So… did we do Turkey for Christmas? No. The prospects of a cold and expensive winter in Europe put us off and so we decided to stay in Dahab, a small town in the Sinai on the west coast of the Gulf of Aqaba. At least until the end of February when our bikes eventually crossed the Mediterranean Sea.
I feel a tad guilty that we, hardcore bikers of note, wimped out of sliding about in snow and ice and wind and rain, avoided having to pay extortionate sums of Euros to stay in sad out of season camp-sites with neglected bogs and facilities, with only the grumpy landlord for company, but I don’t dwell on it.
.
So, after a moderate amount of hassle and a few detours to government offices in El Tur, Cairo, Sharm El Sheikh and Nuweiba we extended both our Egyptian visas and our bike permits for a few more months. This included Fanny having to be interviewed by the head of the Sinai’s “Security Police” which involved Fanny not being interviewed at all, and the Chief and I swapping police stories over tea in his office.
Whilst we were in “form filling” mood Fanny also managed to extend her British visa in Cairo and so Dahab with its sunny weather, reasonably cheap accommodation and Red Sea activity is where we slummed out Christmas, Chinese New Year and the worst of the northern hemisphere winter.
We also managed to extend our stay at our apartment at a fraction of what similar accommodation would have cost in China, Turkey, Greece, England and indeed anywhere else in the world. We chose a German owned apartment as opposed to any Egyptian run place because we are allergic to sewage coming out the shower head and being electrocuted by the appliances. A bit fussy granted.
We also got our bikes serviced at the very impressive KTM service centre in Sharm El Sheikh and they did an excellent job, although bike parts and tyres are hard to come by in Egypt because of high import taxes and a loused up economy. More details on all the technical stuff of our bikes and kit in the “Bikes and Equipment” chapter of this diary.
So what have we been up to? Well serious idling of course, but in addition to that, and when there was nothing on Fox Movies, we mooched about town chatting to people. Fanny, in her indomitable way, became immersed in local life and community and was greeted with 你好 where ever she went. Through her Chinese websites she had become “our woman in Egypt” and was an unpaid ambassador and fixer for the increasing number of visiting Chinese to the Sinai peninsular. I am less gregarious and a 暴躁的老头子 and so avoided all but essential local contact unless absolutely unavoidable, but I did manage to get my PADI Open water, and Advanced Open water diving qualifications. The fish and Red Sea are alright I suppose, but the real joy of diving is that you don’t have to listen to or talk with anyone for 50 minutes while you bob about underwater looking at seaslugs, coral and your depth gauge.
http://www.h2odiversdahab.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-tJRZueVSU
Fanny persevered and mastered windsurfing, but I abandoned learning to kite surf. Whilst I am pretty good at handling and controlling kites and parafoils–through many years of paragliding I suppose–no amount of time was going to keep me upright on a wake board on top of the sea and I got fed up being dragged through the water inhaling plankton …and so I jacked it in. A man’s gotta know his limits.
My other activity was annoying the local police on my bike as I cruised about in my standard Sinai biking configuration of flip flops and shorts, refusing to stop and refusing to pay bribes. To my mind the local fuzz are incompetent, lazy and stupid and therefore worthy targets of abuse and ridicule. Their incompetence was only matched by the ubiquitous Egyptian military who seemed completely gormless. How they must miss their despot dictator, but at least Mubarek told them which end of a falafel to start eating. Now they wander around like lost souls with only calls to prayer and loading their AK 47 rifle magazines to occupy them. Pointy ends forward, chaps.
I decided to get back into serious running mode and found some amazing runs in the desert mountains that surround Dahab. The only fly in the ointment was that I became all too aware of a creature called the Burton’s Carpet Viper that makes its home in south Sinai. Damn those Wikipedia people. Apparently, this evil viper is a monster of legend and is lurking in every nook and cranny and under every stone in the desert, poised to give anyone who crosses its path an agonising death. If I am to believe the numerous emails from my old friends and colleagues in the Big 4 forensic accounting practices and consultancies around the planet this would be preferable to going back to work, but even so, evil vipers that one doesn’t share children with? 不好.
The hills
In the interest of my continuing pursuit of Mandarin fluency, I continued to work on my Chinese and wrote some rather basic articles for various magazines and websites which seemed to be appreciated by my three followers. Fanny was also very busy with articles for various publications and continued in her attempt to secure US$5000 in sponsorship to cover the pricey entry fees for both of us and our bikes to enter into China, but times are tough and I suspect that the funding will never materialise. I am inclined to miss out riding into China and finish our trip in Europe unless Fanny achieves the impossible. She is very determined though, has a following of more than a million people and has some influential people and Chinese PR companies on the case so you never know.
http://www.tudou.com/v/e9S_9-27ztw/&rpid=84791195&resourceId=84791195_05_05_99/v.swf
It seemed I was not the only Englander to find refuge in Dahab during the winter months and we became close pals with two 英国人. One a retired and rather smashed up former 22 SAS regiment non commissioned officer in his 70s from Merseyside and the other a chap about the same age as myself from East London who was studying for an anthropology degree at Oxford University and in the distant past would have been a Met police C11 target. An ex special forces soldier cum dive master, a London blagger cum academic, a Chinese intelligence specialist cum biker chick and a Hong Kong cop cum forensic accountant … what an eclectic bunch to hang out together drinking Bedouin tea and putting the world to rights.
Occasionally when the internet was running I would chat with pals on Skype, including my friend, Nick Dobson and his Dad, Chris, a former Daily Telegraph war correspondent, war historian and author. On one call Chris Senior reminisced back to the late 60s and early 70s when he rode on the back of an Israeli tank through many of the places we had ridden our bikes in the Sinai. Friendly and chaotic Egyptians running Sinai, or rude and grumpy Israelis and super efficiency? Seems you can’t have everything in life… but perhaps the Egyptians have it. We like friendly.
I also spent time with an old colleague from my Arthur Andersen days who has now become a serious motorcycle fan, with five very nice bikes in his garage in London and an assortment of off road and track courses under his belt. Apparently me arriving to work in Surrey Street on my Suzuki GSXR 1300 Hayabusa one day sparked off his interest in bikes. And quite right too… awesome bike. He came out to Dahab for a few days holiday mainly to scuba dive, but we took the KTMs out for a spin to Saint Catherine’s monastery– which lies just below Mount Sinai where the Old Testament says Moses received the ten commandments. Although it was very bright and sunny, it was uncomfortably cold on the bike in the morning shadows and I should have put on many more layers of clothes. It really is miserable being cold on a motorcycle.
On the way back I had a big wobble on a bend in the middle of the desert and initially thought I had veered into one of the large cracks that the desert diurnal temperature difference makes in the road surface through continual expansion and contraction. But after wobbling to a stop I discovered that I had in fact picked up a six inch nail in my back tyre. To exacerbate my misfortune I had left all the tyre levers, the air pump and puncture repair kit back in the panniers back at the apartment and so we managed to flag down a Bedouin pick-up “bakkie” and load my bike onto the back and return 100kms + to Dahab. It required manoeuvring the bike from a small sand embankment onto a flat back truck and then pushing the bike off the flat back onto the back of the pick up and securing it with my tow rope.
Like my home in the small village of Arniston on the southern tip of Africa, each day in Dahab was like an episode of BBC Radio 4′s The Archers, without the gay marriages of course, although Arniston puts in a moderate amount of effort at being fashionably deviant. I am not sure how long one has to stay somewhere before a place becomes “I lived in” rather than “I stayed at”. Perhaps being given the local “German Bakery” coffee shop discount card was a defining moment in permanent residency. Fanny got heavily involved with helping visiting Chinese find accommodation, transport and general assistance in return for them bringing in supplies from China. Such supplies included a new Canon camera, helmet video camera and intercom set donated by a Chinese OEM manufacturer. Also, Chinese spices, chilli sauce, food ingredients and daft but useful things like flip flops.
I checked out a few more dive sites in the Red Sea, but was getting slightly bored and so decided that since we were unable to travel through Syria on the bikes that I would hike through Jordan and Israel and do the tourist thing. Fanny was not really interested in backpacking and sleeping rough in ditches (no idea why), and had friends coming over for Chinese New Year and so she stayed in Dahab.
I packed a rucksack lent to me by our lovely landlady, Beatte and took an early local bus to Nuweiba where I hoped to catch the ferry to Aqaba in Jordan, which is just north of the border with Saudi Arabia. I very much wanted to ride my bike but the temporary import duties and custom fees for Jordan and Israel were far too expensive, especially the fees to get back into Egypt and so I decided to travel light and use public transport instead.
When I got to Nuweiba it was full of Syrian trucks queuing up to take the ferry to Jordan. I wandered through the port and up to the ferry which was moored up and chatted with various drivers who all seemed very friendly and told me about their woes in Syria. Two hours after the ferry should have set sail we were invited to board and my passport was checked and I was sent back to immigration as somehow or another I had managed to navigate myself around every single security, customs and immigration check point in the port on my walkabout.
Passport now stamped with an exit chop I boarded the ferry and after settling down I realised I was the only non Arab passenger on the ship. We sailed close to the deserted coast of Saudi Arabia, a country that looked, at least from the sea, pretty much like other parts of the Sinai. However, because of the restrictions imposed by Saudi’s ultra extremist inhabitants could have been the far side of the moon. It seemed strange that it is a land that Fanny is not allowed to ride her bike in. Indeed I don’t think women are allowed to do very much at all except hide in the shadows and make new little Saudis.
On arrival at Aqaba port I was given a free visa, but I had to wait for an hour as the immigration officer had left his post and gone AWL. As the only foreigner, and indeed only person left in the terminal I paced around looking at the numerous pictures of King Abdullah II Al Hussein that adorned the walls of the arrival hall. In fact his portrait is all over Jordan and he always looked cheerful and well dressed in western suits, Arab finery, or more often than not in various types of military uniform with a chest full of medals that he had actually earned through military service as a young man. He is a well educated chap and has been recognised for promoting progressive policies, economic growth and social reform since he came to the throne. Rare qualities in a leader and a stark contrast with Jordan’s neighbours.
As I exited the port I was descended upon by a huge number of touts and taxi drivers and to their surprise I sprinted away into the darkness of the desert. My escape and evasion was successful, but a few minutes later I realized my mistake as Aqaba town was actually about 8 kilometres away from the port and so I orientated myself, programmed my GPS and started my hike along a well made but deserted motorway into town. Actually I had walked only a few kilometres when a friendly bus driver picked me up and dropped me off in town by the biggest flag pole I had ever seen with a tennis court sized flag billowing in the wind… a flag I would later see from miles away on the Israel side of the border.
I wandered around town and found a restaurant that served excellent sheesh kebabs and barbecued chicken, after which I wandered around a bit more looking for a place to rough camp in my sleeping bag. The town was very modern and had lots of bars and clubs and fast food outlets, but there was something strange about Aqaba and only after an hour or so did I realize. There were no women. I suppose there were woman, but definitely not on the streets after sunset. I enquired about staying in a hotel and found out another interesting fact… it is bloody expensive in Jordan and so I found a quiet bit of beach, unpacked my sleeping bag and went to sleep. One of the joys and freedoms of travelling alone.
I woke many times in the night as you do when you are roughing it on an uneven surface and was quite pleased when I saw the red glow of dawn and got up and headed to where I had been told the mini buses go to Petra. I found one, but it was not moving until it was completely full and the only occupant so far was a Chinese guy from Canada called Yee. We decided we would share a taxi and entered into negotiations with a local driver. Eventually we agreed on a trip to Wadi Rum, where we would stay for 3-4 hours to look around and then continue on to Petra.
I found out that Yee also lived in Shanghai and worked for Disney Education. Whilst Yee could also speak Mandarin he seemed more comfortable in English, although he spoke with exactly the same accent as Agent Smith in the movie “The Matrix”. When we were chatting about previous work and things he said ‘Oh, yes, the famous Arthoor ANDERRRSEN’ … which made me snigger.
Wadi Rum is an absolutely stunning bit of Planet Earth. Beautiful in fact. On reflection even better than Petra which is pretty damned amazing itself. We hired a Bedouin guide and a ropey 4×4 and toured the famous landmarks, including a Spring named after Lawrence of Arabia who camped there, allegedly. Our guide pointed in the direction of a gloriously picturesque open valley that disappeared into infinity and told us that Aqaba was three days camel ride away. Now that would have been an adventure and in retrospect I wish I had been impulsive and just done it, camping each night Bedouin style by a fire with the camels under the stars. It would be damned good fun on a KTM 450 EXE as well.
It was a crisp day, dry as a bone, the sun shining, an azure blue sky with just a few whiffs of cloud here and there. The desert colours were truly breathtaking and so we hiked around a bit taking in the amazing scenery. We were shown a small mountain with high sand dunes and our guide said he would meet us on the other side, no doubt so he could save fuel and whittle away some client time as we climbed the rocky hill. Yee was not a Bear Grylls type of person, in fact far from it and he struggled a bit in his totally unsuitable shoes but eventually we made it to the peak and slid down the dune to the other side and carried on our hike. I was regretting not being in a more flexible position to change my mind and spend the whole day hiking about and then camp up at night in the desert by a fire, but I had a taxi driver waiting and a companion who was keen to get on to Petra. Another time.
After getting back in the taxi we had another 80-100 kilometres to drive to Petra and slowly climbed up into the mountains to an altitude of about 2000 metres. As we drove along deserted roads high up on the plateau I had to double take at the surrounding hill tops outside… dusted with white snow and ice. I hadn’t seen snow since the summit of Mount Kenya but a bracing stop to take pictures brought it all flooding back. Bloody hell it was cold. Freezing my nuts off on the equator and now re-freezing them in the middle of the desert in Jordan. Its not what you expect.
As we got nearer to Petra I could see the deep valleys that the famous pink rock hewn churches and monasteries were cut out into. I could also see hundreds, if not thousands of caves where the ancient troglodytes had lived, and some Bedouin tribes still do. Bit drafty, I thought. Both Fanny and Yee had researched and recommended the same backpackers called, for some unknown reason, The Valentine Inn and that is where we decided to go.
http://www.valentine-inn.com/
When the taxi arrived I saw that the Valentine Inn was decorated with lots of red hearts like a garish brothel in Kowloon Tong. Oh Lord. But as it turned out it was actually a pretty decent hostel, warm, with very reasonably priced dorm rooms, and with an excellent and very reasonable evening meal and breakfast. On arrival Yee applied all his attention to a young Korean lady from New Zealand who lived in Hong Kong teaching music, and I was left on my own, as indeed middle aged sole travellers usually are in such places. Glad I had a book.
The next day I escaped from the prowling guides and touts and blagged my way into the grounds of Petra for free using the remains of someone else’s three day ticket thus saving a staggering 70 UK pounds! It was also the first day of the Year of the Dragon and so there were hundreds of Chinese on holiday to annoy and impress with my cunning linguistic skills. As I was wandering about I bumped into a Hong Kong movie star wearing an Indiana Jones hat… de rigour attire for all the well heeled tourists in Petra.
I tried out my Cantonese on Mo Lan-yung, or whatever he was called, and he asked me, how come, since I was a former Royal Hong Kong Police officer, my Cantonese was so crap. He seemed a little taken aback when I suggested Cantonese in this day and age was as much use as Welsh or Afrikaans and was therefore a language destined for extinction and thus pointless making any effort to learn or remember. I waffled on about how I thought the only languages worth learning were Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic and English. I don’t think I made a good impression nor will I be asked for an audition with Shaw Brothers Studios.
Petra is quite an amazing place, especially the rock formations and colours. It was bigger and more dramatic than I expected, but unlike my fellow tourists I refused to ride a donkey up the 800 steps to the famous monastery at the top of the mountain. There were many sheer cliff walls with long drops and of course no western style fences to prevent people inadvertently cliff diving off the edge. At the top on a precipice was a small hut with a breathtaking view over the valley and deserts that stretched out towards the horizon.
There was a Bedouin man warming himself by a small fire inside the hut and I asked him if there was an alternative route back rather than hiking along the well trodden tourist path. He said there was, but I would need to employ a guide. That meant it was possible.
‘How long would it take?’
‘About three to four hours’, he replied.
That meant it would take two and so I disappeared quickly before his sales pitch could start and scrambled down a cliff path into a dry wadi which suddenly fell away to a sheer drop of about 4-500 metres. ‘kin ‘ell. I looked back up at the Bedouin guy and he looked down at me and we both contemplated the situation and then he disappeared and I escaped before he could appear and say he told me so.
Through trial and error I tried every path I could see and could not for the life of me find the alternative route down to the valley. And then I saw it. A goat path zigzagging along steep slopes above more sheer cliffs. I nearly gave up, but then I thought bugger it, don’t look down and take it steady. And so started my rock climbing for idiots without proper kit challenge.
It seemed I was steadily climbing higher and higher rather than going down into the desired direction of the valley ….and then it happened. The path momentarily disappeared and started again a few metres away. Between was a crevice of only a meter or so across, but a seemingly infinite way down. Nothing I thought. Pretend its just a short stepping stone and jump. Then I hesitated. I was suddenly flushed with a severe bout of acrophobia. What if I fell.. that would be it.. game over. Worse… what if I fell and got stuck 127 hours style?
And then I just did it. I jumped and felt elated for a nano second until I realized my surroundings and discovered I had in fact jumped onto the top of a Wile E Coyote cartoon type column of rock. For crying out loud. OK….breathe deeply, turn 180 degrees, focus on a landing spot and leap. Except I was still completely frozen on the spot …on all fours. Petrified is perhaps an accurate description. And then I reflected on my predicament. No one knew where I was. No phone. No ID. And I had someone else’s three day ticket–with their name on it. My body would be identified as “Jack”. That’s if anyone found it. I’d probably be boiled and eaten by a lost tribe of troglodytes who lived in the remote caves below.
And then I thought through the indignity of being rescued … probably by some ”I told you so” Bedouins on mountain camels that would tip toe along the narrow and precarious mountain ledges. Before I could think too much more I was back across the void and scrambling away the way I came. Thank fuck for that was my only thought.
When I got back to wadi the Bedouin fellow was waiting for me and I flinched and cowered in embarrassment as he said, ’Not that way- its very dangerous’….. ‘That way’, and he pointed to a glaringly obvious well trodden path that had somehow been invisible before.
‘Oh yes’, ’just looking around’, I lied, ‘ Thank you…’ and waved as confidently as I could and started along the “correct” route which took pretty much four hours of hiking, exactly as he told me it would.
While I was hiking back I managed to see some amazing temple ruins and caves that were off the beaten track and also passed through the local village known as ”Little Petra” that appeared very run down and very poor. I smiled at some small grubby children who were playing in the road and they looked up at me in astonishment, burst into tears and started howling and so I quickened my pace, checked frequently over my shoulder to see if an angry mob with burning torches was in pursuit, and hastened my way back to the main town just as the sun was going down.
As I entered the common room of the Valentine Inn I could see Yee still trying his best on the Korean girl, but clearly getting no where. I thought I should let him know that reading girls palms and deciphering human auras was a bit of a lame way to get inside a lady’s knickers, but I decided that is something he is going to have to work out by himself and so I left him to it and set about planning my route to Jerusalem.
The next day Yee, two Japanese guys and I shared a minibus to Amman from where we intended to get another bus to the King Hussein border and into Israel. Its was a strange trip as one of the Japanese guys could only speak Mandarin as he studied at university in Shanghai and worked in Dongguan 东莞 which is famous for two things. One is manufacturing and the other isn’t.
When we arrived at the Jordanian side of the border the crossing was thankfully very quick and we took a bus for another 5 kilometres across no-man’s land to the Israeli border which is called Allenby. There were rather striking Israeli female soldiers in combat uniforms with M4 machine guns and punk haircuts manning the checkpoints and public areas. As expected the security was tight, but the immigration and customs process was pleasingly efficient and quick.
I had fully intended to get an Israeli immigration stamp put on a piece of paper as a stamp in my passport would prevent me from entry into Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, and perhaps Iran and Pakistan. They interviewed me politely and were very interested in our adventure, especially through Sudan. They did ask me if I wanted a piece of paper stamped, but I said for some unknown reason that they could stamp my passport as I could get a second passport if needed when I got to London. I thought it would be a nice souvenir for the trip and I didn’t see why I had to pander to childish and petty political nonsense. In any case, I have been to Sudan already, Fanny is not allowed to ride in Saudi, Syria is in the throes of civil war, and Iran and Pakistan will probably be nuked before we even got there.
I managed to lose my Japanese fellow travellers somewhere in the immigration queues, Yee had stayed in Amman, and so I got a cheap service taxi (a mini bus) into Jerusalem which I was thoroughly looking forward to. Israel already looked the most advanced country I had been to since South Africa. Trees everywhere, smart shops, well built cream coloured stone houses and offices, and generally a feel of being well organised.
The most striking initial impression was that there were military personnel everywhere, mostly young teenagers armed to the teeth. The second is that it is a smorgasbord of races and religions. The most obvious are the Haredi or ultra orthodox Jews who scurry about in their black uniforms, eccentric hats and religious paraphernalia. There were also a lot of Palestinian, many more than I expected to see and quite a rough aggressive looking look, and also lots of orthodox Christians and pilgrims from Greece, Turkey, Russia and Armenia.
With such a mixed and eclectic population, and with such a long and violent history you would expect Jerusalem to be a tinder box, and I think it is. It felt edgy and hostile, but the police and security forces looked professional and well able to deal with it.
With all due respect to the Israelis, I think it is fair to say it is not a particularly friendly place either, in fact many of the people I met were rude and overly aggressive. There were also a lot of tourists milling about, especially Americans who were noticeably absent in most parts of Africa and the Middle East that we travelled through. Some of the tourists I met were open minded, moderate and interested in visiting the epicentre of the Holylands; others were clearly barking mad religious extremists who were engaging in some kind of spiritual masturbation. Still, each to their own.
I stayed at a very well run and clean backpackers in the middle of the city called Abraham Hostel
http://www.abraham-hostel-jerusalem.com/
It offered a very good breakfast, cheap dorms, good facilities and a travel centre that could arrange all sorts of tours, including the free Old City tour that I went on the next morning. A bit of an evangelical happy clappy youth missionary feel about it, but then Israel is the 51st State of America and so I suppose its to be expected.
Whilst the tour was ostensibly free, Naomi, our four foot tall and four foot wide guide reminded everyone on the quarter of the hour, every quarter of an hour that she survived on our tips and our generosity–just like those income tax dodging waiters we Brits have to suffer every time we eat out in America. Luckily, despite being in the middle of winter, it was a stunningly beautiful sunny day and we were shown around the maze of the Christian, Muslim, Armenian and Jewish quarters of the ancient city. We were also given an introduction to the incredibly rich and complex history of Jerusalem, much of which was new to me and I have to say fascinating. I actually spent quite a bit of time researching and reading up about places I visited, although getting a secular or independent version of events was not that easy. Most people are already indoctrinated and convinced of their own point of view that little they see or experience is going to change their mind. For me my visit to Jerusalem has probably strengthened my view that all the religions are manifestations of superstitions that play to the frailties of human beings and therefore flawed. Whether there is in fact a God or Architect of the Universe I still don’t know … but the reality is neither does anyone else.
Many years ago as a small boy I was actually an alterboy and I used to serve at Mass at Saint Joseph’s Church in Burton Upon Trent in Staffordshire. On occasions, usually Good Friday, we used to perform the “Stations of the Cross”, a service that requires a meditation at each of the 14 stations that feature around the inside walls of all Catholic Churches. Now in Jerusalem I was able to follow the real thing up to the The Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At the 11th Station there was a small stall renting out wooden crosses to pilgrims and even some shops selling crowns of thorns and little baby Jesus dolls. I knew Filipinos were prone to mixing up their Catholicism and Austronesian superstitions and were particularly fond of a good torture re-enactment when the supply of Virgin Mary-like tree stumps and mud fish was running low, but I was surprised such devotions occurred in Jerusalem.
Of course I had to try one out and immediately thought of the Monty Python film, “Life of Brian” with all those great sketches and stir it up blasphemies. The crosses were all half scale sized, either for crucifying midgets or because the Israeli department of health and safety was worried about tourists putting their backs out. As Naomi was telling us about a recent punch up between Greek and Armenian Christian monks outside the site Jesus was supposed to be crucified, I was caught singing and whistling ”Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” with the cross on my shoulder and was immediately admonished and left in no doubt I was in disgrace.
“He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy”.
So what else was there to see? Well no trip to Jerusalem is complete without a visit to see the West Wall which in itself is a bit boring, but the wailing and head nodding by the faithful was mildly interesting, if not amusing. I had to buy a skull cap to go in and look at the wall myself, so I bought one embroidered with the Chelsea FC badge. Might come in useful one day if I am ever granted an audience with Comrade Abramovich.
I also saw the Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount. We were told we would not be allowed bring in any Bibles or engage in any praying at the Temple Mount and this prompted a huge Texan in our group to ask if he could bring in his iPhone as it had a Bible App? This caused a bit of a debate as I think the Romans, The Knesset, Mohammed, King David and Herod and the whole bunch who make up these rules had overlooked the possibility of this human technological advancement.
The foundation stone in the Temple Mount is believed by some, including many in our tour group, to be the first ever rock from which the world was created and so arguably the most religious site in Jersulasem. I was reliably informed by my Jewish guide, and this was confirmed by a lady from the fundamental autonomous region of South Carolina that it is the oldest thing on the planet and therefore about 5,000 years old. Huh, I thought. My mother’s pug dog in Abbots Bromley is older than that, but there was no point arguing the toss. It seems that Jerusalem has been argued over, conquered, knocked down and re-built over and over again throughout its 3,000 year old history. Its difficult to keep track of which religious group owns which bit. According to Wikipedia Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.
Enough religious stuff, it was now time for a bit of shopping, not that I could afford much. I wanted some Israeli Defence Force T-shirts for Fanny and I and as presents for friends. An Israeli flag to stick on my panniers to match my Israeli stamp in my passport. I also wanted to replace my punctured inner tube as the bastard Sinai 6 inch nail had done a bloody thorough job making several large holes. I had patched up the inner tube but I had slight doubts about the quality of my handiwork.
Israeli emergency response police with a GS800
The T-shirts were easy to find from one of the many army surplus shops in the city. I got the inner tube from KTM Jerusalem, which didn’t have many KTM bikes or parts because imports are taxed sky high in Israel, but they did have a 150/70 -18 ultra heavy duty tube and so I took it. My efforts to find an Israeli flag sticker were not so successful so I bought a Palestine Liberation Organisation one instead. No one will know the difference.
For me, two days in Jerusalem was enough. I am glad I went, but wont be disappointed if I don’t go again. Its like being a kid and living in a household with two parents who fight all day. Tense and miserable. I wanted to leave Israel by the Eilat/Taba border back into Egypt, but also wanted to stop off by the Dead Sea for a swim. The buses took a bit of juggling but I eventually found one and was thrown off at a place called Ein Gamph, right next to the salt encrusted shores of the Dead Sea where the water is ten times more saline than normal sea water.
Rupert swimming at Dead Sea
I wasted no time and I stripped off down to my underpants which really needed a wash anyway after five days and jumped into the water which turned out to be warmer than I expected and had a sort of slimy feel to it– I think due to the salt rather than my pants. Of course, the oddest thing is the incredible buoyancy and you float on top of the water rather than in it. No Dead Sea swim is complete without getting some water into your eyes which is excruciatingly painful. It also burns your tongue if you stick it into the water which of course curiosity dictates we all have to.
After a dip in the water and a wallow in the medicinal mud, which is supposedly good for one’s health and skin, I got out feeling good, but no different to how I normally do and went to the bus stop and waited optimistically for the No.444 bus to Eilat which eventually came 2 hours later and swished by me without showing any inclination whatsoever to stop. It was the last one and so when my jaw lifted and my mouth finally closed I accepted that I might be staying a bit longer in Mein Kampf. In fact another 14 hours until the next No.444 came by at 8 am the next day. I thought how lucky we were to have our “go anywhere” bikes on this trip and really missed my KTM which would have been great fun in Israel. Anyway there was no point blubbing by a lonely bus stop and so I wandered around for a while, found some crisps to eat for dinner and watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on my laptop whilst wrapped up in my sleeping bag by the shores on the Dead Sea…. as one does.
I had a good night’s sleep under the stars at 480 metres below sea level and despite a very rare rainstorm during the night I stayed warm and dry in my sleeping bag. As the sun was rising I had a dawn dip in the Dead Sea and later found a fast food kiosk which opened up early, made me coffee and some toast for breakfast and had a yarn with the owner. I then went to the bus stop and boarded the bus which arrived at exactly 8am and then I got dropped off at 11.30am in the sunny and very touristy southern Israeli town of Eilat. It was from here I could see the huge Jordanian flag in Aqaba on the other side of the gulf. By 3pm I was back in Dahab having breezed through the Egyptian border town of Taba. Again as far as I could tell I was the only tourist.
Back in Dahab I spent an afternoon wrestling my tyre off the rim and fitted the new inner tube, thoroughly cleaned the bikes, re-greased and oiled whatever parts required it and pretty much got the KTMs looking like new, although both could really do with new tyres. After 22,000 kilometres both sprockets and chains looked in great order. That proved we had the bikes perfectly set up and our campaign of reasonably limited hooliganism had been successful.
We also had some more visitors to Dahab– Andrea and Gary Corbett from Derbyshire in England. I went to school in England with Andrea and she maintained our previous website. She is a Ducati Monster rider, and Gary rides a Yamaha XJ 900. And so we did some diving, snorkelling, biking, running and they quickly became quite adept at idling about as well. Of course as luck would have it, their visit coincided with Dahab’s once a year storm and so they endured not only the weather but my constant reminders that the weather wasn’t normally like this and that it was very sunny before they arrived.
The politest way I can describe Andrea is that she is vertically challenged. In other words she is a short arse and this clearly annoys her because her feet cannot touch the ground on 95% of all motorcycles. This meant that Gary, with much less biking experience than Andrea would have to ride Fanny’s KTM with her on the back as pillion. She was not happy. As we went for a ride we used Fanny’s new Chinese helmet camera and managed to record Andrea looking absolutely terrified perched up on the back, especially when we decided to do a bit of off roading and racing and Gary decided to bank the bike around corners despite me warning him that the tyres really were on their their last legs.
Good News from www.527motor.com
Just before we left Dahab we received some very good news that we are to received some sponsorship in the way of equipment and clothing from Motorway Motorcycle Company Limited in Beijing. We really appreciate their support and encouragement. 感谢。
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www.527Motor.com
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We left Dahab on the 20th Feb with mixed feelings. Its a beautiful place, and we enjoyed the laid back life by the sea, but I had started to get tired with it and itchy feet to move on. Fanny had been told that China Shipping had a RoRo (Roll On Roll Off) leaving Alexandria on the 28th and we aimed to put our bikes on it and take a flight to Istanbul and then take a bus to Mersin on the south coast of Turkey to meet the ship 5 days later. China Shipping promised to pay all the fees at the Egyptian side, a promised they later reneged on and in the end we had to cough up. Not sure what went wrong, but for other potential explorers coming through Egypt please note that everything to do with customs, import and export in Egypt is hideously expensive, risky and uncertain, and will take considerably longer than anyone tells you it will. Copious amounts of patience, good humour and good luck is seriously needed.
Since we had 7 days to ride to Alexandria we decided to spend a few days on the most southerly tip of the Sinai, called Ras Mohammed. A diving paradise and a beautiful place to camp. We got there fairly quickly and had a chance to dust off the gear and do some snorkelling.
I actually decided to sleep outside the tent on the sand under the stars and give Fanny a break from my feet. No one around and because of the dry air the northern hemisphere constellations were crystal clear and an amazing finale to our 5 months in Egypt.
The next day was gloriously sunny and I decided to go snorkelling right in front of where we were camped up. The water was a degree or so warmer than Dahab and that made all the difference. Once inside the water there were only sand beds but in the distance I could see an underwater coral island absolutely teeming with every fish in the Red Sea book. I knew it would be my last chance for a while, if indeed ever again, and spent a good part of the day free diving down to join by far the best life in Egypt.
Our boots on the KTM mirrors look like creatures against the setting sun
After we left Ras Mohammed we then decided to join up with John and Jan, fellow KTM 990 Adventure riders from Sharm El Sheikh and take a few pictures and join them at the local English pub for a very well attended boule competition. Given the number of evenings I have played this game with my cheating friends in Arniston on the cliffs above the bay with a glass of cheeky I breezed through to the semi finals, but ultimately it wasn’t my day and I was beaten by determined local talent.
Jan very kindly put us up at his villa on the cliffs above the harbour with his five dogs. A beautiful house from the days when style was en vogue and dustmen were in employment in Egypt.
On the way to Jan’s house we had to ride the bikes precariously close to the edge of the crumbly cliff. As I had been drinking in the T2 pub and Fanny had not I decided to ride the bikes. Naturally.
Bright and early the next day we set off north to Port Said on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and the port closest to the mouth of the Suez Canal. Although we had about 600 kilometers to ride we were in no real rush and I savoured probably my last ever view of the Sinai, the Red Sea and the desert mountains. It really is a barren, but beautiful bit of Planet Earth, spoiled only by us, its human inhabitants and their debris, pollution and trash.
We stopped off for lunch at the best falafel restaurant we had been to in the whole of Africa, at a place called Ras Sedr just south of the Suez tunnel. Falafels, bread, salad, tahina and bedouin tea with mint… the whole lot for a quid. Very very delicious and made a very slight credit to our “being ripped off on the trip” account. Huge debits are to come later on in Alexandria. Oh well, one should enjoy the little victories when one can.
We had a bit of a refueling crisis after lunch as Egypt, which sits on huge oil and gas reserves and has oil refineries polluting the environment up and down the Red Sea, often has no petrol at its own fuel stations. My particular theory is that this fuel shortage is due to the urgent demand for oil to make gel and hair products for Egyptian men. Anyway, this particular town had not only run out of 95 octane which our bikes like, but had no petrol whatsoever. . After a frantic double back along the road we had just ridden we found 90 octane at a grubby station and so I thought it wise to add the remainder of our octane booster additive as I really hoped that would be the last that we would need it.. going to Europe and all. That said we kissed goodbye to 15-20 pence a liter fuel and braced ourselves for the most expensive fuel in the world…
As we approached the Suez the military presence got heavier and heavier with tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and armed soldiers at every junction. They never gave us any problems and always waved cheerily at us, and if we did get stopped went through their usual practice of asking pointless questions and giving our bikes a cursory “look up and down”. Not once did they ever check what was in our panniers or perform a proper check. As it was the last few days in Egypt it was essential to keep the good humoured smile going, despite my mind thinking otherwise.
While we were in Port Said we went to visit and say thanks to Mr. Xu (徐先生), Chinese Ambassador in Alexandria and Port Said who also happened to be the head of the Chinese state owned firm, COSCO in Egypt. He had been kind enough to help us with various things and had got to know Fanny well. He lived and worked out of probably the nicest house is Port Said, an art deco palace of sorts that used to be an Italian residence in better times.
After drinking tea in the Ambassadors office we waved our goodbyes and we rode along the International Coastal Highway to Alexandria which was about 250 kilometers from Port Said. The coast was not that pretty and the towns were chaotic and run down. When we got to Alexandria I was a tad disappointed. Its glorious Greek, Hellenic, Roman, Ottoman, and British history, architecture and monuments had been obliterated over the years and what we found was a crumbling version of Brighton, the UK seaside town, surrounded by a sea of rubbish and environmentally hostile factories and grubby warehouses. What a karsi. All that is left are the ruins of a small Roman theatre, the new and forgettable Bibliotheca Alexandrina (!) and Pompey’s Pillar (!!). Alexander the Great might well be a tad disappointed as well.
Whilst in Alexandria we stayed at the Union Hotel, which was not bad and had great views over the harbour, but it had no car park or secure parking and so I had to park our bikes outside the front door on the pavement and pay a watchman who subsequently disappeared, and so Fanny and I maintained a vigil on a bench in our sleeping bags throughout the night. Despite our efforts we found in the morning that both bikes had been subjected to minor acts of vandalism such as pulling off indicators, bending mirrors and peeling off country flag stickers from the panniers. Some people, huh?
Later in the day we were met by one of Fanny’s facebook motorcycle buddies, called Omar, who rode a Honda Africa Twin across Africa in 2009. We were later to accept his kind hospitality and stayed at his house on the outskirts of the city where, importantly, we could safely park our bikes and have peace of mind. Whilst riding with him through the city I found out that I had got a puncture in my rear tyre. It was very soon after we set off and so I do not think it was an accident, but rather another act of mindless vandalism as a small nail had clearly been pressed into the rubber tread whilst it was parked outside in the street. I set about repairing the puncture near a busy road junction and I quickly got the tyre off and found that the inner tube I had bought in Israel was seriously perished and had a huge tear where the small nail went in. It must have been on the shelf in Jerusalem since Pontius Pilate was a boy. It was too big a hole to patch up and so I threw it away and replaced it with a normal gauge (thin) inner tube that we carried along with other spares in my panniers and which is better suited to riding on the tar roads ahead.
So was to begin our day(s) from hell in Alexandria. After wrestling the beading of the rear tyre back into place with water, washing up liquid, blowing it up to 3 bars and bouncing it about I put the wheel back on and I discovered that I had lost my sunglasses, that one of the legs of my only trousers had finally given up the ghost and literally fallen off, and worst of all I found that the rear WP shock absorber of my 9 month old 2011 KTM 990 Adventure R had failed. Unlike a BMW shock that will collapse, the weight of the bike is still held up, but there is no rebound and so it bounces about. Just about rideable on very flat and smooth surfaces and very slowly, which is nigh on impossible in Egypt.
The suspension was now spongy and research through KTM forums on the internet suggested that the gaskets had failed and the nitrogen and oil had probably escaped. Clucking Bell. What else could go wrong? Clearly a lot– there were still a few more hours left in that day for fate to completely fuck it up.
I’m looking for the right word to describe my state of the art WP rear suspension… Oh yes… FUCKED!
I contacted KTM in Cape Town, from where I bought the bikes and from where over the years I had spent in excess of half a million Rand, and they said the shock absorber was not covered by the warranty and further added its to be expected on a trip like ours and best that we ride to an authorised dealer to get it repaired. Wonderful advise, thanks so much. So to all Cape To Cairo potential explorers make sure you are always near an authorised dealer, and carry a clean handkerchief and don’t talk to strangers. That said one must note that the Long Way Down team on their BMWs had several suspension failures and so it happens to all the best adventure bikes I suppose. Still, the reason why I chose KTM was that this should not happen. Its a hassle of note and a very expensive one which will make a huge dent in the expedition budget. So much so that I am seriously thinking of cancelling the Europe to China leg of expedition.
We were also very excited to find out through various forums and from Omar that a new ferry service was being introduced between Alexandria and Mersin and that the first would depart Alexandria on the 28th. Of course we were very keen to get on as it would be quicker, cheaper and easier than the RoRo cargo ship from China Shipping… but sadly like so much good news in Egypt that wasn’t going to happen… not for now anyway. Oh well, 没办法。
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hubb/middle-east/trying-reach-turkey-egypt-any-62770#post368714
Also, the next day whilst enduring yet another day of bureaucratic purgatory and being shunted from one squalid “government” waiting area to another I was to find out that the offer of free shipping for our bikes by Mr Xie and Mr. Mohamed Roshdy of China Shipping Line wasn’t free after all either. In fact, we had to pay everything at both the Egyptian and Turkey sides. Certainly, if I had been on my own, I would have risked riding through Syria. In fact, all in all I regret that we did not. As I mentioned earlier, the best life in Egypt is below the surface of the Red Sea. And I would venture have higher IQs… and I dont just mean the dolphins.
Fanny and 徐先生
The whole idea of riding to Alexandria rather than going through Jordan and Syria was predicated on the fact that Syria was risky and China Shipping Line had promised Fanny they would help us cross the Mediterranean for free (we have the emails from Mr Xie saying so) and in the end it was all lies and hot air. Of course, I am pissed off about the extra expense and paying ten Egyptians (again) to a do a job that doesn’t even need doing by one person, but what upsets me most is that Fanny is extremely upset and hurt by the whole incident and has lost face. A very bad thing for Chinese people. I basically fund the whole expedition, but Fanny has worked relentlessly hard trying to secure sponsorship to help out financially and now she has been let down and deceived.
As far as bureaucratic red tape goes, the whole Egyptian leg has been seriously time consuming and seven times more expensive than all the other African countries we had been through put together. Egypt is a complete farce and a rip off and I cannot recommend that anyone brings in their foreign registered vehicle, unless they have serious money to burn and have some sort of perverse masochistic streak. We have been well and truly fleeced and I for one am pleased to move on and will not be unduly upset if I never return to Egypt again. I was reminded of the German expedition we met just south of the Sudanese border who were furious about how they were treated in Egypt and now I knew how they felt. No doubt UK tax payers (among others) will continue to fund these muppets with aid payments and also pay them welfare benefits when they front up at Heathrow airport with the black letter box clad wives and aunts.
Divers and sun-seekers on a package holiday to Sharm El Sheikh may not know what really goes on under the surface of Egypt. They breeze in on Easy Jet, get picked up by the charming hotel driver from the airport and deposited on their beach front deck chair and then a week later they go home with pictures of Bedouin fires and stripy fish, whilst clutching a stuffed camel. As far as Fanny and I are concerned we have spent five months in Egypt (albeit the nicest bit) and the Kimono -or should I say Thobe - has been been well and truly lifted and what we’ve seen underneath is not pretty.
I am not going to go lengthen my litany of complaints as any foreigner living in Egypt will know all too well what all the negatives, dangers, and inefficiencies are already, and for those that don’t they will not stay long enough in Egypt to worry. For a country that sits on oil and gas reserves, generates huge revenues from the Suez canal and is blessed with both natural and historical wonders you would think Egypt was a paradise. However the reality is that it is quite the opposite. Five thousand years of civilization … in reverse.
Some of the receipts totally over US$1000 for absolutely nothing… keeping the Egyptian unemployable (most of them)shuffling bits of paper
I don’t know what Egyptian women think of their lot either because I rarely saw any and those that I did see were covered up and veiled and certainly weren’t going to talk to a hairy arsed guailo / mzungo like me. In fact, the vast majority of people in public places we saw were men, mincing about in their usual vain glory way making a lot of noise, combing their greased hair in mirrors and hissing at passers by. The women? Well I guess they were all at home chained to the kitchen sink and dressed in the lacy underwear that the men make them wear behind closed doors. Anyone who has been to the middle east cannot help but notice the huge number of lingerie shops everywhere. The mind boggles what ‘s underneath all those black letter box burkas.
What really shocked us, however, was that we found out that upwards of 90% of all Egyptian women have been circumcised and to be graphic, that means they have had their clitoris’ cut off. Its not a word I usually write or use much so I hope I spelt the plural correctly, but what on Gods earth is all that about? I know that dreadful abuses of human rights occur on a daily basis on the other side of the Gulf of Aqaba in the name of Islam, but how can a society be deemed in anyway civilised if they mutilate their own children, be it for medieval religious superstition or just old fashioned tribal subjugation. I don’t know what the Arabic for “The ceiling needs painting” is, but it must be one of the most commonly used phrases in Egypt.
Anyway, suffice to say a move is well overdue and am very exited that we are moving on to Turkey and Europe. Predictable I suppose, the ship never arrived on the expected date and so we had no choice but to leave our bikes in a customs warehouse in Alexandria with the hope that three days of excruciatingly painful and expensive paperwork will see them loaded onto the MV Grand Napoli on the 1st or 2nd of March. The ship was scheduled to arrive 10 days later in Mersin after a cruise, no doubt, of all the dodgy ports in the Mediterranean. I am pleased to say that eventually we managed to get both bike’s carnet de passages (trip ticks as the locals call them) signed off and have had our passports returned to us. Assuming they actually arrive my Adventure R will go into KTM Mersin where they will attempt to re-build the shock and then we will ride along the southern coast in early spring, an area of Turkey that is supposed to be amazingly beautiful.
Grande Napoli .. taking our bikes to Mersin, Turkey
OK. Beam us up Scotty –there are beduoins on the starbord bow.
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