Day 181: The Trip Comes to An End, Yet A New Journey Begins! – Guangzhou, China

(Him: Charlie)

Sitting at 30,000 ft in the air approaching GZ, we are closing in on the conclusion of Jo.Charvel’s Euro-Asia trip. In a little more than an hour, I am about to see my hometown for the first time in nearly 3 years. To me, GZ may well be the end this amazing trip.

Looking back in the last 6 months, it has been as awesome time with Joanna through dozens of countries and countless different cultures. We began to lose count on the number of countries we’ve been to – for some we spent merely hours, but others for weeks, so what does the number matter? To us, getting to know every culture along the way, as well as reflecting on pieces of history, are the essence of this journey! Just on the topic of religions, we have traversed through areas dominated by Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Christian, Judaism, Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, and even the original Chinese Taoism. On every encounter, we spent hours reading Wikipedia and gaining invaluable knowledge that we would otherwise never get to now back home.

As this journey comes to an end, it is quite sad to realize I will stop backpacking for a while, but at the same time, I feel energized about the new life in HK. During the last few days on the Qing-Zang railway, my mind would often imagine Jo and I living and working in HK. To me, the experience ahead is in an uncharted territory and the excitement is definitely no less than backpacking! I am glad that I will be sharing this exciting experience life with Jo. So let the thrill begin and see what life can throw at me!

Day 174: 美丽的西藏，纯洁的西藏 - Lhasa, Tibet

(Him: Charlie)

西藏的确有着迷人的风光！自从在四川/云南地区进入西藏，所有的风景就好像忽然升了一个等级 - 水是那么清，天是那么蓝，深秋的山林是那么得醉人，而耸立的雪山又是那么的神圣与纯洁。

西藏的风景之美丽不容置疑，牢牢地吸引着我的却是西藏独一无二的藏族文化与风俗。

在西藏，一切似乎都那么神圣和平静，那么的与世无争。一路上，我们总是看到虔诚的信徒一磕一长跪地沿着公路向拉萨朝拜前进。每逢来到一座庙宇，第一个进入视线的总是念念有词的转经者。对于没有信仰的我来说，我只有无限的敬佩 - 敬佩他们的虔诚，敬佩他们的坚毅。我无法理解他们把生命奉献给他们的信仰，但同时也无法体会得到他们心灵中因为有信仰而得到的充实。

在西藏十几天，最煞风景的要数“三步一哨，五步一岗”的“便民警察”。尤其在拉萨，警察

和安检多得离谱。这些所谓的“便民警察”在景点设置检查站控制游客和当地的佛教信徒。据当地人说，这些检查站经常阻挠信众的出入，给他们带来朝拜的不便。其实我看来，政府可以给这些虔诚的藏民多一点理解和包容，他们需要的是更多的自由空间和与世无争的生活。明明西藏是自治区，但政府却严加控制，处处打压。结果导致草木皆兵，人心惶惶。真的有必要吗？

Day 154: Adrenaline pumping at Almaty Airport!! - Almaty, Kazakhstan

(Him: Charlie)

As much as we want to cross the border by land, the “sacred” National Day holiday in China just would let us. Who closes their land border for 7 days on a holiday? Oh well, so we had to fly if we want to make it to Cheng Du by Oct 7. Ka-ching!!!

Normally, I wouldn’t write about the mundane border crossing, especially the boring custom passing at airport, but this one is different. It’s a crazy one – it’s one that almost got our hearts stopped and it’s one that got our hair raised… it’s one that got me even more broke! Fuck!!

Apparently, according to the Kazakh law, a tourist has to register at the local immigration police if he/she intends to stay within the country for more than 5 days! (Yea, who does that on top of a stupid visa??) So the ignorant Charlie and Joanna, who haven’t seen anything like that before, didn’t realize the seriousness of this requirement, and continued on with the visits in the country.

On day 7, when we came face to face with the passport control at Almaty Airport, disaster landed upon us!!! At first, the officer said we couldn’t board our flight because we had to go to the city the next day to register. This almost gave me a heart attack – the images of us running around switching flights and re-organizing everything came to mind. At this point, we would be happy to just pay the fine and leave the country. And then, the officer told us the bank is close now (9pm), and we would still have to pay the day after. Shit! The same images of “chicken-running-around-with-heads-cut-off” came to mind again… “shit, shit, shit” we thought, but “please, please, please!” we begged!

AND THEN, after some panicking on our end and a couple of phone calls on the other end, the officer offered a solution – a officer’s “friend” could pay the fine for us tomorrow for a “fee” of 4000 Tenge (about $30US). With the fine at a hefty $120US, it means we have to cough up $300US to get out of the country.

At this point, what choice do we have? Being able to catch our flight is definitely more important than the $300US! So we agreed, and we couldn’t care less if the process is even legitimate – we were told that we had to “pay” the fine discreetly by passing over the money folded in our passport! So we moved on with the security, and handed over our money filled passport as instructed, and halleluiah, safely boarded our flight. Voila and Ka-Ching!

We can’t be sure whether the officers took the fine as pocket money or, maybe he was really doing us a favour and the money really went to the government as a fine. Either way, there goes our $300US, and there goes our expensive lesson learned from this bureaucratic country! What a night!!

(Renown Turkistan Mausoleum, Turkistan, Kazakhstan)

Day 154: China, here we come!

(Her: Joanna)

Time flies.  We have been on the road for 5 months and finally heading to China, which sounds really far away 5 months ago.  The last 5 years of my life, I have been wanting to visit Tibet.  And I'm closer to closer to it.  

The last 3 weeks of travel had been rough but adventurous and exciting at the same time.  I am happy that I have the opportunity to visit this part of the world which is so mysterious.  

I also feel very privileged as a Chinese Canadian as being a Canadian (and sometimes Chinese) can make your life a whole lot easier traveling to some of the countries we have been.  Whether you get to visit and travel to a certain place besides "I want to" have a lot to do with luck.  Being a Chinese/Hong Kong Canadian definitely grant me a lot of privileges.  

Tonight we will be in China.  Temporary good-bye to everyone as we cannot access our blog and Facebook in China.  We will update as soon as we arrive HK in 3 weeks or so.  

Wish we luck that everything will be smooth sailing in China.

Hasta Luego, Amigos!

What a Backpacker Likes On The Road.....

I like free WiFi at MacDonald

I like free toilets

I like hostel with drinkable water

I like GPS on my iPhone

I like swiss army knife

I like free and fluffy towel

I like free lockers at the hostels

I like train/bus station with luggage storage

I like city public transportation to and from bus/train station and airport running 24/7

I like hostels who doesn’t charge any booking fee

I like friendly people who help us figuring out the ticketing system on buses

I like tourist information at the border crossing

I like withdrawing money with no transaction fees

I like hot shower

I like free tea and coffee

I like toilet separate from sink and shower in hostels

I like multiple plugs in the room at a hostel

Day 141: Sheer Beauty at Lake Song Kul - Kochkor, Kyrgyzstan

(Him: Charlie)

Perched on top of the Tian Shan range at 3000m high, Lake Song-Kul is undoubtedly the most beautiful place we have been on this trip so far!

The place is so pretty that it’s sacred, or in Jo’s words, heaven-like. Forget about history here, time seems to have been stopped by the serenity. The lake and the mountains have been here for millions of years, and people have been herding their livestocks for millennia, and now, I’m submerged in the best scenery that the planet earth has to offer!!

Day 137: Four months on the road and counting - Almaty Airport, Kazakhstan

(Him: Charlie)

This entry has been on my list to do since we hit the two-month mark. So here’s my chance, as I slowly kill off the 12-hour transit time before we move on to our destination of Bishkek.

So four months on the road and counting… We feel good to say the least. We have fully accustomed to moving everyday, every other day, or a maximum of a few days - packing and unpacking has been part of our daily life. For these few months, we are full-time backpackers, and that involves experiencing our time on the road and learning from everything we see.

Planning

Being backpackers, we have come to realize that the number one requirement is being flexible. Since we make decisions on the go, we have to be flexible to live with all the unexpected, whether it’s good or bad. By now, we are convinced that we cannot make long term planning (only with a general route), because all plans are bound to change. We could be restricted by transportation conditions, or we could also simply change our mind about the itinerary – either way, the only thing that doesn’t change is change itself. A good example of this would be the itinerary in the Balkans. At the beginning, we drew a temporary route for the Balkan countries on our guide book, but at the end, not even a bit of the route was followed. We changed our mind so frequently because we are constantly taking advice from fellow backpackers, and depending on how we feel about places, we may extend, cut short, or even cancel our stay of a destination.

Food

Food is one of the best parts about traveling. During our time on the road, we tried new specialties in every country, but we also cook as much as we can to save on cost.

 Lucky for me, Joanna is an excellent cook, who always magically produces fantastic meals using local ingredients. Sometimes our food smelled so good in the hostel that I felt guilty for having such good meals.

Picture showing Joanna replenishing her spice supply in Wroclaw, Pland.

We love markets for its bustling character and we visit markets whenever there is one. I sometimes consider the markets as museums that reflect the current life of a place.

Market in Pula, Crotia

A lot of times, we picked hostels with kitchen facilities, but when it’s not available, besides eating out, we also came up with creative ways to overcome the problems.

 

Dinner prepared using only a microwave (Dansk, Polan) vs. dinner prepared using proper gears (Tirana, Albania)

Accommodations

Since we have a budget of around $60/p/d, we stay in hostels most of the time. Depending on the countries, a dorm bed would cost us about $10-$15/person. Besides the economical reason, there are other advantages for staying at a hostel. For example, hostels are usually very resourceful and are happy to provide up-to-date information that helps our planning. Also, at hostels, we can meet a lot of like-minded backpackers, who we can hang out with and chat. We even became good friends with some of them.

Sometimes, especially when we travelled to less touristy places, hostels may not be an option. In that case, we would have to stay with pensions, or even hotels. Although more expensive, an occasional upgrade can feel wonderful and pampered, especially after many nights in crowded dorms or tiring overnight buses.

Luxury (a pension in Stary Smokovec, High Tetras, Slavakia) vs. Budget (Poprad, Slavakia)

Transportation

Transportation could add up to a big chunk of our budget, so we cheap out as much as we can by walking in cities. Sometimes we really feel like a full-time traveler, especially after walking for 8-9 long hours. Normally, we would pick hostels that are close to city centres, so that we can simply explore the cities on foot.

For inter-city travel, we usually take buses or trains, depending on the country. In a few occasions, we had to fly, but it would be the last resort. For example, we had to fly from Istanbul to Amman because we couldn’t go through Syria, and we had to fly from Tbilisi to Bishkek because we didn’t want to deal with the visa issues associated with some of the central Asia countries, and we didn’t have time to visit anyway.

Overall experience

This Europe-Asia trip is my second major backpacking trip, so naturally we sometimes compare the two trips. In the first couple of months, Jo and I both agreed that our previous trip, to South America, was more fun because there were more drastic sceneries and traveling was less expensive. However, after traveling through the two distinct regions, Eastern Europe and Middle East, I came to realize that this trip actually offers an almost completely different experience – an immense cultural and historical experience. Even just from these two regions alone, I’ve learned a tremendous amount of history. Just to name of a few, I went through the recent history of the Eastern Bloc countries, and I finally gained the understanding of conflicts in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and also the ongoing problems in the Middle East. Next up, I am going to uncover the mysterious Central Asia with my own eyes. Honestly, I am a little nervous, but also very excited!

 Batumi, Georgia

Day 131: Sunrise on Mt. Nemrud – Karakut, Turkey

(Him: Charlie)

For a second time in a week, we woke up in pitch dark to see sunrise. This time around, instead of from a hot air balloon (in Cappadocia), we are atop a majestic mountain, with gigantic sculpture of various gods, and a possible tomb of King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene.

The King was a full-of-himself maniac, who constructed huge sculptures on top of the lofty mountain. Over the years, the heads of the figures had fallen off to their feet, but the mystical yet majestic feel continue to impress every tourist! When the sun started beaming at sunrise, spreading a golden coating on the sculptures, it was truly a magical moment!

Day 130: 28 Hours From Central Turkey To Sea-Side Georgia

(Her: Joanna)

Like most of our trip, we ended up leaving Turkey 2 days earlier than planned.  After Mount Nemrut, we didn’t know how but we know that we need to go to the Black Sea coast to get to Georgia.  An adventure started!  We have no idea where we will end up tonight.  Cool! 

The adventure didn’t start out well.  We were on the road side waiting for a mini-bus to a small town where we were told we can catch a bus to a transportation hub that hopefully we will be able to find something overnight on the way to the Black Sea coast.  We forgot that it was Sunday and transportation is usually less frequent. 

There’s always something good you can find from the worst situation.  If we hadn’t have to wait for almost 2 hours on the road side for the bus, we wouldn’t meet a friendly guy from Istanbul who gave us home grown figs and something that’s like fruit-on-the-go; then 2 kids from town who helped us find out the bus schedule and bought us ice cold water from their neighbor. 

Finally, we cramped into the bus we needed to catch.  The definition of a full bus is quite different in Turkey.  When all the seats that comes with the car is full, you can always squeeze in a few more people on plastic chairs to take up the tiny isle space.

Someone on the bus knew how to speak English and confirmed for us that the mini-bus will drop us where we can take another bus to the town we planned to go.  We caught the bus no problem and arrived Diyarbakir.  The only problem is that we arrived the mini-bus station instead of the bus station that we passed by but we didn’t know we need to get off.  When we looked lost, a kid popped by to offer help and led us to a mini-bus that he said can take us to the bus station. 

After a good hour of zig sagging through the town where the bus driver seems to want to pile as much people to his van as possible, he told us to get off to walk across the street to the bus station.  Everyone were so confused and later found out that we have to climb through a construction site to get to the bus station. 

Finally we go to the bus station at Diyarbakir and found an overnight bus that can get us to Trabzon on the Black Sea coast.

We got to Trabzon at 8 AM in the morning and found a 9:30 AM bus that can get us to Batumi in Georgia.  Little did we know that this 206 KM distance took over 5 hours.  Firstly, the bus stopped at every single town between Trabzon and Hopa, where the Turkey-Georgian border is.   Then, everyone had to get off and line up at the Turkish border to exit.  The only issue was that there was only 1 officer at the border.  Everyone was pushing and jamming into the queue.  It was chaotic and unexpected given Turkey is a country heading into EU. 

What a contrast to the Georgian side!  We were greeted with a brand new building and friendly staff with proper queue system.  There is even a tourist office within the building at the border.  I think this is the first country that got it right to have a tourist office right at the border.  I’m feeling good about our upcoming visit at Georgia.  

Day 129: The Next Canadian Pride – Diyabakir, Turkey

(Him: Charlie)

Canadians are a proud bunch! The national pride is most vividly shown on July 1 across the nation, when red/white paint takes up kid’s face and maple leaf flags dot every street. Canadians are also proud of Canadian inventions too. From snowshoes to basketball, to telephone, most Canadians can name them as if they invented them.

In the last decades or so, the Canadian pride would have to be the once mighty telecom conglomerate Nortel and, the most recently, RIM. The latter pushed the Canadian pride to a lofty height by almost bringing the Coyotes back to Ontario!!

Fast forward to present day, Nortel has vanished and lackluster RIM is far from the superstar it used to be. What goes with them, perhaps, is a dent in the pride on Canadian inventions? If that’s the case, I’ve found a very competent candidate for some celebration – the Just-for-Laugh TV program!

This Montreal based TV program, which plays jokes/pranks on people, is hilarious and does not require any language skills to understand. I suggest it should a Canadian pride because the program is being played everywhere in the world. I have personally seen it on airplanes, buses, European countries, and most recently, today in Turkey!

Most people may guess it’s a program from the US or Europe, but just like people couldn’t guess the origin of basketball, Canadians can come up with amazing things!

Perhaps the next time Canada hosts an international event, the Just-for-Laugh green monster can jump out to greet our visitors, just like “Mr. Bean” did at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Day 127: Life of a Kurdish

(Her: Joanna)

I randomly came across a trip advisor review about a Kurdish village home stay when we were loading up maps of the next city we are heading to.  Both Charlie and I were thinking “Cool!”.  That’s exactly what we want to see.  We decided to squeeze in a night at the home stay and email the organizer.  Likely, she replied almost instantly.  Not knowing how to get to this town and the schedule of the buses, smartly, Charlie asked the owner of the place we stayed (via Google Translate).  Sweet! 

Unexpectedly, we were picked up by a really nice Fiat mini-van by a guy dressed in traditional Kurdish pant, sharwaal (like what Charlie was wearing in the pic) but speaks really good English.  I was a bit confused.  After a 15 minute drive from the town Hilvan, we arrived the village of Yucavali. 

We were greeted by the host, who is a 19 year-old local boy and speaks really good English, his mom, and dad.  We were invited to sit in their garden filled with fruit trees (and chickens and turkeys running around) and had tea, of course.  It wasn’t anything fancy but really raw and neat.  There were 2 other guests from California joined us.  Though the host was so young, he was very composed and organized.  He gave us a briefing of the village, their tradition, and the history of the community project, which the Home Stay is part of it. 

Kurdish people used to be nomadic until 7-8 generations prior.  You can still see some tradition from their currently living style.  Even though they live in a house, they sleep outside the house in the summer time or on the roof.  The house is sparsely furnished with essential equipments.  Surprisingly, the living/dining/napping room has AC.  Thank God to that as it was crazily hot in the middle of the day which the AC made the heat a lot more bearable. 

The main living area is lined with carpet and cushions.  During meal time, the area will be lined with a table cloth where we ate.  There’s no shower or bath.  It is plain old school pouring hot water into a bucket, mix with cold water, and splash yourself clean.  It is my first time washing myself like this.  We have access to steamy, hot water to shower anytime in the day.  Often we forgot that it is a lot of effort and a lot of energy is being used to bring us such luxury and comfort.   

It seems like that most work end up on the shoulder of the women in the household.  I woke up at 6 am to check out what the mom does in the morning.  The host’s mom was already awake by the time I got out of bed and finished sweeping and cleaning the front porch, and gathered a bunch of branches.  She quickly fed the chicken and milk the cow with well trained skill and speed before she set up to make bread on the mud ground in front of the house.  You can see the strength of the host mom just by how she kneads the dough.     Not an easy job being a housewife in rural area.  The host mom showed me how to roll the dough into bread.  Though I thought my first Kurdish bread was a success,  I am not even close to her amazing skillfulness in multi-tasking between roll the bread dough, keeping up a steady fire to bake the bread while baking the bread on the metal plate that requires constantly flipping and turning to avoid it from being burnt.  My piece of bread never made it to the breakfast table but a nice meal for the chicken.

From the eye of a city person like me, the life of these villagers is tough and they seem to be very poor.  However, they get to spend a lot of time around family and friends versus spending the bulk of your time at work; caring for and helping each other versus socializing with people that don’t truly matter;  spend time in nature, breath air and equally respecting nature versus spending time indoor with little exercise and develop all sorts of chronic disease; enjoying food they made organically versus constantly worried about the source or safety of food we purchase from supermarket where the bulk of our food are genetically engineered or mass produce in farms that ran like manufacturing.  Everything has its pros and cons.  Are city people really wealthier than villagers like them?  Like the host’s father said with a satisfying laughter, “I’m just a small farmer.”

When we ask the host whether he will inherit the farm and continue to live in the village, he gave us a shrew and said he wanted to work in the tourism industry while other family members can help his father out.  Though these villages are mostly secluded, as they get exposed more and more to the outside world and man-made needs, more will give up their lives in the villages.  Less and less of them will appreciate what they have.

Day 121: A Fantastic Cultural Experience - Konya, Turkey

(Him: Charlie)

“Whirling Dervish”, when I first heard about it, I thought it’s a couple other English words that I didn’t know. But it turned out, I uncovered a whole new world that I have not heard of before. 

This “dance”, as part of a religious ceremony, is the legacy of the famous Muslim philosopher/poet, Rumi. As the dervish spin with the music, they would reach a trance state, and they get closer to god. By traveling to Konya, the place where Rumi lived and died, we had the opportunity to witness this intriguing ritual (aka Sema). The dance, or the concept, may sound funny to outsiders, but their devotion and dedication to god is definitely venerable.

Day 114: Sea of Tourists at Sea of Galilee

(Her: Joanna)

Because there is no bus running during the time of Sabbath, our plan to bus to the Sea of Galilee fell through.  With the time that we have, joining a tour was the best option though it was a bit pricey.   I was really excited to see these places that I have heard from church and the bible where Jesus lived his life and started preaching the gospel.   The story about his first miracle in turning water into wine (Cana), feeding 5000 people with only 5 pieces of bread and 2 fishes (Tabgha), and the place where his first few disciples started to follow him are all stories that I have grew up with (Capernaum).  I cannot tell what I expect from these places exactly but I am hoping I can find or feel traces of Jesus.  

Boy, was I disappointed.  Despite the fact that the Sea of Galilee was a beautiful place to spend a summer holiday, the places where significant events happened in Jesus life are now no more than any regular touristy place.  I cannot see or feel any association to the holiness I was expecting.  On the contrary, all these places are very touristy.  The worst was the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized by John.  Inside me, it hurts to such a religious place to be so commercialized.  There are different sizes of “Holy Water” you can buy and for the convenience of the tourists, the price is even in US dollar; tourists rushed to buy shirts with Jesus’ icon on and have a deep into the Jordan River; a full complex of souvenirs.  

Day 112 - 114: Jerusalem – Where is the holiness of the Holy Land?

(Her: Joanna)

Throughout our journey thus far, we came across a few where a few popular religions live “happily” and “peacefully” together, such as Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sofia in Bulgaria.   But none of these cities were these religions “live” together as dramatically as Jerusalem.  Muslim, Christian, and Jews with the same origin all live actively in this small city.  The somewhat “peace” in Jerusalem is thank to an order or rule book that the Ottoman Empire lay down detailing how the city will be run base on the snap shot when the order was recorded to eliminate any argument.  Whoever wants to change anything, everyone has to agree (which is nearly impossible).  It is quite bizarre that the same Muslim family has been locking the door of the Church of Sepulchre for over 500 years.

Bizarre and crazy are the perfect words to describe Jerusalem (and of course fascinating).  I have never seen so many religious people in one place.  Let alone religious people from 3 religions.  Everywhere you see people praying. 

Jerusalem is divided into 4 quarters – Jews quarter, Christian quarter, Muslim quarter and Armenian quarter (yeah…this is an odd one).  It is total craziness to see a street full of Muslim with ladies all covered up and see Orthodox Jews just around the corner who also dressed in black but with fashionable curly sideburn and big hat.

It seems like that the location where the foundation stone is seems to be the point of conflict.  The foundation stone is situated where the Dome of Rock in the Muslim ruling but this object is both the holy of holy for both Muslim and Jews.  Christians seems to be out of this conflict. 

It is quite bizarre to see people are so intensively touched by the holy objects and speculated location of where Jesus or Prophet Mohammed had been.  There is no evidence where exactly the places are but people just treat these places as the holy depending on your religion.  For example, there are 2 places where Jesus were crucified, died and was buried; there are 2 tombs of the Virgin Mary.  

I was bought up from a Catholic family.  I have always thought that the most important thing is my spiritual relationship with God being a person with a religion.  Rituals and ceremony are solely to assist a person’s relationship with God.  Being in Israel with so many people of different religion cramped in one country was an eye-opener for me to see how differently each religion and each person interpret the meaning of religion and their relationship with God.  Being on this land, I understand why religion has always been in the history of man a source of conflict.  I don’t feel that the Holy Land is a holy place.  What I see is the nature of human being – unfortunately, the ugly side of human being.    

Day 111: What I saw in Palestine… - Bethlehem, Palestine

(Him: Charlie)

The Palestine/Israel conflict makes news every other day, but until being here in person, I have to admit that I am quite oblivious about the true situation. What I have witnessed here, Israel or Palestine depending on who you speak to, is a one-sided tragedy that everyone should know about…

The plot of land, bounded by Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, used to be Palestine. After the WWII, the British who controlled the area at the time, allowed Jewish people in Diaspora to settle on this land. Over the next few years, the massive immigration continued grew, and on 1948, the State of Israel was founded, within the land of Palestine, and has been here ever since. The Jewish people believe this is the “promised land” given by god, but Palestinians and the Arabic nations believe that the Jewish people stole their land.

Fast forward to a few wars later, Israel managed to triple its size, and displaced millions of Palestinians from the Israeli area. Today, Palestinians in the area mostly reside in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and even these areas are under strict controls by the Israelis.

On our trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories, we witnessed a lot of unfair treatment to Palestinians. We saw the Palestinians were being yelled at while crossing the border from Jordan. We passed through numerous check-points that were set up to restrict the movement of Palestinians. We witnessed the segregation walls and electric fences between West Bank and Israel. Apparently, these fences and walls were erected well into the Palestinian territories based on the internationally recognized border. We also witnessed pockets of Israeli settlements inside the West Bank, which are fenced and secured by armed forces. Apparently, Israel has a long record of human right violations.

In talking to some Palestinians, they feel helpless about the current situation. Undoubtedly, Israel is overpowering Palestine, who is in dire poverty. It is ashamed that the Arabs lost so badly in previous wars against Israel and conceded so much land, but Palestinians these days are happy just to have a full control of the land they have, namely West Bank and Gaza Strip, and carry on with life. On the other hand, Israel doesn’t seem to keen on loosening its grip on Palestinians’ neck. To get a sense of what Israel is thinking, we bought of copy of the Jerusalem post, and we found it rife with articles about the Israel/Arabic politics and there’s even an article criticizing the two-state solution.

To me, as an outsider, the two-station solution is the best solution for the current situation for a couple of simple reasons. 1. Israel can say what they want about the “promised land”, but they took it away from the Palestinians after all. 2. Ideally, it would be nice to integrate the two communities and share the land, but given the historical problems, it would be wise to each have their own area to avoid mass displacement.

Day 108: Cleanest Me in 30 Years - Amman, Jordan

(Him: Charlie)

Turkish Bath, Hamam, is world famous, so we definitely should not miss out. But we decided to have it Amman instead of two simply reasons – less touristy and much cheaper. So the cleansing begins…

The experience was an authentic one right from the beginning as we first walked into the Ottoman style dome architecture. The bath building, which is decorated with nostalgic furniture, central fountain, antiques, and lamps, creates a serene setting for bathers seeking complete relaxation. With a cup of Turkish tea in my hand and listen to bird chirping in the background, I was ready for the cleansing.

As with other things in these Muslim countries, women and men are always separate. So Jo and I actually had a different time slot of our bath. The process of Turkish bath goes like this: you first enter a steam room for sauna, and then you jump in a hot water bath. After that, you will be in for a world-renown full body scrub. The person scrubs you would also clean you with soap and wash you down, before releasing you to a full body massage. Finally, the bath would end with a relaxation on a heated marble slab and a dry sauna.

It’s an excellent experience for me because I’ve never been pampered like this, and definitely never been scrubbed so meticulously before. And for Jo, a bonus would be seeing the normally all covered up Muslim women in bikinis during her women section.

Day 108: Ramadan and the Lively Cities - Amman, Jordan

(Him: Charlie)

Ramadan has always been a remote concept to me. I heard of it in Canada, but never really understood what it is, but this time Middle East, I was fortunate enough to experience this holy event.

As a background, Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Muslims worldwide observe this as a month of fasting. The month lasts 29-30 days. While fasting from dawn until sunset Muslims refrain from consuming food, drinking liquids and sexual relations. Ramadan is practiced as a way of reflection and to please god.

During the month of Ramadan, we visited two Muslim countries, Turkey and Jordan (Lebanon is actually 50:50 split between Christians and Muslim), and experienced Ramadan first hand – great experience!

First of all, as tourists, Ramadan could pose some challenges to us. Not only it was difficult to find food during day time, when we actually found it, we would also have to consume food and drinks discreetly as a courtesy. There were a few times where we forgot about Ramadan and almost had to starve for the day. But luckily, we were always able to find some restaurants open for tourists.

Inconvenience aside, Ramadan is an intriguing event and presented us some of the liveliest city life we have seen. Everyday, just before people break the fast, many families would gather in public space and prepare for the end of the daily fasting. You would see people sitting in front of food and drinks waiting for the Call to Prayers from the nearest mosque. It must be a great feeling to enjoy the food and drink after a day of endurance. As the night progresses, the city would become increasingly lively – street vendors chanting, cars honking, restaurants bustling – until 1-2am, creating a stark contrast from the streets during the day. For 30 days straight, the end of daily fasting was celebrated like a festival!

At the end of the Ramadan, people would celebrate it like people celebrating Christmas in the western culture (or so we heard). So I was really looking forward to the celebration. We even timed it such that we would “enjoy” this in a big city, Amman. However, what we didn’t know was that the “celebration” is literally the same as Christmas in the western culture, meaning people stay home and stores are closed. So on the day after the end of Ramadan, the street was essentially empty. Well, I guess that’s part of the experience/learning curve. Good to know.

Day 107: Welcome to the “Yellow City”

(Her: Joanna)

You can literally feel you are in Jordan.  The dryness of Jordan felt like all of the moisture in my skin was being suck out of me.  Jordan is very different from all the cities we had been to so far.  Like how the picture depicted in my child bible, it is yellow and with buildings with 1 -2 stories high covering the endless number of hills that make up the city of Amman.

Jordan is the first country that I have been to who you will definitely feel 100% welcome.  No matter where you go, a local will say “Welcome” to you.  I think “welcome” may be the first or only English word they know.  It is such a pleasant feeling to be greeted and welcomed when you visit a foreign country.  

While you think that everyone in Jordan is nice and friendly, little did you know that when a female is walking on the street alone, the local might be commenting that you are a whore in Arabic while you think they are saying "Welcome" in Arabic - true story from a friend we’ve met who strolled on the street with her friend who knows Arabic.

Day 106: What a Small World

(Her: Joanna)

Guess what?  We bumped into the family from German who we did the jeep tour with at Wadi Rum at the resort across where we were staying.  We ended up moving into their resort and spent a day of amazing time with their kids.  This couple let their kids to freely explore and try things.  It was great to see parents who give so much freedom to their kids.  It is difficult for parents to do as I saw from the mom’s facial expression and eyes that she was afraid the kids to get hurt or fall but this freedom to explore is critical to develop the self confident and independence of the kids.  Miran and Marsha are 2 active and energetic kids with very cute face. 

Day 105: Unexpected Gem For Beach Bumps in Jordan

(Her: Joanna)

Surprise!  Boy, that’s why I love backpacking.  You just never know where you will end up going and staying.  Because visiting Petra and Wadi Rum took less time than what we expected, we have 2 days to chill somewhere.  It had been non-stop go-go-go the last couple of weeks.  We were dying to just have a do-nothing day.

Since Linda, an Aussie girl we’ve met at Amman who we travelled with since then, planned to go to Aqaba to chill at the Red Sea, we decided to tag along instead of going back to Amman.  

What a great, pleasant surprise!  Aqaba is GORGEOUS here.  The sea is so blue here (if the sand is a bit more fine, it would be just perfect) and the town Aqaba, unlike other towns we’ve been to in Jordan, looks like a total sea side resort town.  

What’s better?  I get to scuba dive in the Red Sea for an affordable price and for only $12 CAD, you get a private room with AC and ensuite bathroom plus a pool and a roof top terrace.  Resort, chilling mode was definitely on.  It was like a day dream to be in the desert then sun tanning in a beach all within a day.  

I thought there was no way I could enjoy beaches in the Middle East because of the conservative culture here in the Middle East.  Another surprised that we found a very touristy area in the South Beach 12 KM south of the city center where the traditional conservative culture is loosen up a bit for foreigners.  

Putting icing on a cake, the sandy (not super great sand) beaches with straw beach umbrella was almost empty and free of charge and there are no beach vendors harassing you to buy stuff so we can truly enjoy the beach!!!!  

Day 104: Endless Sea of Stars

(Her: Joanna)

After so many days seeing ruins and touristic sites in cities, Wadi Rum was my perfect nature fix.  Despite the heat and dryness in this desert reserve, I had a ton of fun here.  The scenery here reminded me of the Grand Canyon.  Everywhere is cover with yellowish and reddish sand and rocks.  The size of the mountain in the desert was magnificent.  And the different type of composition and shape of the rocks are just impressive.  I definitely regretted not to bring my climbing shoes with me with so many great bouldering surrounded me.  We joined a 5 hours jeep tour with this camp and saw sand dunes, canyon, and dozens of weirdly shaped rocks.  What makes this tour even more fun was the kids (Miran and Marsha) of a German family who were on the tour with us.  We were climbing up a steep hill and stone bridge to see a panoramic view of the desert, climbing and running down the sand dune and rock climbing up walls in the desert. 

What’s better than the sky in the desert to see sun set and stars?  The sky seems endless in the desert.  It looks like there are millions of stars in the sky in the desert.  Shooting star seems to be less shy to make their appearance in the sky of a desert.  The stars are so much brighter and twinkle more actively.  With the sound of wind or perhaps the sound of the desert, it is the most soothing feeling.  It is a memorable day that I will not forget.