Wadi Dhahr, Yemen

We went with the family and Asia's brother in his taxi to see the Rock Palace: Dar-al Hajar. It is about 30 minutes outside San'a. The palace as built as a summer residence for Imam Yahya in the 1920s. It is a huge structure made of red and white stone and sits perched on a rock.

We visited on a Thursday which is the first day of the Yemeni weekend. There were several groups of school children from a private school visiting as well so they were happy to practise their English each time they passed us on the stairs!

The palace is a favourite area for weddings and the weekend is the best time for them. We saw the men from a wedding party who wanted us to take photos of the groom and his entourage. We never saw the bride. Weddings are usually celebrated with lots of gun fire.

At a lookout point near the palace we were besieged by beggars, jewelery sellers, scarf sellers, falcon owners, as well as a 15 year old boy with small glasses who called himself Harry Potter and spoke 6 or 7 languages so he could sell souvenirs.

John and the falcons

On the way home we passed several plaster factories. John was keen to look at the cornices and coloured window frames that the workers cut by hand. The workers were happy to show him their products and Victor could translate for him.

Later we met a travel agent and planned a tour to Shaharah and bought a flight ticket to Sayun.

At dinner time we watched Asia making bread and cooking it in her gas oven. It was delicious. Yemen has over 40 types of bread.

San'a, Yemen

We had a good short flight with Royal Jordanian from Cairo to San'a but a long 4 hour wait at Amman airport in Jordan.

Arrived at San'a airport at 1.30 am and had to get a visa and then took a taxi we had prebooked to our hotel in the old city.

San'a is so different from any other place we have been. It the oldest city in the world, according to books we have read. Noah's son was the founder of San'a. Today it is the fastest growing capital city in the world.

The buildings are probably the first skyscrapers. They are towers. The ground floors are built of stone and the rest of the floors of mud brick. Traditionally the stables and storerooms were on the ground floor. The first floor was for entertaining. The second floor was for the women and children and the third and fourth floors were the bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchen. The top floor was the room with a view. Most towers are 6 or 8 stories.

Our hotel was a traditional building and the dining room was on the top floor. The windows are decorated with coloured glass and set in plaster and we could look over the old city. The white lime wash on the building help reflect the heat and keep the rooms cool. There are still 14, 000 original tower houses in the old city.

We contacted Victor, a Yemeni, from the Hospitality Club, an online group that offers accommodation or friendship to others in the club. He works for a Canadian oil company and has one month on and one month off. Our request to stay with him and his family arrived on his month off so after recovering from our flight at the hotel we were picked up by Victor and Asia and their two children, Ahmed (7) and Noor(5).

We had a great time with the family, with Asia cooking some delicious Yemeni food and Victor introducing John to the ways of life for Yemeni men.

Yemenis are traditional Muslims and Asia has to wear black covering her head, arms and legs with a veil across her face. She kept her head covered the whole time John was in the house but was uncovered if I was there with her. We went shopping one afternoon with the children and the men went to chew qat. The shopping centre had only women shoppers.

Qat or Khat, are the leaves of the Catha edulis shrub. It has the ability to slow down time. The WHO classes it as a drug of abuse that can produce mild to moderate psychic dependence, and is banned in most Arab and Western countries. About 80% of the Yemeni male population chew qat regularly. The towers beside each plantation are to house the guards that keep watch over the trees.

John and Victor went to a stylish Yemeni house where they sat in a room furnished with squabs on the floor and upholstered cushions against the walls. There were bolstered arm rests between each person and the men sat around the sides of the room. There was a large TV screen and the men drank water, soft drinks, smoked and chatted. About 50 people came and went between the 4pm to 8pm session. There were several professional people and John talked to men from insurance, an IT analyst for the military, engineers, and other government workers. It is a time to talk politics and right the wrongs of the world.

Victor told us later that some of the men at the qat house were from a tribe that recently kidnapped a couple of Dutch tourists. These guys asked Victor if he had any grievances with the government that he would like put right. If so, then they would kidnap John in order to get the government to do do something about the grievances. Lucky for John, Victor had none.

Environmentally, qat is bad news for Yemen. 55% of all the water in Yemen goes to irrigate the crops. In 1970, 8,000 hectares was used for qat but has now grown to 103,000 hectares and there are still new areas being developed. The profit is 5 times better for qat growers than for crop farmers. When you walk through the old city after lunch you see all the stall holders with huge bulges in their cheeks as they stuff the qat in. Young boys also get into qat chewing at an early age. Some women chew qat as well but not as much nor as often as the men. 17% of the average family's income goes on qat with over 14,622,000 working hours lost each day in Yemen, as men set aside chewing time.

Ahmet and Noor were very quick to pick up new words in English and try them out. We made origami boxes, played string games and 'paper, scissors and rock'. I helped Asia with her English lessons. She goes to a language school two hours every day and was shy at first to speak but is doing really well. We met Victor's mum and a couple of brother as well as Asia's brother who drove us in his taxi.

The Al Saleh Mosque is a new mosque built by the current president at a cost of millions of dollars. It is the most beautiful mosque we have seen in the Middle East to date. Victor and his friends tell us that Yemen needs hospitals and schools and would have preferred the money was spent on that but the president wants a legacy. Mosques cannot have their names changed unlike hospitals and schools.

Near the gate of the old city we saw a blind-folded camel going round and round. It was attached to an arm like a pestle and it was grinding sesame seeds for oil. It had been walking about two hours when we saw it and it stopped for awhile and then continued. Apparently it wouldn't walk if it could see it was going in circles.

There is a river bed that is cobbled and sealed and the traffic use this everyday. When it rains once or twice a year the road becomes a river.

The men in this area wear knives attached to their belts and they pull them out at weddings and use them for dancing. Even young boys have them. Victor doesn't wear a jambiya as it is not the tradition where he comes from.

Cairo, Egypt

The night train to Cairo was pretty good. Kerri and I didn't sleep that well though as the beds squeaked. There was a handbasin in the room and only two beds so John had to share with a guy next door who was a tour guide. We had an early morning wake up and a basic breakfast.

Buying the ticket for the train was hard work. The tourist information officer at the station right beside the ticket office had no idea what times the trains went and insisted that we could only buy a ticket at 8pm for the 8.30pm train! We went to her as there were big queues at the ticket office. The ticket office clerk sold us a ticket for the next day 5 minutes later. I guess the tip is, keep asking until you get the right answers to your questions!

We took the metro from the station, which wasn't there 32 years ago, to Talaat Harb where our hostel was and were able to check in straight away and have a catch up sleep. We managed to sleep through the traffic noise from the second most popular downtown street in Cairo. At times it felt like the traffic was outside the window even though we were 5 flights up.

Kerri checked the temperatures for the upcoming days and with the hottest day being the next day we decided it was best to go to the National Museum and leave the pyramids for a cooler 21 degree day.

The museum used to be dark, dusty and absolutely crammed full of exhibits and rocks so I was surprised to see that we could move easily around the rooms. However it was still dark and had the same dirty typewritten labels that were there when I last visited. A new museum is due to open in 2010 out near the pyramids but it looks like there is not enough money for that yet.

The Tutankhamen treasures used to be in a room called the gold room but now they are in an open space for all to see at no extra charge so that was great.

The hostel offered us a tour to the pyramids but we took a local bus from the bus station to the entrance to the site. The touts rushed out to get us to hire horses and camels but we knew it was possible to walk around without too much trouble. I still had my blisters from camel riding in Jordan so the last thing I wanted was more of them.
Postcard and plastic pyramid seller
32 years ago, I and a bunch of friends from the YMCA where I stayed then, climbed the top of Cheops and watched the sunset and slept overnight and woke to watch the sun rise. Now it is not possible to climb any of the pyramids. Of course we paid a baksheesh back then to be able to do it.

The poor Sphinx is looking worse for wear and our guide book tells us that it has the equivalent of cancer. It is disintegrating from the inside out due to the high water table and breakdown of the sandstone. There is now a huge wall around it.

Kerri wanted to buy some scarves and a new bag so we spent some time at the Khan Al Khalili (bazaar). She seemed to enjoy her attempts at bargaining for her purchases but we found that they were not so keen on dropping prices, even when we waved the money around or walked off. Maybe this is because of the recession.
The scarf seller and his boys learning the trade
Crossing Cairo streets is a chore. The drivers do not like to stop for anyone and they are pretty intimidating. After half a day's practice, we were experts and Kerri got better at it too. The traffic in Vietnam is a lot more considerate than in Cairo, they moved around behind you as soon as they saw you begin to cross. The place to meet the Cairo hustlers is at Tahrir Square. they will find you as you gingerly cross the road. they usually begin their spiel with' Walk like an Egyptian, just close your eyes' or something like that. They then move quickly onto 'What's your name? Where are you from? There's a shopping centre there.'
Before you know it they are trying to hustle something as they will get a sales commission.
This scene hasn't changed!
Some Egyptian scams we encountered:
the bus driver sells you a ticket and at the end of the trip he asks for it back so he can resell it,
tourist police at the pyramids take baksheesh off the boys selling postcards at the pyramids,
taxi touts charge double for the taxi that they don't own or drive,
tourists at the mosque have to hand in their shoes, wear a galebeya, and then pay a baksheesh to get the shoes back, while locals carry theirs inside and are dressed as you are,

two people have to share one seat on the tour bus and everyone pays different prices for the same thing,
the bus driver is having lunch so you must take a taxi,
there is a big demonstration at the Arab League building near the museum so don't go there, come with me, I don't own a shop I don't sell tours ... I know the guys who have horses and camels at the pyramids as we grew up together etc,
Oh lady you look hot and tired here sit on my seat in the shade...baksheesh please, from the tourist police or security,
I found this hotel for you so you so you owe me 30% commission.

Phew, you have to have your wits about you all the time. People who speak to you and help you usually want something other than altruism for it.

We wanted to walk beside the Nile but found that all the nice parks charge a fee and if you wanted to be on the lower part close to the Nile you had to pay more, which was probably to keep the riffraff out.

We found a couple of nice places to eat Egyptian food near our hotel. One place did only one dish called koushari and you could get it in small, medium or large. It was great for carbo-loading: macaroni, spaghetti, rice, lentils and a tomato sauce. There was also creamed rice if you needed more carbos.

The other place had its kitchen in the front on the street level, so you could see the pizzas, pancakes, shwarma, and kebabs being made. The upstairs had long tables that seated 10 or 12 people and had a good selection of sandwiches, soups, salads, grills, fish, and pasta dishes. The menu was in English and Arabic and it was a popular place for families and young couples.

The street we stayed on had hundreds of clothing shops. We found a department store that had 7 or 8 floors and thought we might find something for Kerri only to discover that every floor had mens' clothes and we only saw one store with womens' clothes. There are dozens of children"s shops with doll-like mannequins dressed in sequined, frilled and over decorated co-ordinated outfits. Some even had Madonna type sequined bra tops for under 5 year olds.

The lingerie shops are amazing. The couples stand outside discussing, and pointing at the see-through negligees and skimpy underwear and we would only have such clothes in an adult shop.

We took Kerri to the airport on her last day and spent another couple of days catching up with the blog, sending emails, doing some research on Yemen and getting ready to go to more Middle Eastern places. It was sad to see her go but we will be home before too long.

Luxor, Egypt

We had a pretty good flight from Aqaba to Luxor via Cairo. Kerri had been told many stories about the state of Egypt Air's planes but the express was quite new and everything went like clockwork.

At Luxor airport the rates for the taxis to the downtown area are written on a large board but the taxi touts that approached us as we arrived still wanted to quote higher prices and say the rate was per person and not per taxi. All that detail was unfortunately written in Arabic on the sign so we had to stand our ground for the 25 Egyptian pound it cost. John slipped the money under the wipers and we continued into our hotel and the driver gave up hassling us. That was our welcome to Luxor.

The hotel was in a dirty dusty unlit street but near the main part of town and a few streets from the train station. It was painted in pictures of Bob Marley with Marley flags hanging in the hallways. Nevertheless it was OK for the price and everything worked well. On the rooftop was the breakfast area and a bar with a happy hour and half price beer but it was extremely hot in the early evening.

The first day we strolled around town and visited the Karnak temple a few minutes walk from the hotel. It was pretty crowded and pretty hot. In the evening we watched the sunset over the Nile and tried to ignore the dozens of touts wanting us to take a felucca (sailboat). The Nile River cruise boats were lined up 5 deep by the river. They look like 3 storey buildings with ranch slider windows on a barge and are not at all attractive but have romantic names. 32 years ago they were smaller wooden boats with lots of character; like something out of an Agatha Christie mystery. The felucca of old were unpainted and didn't have motors or neon flashing light and loud music either.

We joined a tour run by the hotel and headed off to see the Valley of the Kings. When I last visited here you had to cross the river by a small ferry and ride around the site with an early morning start. Now there are electric carts to take you to the entrance and no photos are allowed inside the tombs. It was about 40 something degrees and pretty crowded. There are a few more tombs now than before and there are still more to be excavated in the area. Having a Japanese fan, a gift from our ex-student, and a light-coloured umbrella to provide all over shade, was helpful in keeping Kerri and I cool.

There are extra charges to see more than three of the tombs these days so you have to decide before you go in what tombs you want to see.

There are no objects in the tombs, just hieroglyphics and carved reliefs, some painted and some not. The air is hot, humid, still and stale inside and the heat from the queuing bodies adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere.

From here we were off to Hatshetsup's temple.

When we arrived here two Korean girls complained that they had to share one seat in the van as the tour manager had overbooked the tour. The Egyptian guide told them that it was their fault as they had accepted the situation when they first got in the van so she was not going to do anything about it or take any responsibility for it so the two girls left and we never saw them again. That left a sour note with the group as no one agreed with the guide. When we entered the van the manager told us not to discuss the price we had paid with any of the others because they had paid more. This is so typically Egyptian.

As we strolled around the temple looking at the columns and sculptures a local guy called to us to look at something in the corner. This is a typical ploy to get a 'baksheesh' (tip) from you, he thinks because he has shown you something you should pay him for it. Of course you would see it anyway as you walked about.

We read that the locals have to have loads of small coins and notes as they will be asked to give baksheesh to policemen who signal them through the traffic, touts who dust their mirrors, touts who find them a park space and keep the traffic away as they reverse into it, waiters find them a table, bus drivers who lift their bags into the bus etc.
'Tss, come and look' the baksheesh man

The last stop was the Habu temple which was a military temple. This relief showed what they did to the foreigners when they caught them.


Luxor still has lots of horse drawn carts as I remembered. They cruise the streets selling fruit and all sorts of goods. The gas bottle guys cruised the street in front of our hotel and signalled their arrival by bashing on the empty bottles with a crescent spanner, it was deafening. There are still lots of cats everywhere but Arabs consider dogs dirty so it is rare to see any.

We had planned to have an extra night in Luxor and take a day train to Cairo but discovered that tourists could not use the day train from April 1st so we had to take a night train at 8.30 pm.

Nuweiba, Egypt

From the desert we returned to Wadi Rum village where we were met by the taxi driver we had hired from Wadi Musa, of course he was a friend of the Sunset camp owner too.

We drove through the outskirts of Aqaba where we could see the rows and rows of holiday and dive resorts catering to the Red Sea visitors. It could be anywhere in the world with its Irish bars, English pubs and multinational fast food chains.

We arrived at the port of Aqaba where we had to catch a fast ferry to Nuweiba in Egypt. It was pretty disorganised with people sending us up and down stairs to get booked onto the ferry.

We sat on the ferry from 11 o'clock until 1:15, when we finally sailed. We had to hand over our passports to a small office in the front of the ferry so they could stamp us out of Jordan while at sea. The crossing was smooth and the DVD kept people entertained during the one and a half hour journey.

We picked up our packs from the car deck where they were stacked up on the sides and headed out for a full on Egyptian welcome.

The porters rushed us to carry our packs, the touts jostled to be first to tell us where to get our visas expecting us to tip them for this information and others touted for their taxi driver friends waiting outside the immigration office. It was full on.

We finally found the bank, that had a queue of non-Egyptian Arabs and backpacking tourists, where we had to pay for our visa. There was one small doorway into the bank for those entering and exiting and the galebeya dressed men did whatever they could to push in the queue. John put himself in charge of managing the queue and we all got sorted in an orderly fashion. Had to go from there to another building where we could get an official stamp and then we were all sorted for entry into the outside world.

There were huge metal furniture trailers on the ferry and these contained all the household affects of Egyptians returning from Jordan. The mattresses were piled high and we were able get our packs through a different set of metal detectors and move on before they did, else we would have been hours in the queue.

Outside the port gates were rows and rows of taxis who wanted too much to take us 6 kms to our beach bungalow so after some half hearted bargaining on our part we walked a short distance into the town and found a taxi for a more reasonable rate.

The bungalow turned out to be a tiny six-sided room amongst a whole lot of other bungalows. The local Bedouins' goats, sheep and camels wandered through the place morning and night.

There were only two other people in the place who were also Kiwis so we met up and had dinner together in the town. It turned out that Stanley had just come from Yemen and Oman so we were able to get some information on places to see there.

Nuweiba was a nice gentle introduction to Egypt. I had been here in 1976 so I knew what to expect. After a rest we flew to Luxor via Cairo.

Wadi Rum, Jordan

We sadly said goodbye to Dan who was headed for some motorbike riding in Turkey and we took a taxi to Wadi Rum arriving in the afternoon. We sat around the Bedouin Desert camp's owner's house drinking tea and swatting flies while he organized some camels for us to ride from Wadi Rum town to the desert camp 12 kilometres away in time to see the sunset.

Kerri had the oldest lead camel (18 years old), and had a lot of trouble keeping it on track. She ended up with a rope burn on her fingers as it yanked the rope out of her hands to grab at some bushes to eat. We were tied to her camel and sat back to enjoy the view.

The Wadi Rum desert is a protected area and we had to pay a small fee, at the visitors' centre on the outside of the town. It was difficult to work out what was being protected as there were dozens of 4 wheel drive vehicles and tour companies lined up on both sides of the entrance looking to take visitors into the park.

As we rode to the camp we saw convoys of vehicles criss crossing the desert and loads of Bedouin camps set up amongst the rocks. There didn't seem to be any protecting of the desert from what we could see. Rubbish blew everywhere and there were loads of people.

The camel I had was not well padded and I could feel the wooden slats of the saddle so I got two blisters on my bum, one about 6cms long! I'm glad we didn't do a full day ride like some people signed up to.

We never got to see a good sunset as it was dusty and quite misty. When we arrived at Sunset Camp we were shown our tent that looked no better than the Palestinian refugee tents we had seen in Lebanon and Jordan! What a disappointment. We at least expected black goat-hair tents in the traditional materials but got bits of raggy old carpets tied together with bits of string. The roof had filled with sand and was in danger of falling onto us in the night so John had to empty it. There were no sheets on the mattresses, the pillows were rock hard stuffed with old rags and the duvets were dirty and everything was covered in sand. Luckily we have sleeping sheets we can use in situations like this.

It made us think of our ger experience in the Gobi Desert and for such a poor country they were able to prepare a clean, comfortable and authentic experience for us.

We were told by Muhammad, the owner, to buy some food for lunch from his shop and this along with our bags was taken to the camp ahead of us. When we unpacked we found that our food was missing and then discovered it being cut up by the cook for the evening meal! We were able to replace it from his supplies later.

The wind was blowing off the snowy mountains in Syria and Turkey but originating in Scandinavia, so it was freezing. We sat around an oval tent that had a fire pit and drank lots of small glasses of sweet tea and chatted to some of the other 30 camp guests. There were people from Israel, France, Holland and Italy.

Dinner was a rice and chicken dish with lots of salad vegetables (some of them ours) and gritty sand in the sauce. The Sudanese chef they employed stood in front of the tip box and asked each person to read the sign about putting money in it for him. This was the same guy who pinched our food.

In the morning we met our guide and with an Israeli couple we got into our 4 wheel drive jeep. The guide had to hot-wire (put two wires together) to get it started. It had no brakes and filled the inside with diesel fumes. The fuel tank had a plastic bag stuffed in it, two doors opened from the outside only and there were no window winders to open or close the windows so some stayed permanently open while others remained shut. We had to push a few times to get going and had to enlist help from some other groups so a 6 hour tour turned into 9 hours! The bonnet was wired on so it didn't fall off and the wheel nuts were all loose! There were no traffic police in the desert.

We climbed rocks and ran up and down sand-hills and drove round in a circle all the time not too far from the camp.

At lunchtime the guide lit a fire in the protected area, made tea, heated some bread, made a salad and opened a can of sardines. We didn't need the food we had bought at Mohammed's shop after all. Our guide played the urd, a traditional guitar, and sang to us. He made the whole experience fun as he had a great smile and took my teasing in good humour.

In the afternoon we saw the spring where Lawrence of Arabia fame drank water and also saw some rocks which were once a house where he stayed.

The first night we arrived there was no hot water although we were told there would be some so we were ready for a shower after our 9 hour tour. We arrived at camp to find there was not even any water let alone hot stuff. We are used to carrying packets of 'baby wipes' for such emergencies. The toilet facilities were pretty squalid really, sewerage flooding the floor, waste water leaking from broken pipes and all this in a protected area. The Mongolians could teach them how to do it better in the desert!

Petra, Jordan

The hostel we stayed in was pretty basic. There were 3 beds crammed into the small room and a teeny tiny bathroom. We had to sit sideways on the toilet as there was not enough space for our legs in front of the toilet. Next we had to clamber over the toilet in order to use the shower at the end of the room.

The best news was that Kerri's suitcase turned up so we didn't have to share my 3 tops and 2 pairs of trousers any more!

Dan got a better place further up the hill from us. On the way to pick up Kerri from the airport, we chatted to a Polish guy who had just returned from Petra and he told us about Dan's hotel, called Valentine Inn. They had a buffet evening meal with about 50 different dishes, mostly salads; tomatoes in 4 different sauces, eggplants in the same sauces, cucumbers in the same sauces and so on but it was all freshly prepared and a welcome change from chicken and rice, although they had that as well. The thing Dan liked most about the hotel other than the view, the food, and the terrace was the beer!
Buffet dinner at the Valentine Inn

We got up early and bought a two-day ticket to Petra. Our hostel manager dropped us off just before 7 so we could beat the heat and the crowds. It was a cool and peaceful morning and we were able to take photos without hordes of people in the way.


The Siq was caused by tectonic plates separating. After the long walk through the Siq it is quite a dramatic moment when you see the famous treasury for the first time all lit up by the sun above the sandstone hills.


It must have the best photographed camels in the world as well.

The Nabutaeans built the rose-coloured city of Petra in the 3rd century BC with palaces, temples, sacrifice areas, tombs and store rooms. From here they commanded the trading routes from Damascus to Arabia and spice, silk, and slave caravans passed through having to pay taxes and protection money. The Nabutaeans mastered hydraulic engineering, iron production, copper refining, as well as sculpture and stone carving.

The Romans took over in the second century AD building palaces and temples, remains of which can still be seen. A massive earthquake in 555 AD forced the city to be abandoned.

While it was cool we climbed the numerous steps to the High Place of Sacrifice


and could see many of the sandstone temples around the site.
The locals still live in the valley amongst the ruins

It was about 30 Celcius at lunchtime and we managed to find a tree with some shade near the Roman ruins and enjoy our packed lunch while watching the long lines of red-faced, sweaty tour groups trudge in.
Roman theatre
Dan and John explored a few more tombs which had cavernous rooms while Kerri and I looked at the outsides and headed home early on the first day. We walked all the way back to the hostel taking a short cut through a valley where we drenched our heads and hats in cool irrigation water and arrived back the same time as the guys who had taken a taxi!

The next day we were up early again and saw things along the Siq that we hadn't noticed the first day. The light highlights different things at different times of the day. We took the steep route with its 800+ steps to the Monastery and expected a long hard slog to the top so we were pleasantly surprised when we made it in a short time before the jewelery sellers had even unpacked their wares in the shops lining the steps.

We were able to look over the Arabian Desert Valley towards Israel. A souvenir store holder gave us a cup of cardamon tea and we chatted with him before heading down the steps again.

The worst thing about Petra is the number of horses, donkeys, camels and horse and carts going up and down the Siq and the stairs carrying goods and ferrying overweight passengers. In the Siq you have to get out of the way quickly or they could crush you as they thunder past you in the narrow walkway.

Overall we had a great time and were glad we were up and at it early to enjoy everything before the crowds arrived. The city of Wadi Musa ( Valley of Moses ), the name of the city outside Petra, is a hilly place with not much going for it and nothing to hold you there any longer than you need. As soon as we were done we farewelled Dan and caught a taxi to Wadi Rum and the desert.