farewells and fair girls

I'm sitting in Amman airport waiting for my plane and also my last meal of hommus and pita bread in the middle east. Looks like I made it.

We went to a Jordanian court the other day to try and convict the gypsy that sent us all into shock. I've never really given much thought or care to justice, but this visit was a bit of an eye opener to see what happens when convenience is more important than justice. Most everyone just wanted to forget it ever happened and no one seemed to care that this guy was dangerous and could hurt more people. They just wanted it to be over and they didn't really care how it came to be over. Don't mistake me for a saint fighting for justice. Although I agreed with our friends to report to the police and admired them for really fighting for justice, I couldn't quite find the energy for the cause myself. It was inconvenient. We had planned a road trip and were now unsure when, if at all, we'd get going. I don't know why my desire to send this guy to jail wasn't as incessant as my 2 friends, but my blood just wasn't reaching the boiling point for justice. I kind of wish I cared more, so I could feel like a better person, but I don't see any gain to try and pull something out from within that may not even be down there. My guess is that if it was down there (whatever it is) it would probably make it's way to the top itself without the need for much help.

Either way it sure makes you feel glad to live in a country where safety and justice is taken seriously and dealt with proficiently. And as it turns out Khaled was arrested and as far as I know at the moment is in jail, at least for a little while...

Putting that behind us, Del, Shaun, Meike, Sophia and myself finally hit the road heading north! It was such a nice time. Driving through dusty towns and voluptuous mountains. Stopping for shisha and sugar with tea. Eating falafel and hommus for breakfast lunch and dinner. We shared songs and stories, slept and laughed, got frustrated and excited. All the things on a normal road trip but with new friends and new lands to explore. Nice way, I do think, to finish a trip that I wasn't too sure I wanted to continue at more than a few stages.

This morning we had breakfast then said our goodbyes. It had only been about 4 days together but it felt like weeks. It's so nice to be sad to say goodbye to someone. Sadness is an odd feeling. I certainly wouldn't say it's on the top of my list of desirable feelings, and I couldn't say that I always let myself FEEL sadness, but I think it's good when I do. When I recognize sadness and there is someone who reciprocates my sadness for the same thing, it's comforting. I like it. I think i'd like to allow myself to be sad more often, because sadness is temporary. I find if I allow myself to be sad then what follows is this strange, happy, warm feeling. Like a nostalgia. Or like when a hot cup of your-choice-of-drink is in your hands and it doesn't warm you right away, but you know it will really soon. Just writing this now I realize that I am a little sad and perhaps I need to stop talking about it and actually grieve for myself that my travels are coming to an end, and for the bad decisions I made, and the good people I met, and the places I found, and all the little things in between that I'll remember and some, of course, forget. I hope then an excitement for home and the things that await me there will increase and I can move forward with a lightness in my heart.

Before I made my way to the airport my final stop was to a Turkish bath. This involved being scrubbed and soaped and dried and massaged by large arab men. It was pretty funny..

It was just pretty funny. That's all.

There's not much more to write other than I hope I meet a cute stewardess on my flight home so we can talk and drink tea in the staff section like I did with the cute girl on my way from Bangkok to Dubai. That would be a nice way to finish things. I like girls. They make me smile.

Whiskey and gypsies don't mix.

Disclaimer:

A friendly Jordanian informed me that the people described in this story were gypsies not bedouin. Gypsies pretending to be bedouin. I don't want to tarnish bedouin reputation, however I have kept the word bedouin because that's who we believed we were dealing with throughout. Also, this was supposed to be posted a couple of days ago.

I arrived in Jordan alone. There was no one to be seen going into Jordan other than me. Another lone traveller was heading into Israel from where I had just left. It was sunny and Jordan looked amazing and inviting.

The Jordanian police asked me where I was heading and I said Petra. They told me the standard price for a taxi was 55 dinars. (Dinars suck. They're expensive. 10 aus dollars gets only like 6 dinars) This surprised me as I was told by a few travelers who had gone and done what I was about to do that you could get a taxi for 35 dinars. When I got to the taxi, the driver told me the standard fee was 55 but I proceeded to haggle him down to 35. Were the police in on the scam as well? Or did they actually believe it was 55? Either way I entered a little suspicious, despite the friendliness and jokiness of the Jordanians (though I guess if you WERE going to try and trick someone, a genuine smile and a laugh is a pretty conniving yet effective way to succeed).

I arrived at my hostel with a warm welcome from a lovely lady who smiled and laughed more than any arabic woman i've seen thus far. From hostel reviews I was expecting to be greeted by a creepy almost sinister man. Needless to say I was glad to find this wasn't the case. I wandered the streets of the small village of wadi musa and, with my new in-the-game paradigm, entered a nice 'sweet' shop intending to buy. I had a great interaction with the owner and those turkish sweets or whatever they are were SO fresh and delicious.

The hostel put on dinner and it was packed with travelers. I met some people and made plans to join them on their treks the following day. Petra is this huge ancient city with huge temples and tombs and who knows what else all carved out of the stone in the mountain. It's actually really impressive. It goes for miles (literally) and some people spend a whole week there. I couldn't do a week, but it gives you an idea of how big the area is.

My new friends invited me to camp in a cave in a mountain under starry skies beside crackling fires. I had planned to do something similar to this as a day trip with an organized bedouin (kind of like the old inhabitants of the land) camp, but the thought of being with westerners and doing it a little less conventionally appealed to me after my tour experiences so far. I had no camping gear but I figured I could just sleep by the fire or just not sleep at all. (It's freezing up here, which I hadn't expected despite the weather mans warning. Somehow when he said it would be one degree at night and 8 in the day I just thought he must have meant "Yeh, it's cold, but it's sunny so you'll be fine!" Wrong. It's freezing.)

Not sleeping at all is what ended up happening. Though for different reasons than I had expected. I'll give you a quickish summary:

We were camping in an area which a lot of people warned us not to because it was 'dangerous out there.' WHAT was dangerous no one could say and the bedouins - who anyone who has traveled through the middle east speaks of so highly - told us not to listen to them or worry and so long as we were with them we'd be fine.

Despite the not-so-good feeling in my stomach, which I found out later a few from our group had, we headed up towards our 'campsite' as the sun set on the rosy hue of the towering mountains. Our bedouin guide, Khaled, seemed friendly, but our light hearted jokes of feeling he was a little like gollum were said with some concern. Unfortunately it was to be a tale too familiar with that of gollum and the hobbits.

We had planned to just stay by ourselves, (2 aussie guys 2 American guys and 2 german girls) but Khaled insisted on eating with us and inviting his 2 cousins, and we relented as he HAD helped us a good deal. All seemed friendly enough and despite a nice dinner there was a sense of annoyance and irritation that our vision for the peaceful, story telling, song sharing night under the stars was getting spoiled.

We had brought some whiskey to warm us into the night and Khaled again was a little too keen to get involved. Without us fully realizing what was happening, he somehow managed to sneak himself more than his fair share and was sufficiently drunk before any of us had had a chance to stop him. Not good.

Never give a gypsy whiskey.

We had a mandolin and once we had exhausted it's pleasantries, put it away. Khaled thought differently and grabbed it out himself despite our protests that we had had enough. An argument followed and tensions began to rise, then it got ugly. I'm not going to go into specifics here but essentially it escalated to a level where he threatened us with obscenities, burning logs and stones bigger than heads. His cousins tried to stop him and he fought even them. He finally screamed and told us to leave his land! We would have left in a flash, but an hour trek down steep canyons with huge bags in the blackness of midnight didn't really seem like a great option.

After hours of trying not to let it escalate further than it already had, he somehow left with his cousins (who were really nice but were obviously just as afraid of him as we were) at about 3am. Pretty hard to sleep after almost being hit with a fiery log. So we stayed awake warmed by the dying embers until first light when we could make our way out to a place of safety and sleep.

Once it got light we trekked home with heavy backpacks on empty desert highways 10kms from the hostel, hoping for a ride but with no guarantee any would come. It's amazing how much you can endure when you really need to. After a combination of rides we got to a hostel exhausted physically and emotionally yet with a sense of enormous relief that one can only know after being in extreme stress and danger with an uncertainty of when it is going to end.

I'm amazed at just how quickly such strong bonds can be created with people who less than 24 hours ago were complete strangers. This psychotic gypsy had forced us to rely on each other, plot together and comfort each other. The connection we formed was almost instant but it feels as though we have known each other for years and as though we will for years to come. Most likely we won't stay friends forever but the memory and emotion attached to those 24 hours I imagine will last, if not forever, for a long time. Holding and comforting a distraught German girl you barely know is not something that happens each day. But in situations such as these trust needs to be formed without analyzing if you can really trust someone or not, and something is really beautiful about that. Speaking genuine words of admiration and respect to a fellow aussie doesn't often happen after you've only known him for 24 hours, but there's something that feels quite lasting and real about it.

It's hard to know what I think of the whole experience so soon after it happened. Would I wish to do it again? No. Do I regret it? No. But I think you see a lot in yourself that you would never see in a comfortable bed, in a place you know you are safe. Your true colours really show when danger and pressure is upon you. Strengths and beliefs set themselves even firmer just as weaknesses and fears are exposed and show where you are vulnerable. Your sense of safety when in danger gives confidence and a desire for more. Your fear and lack of a sense of safety becomes exposed and pushes you to look for ways that they can be filled with faith and security.

So if the end result is that I'm forced look for answers to questions I never knew existed, and have experienced strong bonds in a way that is different to any other I have had before, then I would say ultimately it will be life giving experience.

Do I mean that I'm going to look for dangerous situations to put myself in? Not unless I lose my mind. But... Has it made me want to cower in a corner and never put myself in a dangerous situation again? No. Not at all. If anything it's given me confidence that if I find myself in danger again, I will respond and react to survive as is so inherent in the human make up. I'll learn things about myself that only danger and intensely stressful situations can show me.

An american guy has a car with spare seats and is heading up the kings highway, which is supposed to be an amazing drive through mountains and seas, and is in the direction I happen to be heading. I'm doing this tomorrow with a few of my new friends from our night of terror in the gypsy caves. I feel so excited and full of anticipation to do a road trip through Jordan with people that I feel so comfortable and close with that 48 hours ago I hadn't even met.
Do I thank the crazed gypsy? I don't think so. But I do feel thankful for my new friends and the new things I have discovered in myself, and the discoveries that are likely to evolve over the coming days and weeks.

The road home looks like a bright one to these eyes

Israeli Idol and internal laughter

I'm sitting in my thermals in the hostel common room with some B grade Israeli Idol singing on the TV as I type into my phone. It's quite cold. I'm not in the most inspiring or original or historical city. But I'm happy. Content may be a better word.  I've had a nice couple of days wandering through Tel Aviv, drinking with locals, eating Shakshuka for breakfast, discovering the city of Nazareth and staying in a hostel with a Yank and a Pom.

It's not like I've been buzzing at every corner I walk. Or like I'm discovering new things about the world and myself everywhere I go. It's been much more like ordinary  life. It's taken me a while to get to this stage, but I feel like I'm in a good state of mind where each day is just another day, I just happen to be in a different city and culture. 
I've felt pressure on this trip from myself for every day to change me. For every day to amaze me and inspire me. But like many before me have realised when they are abroad...

I'm still me. 
It's kind of disappointing, but also settling to find this. 
I mean I've always known it, but I guess I just know it a little more now. 
I still get hungry. Tired. I'm still stingy. I get grumpy and wish to be isolated. I get lonely. I get excited. I really enjoy a good meal. I like to walk. I like to drive (or more sit on a bus, still it's kind of similiar i'm just not doing any of the driving) but I get restless when I drive for too long. A sunset is still beautiful. Views of endless mountains and deserts give me that warm comforting feeling of just how small I am, but how largely I am loved. I miss home. I know i'm going to miss traveling once I get home. I like feeling anonymous and introverted. I get urges to do something wild and irresponsible. I smell when I don't wash. I wake when I'm too hot. 4 beers still makes me tipsy. A gorgeous girl still stops me in my tracks. A dismissive look makes me feel small. A smile puts a spring in my step.

As I arrived in my hostel I sat next to a German guy who kindly offered me some pita bread and hummus. Yum. We got along really easily. Conversation flowed. We understood each others jokes. We went for a discovery walk around the streets of Eilat and ate ice cream as we got to know each other and the town we had both arrived in on the same night. The tacky fair lights mixed with strategically planted palms and the quirks of a place made obviously for tourists and no one else seemed funnier having someone to laugh with.  Real laughter is great by yourself, but it's much rarer to laugh on your own than when you're with company. 

So even though I'm cold and I don't really know what tomorrow will bring, and the Israeli idol is singing out of key. I feel really content just sitting here typing. I imagine what people must think of the weirdo in the drafty cold indoor-outdoor common area in his weird pyjamas typing into a phone. (This keyboard attaches via bluetooth to my phone so it often looks like I am just typing on a keyboard with no screen. I've been questioned and looked at with cynical inquisitive eyes more than once). It makes me laugh on the inside, and it would make me laugh on the inside if I was doing this at home.

It seems that I'm quite the same person wherever I am. And that's actually pretty comforting to me.

haggling for falafels and finding comfort

I was in a somewhat homesickish, estranged kind of mood this morning as I was walking down the streets of Bethlehem, on my way to catch a bus to Jerusalem to make my way to Tel Aviv. 
The maze of stone streets, hidden shops and boys wildly wheeling carts stacked to the sky didn't draw me in, but left me as cold as the unexpected chill that I awoke to. Bethlehem is Palestine territory and hence my good old friend the haggle was back in town... and I just couldn't really be bothered. The thought of haggling for a falafel which probably costs less than the paper that the money is printed on felt tiring and kind of awkward. Like irregular angles that jut out in inconvenient places. So even though I desired a hot drink and some comfort food, I kept my nose down and made it clear I wasn't buying anything. 

Then I had an epiphany.

I'm just a spectator.

Not the most insightful epiphany for sure, but for me at the time it felt significant. I don't really know what changed but suddenly I wanted to be IN the game. So I stopped to get a falafel sandwich  and gave a half-hearted haggle. He threw in a small sweet (probably because he felt sorry for how bad my haggling skills were). Then a man came up to me to offer me a coffee. I said yes and he scuttled off to his shop and came back with a hot cup of coffee to warm my both my hands and heart.(again with a pretty lame excuse for haggling... I mean it's 3 shekels! How do you haggle that?? But you KNOW they're ripping you off so you have to try something).
Suddenly my day had changed. 
Instead of just wishing to be at the bus stop already I felt a warmth within and a smile emerge upon my face. Being afraid of being tricked meant I was actually missing out on a really heart warming experience. It wouldn't surprise me if I was missing out on a number of things – in everyday life I mean – from  fear of being deceived or played. Somehow I tell myself (probably not even consciously) that by avoiding something that makes me feel foolish or unjustly treated, I win.
But I wonder if sometimes the fool is the winner here. The one that jumps ahead first and finds that he comes out the other side with a new experience and new way of seeing things. It may not always seem good, true. But I think I cut myself short by staying where it's comfortable. Adding to that, I think that if I was to really look truthfully at myself I would find that perhaps I'm not as 'comfortable' as I make out to be. By avoiding discomfort I actually find myself in that very state. But by diving head first into what initially seems uncomfortable and unknown, I find that a new type of comfort is mine. Not night-under-a-warm-blanket-under-a-roof comfort, (which I must say I do love at the right time) but the comfort of a busy seemingly chaotic street where you know where everything is and how everything works and the people that occupy it. 
A sense of home maybe. 
That's what I found today anyway.

The Palestinians are a heart-warming bunch. Sure they still rip you off with everything you buy, but there is far greater sense of welcome in the air. Often they will come out of their way just to shake your hand, ask you where you are from and say "welcome!" then off they go to their ordinary lives. No hanging on, no "come and look in my shop for free" magical offers. (Incidentally, by 'no' I mean not nearly as many as in Egypt)  – just an appreciation to you for coming to visit their land. 
They laugh and mess around as though they have no worries in the world.
I don't know  if I could say the same of myself if I was in their shoes.
A lot of them can't move past the Israeli border. 
To have your physical freedom denied is something I haven't known and don't particularly wish to know.  But to me it shows that physical freedom does not in itself lead to satisfaction and happiness. Of course I could never know their full story and how they actually feel, but the genuineness of their welcome and the warmth that I feel from them makes me wonder about what it is that actually does bring fulfilment in life.
If I'm to go by what has made me tick so far, I'd say it would be two things, actually make that three: 
- Doing something new and challenging that I didn't think I could do.  
- Finding a genuine connection with another human. One of those I'm-really-enjoying-your-company-and-I-can-tell-you're-enjoying-mine! connections. 
- Funnily enough, the third would actually be comfort. 
That feeling of being at home and being in your right place. (I hesitated on this last one simply because it's the one I've rarely felt on this trip)
I don't know if that's what the Palestinians think, but it is what this travelling humbug thinks. 
And I have a pretty strong inclination to believe it will ring true wherever in the world I find myself.

mistake making

On a bus heading toward the border of Israel I was informed by an over-friendly elderly English man that Israel had just bombed Giza and killed a whole heap of Palestinians. Comforting? No. But I couldn't help feeling oddly excited. Heading into a country that has just dropped bombs on it's next door neighbours sounds like a wild story... and It's quite possible that in my vanity the story WAS all I was really thinking of.

Arriving at the border however, you would never have known disaster had struck just 100 or so kms up the road. A man in a tshirt and jeans casually swings his ak 47 off his shoulder as though he is a child bored with his 2 day old christmas present. Eilat is hot and buzzing with all sorts of tourists and locals eating sandwiches and lining up to use the ATM. And the bus to Jerusalem has almost every seat full. Every one calm and safe.

Arriving in Jerusalem just after dusk, I bumbled my way to the old city where I found myself walking through it's tiny cobbled alleys and streets, totally lost. A punnet of dates for 15 shekels kept me comforted as I hoped to stumble across my hostel. I don't know how old the old city is but it feels pretty old. The cool thing about all the oldness is that it still has life in it. I mean everyday people, ALIVE people are living in it's quarters and selling roasted nuts in the stone cutaways. The life in it in the present makes it so much easier to grasp and feel what it would have been like to live in it however many centuries or milleniums ago.

I really like Jerusalem. It's a really cool, really different city. Unexpected but friendly. It feels like the type of city you want to get lost in, because somehow you know everything will turn out OK.

They speak English really well over here and I find consequently I immediately feel so much more relaxed. Knowing I can ask a question and get a response I can understand feels like fresh air in a mouldy, smelly, cramped room.
Since you mentioned mouldy, smelly, cramped rooms. That's exactly what I've found for accomodation in Jerusalem. The room is the size of my bedroom except they've fit 8 beds in it. 8 horrible small smelly beds. And I stupidly paid for 2 nights before I had even checked out the room. Mistake.

Though mistakes are bothering me less I think... I've found that since I've started travelling on my own I can laugh at a lot more things. Getting lost and having NO idea where I was in Jerusalem wasn't scary it was quite funny. My first response at seeing my dorm was to laugh. My good buddy James Douglas said "make as many mistakes as you can." And I think i'm getting better at making mistakes. What I mean by that is, I'm getting less afraid to make a mistake. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that yes, I want to make the best decision possible... but sometimes I don't. It CAN feel crippling, especially when there are a few in a row,  but as far as I can see, I'm going to make mistakes for the rest of my life. I want to learn how to not be afraid of that but have faith that despite my mistakes things will still work out and may even lead to something that the non-mistake never would lead to. Perhaps by the end of this trip i'll be so good at making mistakes, that the word mistake will just translate into opportunity. I don't know. But that would be kinda cool...

Move over Moses

I would never think catching a taxi would bring such a sense of anticipation. 
And that haggling a price to the point that the driver has to put on a sad puppy dog face to try and con the dumb westerner to hand over more money so satisfying. 

The sweet smell of - well to be quite frank it's not so much sweet as it is dirty streets and stale falafel, but that would never do to describe – freedom!

Yes. I cut my losses and broke away from my tour group, and I'm sitting in an airport waiting to cross the red sea!  Fair: I'm not splitting the ocean and walking on the sea bed but still... I mean, freedom's freedom. To a degree.  I'm probably not feeling anything too different to the red sea crossers?

Anyway. I'm excited and scared and lots of other little things and I wrote a little something about it all... :)


I'm out. 
From false comforts and armour with holes. To shaky trains and unknown worlds. 

Today was my day, and I took it with glee. 
My adventure begins  with no one but me.

Desert sun on dry barren land
Through dust and haze comes a guiding hand.

Though my heart is expectant, with my soul set to soar. 
I'd lie if I said fear lives here no more.

It's not death that I fear, or if i'll go hungry, 
but if I get lost, who'll come and guide me?

Or what if my soul doesn't dance and sing, 
and I get home the same, less the cash in my wing?

This I can't know but tomorrow (or maybe the next day) I'll see,
so let's just find what today has for me. 

Bedouin awakenings

I've found myself in a bit of a quandry. This tour I paid for has turned out to be a bit of a flop, so I'm thinking of cutting my losses and continuing on my own.

Yesterday lunchtime I hit a bit of a low. I went to the Karnak temples with my tour group and I was exhausted before I got there, found the crumbling statues less than breathtaking and got back to my hotel wondering what I should do. The Americans that I met happened to be in Luxor too, and thanks to facebook I was able to meet up with them again. It's odd. It's not like we get on like Egypt and the sun. But my sense of adventure and that exciting hopeful satisfying feeling rises to a really nice level when I'm with them. 

I ended up going against my bedouin bent though and reluctantly decided to see the valley of the kings with my tour. If I want to pass Egypt 101, I have to at least do the pyramids and the valley of the kings apparently. 

However, with the prospect of leaving the rigidness of tour life and making the transit from tourist to traveller, my spirits were buoyed and I ended up having a really nice time. We rode a stinky donkey past mud brick houses on a sugar cane farm and the tombs in the valley were pretty cool. I would say it was my favourite "attraction" so far. 

On this tour, we don't have to think about anything really. We stay in moderate hotels and I get my own room, shower and a decent bed. The Americans are staying in cramped rooms without personal space in the noisiest section of town. But there's a far stronger sense of homeliness and belonging there. People come expecting to meet new people, not knowing what the next day may bring. I would trade the comfort of a hot shower, and a good sleep for a dirty night of no sleep, filled with shared experiences and new friends any day. And so that's why I think my spirit feels light. I feel hopeful that my soon coming exodus will lead me out of comfort and ease, and quite frankly boredom – to excitement, danger, new experiences and friendships. I can feel the troubadour awakening from the tomb inside my soul.

I feel people get so precious about the ancient wonders that they forget to recognize what is actually bringing them new life. It's not just in traveling, it's everywhere.

Like wanting  to have a picture with someone famous, just because they are famous. Or reading a bestselling book and saying it was amazing because 3 million others have said so, but really nothing has penetrated the heart. Or claiming to believe and WORSHIP God or a god but unable to see that 'He' is not bringing (and perhaps even hindering) life. I don't exclude myself from these people, in fact I see it in others because I recognize it in myself.

I don't have anything against tourist attractions and wonders. What I am against is  people denying reality, Egyptians and tourists alike. I don't know which is more saddening: the poverty in Egypt's streets or the poverty of the souls in them. I tend to drift toward the latter.

It's hard to honest though. I've found it difficult to spend lots of money and visit these revered places without much admiration in my heart. People get offended. I even question if there's something wrong with me. I've found at times I try to convince myself that the feeling IS as amazing as all the books say. But it doesn't last long, because honesty seems to bequeath honesty. Truth bequeaths truth.

I can hear how all this could sound like a bad thing. Like I'm putting a dampener on everything, and I shouldn't be so negative.

But I hope what it achieves is a real, deep admiration and awe for things in the present. A 4000 year old monument may well induce that, but I don't want to be afraid to acknowledge that a cheap night in a cheap hostel might inspire it in me as well.