Egypt & Jordan

After Dubai, I flew straight to Cairo to join a 17 day tour through Egypt and Jordan with GAP Adventures. The quality of the tour itself was disappointing and the difficulties of just plain being in the Middle East made it a bit of a rough trip. Most of the locals, especially in Egypt, weren't friendly, and can be down right rude at times. They also try to scam you out of every pound or dollar they can so you were constantly having to be on the guard (e.g. making sure you're not over charged, counting changes, etc.). Nothing they do is out of courtesy, and you worry about having to tip everyone for every little thing they do. Food is awful, and I got sick of eating the same thing day in and day out. Most of us had at least one bout of stomach problems. One of us on the trip had an incident that lasted 4 days, which only ended after buying some antibiotics from the pharmacy. A bit of advice for future travellers to the area: don't go budget! Fork out the few extra dollars for comfort and quality. This is not the place where you want to be cheap. Also, do a Nile cruise from Cairo to Aswan instead the train/bus thing. This way you don't have to keep checking out of your hotel to be somewhere new each day.

Despite all the discomforts encountered, there were lots of great things to see in these countries. You can see the itinerary in the link above. The highlights for me were the Pyramids of Giza, Petra, and Jaresh. Little needs to be said about the pyramids - they were one of the original 7 wonders of the world, and the only one that still exists. (Btw, you can vote for the new 7 wonders here.) Petra was probably my favorite place. It's a city pretty much carved into rocks. Aside from the impressive ruins, Petra has great views and is wonderful for walking/hiking around. We saw most of it in one long day that included lots of walking, but it's definitely worth staying couple days for. Jaresh is the ruins of an old Roman city about 40km North of Amman. The ruins here may actually be more spectacular than Petra. The site is also huge.

There were many other impressive sites besides those mentioned above. Yep, lots of history in these countries. I wonder what will be remembered from our times? Certainly nothing we build these days will last long enough to be remembered. I'm surprised Richard Branson hasn't forked out the millions to hire out tons of pseudo-slaves to build something. I suppose Dubai's Palm & World Islands, if ever completely finished and doesn't sink with rising sea levels, could be a candidate.

Anyways, if you could imagine the places we went to as they were when first built, it's an amazing thing. I'm glad to have done this trip. Egypt especially has been on my 'must go' places for a long time. Finally it's been done... and hell if I ever go back to the Middle East again.

My pictures of Egypt are here, and Jordan's are here. My camera lens was dirty, esp in Petra, so some photos came out blurred a bit... sorry. Jax has some quality pics from the trip here tho. And Dubai pictures are here if you haven't found them already.