pot – they were flabbergasted to learn that the same dish was a student favourite in the UK – and at midnight I caught a train bound for Romania. On her profile I noticed that Milena’s next couchsurfer is an Italian called Francesco Pasta.
I arrived in Bucharest at 6am on Tuesday morning and caught the metro to Frank and Tia's place. He is an Irish writer and she's a Bulgarian musician (they both do web design to make ends meet) and they've been living together in Bucharest for four years. We spent the morning chatting about art and literature over a cultured coffee then I went off to explore the city. The most interesting sight is the Palace of the Parliament, supposedly the second-largest building in the world (after the Pentagon) and at least the second ugliest. It was built by Ceauşescu as a typical, grey and imposing Communist building, but with badly-executed attempts at continental flourishes along the balcony and roof edges. It is absolutely massive (though was never completed) and still half empty, despite housing both chambers of the Romanian Parliament, a massive array of conference halls, a fantastic four-floor Contemporary Art Museum and much more. Bucharest also has a couple of nice parks, churches and the Museum of the Romanian Peasant, voted Europe's best exhibition in 1996. It is essentially just an indoor ethnographic museum but with well displayed exhibits, whole themed rooms and even entire peasant houses and chapels within its walls.
On Thursday morning I caught a train to Braşov, right in the heart of Transylvania, where I stayed with couchsurfer Dan. He is an unemployed musician (and occasional DJ) so his flat was suitably squallid. We spent the morning erecting a box from a flat piece of cardboard (one of those 2D cross-shaped things you do in primary school) so we could send my presents home, but when we got to the post office our effort was pooh-poohed and I was forced to buy a ready-made package. We spent the rest of the day trying to find a new pair of trainers for my ridiculous flapping clown feet. Asking for European size fifty in every shop warranted a roar of laughter and a hasty exit, but the assistant in the last shop replied "of course", as though we'd asked if the shop contained oxygen, and produced shoes in size fifty-four! On Friday morning I fulfilled my sightseeing duties in the pretty town centre then went to meet Dan and his friend Reuben on Mt. Tampa to play bongos; the rarefied atmosphere makes the tone very clear (plus the neighbours were complaining the night before). On Saturday I took a trip to Bran – home of Dracula's castle and the reason I’d been reading Bram Stoker's torturous novel for the last week – and was thoroughly disappointed. The castle looks more like a country retreat and the inside is whitewashed with nothing related to the legend. The whole thing was quite dull; if it wasn’t for all the Dracula/Vlad the Impaler themed tack being sold in the market outside, you might as well be in Belgium. I stopped at the much more impressive Râşnov castle on the way back to the flat, where I was greeted by two French couchsurfers. We went out to a 'Traditional Scottish Pub' in the evening, decked out with bagpipes, kilts, postcards and flags (just like the real thing). Also, everything sold was English not Scottish – Newcastle Brown and Old Peculiar ale (chilled!), steak and kidney pie, fish and chips, hotpot and the Traditional English Breakfast. Punters also had the choice of Irish Coffee or Scotch Coffee - the former made with Jack Daniel's and the latter with Jim Beam.
On Sunday, after spending the morning hiking on Mt. Tampa, I caught a train to Cluj-Napoca in the north of Romania. I arrived at couchsurfer Solene's about 9pm amid a very French dinner party involving red wine, chocolate and a selection of cheeses. There were about ten people there, eight Frenchies, one Austrian and a bonafide Romanian, all of whom conversed in English. It was a fun evening though the 'elephant in the room' was that I clearly hadn't changed my socks for several days. Monday morning was spent exploring the town, including the pleasant botanical gardens and a huge hillside Hungarian cemetery. I met Solene for a traditional lunch of sarmale (meat and cabbage rolls with yoghurt) then went for a coffee to meet the Romanian girl. She is a journalist and is doing an article on couchsurfing so we spent the next couple of hours being interviewed on screen, filmed 'seeing the sights' around town and chatting in Solene's house. I discovered that my host has spent the last six years living and working in Greece, Macedonia and Romania. In the evening we went out on the town in a big group and, for some reason, ended up drinking more English ale.
Tuesday was pretty uneventful. I had planned to visit a salt mine in the nearby (unfortunately named) town of Turda, but sometime in the morning became spontaneously inspired, so spent the day writing Britain's next great sitcom instead. In the evening Solene took me to see a theatre production in French, where we foolishly sat in the front row. It turned out to be audience participation and I was inevitably picked on, though didn't understand a word the guy was saying. My baffled reaction got a good response from the crowd so the guy kept coming back to me throughout the show and at the end he dragged me on stage and spent ten minutes talking to me in French while I fixed my expression somewhere between confusion and encouragement. Finally he conceded "tu comprends pas" and let me sit back down. It was actually quite enjoyable and not overly embarrassing – probably as I was catching a train immediately afterwards to the Eastern city of Iaşi.
I spent a day and a half in Romania’s second-largest city with Iulian and Oana, a young married couple. There are some interesting sights including a beautiful Orthodox church and a palace which is part-Gothic, part-Imperial and part-Disney. On Wednesday evening I was forced to watch Romania vs. Russia in the pub while knowing England were taking on France – though it sounds like I got the better match. On Thursday morning we went to see some monasteries on the outskirts of the city and in the afternoon I caught a bus to Moldova, though that can wait for the next post. I am hoping to make it all the way to Germany with couchsurfing, and to keep my hosts as varied as possible. As I know I'm only spending a short amount of time in each place I have made a concerted effort to meet people who seem very different from myself and from previous hosts. This obviously backfired in Kosovo, but since arriving in Bulgaria I’ve stayed in seven places with a mixture of locals and resident foreigners; with an unemployed film buff, a young computer professional, five rowdy student girls, a cultured middle-aged couple, an aspiring musician and DJ, a French woman who has lived all over the Balkans and a young newly-married couple. I’ve also learned (whether good or bad) to become comfortable somewhere very quickly – I could not imagine seven months ago turning up in a stranger's house and be happily digging into the cookie jar within the hour. I have a lot of readjusting to do when I get home.
Anyway, that'll do. Hope you're all well!
Joe x
PS. Milena is considered to have a speech impediment in Bulgarian as she cannot roll her Rs. As her English sounds perfectly fine, it made me realise that problems with pronunciation are purely cultural; if I was born in Spain my lisp may have been an asset!
PPS. Click here to see a now infamous clip from Bulgarian Idol.
Just two countries this time, which is hopefully more palatable. I arrived in Sofia mid-morning on the 12th and met couchsurfer Bogidar. From the profile picture I had expected a woman, so when my very male host turned up I tactlessly asked if he was "a friend of hers". The confusion continued as he nodded, and when I started to tell him about my trip he kept shaking his head at me. I was later told that this is because the gestures are opposite in Bulgaria – nodding means 'no' while shaking your head means 'yes'. I left his confusing household in the afternoon to explore the capital city and saw most of the unremarkable sites in a couple of hours. Consequently I spent the following day hiking on nearby Mt. Vitosha. After about half an hour I noticed I was being accompanied by a cute little puppy, who followed me for the next few hours all the way to the top and back down. Hermann and I became firm friends, though I started to wonder what I'd do with him when we got back to civilisation. Luckily we came across a couple walking their own dogs, and while Hermann was busy sticking his nose in their behinds I legged it down the hill, leaving the baffled couple with a new Germanic furry friend. In the evening I caught a train to Plovdiv, which I'd heard was much nicer than Sofia. I ran into trouble with a dog again; while I was waiting to meet couchsurfer Ivan I wandered into some nearby shrubbery to relieve myself, when an Alsatian came tearing towards me out of nowhere. Interestingly, although I was quite scared – due to my currently vulnerable stance – the flow just kept coming. The dog began to jump up at me so I was dodging from side to side, urine darting all over the place. But my embarrassment became my saviour as the dog retreated from my newly-declared territory. When Ivan finally arrived he very kindly didn't question why I smelt of piss and dog.
Plovdiv was indeed nicer than Sofia; I spent two days visiting the churches and museums of the Old Town, shopping for upcoming-birthday presents, eating lunch in an unusual restaurant (day one was 'lamb's head'; day two was 'smoked buttocks' – I never discovered whose) and climbing the Hill of the Liberators, home to a huge statue of a Russian soldier and some nice views of the city and its surrounding mountains. I also helped a woman put up a few 'death posters' – obituaries for the recently deceased that are plastered on all available wall spaces (including, rather heartlessly, over rival death posters). On Saturday evening I headed to Veliko Turnova, the ancient capital of Bulgaria. The city is absolutely stunning; from the ancient cobblestoned Gurko Street to the bustling central square to the huge Asanevs monument. The highlight however is Tsaravets Fortress, with amazing views over the town below and home to the ruins of over four hundred houses, eighteen churches and a Royal Palace, all built between the 5th and 18th centuries. It also houses watchtowers, an 'execution rock' and the amazing Patriarch's Complex – a renovated church containing gothic murals painted in the 1980s. It is one of the most interesting and unique churches I have ever seen. I stayed with five student girls in Veliko so on Sunday evening, after I had wasted three disposable razors getting rid of my beard and slicing into my cheeks, we went out to a trance club. It was an interesting experience (especially the dancers, male and female, who wore nothing but a light wrapping of clingfilm) but a very long one; we entered the club at 1am and emerged in the sunlight. Incidentally trance music is everywhere in Veliko – it plays in shops, cafés and can even be heard in the backrooms of churches! When we arrived home one of the girls paid me a compliment by saying I had "nice eyes", though immediately undermined it by adding "with really big pupils"...apparently I look like a Japanese cartoon. I was also berated for not shaving my armpits like Bulgarian men. On Monday afternoon, after a few hours sleep, Milena (the actual couchsurfer) and a couple of her friends took me to nearby Arbanasi, with a great view over Tsaravets. One of her friends was trying to become a prostitute and was currently "practicing" her trade by sleeping with anybody who'd have her. Though I was initially appalled, the more I spoke to her the clearer it became that this was not a choice forced upon her by another person, or by difficult circumstances, but was rather a considered adult decision. Prostitution is actually a common choice for women in Bulgaria and girls often enter the industry straight from school...I couldn’t help but imagine the meeting with the Careers Guidance Counsellor. In the evening I experienced a traditional Bulgarian meal of sausage and baked beans in a clay pot – they were flabbergasted to learn that the same dish was a student favourite in the UK – and at midnight I caught a train bound for Romania. On her profile I noticed that Milena’s next couchsurfer is an Italian called Francesco Pasta.
I arrived in Bucharest at 6am on Tuesday morning and caught the metro to Frank and Tia's place. He is an Irish writer and she's a Bulgarian musician (they both do web design to make ends meet) and they've been living together in Bucharest for four years. We spent the morning chatting about art and literature over a cultured coffee then I went off to explore the city. The most interesting sight is the Palace of the Parliament, supposedly the second-largest building in the world (after the Pentagon) and at least the second ugliest. It was built by Ceauşescu as a typical, grey and imposing Communist building, but with badly-executed attempts at continental flourishes along the balcony and roof edges. It is absolutely massive (though was never completed) and still half empty, despite housing both chambers of the Romanian Parliament, a massive array of conference halls, a fantastic four-floor Contemporary Art Museum and much more. Bucharest also has a couple of nice parks, churches and the Museum of the Romanian Peasant, voted Europe's best exhibition in 1996. It is essentially just an indoor ethnographic museum but with well displayed exhibits, whole themed rooms and even entire peasant houses and chapels within its walls.
On Thursday morning I caught a train to Braşov, right in the heart of Transylvania, where I stayed with couchsurfer Dan. He is an unemployed musician (and occasional DJ) so his flat was suitably squallid. We spent the morning erecting a box from a flat piece of cardboard (one of those 2D cross-shaped things you do in primary school) so we could send my presents home, but when we got to the post office our effort was pooh-poohed and I was forced to buy a ready-made package. We spent the rest of the day trying to find a new pair of trainers for my ridiculous flapping clown feet. Asking for European size fifty in every shop warranted a roar of laughter and a hasty exit, but the assistant in the last shop replied "of course", as though we'd asked if the shop contained oxygen, and produced shoes in size fifty-four! On Friday morning I fulfilled my sightseeing duties in the pretty town centre then went to meet Dan and his friend Reuben on Mt. Tampa to play bongos; the rarefied atmosphere makes the tone very clear (plus the neighbours were complaining the night before). On Saturday I took a trip to Bran – home of Dracula's castle and the reason I’d been reading Bram Stoker's torturous novel for the last week – and was thoroughly disappointed. The castle looks more like a country retreat and the inside is whitewashed with nothing related to the legend. The whole thing was quite dull; if it wasn’t for all the Dracula/Vlad the Impaler themed tack being sold in the market outside, you might as well be in Belgium. I stopped at the much more impressive Râşnov castle on the way back to the flat, where I was greeted by two French couchsurfers. We went out to a 'Traditional Scottish Pub' in the evening, decked out with bagpipes, kilts, postcards and flags (just like the real thing). Also, everything sold was English not Scottish – Newcastle Brown and Old Peculiar ale (chilled!), steak and kidney pie, fish and chips, hotpot and the Traditional English Breakfast. Punters also had the choice of Irish Coffee or Scotch Coffee - the former made with Jack Daniel's and the latter with Jim Beam.
On Sunday, after spending the morning hiking on Mt. Tampa, I caught a train to Cluj-Napoca in the north of Romania. I arrived at couchsurfer Solene's about 9pm amid a very French dinner party involving red wine, chocolate and a selection of cheeses. There were about ten people there, eight Frenchies, one Austrian and a bonafide Romanian, all of whom conversed in English. It was a fun evening though the 'elephant in the room' was that I clearly hadn't changed my socks for several days. Monday morning was spent exploring the town, including the pleasant botanical gardens and a huge hillside Hungarian cemetery. I met Solene for a traditional lunch of sarmale (meat and cabbage rolls with yoghurt) then went for a coffee to meet the Romanian girl. She is a journalist and is doing an article on couchsurfing so we spent the next couple of hours being interviewed on screen, filmed 'seeing the sights' around town and chatting in Solene's house. I discovered that my host has spent the last six years living and working in Greece, Macedonia and Romania. In the evening we went out on the town in a big group and, for some reason, ended up drinking more English ale.
Tuesday was pretty uneventful. I had planned to visit a salt mine in the nearby (unfortunately named) town of Turda, but sometime in the morning became spontaneously inspired, so spent the day writing Britain's next great sitcom instead. In the evening Solene took me to see a theatre production in French, where we foolishly sat in the front row. It turned out to be audience participation and I was inevitably picked on, though didn't understand a word the guy was saying. My baffled reaction got a good response from the crowd so the guy kept coming back to me throughout the show and at the end he dragged me on stage and spent ten minutes talking to me in French while I fixed my expression somewhere between confusion and encouragement. Finally he conceded "tu comprends pas" and let me sit back down. It was actually quite enjoyable and not overly embarrassing – probably as I was catching a train immediately afterwards to the Eastern city of Iaşi.
I spent a day and a half in Romania’s second-largest city with Iulian and Oana, a young married couple. There are some interesting sights including a beautiful Orthodox church and a palace which is part-Gothic, part-Imperial and part-Disney. On Wednesday evening I was forced to watch Romania vs. Russia in the pub while knowing England were taking on France – though it sounds like I got the better match. On Thursday morning we went to see some monasteries on the outskirts of the city and in the afternoon I caught a bus to Moldova, though that can wait for the next post. I am hoping to make it all the way to Germany with couchsurfing, and to keep my hosts as varied as possible. As I know I'm only spending a short amount of time in each place I have made a concerted effort to meet people who seem very different from myself and from previous hosts. This obviously backfired in Kosovo, but since arriving in Bulgaria I’ve stayed in seven places with a mixture of locals and resident foreigners; with an unemployed film buff, a young computer professional, five rowdy student girls, a cultured middle-aged couple, an aspiring musician and DJ, a French woman who has lived all over the Balkans and a young newly-married couple. I’ve also learned (whether good or bad) to become comfortable somewhere very quickly – I could not imagine seven months ago turning up in a stranger's house and be happily digging into the cookie jar within the hour. I have a lot of readjusting to do when I get home.
Anyway, that'll do. Hope you're all well!
Joe x
PS. Milena is considered to have a speech impediment in Bulgarian as she cannot roll her Rs. As her English sounds perfectly fine, it made me realise that problems with pronunciation are purely cultural; if I was born in Spain my lisp may have been an asset!
PPS. Click here to see a now infamous clip from Bulgarian Idol.
Tuesday 11 March 2008
Greece, Albania, Kosovo & Macedonia
Hi everyone,
Well I'm not posting from Albania, and I didn't get to Montenegro, but I have travelled quite a bit. After my last entry I still had half a day in Israel so spent it visiting the City of David. It was interesting enough, with some nice views across the decrepit Arab side of Jerusalem, but the real highlight was Hezekiah’s tunnel. This was (according to the Bible) created around 701BC to provide Jerusalem with water during the Assyrian siege, but it wasn't the history that impressed me…it was the childlike pleasure gained from wading through waist-high water in a 530-metre narrow and claustrophobic tunnel. I regretted it later though as I had to fly with sodden, smelly trainers. Before I boarded however, I had to pass through ridiculously stringent security. Between entering the airport and taking my seat on the plane I was questioned three times, x-rayed twice (shoes and socks off), had my passport checked by seven different people, my bags scanned twice then both opened and emptied with each small item double checked (the security woman spent two minutes rigorously scanning a packet of cotton buds). In total it took over an hour-and-a-half to get from check-in to the departure lounge, and I didn’t even stop to buy a Toblerone.
In Athens I stayed with couchsurfer Asterios in a very nice flat. I spent two warm and pleasant days exploring the sights of the city including the impressive Acropolis, the National Archaeological Museum and Ancient Agora, where Socrates philosophised to the gathered crowds below. My favourite moment was watching the sun set over the sprawling city from Lykavittos and tucking into a souvlaki. I spent the next morning wandering the coast at Piraeus and the afternoon on Aegina Island. When I got home in the evening I received the timely email confirmation for my Tel Aviv-Athens flight. On Friday evening I caught a fifteen-hour overnight bus to Tirane and at the Albanian border I was forced to pay an extortionate one euro entrance fee.
We drove through the dynamic, cold and misty landscape towards the capital and I really began to feel that I was back in Eastern Europe. Tirane is unusually colourful however, as when Sali Berisha came to power in 1992 he gave free paint to all residents to revolutionise the grey Communist-era developments. If it wasn’t for the sinister red and black two-headed eagle flag peering at me from every direction I would have felt very welcome. I stayed with couchsurfers Miranda, Mark and Jeff and on the first night they had a Bon Jovi themed party. Unfortunately I hadn't the foresight to pack any tight jeans or vests for my travels so my costume consisted rather lazily of putting a bandana around my head...something I don’t think Jon actually ever did.
On Sunday the four of us went to Kruje. This is a beautiful hillside town with an incredible antique bazaar; you could make a fortune buying stuff here and flogging it back in England. Miranda bought a couple of Russian ration cards from 1912 for one dollar apiece, and I saw a pristine gramophone from a similar period for fifteen quid! Above the market there are some pleasant castle ruins with some nice views where we stopped to watch an Albanian wedding in progress below. On Monday I got up at the ludicrously early hour of 5.30am to catch a minibus to Shköder. This is because I planned to catch a 9am ferry to the Korab mountain range for the day, but upon discovering that the buses to the Koman ferry port weren’t running I decided instead to spend the day hiking above the lake. The views of the town below were spectacular, especially from Rozafe castle, and you could see pill boxes peppered across the landscape; they were built during Enver Hoxha’s regime to avert internal revolution or external invasion. When planning this part of my trip I had considered heading to nearby Ulcinj in Montenegro and travelling from there to Pristina, but to save me carrying my bag around I had scrapped this idea and decided to leave from Tirane.
On Tuesday I explored the city, which is home to some interesting statues and museums. The National Art Gallery was deserted so I wandered around the poorly-lit rooms by myself, slowly getting freaked out by the hundreds of life-sized statues staring at me with their pupil-less eyes. I also went to visit a beautiful statue of Mother Teresa. Incidentally, after national heroes George Skenderbeu and MT, the most popular figures in the country are George W. Bush (due to his role in Kosovo) and Norman Wisdom! The latter is so widely known in the country as he was the only Western actor whose films were allowed to be shown during the Communist dictatorship. When the England football team played Albania in 2001 his presence even eclipsed that of David Beckham! On Tuesday evening I caught an overnight bus to Kosovo, slightly disconcerted as upon boarding all the locals bade me "good luck".
I arrived in Pristina at 6.30am on Wednesday and walked to couchsurfer Enis’ place. It was immediately obvious that he was a little odd, but I had absolutely no indication of what was to come. I spent the morning exploring the Turkish bazaar and at 11am there was an annual parade to commemorate the death of Adem Jashari, commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Due to the country's newly declared independence there were hundreds of posters and t-shirts with Jashari's image and the slogan "Bac, U Kry!" (“Uncle, It’s Done!") I spent the rest of the day wandering around the city and returned to the house in the evening to find Enis watching porn on his computer with his mother and two sisters in the same room! I was a bit thrown by this behaviour but managed to convince myself that perhaps this was normal practice here. That evening Enis took me to a theatre production that he claimed would have subtitles in English...it didn’t. Consequently, I sat in the theatre like a chump for an hour and a half, watching the audience guffaw at the antics of the Up Pompeii-esque performance on stage. The most entertaining aspect of the night for me was hearing people fart loudly and unashamedly throughout the show. On the way home everything I said was interpreted by Enis as a homosexual innuendo, even when discussing innocuous and unrelated topics like my journey or his university work...it was like hanging around with an especially immature eight-year-old. Back at the house his relatively normal sister spent a while explaining the new Kosovan flag to me; the six stars are supposed to symbolise Kosovo’s major ethnic groups (Albanians, Serbs, Turks, Gorani, Roma and Bosniaks). However, having spoken to people from other areas of the Baltics before and since, it is almost unanimously believed that they are actually representative of the six territories that most Albanians want to fashion into a Greater Albania; parts of Montenegro, Serbia, Greece and Macedonia to be added to Kosovo and Albania.
The next day I left the house before anybody else was up and caught a bus to Prizren. The town is very pretty and I decided to walk up to the castle ruins above the city. At midday all the mosques begin their call to prayer and from the peak it sounded like a choir. Back in the town I tried to enter several Serbian Orthodox churches but found them closed by Kosovan troops – I hope this is not censorship since the independence. From Prizren I caught a northerly bus to Peja, but it was gone 4pm by the time I arrived. I just had time to walk to Patrijaršija Monastery, the "Sistine Chapel of the Serbian Orthodox world", but was turned away by the troops at the gate. Oh well. On the bus back to Pristina a bloke came and took the seat next to me. I apologised for taking up so much room (my legs were spilling over to his side) but, gesturing to the woman in front, he replied "it’s fine, I just didn’t want to sit next to the nigger!" I immediately asked him to let me out, stood up and took a seat next to the woman in front. I felt all political and righteous (like a white Rosa Parks) before the woman started shouting and trying to push me off my seat. I had to slink off and find another spot.
In the evening I went to a bar with Enis and two of his friends. I struggled to make conversation for a couple of hours with people I had nothing in common with, but what I thought had been an awkward evening became a lot more so when we arrived home and Enis tried to kiss me. When I backed away to explain that I wasn’t interested he plunged his hand down my trousers, at which point I angrily pushed him out of the room. He ran upstairs calling me a homophobe and I paced around, wondering what to do. My obvious instinct was to leave but it was 2am and I had nowhere to go. In the end I hung around in the room until 5.30am then walked to the bus station to get the first bus to Macedonia. I left a note explaining that not wanting to have your cock fondled by another man isn’t homophobic, it simply isn't homosexual. I haven’t heard back from him.
On arriving in Skopje I met a couple who immediately restored my faith in the community. Kristijan and Nina fed me breakfast, set me up a bed so I could have a mid-morning nap then took me to the pub with Kristijan’s brother Daniel, who happens to be a kind of football Rain Man (he knows every score from all the European leagues this season – even Doncaster Rover’s results!) In the evening we went to a house party and I was introduced to (and became firm friends with) the local beer. Afterwards Kristijan, who was very drunk, drove us home. It’s strange how you just accept the norm in different cultures – there’s no way I would get in a car with a drink-driver in the UK.
I spent the next couple of days seeing the surrounding area. We took Nina’s dog for a walk along the dams at Lake Matka on Saturday, and on Sunday Kristijan and I went hiking up Mt. Vodno. The mountain overlooks Skopje and the huge cross on top is visible from anywhere in town. The walk was very pleasant and the views across the city and its suburbs are amazing. Kristijan managed to turn a potentially healthy day into a long drinking session – we had rum at the top, stopped for beer on the way down and were on the whisky at a live music bar in the evening. Yesterday I caught a bus to Ohrid, three-and-a-half hours south of Skopje. As you walk from the station to the centre you gradually discover the small Old Town of winding narrow cobbled streets and quaint gift shops. At the end of the main street you come across the huge and dramatically beautiful lake, with snow-capped mountains plunging straight into the water. And as you walk along the lakefront you come across more and more scenes of beauty – stunning small Macedonian Orthodox churches perched on jutting rocks and old city walls. High above this all there is a large fortification which, though closed, has lovely views across the red roof tiles of the town below. In the evening I sadly said goodbye to my new favourite town, but certain that I will return.
Today was very rainy so I didn’t go out very much. I haven’t experienced very good weather in Macedonia but at least it’s reasonably mild; the country is notorious for their extreme seasons, with temperatures having reached 46˚c in summer and plummeted to -27˚c in winter. I did manage to nip out for a couple of hours earlier this afternoon to see some sights and stumbled across a betting shop called ‘Wil Hil’, using half of the William Hill logo. The laxness of copyright laws has been noticeable throughout Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, with an internet café in Tirane called ‘Yahoo!’ (using the famous logo), an orange drink in Kosovo called ‘Tango’, and ‘fotokopje’ places on every street corner (it’s cheaper to copy an entire library book than to buy it new). McDonald’s refuses to launch in Albania because of two copycat chains – ‘Donald’s’ (written in the same type) and ‘Koronin’ (which uses a yellow M logo on a red background).
Tomorrow morning I head to Sofia, Bulgaria. I will do my best to post a little sooner next time – four countries in one post is mildly ridiculous.
Take care,
Joe x
PS. I was very annoyed to hear about the earthquake in England right after my last post. I’ve travelled halfway around the world to have this amazing experience and I could have stayed at home. I have now scrapped future plans to go to South East Asia – I’ll just plonk myself down on a beach in Cornwall and wait for the first tsunami to hit.
Well I'm not posting from Albania, and I didn't get to Montenegro, but I have travelled quite a bit. After my last entry I still had half a day in Israel so spent it visiting the City of David. It was interesting enough, with some nice views across the decrepit Arab side of Jerusalem, but the real highlight was Hezekiah’s tunnel. This was (according to the Bible) created around 701BC to provide Jerusalem with water during the Assyrian siege, but it wasn't the history that impressed me…it was the childlike pleasure gained from wading through waist-high water in a 530-metre narrow and claustrophobic tunnel. I regretted it later though as I had to fly with sodden, smelly trainers. Before I boarded however, I had to pass through ridiculously stringent security. Between entering the airport and taking my seat on the plane I was questioned three times, x-rayed twice (shoes and socks off), had my passport checked by seven different people, my bags scanned twice then both opened and emptied with each small item double checked (the security woman spent two minutes rigorously scanning a packet of cotton buds). In total it took over an hour-and-a-half to get from check-in to the departure lounge, and I didn’t even stop to buy a Toblerone.
In Athens I stayed with couchsurfer Asterios in a very nice flat. I spent two warm and pleasant days exploring the sights of the city including the impressive Acropolis, the National Archaeological Museum and Ancient Agora, where Socrates philosophised to the gathered crowds below. My favourite moment was watching the sun set over the sprawling city from Lykavittos and tucking into a souvlaki. I spent the next morning wandering the coast at Piraeus and the afternoon on Aegina Island. When I got home in the evening I received the timely email confirmation for my Tel Aviv-Athens flight. On Friday evening I caught a fifteen-hour overnight bus to Tirane and at the Albanian border I was forced to pay an extortionate one euro entrance fee.
We drove through the dynamic, cold and misty landscape towards the capital and I really began to feel that I was back in Eastern Europe. Tirane is unusually colourful however, as when Sali Berisha came to power in 1992 he gave free paint to all residents to revolutionise the grey Communist-era developments. If it wasn’t for the sinister red and black two-headed eagle flag peering at me from every direction I would have felt very welcome. I stayed with couchsurfers Miranda, Mark and Jeff and on the first night they had a Bon Jovi themed party. Unfortunately I hadn't the foresight to pack any tight jeans or vests for my travels so my costume consisted rather lazily of putting a bandana around my head...something I don’t think Jon actually ever did.
On Sunday the four of us went to Kruje. This is a beautiful hillside town with an incredible antique bazaar; you could make a fortune buying stuff here and flogging it back in England. Miranda bought a couple of Russian ration cards from 1912 for one dollar apiece, and I saw a pristine gramophone from a similar period for fifteen quid! Above the market there are some pleasant castle ruins with some nice views where we stopped to watch an Albanian wedding in progress below. On Monday I got up at the ludicrously early hour of 5.30am to catch a minibus to Shköder. This is because I planned to catch a 9am ferry to the Korab mountain range for the day, but upon discovering that the buses to the Koman ferry port weren’t running I decided instead to spend the day hiking above the lake. The views of the town below were spectacular, especially from Rozafe castle, and you could see pill boxes peppered across the landscape; they were built during Enver Hoxha’s regime to avert internal revolution or external invasion. When planning this part of my trip I had considered heading to nearby Ulcinj in Montenegro and travelling from there to Pristina, but to save me carrying my bag around I had scrapped this idea and decided to leave from Tirane.
On Tuesday I explored the city, which is home to some interesting statues and museums. The National Art Gallery was deserted so I wandered around the poorly-lit rooms by myself, slowly getting freaked out by the hundreds of life-sized statues staring at me with their pupil-less eyes. I also went to visit a beautiful statue of Mother Teresa. Incidentally, after national heroes George Skenderbeu and MT, the most popular figures in the country are George W. Bush (due to his role in Kosovo) and Norman Wisdom! The latter is so widely known in the country as he was the only Western actor whose films were allowed to be shown during the Communist dictatorship. When the England football team played Albania in 2001 his presence even eclipsed that of David Beckham! On Tuesday evening I caught an overnight bus to Kosovo, slightly disconcerted as upon boarding all the locals bade me "good luck".
I arrived in Pristina at 6.30am on Wednesday and walked to couchsurfer Enis’ place. It was immediately obvious that he was a little odd, but I had absolutely no indication of what was to come. I spent the morning exploring the Turkish bazaar and at 11am there was an annual parade to commemorate the death of Adem Jashari, commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Due to the country's newly declared independence there were hundreds of posters and t-shirts with Jashari's image and the slogan "Bac, U Kry!" (“Uncle, It’s Done!") I spent the rest of the day wandering around the city and returned to the house in the evening to find Enis watching porn on his computer with his mother and two sisters in the same room! I was a bit thrown by this behaviour but managed to convince myself that perhaps this was normal practice here. That evening Enis took me to a theatre production that he claimed would have subtitles in English...it didn’t. Consequently, I sat in the theatre like a chump for an hour and a half, watching the audience guffaw at the antics of the Up Pompeii-esque performance on stage. The most entertaining aspect of the night for me was hearing people fart loudly and unashamedly throughout the show. On the way home everything I said was interpreted by Enis as a homosexual innuendo, even when discussing innocuous and unrelated topics like my journey or his university work...it was like hanging around with an especially immature eight-year-old. Back at the house his relatively normal sister spent a while explaining the new Kosovan flag to me; the six stars are supposed to symbolise Kosovo’s major ethnic groups (Albanians, Serbs, Turks, Gorani, Roma and Bosniaks). However, having spoken to people from other areas of the Baltics before and since, it is almost unanimously believed that they are actually representative of the six territories that most Albanians want to fashion into a Greater Albania; parts of Montenegro, Serbia, Greece and Macedonia to be added to Kosovo and Albania.
The next day I left the house before anybody else was up and caught a bus to Prizren. The town is very pretty and I decided to walk up to the castle ruins above the city. At midday all the mosques begin their call to prayer and from the peak it sounded like a choir. Back in the town I tried to enter several Serbian Orthodox churches but found them closed by Kosovan troops – I hope this is not censorship since the independence. From Prizren I caught a northerly bus to Peja, but it was gone 4pm by the time I arrived. I just had time to walk to Patrijaršija Monastery, the "Sistine Chapel of the Serbian Orthodox world", but was turned away by the troops at the gate. Oh well. On the bus back to Pristina a bloke came and took the seat next to me. I apologised for taking up so much room (my legs were spilling over to his side) but, gesturing to the woman in front, he replied "it’s fine, I just didn’t want to sit next to the nigger!" I immediately asked him to let me out, stood up and took a seat next to the woman in front. I felt all political and righteous (like a white Rosa Parks) before the woman started shouting and trying to push me off my seat. I had to slink off and find another spot.
In the evening I went to a bar with Enis and two of his friends. I struggled to make conversation for a couple of hours with people I had nothing in common with, but what I thought had been an awkward evening became a lot more so when we arrived home and Enis tried to kiss me. When I backed away to explain that I wasn’t interested he plunged his hand down my trousers, at which point I angrily pushed him out of the room. He ran upstairs calling me a homophobe and I paced around, wondering what to do. My obvious instinct was to leave but it was 2am and I had nowhere to go. In the end I hung around in the room until 5.30am then walked to the bus station to get the first bus to Macedonia. I left a note explaining that not wanting to have your cock fondled by another man isn’t homophobic, it simply isn't homosexual. I haven’t heard back from him.
On arriving in Skopje I met a couple who immediately restored my faith in the community. Kristijan and Nina fed me breakfast, set me up a bed so I could have a mid-morning nap then took me to the pub with Kristijan’s brother Daniel, who happens to be a kind of football Rain Man (he knows every score from all the European leagues this season – even Doncaster Rover’s results!) In the evening we went to a house party and I was introduced to (and became firm friends with) the local beer. Afterwards Kristijan, who was very drunk, drove us home. It’s strange how you just accept the norm in different cultures – there’s no way I would get in a car with a drink-driver in the UK.
I spent the next couple of days seeing the surrounding area. We took Nina’s dog for a walk along the dams at Lake Matka on Saturday, and on Sunday Kristijan and I went hiking up Mt. Vodno. The mountain overlooks Skopje and the huge cross on top is visible from anywhere in town. The walk was very pleasant and the views across the city and its suburbs are amazing. Kristijan managed to turn a potentially healthy day into a long drinking session – we had rum at the top, stopped for beer on the way down and were on the whisky at a live music bar in the evening. Yesterday I caught a bus to Ohrid, three-and-a-half hours south of Skopje. As you walk from the station to the centre you gradually discover the small Old Town of winding narrow cobbled streets and quaint gift shops. At the end of the main street you come across the huge and dramatically beautiful lake, with snow-capped mountains plunging straight into the water. And as you walk along the lakefront you come across more and more scenes of beauty – stunning small Macedonian Orthodox churches perched on jutting rocks and old city walls. High above this all there is a large fortification which, though closed, has lovely views across the red roof tiles of the town below. In the evening I sadly said goodbye to my new favourite town, but certain that I will return.
Today was very rainy so I didn’t go out very much. I haven’t experienced very good weather in Macedonia but at least it’s reasonably mild; the country is notorious for their extreme seasons, with temperatures having reached 46˚c in summer and plummeted to -27˚c in winter. I did manage to nip out for a couple of hours earlier this afternoon to see some sights and stumbled across a betting shop called ‘Wil Hil’, using half of the William Hill logo. The laxness of copyright laws has been noticeable throughout Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, with an internet café in Tirane called ‘Yahoo!’ (using the famous logo), an orange drink in Kosovo called ‘Tango’, and ‘fotokopje’ places on every street corner (it’s cheaper to copy an entire library book than to buy it new). McDonald’s refuses to launch in Albania because of two copycat chains – ‘Donald’s’ (written in the same type) and ‘Koronin’ (which uses a yellow M logo on a red background).
Tomorrow morning I head to Sofia, Bulgaria. I will do my best to post a little sooner next time – four countries in one post is mildly ridiculous.
Take care,
Joe x
PS. I was very annoyed to hear about the earthquake in England right after my last post. I’ve travelled halfway around the world to have this amazing experience and I could have stayed at home. I have now scrapped future plans to go to South East Asia – I’ll just plonk myself down on a beach in Cornwall and wait for the first tsunami to hit.
Monday 25 February 2008
Tel Aviv & the Farm
Hello all,
I arrived in Tel Aviv last Tuesday and stayed in a couchsurfing haven – a beautiful flat owned by three young blokes called Erez, Roi and Lior who insisted on cooking for me, supplying me with beer and introducing me to all their friends. I spent most of my first day in Jaffa, which is walking distance from Tel Aviv, visiting a museum, monastery, mosque and market (note the alliteration!) I also visited the Wishing Bridge (no m's there) where you place your hand on a picture of your star sign and, as the name suggests, make a wish. I waited all day for that team of nude female joggers but they never showed up. Erez later pointed out that I'd put my hand on Pisces…damn my poor astrological knowledge. In the evening I went out to a couple of bars with Roi to celebrate his friend's girlfriend's friend's birthday. Any excuse, eh?
On Thursday I did nothing – except write my previous blog entry. There was a strong storm outside so I could allow myself a day of guilt-free relaxation. In the afternoon Sophie, another couchsurfer, arrived and in the evening a gang of people came over for a mini-party. About 3am, after this mysterious device called a 'bong'¹ had done the rounds, people started to have deep and meaningful conversations about life, love and spirituality. I fell asleep.
The next day was monumental. At 12.39pm I experienced something that I never thought I would...an earthquake! It was only small and lasted a mere fifteen seconds but it was enough to make the sofas shake from side to side – now that's what I call couchsurfing! There have actually been a series of earthquakes in Israel recently, and a prominent Israeli MP has blamed them on the government for "tolerating sodomy"². After a lunch of Vegemite (a poncy Aussie version of Marmite) on toast, Sophie and I went for a wander around trendy Sheinkin Street and the Carmel Market. We headed down to Chinky Beach for sunset, where a bunch of hippies were playing bongos and another bunch of hippies danced to the beat. I didn't know whether to be amused or impressed by the dancers' lack of inhibition, but within half an hour I was rocking with the best of them. After that all the clubs opened; Tel Aviv really is the antithesis of Jerusalem.
You may remember that I mentioned I was interested in a kibbutz stay (see Jordan). Well I have spent virtually all my time in Israel trying to sort one out with the Kibbutz Placement Office, but there has been next to nothing (my sole offer has been to slaughter chickens). I could have applied to work in a hotel or restaurant kibbutz, but it's hardly the utopian Zionist community I had in mind. In Haifa, couchsurfer Jon's cousin checked out an Israeli volunteer website for me and found out about Emek Hatal, an ecological farm in Rehovot, thirty minutes from Tel Aviv. It wasn't really a kibbutz but I thought I'd try it for a couple of days, so once the trains started running again on Saturday night I headed for the farm. It is owned by Emilio Mogilner, a renowned Israeli artist who runs the eco-farm as a profit-free venture. He showed me his studio, piled high with artwork and home to a 15th Century twenty-metre-deep well. By now it was late so I retired to the freezing 'volunteer's cabin' and went to sleep.
On Sunday I started work. As a result of the storm a few days before the orchard ground was covered in oranges and it was my job to gather them all up, separate the true 'oranges' from the 'bluey-greens', chop the former up for animal food and toss the latter onto the compost heap. I also spent some time watching the goats try to headbutt each other and absolutely fell in love with them – at one time I had six of them trying to eat my trousers. There are also chickens, three dogs and a cross-eyed cat. I started the day with a lovely bowl of granary, natural yoghurt and date syrup, and had exactly the same for lunch and dinner – plus a couple of cheeky oranges. I think it's the first time I have discovered a tasty new dish then been utterly sick of it within twelve hours…though by the end of a week of watery soup, lentils and tahini I was begging for the granary back. In the evening I met a bloke who has spent the last year making a documentary on Emilio. He told me that the farm is a huge drain on Emilio's art funds, but he keeps it open as an ecological stand against commercialism. The government has repeatedly attempted to shut him down but have never succeeded. The place was supposed to be destroyed last month but Mr. Mogilner had organised a big festival so when the diggers arrived they had no choice but to leave again. During a conversation with Emilio that evening I revealed that I was a writer, so for the next few days my job changed. I still did a little farm stuff first thing – feeding the animals, making pita breads and dangling a piece of string in front of the cat to test its depth perception – but from mid-morning I would spend the rest of the day on the computer. I was initially annoyed (I came to work on a farm not in an office) but the work was so fascinating I was soon happy to do it. Emilio has created an art concept entitled 'One Breath Time'. The message is ecological (I can't be bothered to explain the somewhat convoluted metaphor here) but the gimmick itself is very interesting – he breathes in, begins to paint and finishes when he runs out of air and is forced to take another breath. This idea has made him reasonably famous in Israel, with some of his One Breath Time works having been broadcast live on television. My favourite of his 1BT paintings is entitled 'The Modern Civilization Conquers Mother Earth' – Emilio actually lost consciousness in his desperation to complete it³. My job in essence was to construct an explanation of Emilio's philosophy to replace the rather confused manifesto on his website. Once I had done this and it had got approval from Emilio, his wife, his brother, his brother's wife and his brother's wife's creative consultant I was told to try and generate some buzz around it – basically emailing some influential eco-art critics and trying to pique their interest. Though this may not be the most professional approach I cannot doubt Emilio's commitment to the ecological cause…in 2001 he pointed the finger at an organised crime syndicate that was smuggling beach sand for unauthorised cement production. Naturally, the mafia sent an assassin with an M16 to Emek Hatal and from a mere two metres Emilio was shot in the neck. He barely survived (he had to hitch a ride to the hospital with half his neck, his right shoulder and even a corner of one lung still in his studio) and his right arm has been paralysed ever since. However he got straight back to promoting ecology and, after training his left hand, back to the canvas. He is a truly fascinating man.
On Thursday night Emilio drove me to an exhibition of his work. You would think that a man with a paralysed right arm, if he really must drive, would have invested in an automatic, but that would obviously be too simple. Instead he has developed the foolproof method of letting go of the steering wheel, reaching his good arm across his body to change gears (if it was right-hand drive it would have been a lot easier) then grabbing hold of the wheel again just in time to evade the scattering pedestrians. There was an interesting traffic light en route which changed from green to red and back in less than fifteen seconds; Emilio explained that they were just outside the mayor's house. The exhibition was in a swanky minimalist place full of evening dresses, suits and berets – I don't think my smelling of chicken shit helped me to mingle. There were a few 'flash' paintings on display (two second jobs) along with about sixty One Breath Time pieces. Of these sixty, fifty-five were pictures of goats. Emilio is obsessed – he spends most of his day running around with the little blighters in the pen and talks about little else. He was discussing his new project to an 'art enthusiast' at the gallery and explained his plans to paint an American $1 bill and then flog it for $2000. He reassured him that there would have some original touches "like another head in place of George Washington's". As I was walking in to the next room I heard Emilio add "…probably a goat's".
On Friday afternoon I grudgingly left the farm. I considered staying another week but I felt it was time to move on – Emilio has promised to let me know if he gets any interest from my email. I booked a flight to Athens for tonight and decided to head back to Jerusalem for my last few days and my final Shabbat – I felt I should reconnect with the spiritual side of the country before leaving it behind. So at sundown I popped on a yarmulke and headed down to the Western Wall to dance it up with the Orthodox Jews. It was a great experience as the sun went down and all the black-clad blokes started to rock back and forth in unison. It was like being at an autistic music festival. I tried to get some photos of this extraordinary sight but every time I tried a stern-looking Hared stopped me. On Saturday I got up early and caught an Arab bus to Nablus. The road from Ramallah was beautiful but the ride stopped at Huwwara checkpoint, five kilometres short of the city. I decided to walk the distance and en route I experienced another first...an attempted mugging. It wasn't the most professional effort; five fifteen-year-old kids tried to grab my bag and when I yanked it back they started to kick my legs. One just managed to reach my chin to land a punch but in the end I just walked away and they didn't follow. Once in Nablus I visited a beautiful church housing Jacob's Well, where a Samaritan once gave water to a thirsty Jesus. I also went to the Old Town market (not discernably older than the New Town) and was refused entry into a mosque because I was "too white". In the evening I randomly met Sam from the Nile felucca cruise for a coffee. I hardly managed to sleep at all that night as the guy in the bed next to me snored, coughed, snorted, sneezed, swallowed, talked and made horrible retching noises. The charms of hostelling...!
Yesterday I made an effort to see everything that (for reasons of snow, Shabbat and general laziness) I didn't see last time. First I went to Temple Mount; I had tried three times previously to no avail, but I finally got to see the Dome of the Rock close up. I also managed to see two more of Jerusalem's major sites that I'd bypassed before; the magnificent Yad Vashem holocaust museum and the Israel museum. The former is one of the most imaginative and well-displayed museums I've ever been to and the latter, though famous for housing the religiously super-significant Dead Sea Scrolls, actually excelled rather randomly with an exhibition of contemporary Chinese art. This afternoon I make my way to the airport for my 7.30pm flight.
So, after a fascinating and diverse five weeks I say farewell to Israel; without a doubt, the most culturally fascinating country I have ever visited. There cannot be many places where you have to endure stringest security checks to enter century-old churches, synagogues and mosques, or where on a casual bus ride through the countryside it becomes apparent that you're the only passenger not carrying a rifle. The religious tension is palpable, and otherwise intelligent and decent people display the most outrageous and single-minded prejudices. Israel is a small but unique country...I just wonder how long it can survive. With increasingly strained relationships with each bordering country, and their questionable policies concerning Palestinians, is peace really assured? Even from within, many Israeli Arabs are pro-Palestinian, and there are even native Jews who are opposed to existence of the country (they believe that God will create the true State of Israel when it is deserved). Whatever happens, I cannot see religious or ethnic harmony in the near future. It's a real shame; both Palestinians and Israelis are lovely people, once you get past the politics.
My future plans are as follows; I have arranged to be in Neumagen, Germany for a family party on May 1st so have been planning a reasonably strict route there. The countries I will pass through on my trip, in order, will be Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Slovakia, Austria, Slovenia, Italy (Venice) and Germany. This part of my journey will be in huge contrast to the last six months (six months!) as I shall be focusing on just the major cities and sights rather than exploring a particular nation in depth. The most attention will probably go to Ukraine due to its sprawling size and huge diversity. If I had another six months before the party I would certainly explore each country more – but I don't. If I had the adequate psyche I would ignore Bulgaria and Romania in order to spend a month in the Ukraine – but I don't. One way to lengthen my time in the Eastern Europe is to go straight to Germany from Austria, dropping Slovenia and Italy. That part, at least, I'll play by ear.
However I make it to Germany, I'm sincerely hoping that won't be the end of my trip. If I still have adequate funds (and that's a big 'if') I will keep travelling for another month or two. My ideal route would involve going by land through Germany, Denmark, Sweden (with a possible side-trip to Finland) and Norway, then by sea to the Faroe Islands and on to John O'Groats. Once I have pigged out on fry-ups, fish and chips and Cadbury's chocolate I'm sure I'll have the energy for one final mini-jaunt to Belfast. Sounds great doesn't it? I'll see how the money goes.
I'll post again from Albania,
Joe x
¹ Seriously mum, never heard of it.
² For the BBC News Story click here.
³ To see the work in progress click here; to see the finished piece click here.
I arrived in Tel Aviv last Tuesday and stayed in a couchsurfing haven – a beautiful flat owned by three young blokes called Erez, Roi and Lior who insisted on cooking for me, supplying me with beer and introducing me to all their friends. I spent most of my first day in Jaffa, which is walking distance from Tel Aviv, visiting a museum, monastery, mosque and market (note the alliteration!) I also visited the Wishing Bridge (no m's there) where you place your hand on a picture of your star sign and, as the name suggests, make a wish. I waited all day for that team of nude female joggers but they never showed up. Erez later pointed out that I'd put my hand on Pisces…damn my poor astrological knowledge. In the evening I went out to a couple of bars with Roi to celebrate his friend's girlfriend's friend's birthday. Any excuse, eh?
On Thursday I did nothing – except write my previous blog entry. There was a strong storm outside so I could allow myself a day of guilt-free relaxation. In the afternoon Sophie, another couchsurfer, arrived and in the evening a gang of people came over for a mini-party. About 3am, after this mysterious device called a 'bong'¹ had done the rounds, people started to have deep and meaningful conversations about life, love and spirituality. I fell asleep.
The next day was monumental. At 12.39pm I experienced something that I never thought I would...an earthquake! It was only small and lasted a mere fifteen seconds but it was enough to make the sofas shake from side to side – now that's what I call couchsurfing! There have actually been a series of earthquakes in Israel recently, and a prominent Israeli MP has blamed them on the government for "tolerating sodomy"². After a lunch of Vegemite (a poncy Aussie version of Marmite) on toast, Sophie and I went for a wander around trendy Sheinkin Street and the Carmel Market. We headed down to Chinky Beach for sunset, where a bunch of hippies were playing bongos and another bunch of hippies danced to the beat. I didn't know whether to be amused or impressed by the dancers' lack of inhibition, but within half an hour I was rocking with the best of them. After that all the clubs opened; Tel Aviv really is the antithesis of Jerusalem.
You may remember that I mentioned I was interested in a kibbutz stay (see Jordan). Well I have spent virtually all my time in Israel trying to sort one out with the Kibbutz Placement Office, but there has been next to nothing (my sole offer has been to slaughter chickens). I could have applied to work in a hotel or restaurant kibbutz, but it's hardly the utopian Zionist community I had in mind. In Haifa, couchsurfer Jon's cousin checked out an Israeli volunteer website for me and found out about Emek Hatal, an ecological farm in Rehovot, thirty minutes from Tel Aviv. It wasn't really a kibbutz but I thought I'd try it for a couple of days, so once the trains started running again on Saturday night I headed for the farm. It is owned by Emilio Mogilner, a renowned Israeli artist who runs the eco-farm as a profit-free venture. He showed me his studio, piled high with artwork and home to a 15th Century twenty-metre-deep well. By now it was late so I retired to the freezing 'volunteer's cabin' and went to sleep.
On Sunday I started work. As a result of the storm a few days before the orchard ground was covered in oranges and it was my job to gather them all up, separate the true 'oranges' from the 'bluey-greens', chop the former up for animal food and toss the latter onto the compost heap. I also spent some time watching the goats try to headbutt each other and absolutely fell in love with them – at one time I had six of them trying to eat my trousers. There are also chickens, three dogs and a cross-eyed cat. I started the day with a lovely bowl of granary, natural yoghurt and date syrup, and had exactly the same for lunch and dinner – plus a couple of cheeky oranges. I think it's the first time I have discovered a tasty new dish then been utterly sick of it within twelve hours…though by the end of a week of watery soup, lentils and tahini I was begging for the granary back. In the evening I met a bloke who has spent the last year making a documentary on Emilio. He told me that the farm is a huge drain on Emilio's art funds, but he keeps it open as an ecological stand against commercialism. The government has repeatedly attempted to shut him down but have never succeeded. The place was supposed to be destroyed last month but Mr. Mogilner had organised a big festival so when the diggers arrived they had no choice but to leave again. During a conversation with Emilio that evening I revealed that I was a writer, so for the next few days my job changed. I still did a little farm stuff first thing – feeding the animals, making pita breads and dangling a piece of string in front of the cat to test its depth perception – but from mid-morning I would spend the rest of the day on the computer. I was initially annoyed (I came to work on a farm not in an office) but the work was so fascinating I was soon happy to do it. Emilio has created an art concept entitled 'One Breath Time'. The message is ecological (I can't be bothered to explain the somewhat convoluted metaphor here) but the gimmick itself is very interesting – he breathes in, begins to paint and finishes when he runs out of air and is forced to take another breath. This idea has made him reasonably famous in Israel, with some of his One Breath Time works having been broadcast live on television. My favourite of his 1BT paintings is entitled 'The Modern Civilization Conquers Mother Earth' – Emilio actually lost consciousness in his desperation to complete it³. My job in essence was to construct an explanation of Emilio's philosophy to replace the rather confused manifesto on his website. Once I had done this and it had got approval from Emilio, his wife, his brother, his brother's wife and his brother's wife's creative consultant I was told to try and generate some buzz around it – basically emailing some influential eco-art critics and trying to pique their interest. Though this may not be the most professional approach I cannot doubt Emilio's commitment to the ecological cause…in 2001 he pointed the finger at an organised crime syndicate that was smuggling beach sand for unauthorised cement production. Naturally, the mafia sent an assassin with an M16 to Emek Hatal and from a mere two metres Emilio was shot in the neck. He barely survived (he had to hitch a ride to the hospital with half his neck, his right shoulder and even a corner of one lung still in his studio) and his right arm has been paralysed ever since. However he got straight back to promoting ecology and, after training his left hand, back to the canvas. He is a truly fascinating man.
On Thursday night Emilio drove me to an exhibition of his work. You would think that a man with a paralysed right arm, if he really must drive, would have invested in an automatic, but that would obviously be too simple. Instead he has developed the foolproof method of letting go of the steering wheel, reaching his good arm across his body to change gears (if it was right-hand drive it would have been a lot easier) then grabbing hold of the wheel again just in time to evade the scattering pedestrians. There was an interesting traffic light en route which changed from green to red and back in less than fifteen seconds; Emilio explained that they were just outside the mayor's house. The exhibition was in a swanky minimalist place full of evening dresses, suits and berets – I don't think my smelling of chicken shit helped me to mingle. There were a few 'flash' paintings on display (two second jobs) along with about sixty One Breath Time pieces. Of these sixty, fifty-five were pictures of goats. Emilio is obsessed – he spends most of his day running around with the little blighters in the pen and talks about little else. He was discussing his new project to an 'art enthusiast' at the gallery and explained his plans to paint an American $1 bill and then flog it for $2000. He reassured him that there would have some original touches "like another head in place of George Washington's". As I was walking in to the next room I heard Emilio add "…probably a goat's".
On Friday afternoon I grudgingly left the farm. I considered staying another week but I felt it was time to move on – Emilio has promised to let me know if he gets any interest from my email. I booked a flight to Athens for tonight and decided to head back to Jerusalem for my last few days and my final Shabbat – I felt I should reconnect with the spiritual side of the country before leaving it behind. So at sundown I popped on a yarmulke and headed down to the Western Wall to dance it up with the Orthodox Jews. It was a great experience as the sun went down and all the black-clad blokes started to rock back and forth in unison. It was like being at an autistic music festival. I tried to get some photos of this extraordinary sight but every time I tried a stern-looking Hared stopped me. On Saturday I got up early and caught an Arab bus to Nablus. The road from Ramallah was beautiful but the ride stopped at Huwwara checkpoint, five kilometres short of the city. I decided to walk the distance and en route I experienced another first...an attempted mugging. It wasn't the most professional effort; five fifteen-year-old kids tried to grab my bag and when I yanked it back they started to kick my legs. One just managed to reach my chin to land a punch but in the end I just walked away and they didn't follow. Once in Nablus I visited a beautiful church housing Jacob's Well, where a Samaritan once gave water to a thirsty Jesus. I also went to the Old Town market (not discernably older than the New Town) and was refused entry into a mosque because I was "too white". In the evening I randomly met Sam from the Nile felucca cruise for a coffee. I hardly managed to sleep at all that night as the guy in the bed next to me snored, coughed, snorted, sneezed, swallowed, talked and made horrible retching noises. The charms of hostelling...!
Yesterday I made an effort to see everything that (for reasons of snow, Shabbat and general laziness) I didn't see last time. First I went to Temple Mount; I had tried three times previously to no avail, but I finally got to see the Dome of the Rock close up. I also managed to see two more of Jerusalem's major sites that I'd bypassed before; the magnificent Yad Vashem holocaust museum and the Israel museum. The former is one of the most imaginative and well-displayed museums I've ever been to and the latter, though famous for housing the religiously super-significant Dead Sea Scrolls, actually excelled rather randomly with an exhibition of contemporary Chinese art. This afternoon I make my way to the airport for my 7.30pm flight.
So, after a fascinating and diverse five weeks I say farewell to Israel; without a doubt, the most culturally fascinating country I have ever visited. There cannot be many places where you have to endure stringest security checks to enter century-old churches, synagogues and mosques, or where on a casual bus ride through the countryside it becomes apparent that you're the only passenger not carrying a rifle. The religious tension is palpable, and otherwise intelligent and decent people display the most outrageous and single-minded prejudices. Israel is a small but unique country...I just wonder how long it can survive. With increasingly strained relationships with each bordering country, and their questionable policies concerning Palestinians, is peace really assured? Even from within, many Israeli Arabs are pro-Palestinian, and there are even native Jews who are opposed to existence of the country (they believe that God will create the true State of Israel when it is deserved). Whatever happens, I cannot see religious or ethnic harmony in the near future. It's a real shame; both Palestinians and Israelis are lovely people, once you get past the politics.
My future plans are as follows; I have arranged to be in Neumagen, Germany for a family party on May 1st so have been planning a reasonably strict route there. The countries I will pass through on my trip, in order, will be Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Slovakia, Austria, Slovenia, Italy (Venice) and Germany. This part of my journey will be in huge contrast to the last six months (six months!) as I shall be focusing on just the major cities and sights rather than exploring a particular nation in depth. The most attention will probably go to Ukraine due to its sprawling size and huge diversity. If I had another six months before the party I would certainly explore each country more – but I don't. If I had the adequate psyche I would ignore Bulgaria and Romania in order to spend a month in the Ukraine – but I don't. One way to lengthen my time in the Eastern Europe is to go straight to Germany from Austria, dropping Slovenia and Italy. That part, at least, I'll play by ear.
However I make it to Germany, I'm sincerely hoping that won't be the end of my trip. If I still have adequate funds (and that's a big 'if') I will keep travelling for another month or two. My ideal route would involve going by land through Germany, Denmark, Sweden (with a possible side-trip to Finland) and Norway, then by sea to the Faroe Islands and on to John O'Groats. Once I have pigged out on fry-ups, fish and chips and Cadbury's chocolate I'm sure I'll have the energy for one final mini-jaunt to Belfast. Sounds great doesn't it? I'll see how the money goes.
I'll post again from Albania,
Joe x
¹ Seriously mum, never heard of it.
² For the BBC News Story click here.
³ To see the work in progress click here; to see the finished piece click here.
Thursday 14 February 2008
Haifa & the Galilee
Israel is an incredibly diverse country. Although consisting of only 8,522 square metres (compared to England's 50,346) it is home to rugged coastline, arid desert, snow-capped mountains and lush nature reserves, as well as countless sites of massive religious, historical and political significance. Since my last post I have explored a little of what this staggering nation has to offer.
I arrived in Haifa last Sunday (3rd Feb). I consulted my Lonely Planet map and saw that Carmel Centre, where couchsurfers Ariel and Hagai lived, was a mere two kilometres from the station, so I decided to walk. Unfortunately I had actually come into an entirely different station, six kilometres away. Significantly more unfortunately, my map failed to show contours, and I continued blissfully unaware that I had over 500 metres to climb, carrying my ludicrously large rucksack. A horrible two-hour trudge later I arrived, dripping with sweat, and trod on a dead rat. Not the best introduction to the North coast.
Luckily, things got a lot better, and by the same time the following day I had fallen in love with Haifa. The city has no real historical sites, and only a few uninteresting religious ones, but it is just a beautiful place. The centrepiece of Haifa is the Shrine of the Bab and its Terraces. This attraction spreads up Mount Carmel, consisting of a large golden-domed building with nine impeccably maintained garden terraces above and below. It is the home of the Bahá'í Faith, a modern, forward-thinking and peaceful religion (imagine!) that diplomatically accepts aspects of all the great monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) as well as Hinduism, Buddhism and many more. The gardens are stunning, with trees shaped to perfection and every blade of grass lovingly trimmed to equal length. It is only viewable as part of a tour and as there was no English language one that day I had no other option than to pretend to be Russian – surprisingly, this was not dissimilar to my 'Romanian' (see Aswan & Luxor).
The following day I caught a bus to Nazareth. The main attraction is the enormous Church of the Annunciation, which is surrounded with mosaics of Mary and Jesus donated from various countries around the world. Interestingly, in the Chinese version M&J look Chinese, in the Indian version they appear Indian etc. The most exciting part of Nazareth however was the bomb scare in the high street. Traffic ground to a halt as the bomb squad moved in on an unattended bag. A growing crowd of interested locals were held back by the police, though the 'safety zone' can't have been more than a ten metre perimeter...hardly tip-top security. After a two hour delay, a woman emerged from the crowd asking for her bag back. The police skulked off and I caught a bus to Tiberius.
On Wednesday I rented a bike to circumnavigate the Sea (lake) of Galilee. I started the fifty kilometre trip from my hostel, stopping at some supposed religious spots en route; Tabgha, where Jesus fed the five thousand; Capernaum, where Jesus taught in a synagogue; and the stretch of the Jordan River where Jesus was baptised (although Bethany in Jordan has the same claim). I also went for a brief swim in the 'sea', and made a slight diversion to visit the village of Ramot and sample some of the local wine. In Tiberius that night I had the dorm room to myself, and spent it listening to a girl in the next room repeatedly scream "You've ruined my life!" I asked the receptionist to check that she was okay, and I heard him go into her room and tactfully tell her to "shut up". She didn't.
I spent the next couple of days hitchhiking around the Golan Heights. Tsfat, the country's highest town, was a particular highlight with an interesting souq, great views over the Hula Valley and buildings riddled with bullet holes from the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon conflict, while the recommended Qiryat Shemona was rather disappointing. Before the start of Shabbat, while I still had the option, I made my way back to Haifa.
On Friday night I went out with some people from the hostel. We had a few drinks and I somehow managed to lose a sock. I also walked back in the dark kicking what I thought was an acorn, but turned out to be a dried dog poo. Still, I beat my keepy-up record. On Saturday I moved in with another couchsurfer called Jon (friend of Ariel and Hagai) and, as nothing else was open, we spent the day smoking sheesha on the beach with a Brazilian couple – while they were in coats sipping coffee, I was in shorts tucking into a Solero. On Sunday I went to the Old City of Akko, which over the last thousand years has been invaded and inhabited by the French, Ottomans, British, Crusaders and Knights Templar. Bloody French. The most interesting thing was the Citadel, which was used as a political prison during the British Mandate. Some quite atrocious things occurred there, but let's not discuss that! On Monday I spent the morning hiking with Jon and his archaeologist friend to Daliyat al-Karmel – it was like a free tour as they handed me pieces of pottery to inspect and pointed out ancient Jewish burial grounds – and on Tuesday I went to Rosh HaNikra on the Lebanese border. Here, the world's steepest cable car (is that my first superlative since Japan?) takes you down to a series of caves in the chalk rock face, and you can wander part way into a wide tunnel built by the British to transport goods all the way from Europe to Egypt. Obviously it's no longer open (that Lebanon-Israel thing again) but during World War II it was used to rescue hundreds of Jews from Nazi territory. Good old Brits – no wonder everybody in Israel loves us.
On Tuesday evening I came to Tel Aviv, but I shall save that for the next post. Just a little something to whet your appetite.
Joe x
I arrived in Haifa last Sunday (3rd Feb). I consulted my Lonely Planet map and saw that Carmel Centre, where couchsurfers Ariel and Hagai lived, was a mere two kilometres from the station, so I decided to walk. Unfortunately I had actually come into an entirely different station, six kilometres away. Significantly more unfortunately, my map failed to show contours, and I continued blissfully unaware that I had over 500 metres to climb, carrying my ludicrously large rucksack. A horrible two-hour trudge later I arrived, dripping with sweat, and trod on a dead rat. Not the best introduction to the North coast.
Luckily, things got a lot better, and by the same time the following day I had fallen in love with Haifa. The city has no real historical sites, and only a few uninteresting religious ones, but it is just a beautiful place. The centrepiece of Haifa is the Shrine of the Bab and its Terraces. This attraction spreads up Mount Carmel, consisting of a large golden-domed building with nine impeccably maintained garden terraces above and below. It is the home of the Bahá'í Faith, a modern, forward-thinking and peaceful religion (imagine!) that diplomatically accepts aspects of all the great monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) as well as Hinduism, Buddhism and many more. The gardens are stunning, with trees shaped to perfection and every blade of grass lovingly trimmed to equal length. It is only viewable as part of a tour and as there was no English language one that day I had no other option than to pretend to be Russian – surprisingly, this was not dissimilar to my 'Romanian' (see Aswan & Luxor).
The following day I caught a bus to Nazareth. The main attraction is the enormous Church of the Annunciation, which is surrounded with mosaics of Mary and Jesus donated from various countries around the world. Interestingly, in the Chinese version M&J look Chinese, in the Indian version they appear Indian etc. The most exciting part of Nazareth however was the bomb scare in the high street. Traffic ground to a halt as the bomb squad moved in on an unattended bag. A growing crowd of interested locals were held back by the police, though the 'safety zone' can't have been more than a ten metre perimeter...hardly tip-top security. After a two hour delay, a woman emerged from the crowd asking for her bag back. The police skulked off and I caught a bus to Tiberius.
On Wednesday I rented a bike to circumnavigate the Sea (lake) of Galilee. I started the fifty kilometre trip from my hostel, stopping at some supposed religious spots en route; Tabgha, where Jesus fed the five thousand; Capernaum, where Jesus taught in a synagogue; and the stretch of the Jordan River where Jesus was baptised (although Bethany in Jordan has the same claim). I also went for a brief swim in the 'sea', and made a slight diversion to visit the village of Ramot and sample some of the local wine. In Tiberius that night I had the dorm room to myself, and spent it listening to a girl in the next room repeatedly scream "You've ruined my life!" I asked the receptionist to check that she was okay, and I heard him go into her room and tactfully tell her to "shut up". She didn't.
I spent the next couple of days hitchhiking around the Golan Heights. Tsfat, the country's highest town, was a particular highlight with an interesting souq, great views over the Hula Valley and buildings riddled with bullet holes from the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon conflict, while the recommended Qiryat Shemona was rather disappointing. Before the start of Shabbat, while I still had the option, I made my way back to Haifa.
On Friday night I went out with some people from the hostel. We had a few drinks and I somehow managed to lose a sock. I also walked back in the dark kicking what I thought was an acorn, but turned out to be a dried dog poo. Still, I beat my keepy-up record. On Saturday I moved in with another couchsurfer called Jon (friend of Ariel and Hagai) and, as nothing else was open, we spent the day smoking sheesha on the beach with a Brazilian couple – while they were in coats sipping coffee, I was in shorts tucking into a Solero. On Sunday I went to the Old City of Akko, which over the last thousand years has been invaded and inhabited by the French, Ottomans, British, Crusaders and Knights Templar. Bloody French. The most interesting thing was the Citadel, which was used as a political prison during the British Mandate. Some quite atrocious things occurred there, but let's not discuss that! On Monday I spent the morning hiking with Jon and his archaeologist friend to Daliyat al-Karmel – it was like a free tour as they handed me pieces of pottery to inspect and pointed out ancient Jewish burial grounds – and on Tuesday I went to Rosh HaNikra on the Lebanese border. Here, the world's steepest cable car (is that my first superlative since Japan?) takes you down to a series of caves in the chalk rock face, and you can wander part way into a wide tunnel built by the British to transport goods all the way from Europe to Egypt. Obviously it's no longer open (that Lebanon-Israel thing again) but during World War II it was used to rescue hundreds of Jews from Nazi territory. Good old Brits – no wonder everybody in Israel loves us.
On Tuesday evening I came to Tel Aviv, but I shall save that for the next post. Just a little something to whet your appetite.
Joe x
Saturday 2 February 2008
Jerusalem & the West Bank
Hi everyone,
I got stamped. After half an hour of pleading with a grumpy border official she lifted the stamp, hovered cruelly, then thumped it down onto my poor passport. So I am now stuck between Israel and the erstwhile visited Jordan and Egypt. Every land border around this threesome (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Libya) is now inaccessible, so I am forced to fly out of here. However it does mean I have unlimited time to explore the most religiously significant country on Earth.
I arrived in Jerusalem almost two weeks ago and I was surprised by how similar it felt to Jordan. Unbeknown to me at the time I had arrived on the Arabic occupied East side of the capital, and it was only after a taxi ride to the centre that it became very clear that this was no longer the Middle East...this was Europe. I met couchsurfer Kfir and caught a bus to the outskirts of Jerusalem, where he lives in an impeccably clean house with his mum and brother. I spent my inaugural evening having a long, hot shower and a home-cooked meal. Lovely.
For the first week I used the house as a base to explore the fascinating city of Jerusalem. My first stop was the famous Old City, which is split into four distinct quarters; Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Armenian. I asked several people about the latter, and nobody could explain why the Armenians (who are Christian) get their own section. The Old City, despite covering less than a square kilometre, houses the capital’s most recognisable religious sites; the Dome of the Rock (where, according to Islam, Mohammed ascended to heaven), the Western Wall (or ‘Wailing Wall’, Judaism’s holiest site) and the Church of the Holy Sephulcre (the location, according to Christianity, of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial). Christians also boast a bonus significant spot with the Church & Monastery of the Dormition where, supposedly, the Virgin Mary (a moniker that was surely outdated by this time) ‘fell into eternal sleep’. Or ‘died’, for the less pretentious among us. This site was probably my favourite in Jerusalem, and the only time I have been genuinely blown away by mosaics! Also around the Golden City I’ve been to several out-of-the-way churches, mosques and synagogues, to the beautiful Mount of Olives and to the Tower of David. But however long I travelled around, I still couldn’t get used to seeing so many people wandering the streets with rifles hanging by their sides.
During my stay Kfir has made several efforts to indoctrinate me into Jewish life. He took me to a briss (‘snip-snip’) on my third day here and to a synagogue for an hour-long Shabbat service, then fed me on fish and bread until I was fit to burst. Saturday is normally reserved for nothing – as Shabbat lasts from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday – but I decided to join a couple of Germans I met in a bar on a trip to the Gazan border. As far as I was aware this was an aid mission, as the Israelis had closed the border to supplies (anyone watch the news?), so I bought a decent quantity of dried food and water and expected simply to watch it cross into Gaza before toddling back to Jerusalem. To my surprise it was a planned demonstration against the blockade (most people didn’t even bring food) that lasted three hours. In retrospect it is quite obvious – if it was just about the food, why take people as well? – but for some reason it didn’t occur to me. In the end, the protest was peaceful (aside from a short-lived scuffle between some idiot protestors and some armed soldiers) and I managed to watch without actively taking part. As much as I’m convinced the blockade is unjust I simply didn’t feel well informed enough to join in with the protest...though I spoke to several other protesters who were unsure exactly had outraged them enough to make unimaginative banners and shout unimaginative chants. When I returned to the house, Kfir and his brother were very disappointed that I had gone to the border. They (along with every other Israeli I have talked to) seem convinced that all Palestinians deserve any humanitarian crises coming their way. Despite this, they did everything they could to dissuade me from heading into West Bank, should I witness something to make me side with the enemy.
Ignoring them, the next day I walked the eight kilometres to Bethlehem. At the border (an unsightly twenty-five foot grey wall) I flashed my passport and was waved straight through – I didn’t even break stride. By contrast the trip back into Israel involved tight security and a thorough search. Once into ‘Palestinian Territory’ (if you can call it that) I walked aside the graffiti-covered wall. The daubings are mostly political, with various comparisons to Berlin or the South African Apartheid, but my particular favourite tag read “Is this piece of s**t still here?” Bethlehem itself was a disappointment – the Church of the Nativity is thoroughly unimpressive (and, sadly, is decorated with tacky Christmas lights) and aside from some souvenir stalls, there are few hints that anything remotely significant occurred here. The following day I ventured deeper into the Occupied Territories to Hebron. This had a very interesting mosque split unequally between Muslims and Jews (with seperate entrances and security measures) and an Arab market that has a horizontal metal fence erected above to catch the debris thrown by Jewish settlers. For the next few days I was confined to the house, as a mild snowstorm bought the city to a complete standstill (when I did decide to walk into town I discovered everything was closed), but on Friday I went to Ramallah. Again, this was fairly uneventful, and most places were still closed – the remaining half-inch of snow on the pavements was obviously immutable. The West Bank is undoubtedly a fascinating contrast to Israel, but if you’ve come from Arabic countries it has little new to offer. The border is the most interesting factor of heading into Palestine, plus the kick you get from starting a day in Europe, spending it in the Middle-East and being back in Europe in time for dinner.
I had my second Shabbat meal last night and today mainly consists of eating a lot, watching films and listening to a friend of the family, who is a Hared (ultraorthodox Jew), talk about how we can all learn lessons from birds. Kfir accidentally mentioned Jesus at the breakfast table and she started yelling at him in Hebrew. She then translated to me; “don’t mention his name at the Shabbat table!” What if you use it in a purely historical context?
I’m off to Haifa tomorrow, then we’ll see what happens from there.
Take care,
Joe x
I got stamped. After half an hour of pleading with a grumpy border official she lifted the stamp, hovered cruelly, then thumped it down onto my poor passport. So I am now stuck between Israel and the erstwhile visited Jordan and Egypt. Every land border around this threesome (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Libya) is now inaccessible, so I am forced to fly out of here. However it does mean I have unlimited time to explore the most religiously significant country on Earth.
I arrived in Jerusalem almost two weeks ago and I was surprised by how similar it felt to Jordan. Unbeknown to me at the time I had arrived on the Arabic occupied East side of the capital, and it was only after a taxi ride to the centre that it became very clear that this was no longer the Middle East...this was Europe. I met couchsurfer Kfir and caught a bus to the outskirts of Jerusalem, where he lives in an impeccably clean house with his mum and brother. I spent my inaugural evening having a long, hot shower and a home-cooked meal. Lovely.
For the first week I used the house as a base to explore the fascinating city of Jerusalem. My first stop was the famous Old City, which is split into four distinct quarters; Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Armenian. I asked several people about the latter, and nobody could explain why the Armenians (who are Christian) get their own section. The Old City, despite covering less than a square kilometre, houses the capital’s most recognisable religious sites; the Dome of the Rock (where, according to Islam, Mohammed ascended to heaven), the Western Wall (or ‘Wailing Wall’, Judaism’s holiest site) and the Church of the Holy Sephulcre (the location, according to Christianity, of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial). Christians also boast a bonus significant spot with the Church & Monastery of the Dormition where, supposedly, the Virgin Mary (a moniker that was surely outdated by this time) ‘fell into eternal sleep’. Or ‘died’, for the less pretentious among us. This site was probably my favourite in Jerusalem, and the only time I have been genuinely blown away by mosaics! Also around the Golden City I’ve been to several out-of-the-way churches, mosques and synagogues, to the beautiful Mount of Olives and to the Tower of David. But however long I travelled around, I still couldn’t get used to seeing so many people wandering the streets with rifles hanging by their sides.
During my stay Kfir has made several efforts to indoctrinate me into Jewish life. He took me to a briss (‘snip-snip’) on my third day here and to a synagogue for an hour-long Shabbat service, then fed me on fish and bread until I was fit to burst. Saturday is normally reserved for nothing – as Shabbat lasts from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday – but I decided to join a couple of Germans I met in a bar on a trip to the Gazan border. As far as I was aware this was an aid mission, as the Israelis had closed the border to supplies (anyone watch the news?), so I bought a decent quantity of dried food and water and expected simply to watch it cross into Gaza before toddling back to Jerusalem. To my surprise it was a planned demonstration against the blockade (most people didn’t even bring food) that lasted three hours. In retrospect it is quite obvious – if it was just about the food, why take people as well? – but for some reason it didn’t occur to me. In the end, the protest was peaceful (aside from a short-lived scuffle between some idiot protestors and some armed soldiers) and I managed to watch without actively taking part. As much as I’m convinced the blockade is unjust I simply didn’t feel well informed enough to join in with the protest...though I spoke to several other protesters who were unsure exactly had outraged them enough to make unimaginative banners and shout unimaginative chants. When I returned to the house, Kfir and his brother were very disappointed that I had gone to the border. They (along with every other Israeli I have talked to) seem convinced that all Palestinians deserve any humanitarian crises coming their way. Despite this, they did everything they could to dissuade me from heading into West Bank, should I witness something to make me side with the enemy.
Ignoring them, the next day I walked the eight kilometres to Bethlehem. At the border (an unsightly twenty-five foot grey wall) I flashed my passport and was waved straight through – I didn’t even break stride. By contrast the trip back into Israel involved tight security and a thorough search. Once into ‘Palestinian Territory’ (if you can call it that) I walked aside the graffiti-covered wall. The daubings are mostly political, with various comparisons to Berlin or the South African Apartheid, but my particular favourite tag read “Is this piece of s**t still here?” Bethlehem itself was a disappointment – the Church of the Nativity is thoroughly unimpressive (and, sadly, is decorated with tacky Christmas lights) and aside from some souvenir stalls, there are few hints that anything remotely significant occurred here. The following day I ventured deeper into the Occupied Territories to Hebron. This had a very interesting mosque split unequally between Muslims and Jews (with seperate entrances and security measures) and an Arab market that has a horizontal metal fence erected above to catch the debris thrown by Jewish settlers. For the next few days I was confined to the house, as a mild snowstorm bought the city to a complete standstill (when I did decide to walk into town I discovered everything was closed), but on Friday I went to Ramallah. Again, this was fairly uneventful, and most places were still closed – the remaining half-inch of snow on the pavements was obviously immutable. The West Bank is undoubtedly a fascinating contrast to Israel, but if you’ve come from Arabic countries it has little new to offer. The border is the most interesting factor of heading into Palestine, plus the kick you get from starting a day in Europe, spending it in the Middle-East and being back in Europe in time for dinner.
I had my second Shabbat meal last night and today mainly consists of eating a lot, watching films and listening to a friend of the family, who is a Hared (ultraorthodox Jew), talk about how we can all learn lessons from birds. Kfir accidentally mentioned Jesus at the breakfast table and she started yelling at him in Hebrew. She then translated to me; “don’t mention his name at the Shabbat table!” What if you use it in a purely historical context?
I’m off to Haifa tomorrow, then we’ll see what happens from there.
Take care,
Joe x
Sunday 20 January 2008
Jordan
Salaam,
After my last post I spent a day in Dahab, the independent traveller's version of Sharm el-Sheikh, then the next morning I caught a bus to Nuweiba. The ferry was supposed to leave at 12pm and take two hours...it left at 5pm and took six. On top of this I was travelling with two South African girls who had serious passport complications as none of the officials could fathom where they came from ("there's a South Africa?"), so we finally checked into a hotel in Aqaba at 1am.
I spent the next morning familiarising myself with Jordan and immediately formed two strong impressions; the first, that the people are less prone to ripping off tourists; the second, that things you would expect to be expensive are cheap, and things you expect to be cheap are expensive. A good example of this is that a felafel costs 250 fils while a trip to a public toilet costs 500. It's the first time I've paid less to purchase food than to get rid of it. In the afternoon I caught a minibus to the edge of Wadi Rum then hitched to Rum village, where I met a local Bedouin and negotiated a night sleeping in the desert. It was an amazing evening, though after watching the sunset it became very cold very quickly. I spent the night fully dressed in my sleeping bag with two extra blankets, but still hardly slept. So I enjoyed a memorable night simply staring up into the star-filled sky.
The next day in Wadi Musa I realised that I had left the keys to my baggage in the desert, and had to borrow some pliers to cut through the padlocks. I spent the rest of the day and the next visiting the ancient ruins of Petra (as seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). The complex is huge; there is a path running between the major sites but you can spend hours hiking away from the tourists to see the hard-to-reach Nabataean remains. The Treasury is undoubtedly the highlight – forty metres high, beautifully decorated and glowing red in the sunlight – but the hilltop monastery is a close second. On Thursday I caught a minibus to Amman and in the evening I met up with Shirley (the New Zealander from the felucca) for dinner.
Friday was one of the strangest days of my trip. I met a Polish guy called Pete and we decided together to go to Wadi Majib, the 'Grand Canyon of Jordan'. This involved a minibus to a nearby village and a further two kilometre walk. When the canyon finally came into view it was spectacular. We began our long walk down into the valley, not really caring that it was thirty kilometres to the next town and that we only had a litre of water between us. Fortunately, I suppose, after a couple more kilometres a car stopped and offered to take us across the valley. It was only after we'd got in that we realised the driver was absolutely trolleyed. He and his uncle were on their way to a wedding in Karak and had started the party early. At one stage the driver had a beer in one hand, his mobile in the other and was negotiating the cliffside bends with his knees. In total, he managed to knock back three cans of Amstel during our ten minute trip. We decided to jump out at the first available spot (it was another twelve beers to Karak) and hitched to nearby Wadi bin Hammad. This is a stunning tropical retreat in the midst of the desert, complete with a river, palm trees and a high waterfall and, most impressively, untouched by tourists (the authors of Lonely Planet kept this to themselves). After a couple of hours we hitched back up the valley with a family in a pick-up truck. We stopped briefly so the father could change places with his son, who would continue along the steep, winding, barrierless roads while he played with his daughters. It's worth noting that the son was eight years old.
The kid drove us expertly to the main road, where we had to hitch again. It was now dark and, after the pisshead and the pre-pubescent, we didn't know what to expect. Surprisingly, the first to stop was a lorry loaded with empty crates; surprising as there were already four people filling the two front seats. Two of them graciously climbed onto the roof so Pete and I squeezed into the front. We spent the next hour singing along to Arabic hiphop until we reached a farm. It transpired that we had to work for our lift, so we spent a couple of hours loading two thousand chickens onto the back of the truck. We then delivered the poultry to a couple of shops before finally arriving in Karak. From the sleepy town, two surprised tourists watched a truck loaded with chickens hurtle around the corner, screech to a stop in the street and it's seven (!) passengers tumble out of the front seats. They initially found it amusing, until they realised the two blokes that stunk of bird were checking into their hotel*. We ended the day with an ostrich dinner. It tasted like chicken, though that may have been the psychological scarring.
The following morning we went to Karak castle then hitched our way along the Dead Sea Highway. The views across the sea to Israel were beautiful, and the Jordanian coast was white with salt deposits. In the end we took five lifts to get to a place with hot springs where we could swim for free. 'Swimming' isn't really an accurate term – you sort of flop onto the water and just lie there. The feeling is very odd and quite indescribable (sorry about that). I didn't have a newspaper to take the obligatory photo, but I managed to get a shot of me on my back perusing my Jordan guide.
Last night we came back to Amman and today I've been seeing the sights – namely the citadel and the Roman amphitheatre. Tomorrow morning I am catching a bus to the Israeli border where my fate is no longer in my hands. If I get an entrance stamp into the West Bank then that immediately bars me from various countries, including Syria (my planned route into Europe). In this case I will stay a while in Israel & the Palestinian Territories, perhaps work on kibbutz, and catch the cheapest flight out. However, it is theoretically possible to avoid the evidence if you find a border official willing to stamp a seperate piece of paper. This would result in my time in Israel being limited, but allowing me to travel through the Middle East into Europe flight-free. Whatever happens I'll be very happy to have a break from the unbelievably loud 5am call to prayer.
Salaam,
Joe x
* I was going to have a pun about 'smelling fowl', then realised it's rubbish.
After my last post I spent a day in Dahab, the independent traveller's version of Sharm el-Sheikh, then the next morning I caught a bus to Nuweiba. The ferry was supposed to leave at 12pm and take two hours...it left at 5pm and took six. On top of this I was travelling with two South African girls who had serious passport complications as none of the officials could fathom where they came from ("there's a South Africa?"), so we finally checked into a hotel in Aqaba at 1am.
I spent the next morning familiarising myself with Jordan and immediately formed two strong impressions; the first, that the people are less prone to ripping off tourists; the second, that things you would expect to be expensive are cheap, and things you expect to be cheap are expensive. A good example of this is that a felafel costs 250 fils while a trip to a public toilet costs 500. It's the first time I've paid less to purchase food than to get rid of it. In the afternoon I caught a minibus to the edge of Wadi Rum then hitched to Rum village, where I met a local Bedouin and negotiated a night sleeping in the desert. It was an amazing evening, though after watching the sunset it became very cold very quickly. I spent the night fully dressed in my sleeping bag with two extra blankets, but still hardly slept. So I enjoyed a memorable night simply staring up into the star-filled sky.
The next day in Wadi Musa I realised that I had left the keys to my baggage in the desert, and had to borrow some pliers to cut through the padlocks. I spent the rest of the day and the next visiting the ancient ruins of Petra (as seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). The complex is huge; there is a path running between the major sites but you can spend hours hiking away from the tourists to see the hard-to-reach Nabataean remains. The Treasury is undoubtedly the highlight – forty metres high, beautifully decorated and glowing red in the sunlight – but the hilltop monastery is a close second. On Thursday I caught a minibus to Amman and in the evening I met up with Shirley (the New Zealander from the felucca) for dinner.
Friday was one of the strangest days of my trip. I met a Polish guy called Pete and we decided together to go to Wadi Majib, the 'Grand Canyon of Jordan'. This involved a minibus to a nearby village and a further two kilometre walk. When the canyon finally came into view it was spectacular. We began our long walk down into the valley, not really caring that it was thirty kilometres to the next town and that we only had a litre of water between us. Fortunately, I suppose, after a couple more kilometres a car stopped and offered to take us across the valley. It was only after we'd got in that we realised the driver was absolutely trolleyed. He and his uncle were on their way to a wedding in Karak and had started the party early. At one stage the driver had a beer in one hand, his mobile in the other and was negotiating the cliffside bends with his knees. In total, he managed to knock back three cans of Amstel during our ten minute trip. We decided to jump out at the first available spot (it was another twelve beers to Karak) and hitched to nearby Wadi bin Hammad. This is a stunning tropical retreat in the midst of the desert, complete with a river, palm trees and a high waterfall and, most impressively, untouched by tourists (the authors of Lonely Planet kept this to themselves). After a couple of hours we hitched back up the valley with a family in a pick-up truck. We stopped briefly so the father could change places with his son, who would continue along the steep, winding, barrierless roads while he played with his daughters. It's worth noting that the son was eight years old.
The kid drove us expertly to the main road, where we had to hitch again. It was now dark and, after the pisshead and the pre-pubescent, we didn't know what to expect. Surprisingly, the first to stop was a lorry loaded with empty crates; surprising as there were already four people filling the two front seats. Two of them graciously climbed onto the roof so Pete and I squeezed into the front. We spent the next hour singing along to Arabic hiphop until we reached a farm. It transpired that we had to work for our lift, so we spent a couple of hours loading two thousand chickens onto the back of the truck. We then delivered the poultry to a couple of shops before finally arriving in Karak. From the sleepy town, two surprised tourists watched a truck loaded with chickens hurtle around the corner, screech to a stop in the street and it's seven (!) passengers tumble out of the front seats. They initially found it amusing, until they realised the two blokes that stunk of bird were checking into their hotel*. We ended the day with an ostrich dinner. It tasted like chicken, though that may have been the psychological scarring.
The following morning we went to Karak castle then hitched our way along the Dead Sea Highway. The views across the sea to Israel were beautiful, and the Jordanian coast was white with salt deposits. In the end we took five lifts to get to a place with hot springs where we could swim for free. 'Swimming' isn't really an accurate term – you sort of flop onto the water and just lie there. The feeling is very odd and quite indescribable (sorry about that). I didn't have a newspaper to take the obligatory photo, but I managed to get a shot of me on my back perusing my Jordan guide.
Last night we came back to Amman and today I've been seeing the sights – namely the citadel and the Roman amphitheatre. Tomorrow morning I am catching a bus to the Israeli border where my fate is no longer in my hands. If I get an entrance stamp into the West Bank then that immediately bars me from various countries, including Syria (my planned route into Europe). In this case I will stay a while in Israel & the Palestinian Territories, perhaps work on kibbutz, and catch the cheapest flight out. However, it is theoretically possible to avoid the evidence if you find a border official willing to stamp a seperate piece of paper. This would result in my time in Israel being limited, but allowing me to travel through the Middle East into Europe flight-free. Whatever happens I'll be very happy to have a break from the unbelievably loud 5am call to prayer.
Salaam,
Joe x
* I was going to have a pun about 'smelling fowl', then realised it's rubbish.
Friday 11 January 2008
Aswan & Luxor
Afternoon all,
My last two weeks have been exhaustingly cultural. After a low-key New Year's celebration in Cairo, consisting of weak lager and strong sheesha, and a second visit to the Egyptian Museum, I caught a train to Aswan in Upper Egypt...also known as Southern Egypt. I spent two days around here visiting ancient ruins, ancient temples and ancient locals – I spent a few hours with the elder of a Nubian village on Elephantine Island – and another day on an excursion to Abu Simbel. The 3am start wasn't appreciated, but the temples more than made up for it. The Great Temple of Ramses II is carved into the mountain overlooking Lake Nasser – the world’s largest artificial lake at 5250km² – and has four colossal statues at its entrance. The innermost chamber has carvings of four gods on their thrones and the room is aligned in such a way that on the 22nd February and 22nd October every year the rising sun illuminates them. Historians are stumped as to how such intricate calculations could possibly have been made in the 13th Century BC. The slightly smaller Temple of Hathor contains startlingly accurate predictions about the future of Egypt. While most temples have artwork depicting men offering food and wine to the gods, this temple shows men offering mini-sphinxes and pyramids on sticks; an eerie premonition of the crap souvenirs to come. On the way back to Aswan we also stopped at the magnificent temple complex on Philae Island, dedicated to the god Isis. He is the most influential of the Egyptian gods and was once worshipped as far afield as Kent!
On Saturday I hopped on a felucca cruise of the Nile. I was with a lovely New Zealand woman and seven very nice but very American Americans! They had an unusual trait of proclaiming jokes or scenarios as "hilarious" without actually cracking a smile. The captain of the boat was called Nemo, though he was completely nonplussed when I suggested he read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. During the days on the felucca there was little to do besides talk, sunbathe or play cards, but in the evenings we moored up, started a fire on the bank and cooked camel meat for dinner. All in all it was a very relaxing couple of days and a welcome hiatus from museums, temples and touts. On Monday we swapped river for road and headed for Luxor via the impressive temples of Kom Ombo and Edfu. It transpired that we were all staying in hotels on the same strip so we went sightseeing as a group. We saw the Mummification Museum, the Colossi of Memnon, Luxor Temple, Deir al-Bahri, Karnak and the Valley of the Kings. Although the latter is in an impressive canyon setting, and contains some hugely important sites (such as the tomb of Tutankhamun), it had significantly less impact than Abu Simbel had. Karnak was superb, as was the Temple of Hatshepsut, and in both locations I was able to wander into the desert. At Hatshepsut this meant I got to see some excavation sites, and at Karnak I was able to tip my way to the top of a crane overlooking the temple complex.
My journey from Luxor to Sharm wasn't as easy to organise as I had expected. The ticket office suggested by my Lonely Planet didn't exist, and while I was looking for it a local approached me and asked where I was from. Now this is a common question from touts to establish how much they can rip you off, and the reply 'British' immediately results in a price rise, so on a whim I decided to go with 'Romanian'. However it transpired that this man wasn't trying to sell me anything, but wanted to show me where to go. I needed to get a ticket so I let him walk me twenty minutes to the bus station, during which time I had to keep up the pretext of being Romanian. Incidentally, this involved a vaguely Russian accent and some patronisingly broken English. When we finally got to the station the man decided to come in with me, so I had no choice but to continue my conceit. This meant I didn't get the information I needed to buy a ticket (I had established that I didn't understand words like "give", "me" or "tip" so could hardly enquire about departure and arrival destinations) and had to return the following day. The ticket office man talked to me very slowly and deliberately; whether this was because he was still unsure how good my English was, or because he realised that I had changed nationality and thought I was slightly special, I never found out.
I left Luxor by bus on Wednesday evening and fifteen uncomfortable hours later I arrived in Sharm, where I met up with couchsurfer Jay again. We went for a short dive yesterday afternoon and had another half-day on the boat today. I gained the 'deep dive' qualification that allows me to go down to thirty metres, so hopefully I can do some wreck diving in the near future. I am planning to be in Jordan by tomorrow night, but it relies on the bus running to schedule (giving me enough time to buy a ferry ticket and board). Maybe I'll be in Jordan on Sunday.
Happy birthday mum,
Joe x
NB. After two weeks in this country, I finally saw my first functioning traffic light in Luxor. I also saw a pedestrian crossing on which the little green man walks like an Egyptian!
My last two weeks have been exhaustingly cultural. After a low-key New Year's celebration in Cairo, consisting of weak lager and strong sheesha, and a second visit to the Egyptian Museum, I caught a train to Aswan in Upper Egypt...also known as Southern Egypt. I spent two days around here visiting ancient ruins, ancient temples and ancient locals – I spent a few hours with the elder of a Nubian village on Elephantine Island – and another day on an excursion to Abu Simbel. The 3am start wasn't appreciated, but the temples more than made up for it. The Great Temple of Ramses II is carved into the mountain overlooking Lake Nasser – the world’s largest artificial lake at 5250km² – and has four colossal statues at its entrance. The innermost chamber has carvings of four gods on their thrones and the room is aligned in such a way that on the 22nd February and 22nd October every year the rising sun illuminates them. Historians are stumped as to how such intricate calculations could possibly have been made in the 13th Century BC. The slightly smaller Temple of Hathor contains startlingly accurate predictions about the future of Egypt. While most temples have artwork depicting men offering food and wine to the gods, this temple shows men offering mini-sphinxes and pyramids on sticks; an eerie premonition of the crap souvenirs to come. On the way back to Aswan we also stopped at the magnificent temple complex on Philae Island, dedicated to the god Isis. He is the most influential of the Egyptian gods and was once worshipped as far afield as Kent!
On Saturday I hopped on a felucca cruise of the Nile. I was with a lovely New Zealand woman and seven very nice but very American Americans! They had an unusual trait of proclaiming jokes or scenarios as "hilarious" without actually cracking a smile. The captain of the boat was called Nemo, though he was completely nonplussed when I suggested he read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. During the days on the felucca there was little to do besides talk, sunbathe or play cards, but in the evenings we moored up, started a fire on the bank and cooked camel meat for dinner. All in all it was a very relaxing couple of days and a welcome hiatus from museums, temples and touts. On Monday we swapped river for road and headed for Luxor via the impressive temples of Kom Ombo and Edfu. It transpired that we were all staying in hotels on the same strip so we went sightseeing as a group. We saw the Mummification Museum, the Colossi of Memnon, Luxor Temple, Deir al-Bahri, Karnak and the Valley of the Kings. Although the latter is in an impressive canyon setting, and contains some hugely important sites (such as the tomb of Tutankhamun), it had significantly less impact than Abu Simbel had. Karnak was superb, as was the Temple of Hatshepsut, and in both locations I was able to wander into the desert. At Hatshepsut this meant I got to see some excavation sites, and at Karnak I was able to tip my way to the top of a crane overlooking the temple complex.
My journey from Luxor to Sharm wasn't as easy to organise as I had expected. The ticket office suggested by my Lonely Planet didn't exist, and while I was looking for it a local approached me and asked where I was from. Now this is a common question from touts to establish how much they can rip you off, and the reply 'British' immediately results in a price rise, so on a whim I decided to go with 'Romanian'. However it transpired that this man wasn't trying to sell me anything, but wanted to show me where to go. I needed to get a ticket so I let him walk me twenty minutes to the bus station, during which time I had to keep up the pretext of being Romanian. Incidentally, this involved a vaguely Russian accent and some patronisingly broken English. When we finally got to the station the man decided to come in with me, so I had no choice but to continue my conceit. This meant I didn't get the information I needed to buy a ticket (I had established that I didn't understand words like "give", "me" or "tip" so could hardly enquire about departure and arrival destinations) and had to return the following day. The ticket office man talked to me very slowly and deliberately; whether this was because he was still unsure how good my English was, or because he realised that I had changed nationality and thought I was slightly special, I never found out.
I left Luxor by bus on Wednesday evening and fifteen uncomfortable hours later I arrived in Sharm, where I met up with couchsurfer Jay again. We went for a short dive yesterday afternoon and had another half-day on the boat today. I gained the 'deep dive' qualification that allows me to go down to thirty metres, so hopefully I can do some wreck diving in the near future. I am planning to be in Jordan by tomorrow night, but it relies on the bus running to schedule (giving me enough time to buy a ferry ticket and board). Maybe I'll be in Jordan on Sunday.
Happy birthday mum,
Joe x
NB. After two weeks in this country, I finally saw my first functioning traffic light in Luxor. I also saw a pedestrian crossing on which the little green man walks like an Egyptian!
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