Day 103: Petra by Day

(Her: Joanna)

To minimize the time being in the heat and sun, and massive flock of tourists, we entered Petra before 8 AM.  It was perfect.  We got to the Siq and the Treasury with just a few people.  And the number of donkey/horse/camel owners, and souvenir sellers to urge you to buy or use their service were less. 

We met a kid, Oman, who spoke better English than most adult Jordanian we have encountered, persistently trying to sell us his donkey service.  I’m truly impressed with his skill in offering us different price for different routes to lure us into hiring him.  If he had a camel instead, I would have definitely taken his offer.  Eight hours later, we bumped into Oman again.  Seeing so many tourists, Oman recognized me and attempted for the last time to get me to take his donkey - impressive kid.

It was hard to imagine that Petra used be a place with rivers and trees.  It is all dry land right now.  I can imagine that this city must be a beautiful place with magnificent buildings caved out of rocks.  The details of the decorative craving on the building exterior wall are already decayed but the few preserved in the museum showed that the building used to have really impressive craving.  I found Petra impressive but required some imagination to make it magical.

Day 102: Petra by Night

(Her: Joanna)

Petra was one of the stop that I have been waiting for since the start of the trip to visit.  It was an amazing experience to visit at night and listen to traditional Beoduin (Jordanian who live in the desert) music in front of the Treasury filled with candles.  You can hear the silence of Petra and feel the loneliness of the musician when there’s no tourist talking or people flashing their camera.   I cannot wait to see Petra in the day time.

Day 101: Wearing Too Much Is Wearing Too Little Amman

(Her: Joanna)

The Lonely Planet guidebook already gave me heads-up that the Middle East is more conservatively dressed than Western society.  In high thirty degree Celsius temperature, I have worn my light cotton T-shirt that covers my shoulder and long airy pants thinking that this is so covered up for this kind of temperature. 

Boy, was I wrong!  When I was walking through the market in Amman, firstly, there are proportionally less women in the market buying groceries than Asia or North America; secondly, 95% of the women are fully covered up with headscarf, long sleeves shirt/dress and full length pants/dress; thirdly, people were giving me so much attention either because I’m a foreigner or I have worn “too little”.  I instantly felt that I should probably wear long sleeves too.  I was a bit uncomfortable walking through the market and was clanging onto Charlie.  Everyone we’ve met was really friendly and welcoming us on the street but I was experiencing some kind of cultural shock and being a foreigner, I have no concept of what the socially acceptable standard is and being uncomfortable to be caught in between being respectful to a culture and not knowing. 

Being lived in the “Western” society, I was exposed to bikinis, tanks, g-strings, and short shorts.  I was a bit culture shock by seeing most of the ladies in Amman all covered up.  I completely forgot that I used to be part of a mildly conservative society in HK: you wouldn’t see too many short shorts on the street even in the summer, t-shirt covering the shoulder is more common than tanks, and even when girls wear tanks, they would wear something to cover their cleavage.  I guess when you grew up in that culture, you don’t even put second thought to the option of wearing less even when the weather is unbearably hot.  

Day 100: Are we waiting for another massacre in Syria? - Beirut, Lebanon

(Him: Charlie)

The visit to Lebanon, once again, reminds me of war. This time around, the war reminder is much more real and much closer physically. It’s hard to imagine that shelling and bombing are just on the other side of the Lebanon-Syria border. Over there, less than 100km away, life in displacement, life in hunger, life in bloodshed, life in horror, has become a usual business. This tragedy is unfolding just like the Bosnian War, which was frustrated by futile negotiation and cease fires. Also similar to the Bosnian War is the conflicting interests at the UN Security Council. The delay in any sort of intervention at the expense of the loss of valuable lives every day!!

I feel ashamed by the selfishness of China & Russia, for not agreeing to intervene with force. The reasoning from them may sound legitimate in a normal sense (outsiders shall not forcefully intervene a country’s internal affair & bring down a government), however, what happens when the citizens have clearly made their choice by fighting to death? Our responsible international community should facilitate Syrian people to make their selection, not just send in “humanitarian aids”! – a 3-year-old would tell you that fighting should be stopped first, in order to make a selection.

So what happened to Bosnia in 1995? After years of futile negotiation and failed ceasefires, a NATO strike was finally triggered after a massacre in Sarajevo. The strike quickly brought fighting parties to serious peace talk and the war ended in no time!

By the same pattern, it looks like the world is waiting for another massacre in Syria before the next move!

Sigh… the history of human being is no doubt a history of invasions and devastation.

Day 99: Re-thinking Lebanon - Beirut, Lebanon

(Him: Charlie)

We were disappointed by Beirut at the first impression, almost entirely because of a false expectation, but by Day 2, we’ve found the charm of the City – its people. We’ve come to find out that Lebanese are exceptionally friendly.

On our day-trip to Beit-ed-dine, a grandiose palace in the mountains, we must have struck conversation with at least half a dozen Lebanese. From passengers on shared taxi, to random bystanders, to even a chatty president’s guard (yes, an on duty president’s guard at Beit-ed-dine (the president’s summer residence), all of them were very welcoming and made sure we had a good time in Beirut. In Jo’s words, their smiles are very genuine. I’d say Lebanese are probably the most welcoming and friendly people we’ve seen so far.

The conversation we had with the guard allowed us to learn more about this country, which just had a serious armed conflict with Israel in 2006. Even to this date, many regions within the country are still plagued by armed conflicts among various groups. Poor economy in combination with unaffordable living costs resulted massive emigration and severe brain drain in the country.

Interesting facts:

• A lot of Lebanese emigrated to Brazil, so many expats in Beirut are from Brazil, particularly Sao Paulo.
• There are a lot of Filipinos and Indians in Lebanon as foreign workers. They are everywhere on the street.
• Lebanon is not dominated by Muslim, but an almost even split between Christians and Muslim

 (Rural Lebanese town in the mountains)

 (Lebanon's national symbol - Cedar)

Day 98: Confusion in Beirut - Beirut, Lebanon

(Him: Charlie)

Lebanon is bonus. It was never on the list of countries to visit due to the Syria situation, which prevents any land border crossing. However, when booking the flight from Istanbul to Amman, we found out that we could have a stopover in Beirut for a low cost, so we decide to spend 4 days here to explore the country.

The expectation for Beirut was high – chic, modern, and developed, so I have heard before arrival. But what met us on the ground was completely different picture – hassling taxi drivers, chaotic (super aggressive) cars, derelict buildings and littering problems, all made me wonder if I’d been reading about a different country.

After walking for a whole afternoon, the confusion didn't go away. Instead, it got worse. While buses are cheap, other necessities in daily life are quite expensive (food for instance). It appears that there are a lot of rich people in Lebanon, and there is a large proportion of poor as well. There is a small pocket of luxurious buildings and shops in downtown Beirut, but it could hardly be any representation to the city. So what’s the city really like?

(Building relics close to the city centre - probably damaged 2006 Israeli invasion.) 

(Mosque in centre and stop sign in Arabic) 

Day 94: A land of difference - Bucharest, Romania

(Him: Charlie)

Romania is one of those countries that offer you a wide variety of tourist attractions. From grandiose monumental buildings in Bucharest to rustic remote villages; from spooky Transylvania castles (think Dracula!)to delicately crafted wooden churches. We had an ambitious plan to visit them all, and the only answer to that is renting a car.

The good thing about having our own transportation was that we could stay at pensions in small villages (we are used to calling settlements “town”, but our proud host in Saschiz (near Sighisoara) insisted it’s a village).

The rustic rural area of Romania is fascinating. We came across a monthly market place, where cattle and horses are traded and local delicacies are served. Apparently, Asians are rare in this part of the world. When Jo and I walked among the horse carriages and food tents, we felt like we were aliens descended on earth, as we attracted a great deal of curious stares on every move we made. Though the staring was intense, people were actually very friendly. In the northern city of Sighetu Marmatiei, Joanna received a bag-full of apples from a local old lady, probably as a gesture of welcoming.

The thing we didn’t know about driving in Romania is how treacherous the roads are in northern Romania. We had to drive really slowly on most of the roads due to winding and narrow roads. We estimated 3 days for the road trip, but by day 2, we knew we wouldn’t make it back to Bucharest by Day 3. So, as usual, the plan was changed again. Unfortunately, in order to spend a bit more time in Romania, we had to forego the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria.

Highlights in Romania:

 (local farmer on a horse-drawn wagon, on his way to the market place)

  (Fascinating wooden churches in Maramures, Romania)

(Spooky Dracula Castel)