After a really enjoyable month in Egypt we headed overland to our next destination of Aqaba on the Red Sea coast of Jordan. Egypt and Jordan don't actually share any land borders so the trip involves a brief detour through Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
We arrived at Dahab bus station to be greeted by the unusual sight of lots of shiny new buses. It appears that the only reason that they are shiny and new is because they don't actually use them. When our bus turned up it was a right clapped out old knacker. After our last couple of life threatening journeys on the roads of Egypt at least it was a relief that the hour and a half journey to Taba was completed on time, without breakdowns, collisions or excessive speeding. The biggest danger we faced was when we actually got to the border as we needed to avoid getting the dreaded Israeli stamp syndrome.
Due to the ongoing tensions between Israel and the Arabs, having a Israeli stamp in your passport can cause you problems in parts of the Middle East. Proof of a visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories can result in you being refused entry into a number of Arab countries. Unfortunately Bahrain, where we fly to en-route to Nepal, is one of those countries. In order to avoid the stigma of the Israeli stamp you have to cajole the immigration official to stamp a separate piece of paper rather than your passport. Although this avoids the problem of the stamp it isn't a foolproof method as you still have an exit stamp for Taba in Egypt and and entry stamp for Aqaba in Jordan. This can only mean that you've been to Israel in between. Hopefully the Bahrain immigration officials won't be too thorough!
Our stay in Israel is probably the shortest amount of time we've ever spent in a country. From when we got the entry stamp on our passport (piece of paper) to when we got our exit stamp must have been no longer than 15 minutes. Which is the time it took to drive across the city of Eilat to get to the Jordanian border. Eilat was a slightly strange place, it must be the only town we've ever been to with an international airport that runs down one side of the high street.
We would have loved to have spent a few days in Israel and gone to see some of the biblical sites such as Jerusalem and Bethlehem (even though we're atheists). However, accommodation and transport were just way too expensive so we've had to save those sights for another time.
Once we exited Israel it was then just a short walk over the Israel / Jordan frontier before grabbing a taxi to Aqaba.
Showing posts with label Dahab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dahab. Show all posts
30 August 2009
28 August 2009
Mount Sinai and St Katherine's Monastery
The 2285m peak of Mount Sinai is believed to be the mountain top where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. The only commandment that I received was "Thou must be back at the bus for 10am or risk the wrath of the bus driver and a walk back to Dahab!".
Being as it's another one of those "be at the top for sunrise" and that there's no cable car, Liz decided to give it a miss. I was picked up at about 11pm on Wednesday night, joined a bus load of sleep deprived climbers and driven out into the desert for a couple of hours. We started climbing at 2am and managed to bag a place on the summit about 15 minutes before sunrise.
Climbing in the dark is always an unusual experience as you don't actually get to see what you're climbing up or anything of your surroundings until after sunrise, by which point you're usually on your way back down. The views from the top and on the way back down were quite spectacular and well worth the effort of struggling through the darkness on the way up.
The most dangerous aspect of climbing Mount Sinai is avoiding waking into a camel in the dark. The route we took up the mountain is called the camel trial as, for a fee, the local Bedouin offer the lazy and unfit a ride up on their great stinking beasts.
Because it's pitch black you have to really concentrate on where you're putting feet. This means that you're walking with your head bent down looking at the floor. This in turn makes it quite difficult to keep your eyes peeled for any camels that might be lolloping down hill out of the darkness at you. I had a couple of close shaves where I was nearly crushed under a giant camel hoof.
Being as it is an important site for Christians, Jews and Muslims (I was just there for the climb!), the route up and the summit were absolutely packed. The climb up at times resembled a giant conga snaking up the mountainside. I guess that it's far from the serene and spiritual journey that a lot of those who are on religious pilgrimages imagine it to be!
The route down was via a trail known, rather ominously, as the Steps of Repentance. The route consists of 3750 steps that were laid single handedly by a monk as a form of penance.
Being as I was on my own I ended up joining with a couple of other solo climbers from our bus; Bart, a slightly angry man from the Netherlands, and Basmah, an Arabic speaking Canadian living in Jordan.
Basmah had my dream childhood job and is a pilot, unfortunately for her this mean that she had to put up with me wanting to talk about flying and planes most of the way up and down the mountain.
As we were working our way back down the mountain we met a couple of donkeys going in the opposite direction. Basmah asked the old croan who was herding the beasts if she could have a photo taken with her donkeys. When she started to feed the donkeys some left over biscuits that she had she was admonished by the croan. Apparently because the sun had come up and it was ramadan the donkeys should be fasting!
In the bottom of the valley at the end of the trial lies St Katherine's Monastery.
The monastery was founded in 330AD when a chapel was built beside what was thought to be the burning bush. You can't see the actual burning bush (I guess for health and safety seasons). However; they do allow you to see what is described as a "descendant" of the burning bush.
I guess it must be a cutting!
Being as it's another one of those "be at the top for sunrise" and that there's no cable car, Liz decided to give it a miss. I was picked up at about 11pm on Wednesday night, joined a bus load of sleep deprived climbers and driven out into the desert for a couple of hours. We started climbing at 2am and managed to bag a place on the summit about 15 minutes before sunrise.
Climbing in the dark is always an unusual experience as you don't actually get to see what you're climbing up or anything of your surroundings until after sunrise, by which point you're usually on your way back down. The views from the top and on the way back down were quite spectacular and well worth the effort of struggling through the darkness on the way up.
The most dangerous aspect of climbing Mount Sinai is avoiding waking into a camel in the dark. The route we took up the mountain is called the camel trial as, for a fee, the local Bedouin offer the lazy and unfit a ride up on their great stinking beasts.
Because it's pitch black you have to really concentrate on where you're putting feet. This means that you're walking with your head bent down looking at the floor. This in turn makes it quite difficult to keep your eyes peeled for any camels that might be lolloping down hill out of the darkness at you. I had a couple of close shaves where I was nearly crushed under a giant camel hoof.
Being as it is an important site for Christians, Jews and Muslims (I was just there for the climb!), the route up and the summit were absolutely packed. The climb up at times resembled a giant conga snaking up the mountainside. I guess that it's far from the serene and spiritual journey that a lot of those who are on religious pilgrimages imagine it to be!
The route down was via a trail known, rather ominously, as the Steps of Repentance. The route consists of 3750 steps that were laid single handedly by a monk as a form of penance.
Being as I was on my own I ended up joining with a couple of other solo climbers from our bus; Bart, a slightly angry man from the Netherlands, and Basmah, an Arabic speaking Canadian living in Jordan.
Basmah had my dream childhood job and is a pilot, unfortunately for her this mean that she had to put up with me wanting to talk about flying and planes most of the way up and down the mountain.
As we were working our way back down the mountain we met a couple of donkeys going in the opposite direction. Basmah asked the old croan who was herding the beasts if she could have a photo taken with her donkeys. When she started to feed the donkeys some left over biscuits that she had she was admonished by the croan. Apparently because the sun had come up and it was ramadan the donkeys should be fasting!
In the bottom of the valley at the end of the trial lies St Katherine's Monastery.
The monastery was founded in 330AD when a chapel was built beside what was thought to be the burning bush. You can't see the actual burning bush (I guess for health and safety seasons). However; they do allow you to see what is described as a "descendant" of the burning bush.
I guess it must be a cutting!
26 August 2009
Diggin' Dahab
Dahab is often billed as the Koh Samui of the Middle East, in reality they're not like each other at all. The only thing that they have in common is that they are on the sea and the sea is full of fish. The same logic would make Blackpool the Koh Samui of England!
It is very nice here though and incredibly laid back, the exact opposite of Sharm el-Sheikh. We've gone from a five star luxury hotel with swimming pools, private beach and big buffet breakfast to a backpacker guesthouse with . . . not much. To be fair Alaska Camp is really nice and probably one of the better backpacker places that we've stayed at since we started this trip. The room is really smart (and clean!) and we're located just off the beachfront right in the middle of the bay. It just felt like a bit of a come down having stepped straight out of the Hilton.
Dahab town has a really nice atmosphere. The whole of the bay front is lined with Bedouin style bars and restaurants. The bay also has a fairly good reef for snorkeling which is right off the end of the beach.
After a couple of days of soaking up the atmosphere in the bay, yesterday we had a day out at a dive site called the Blue Hole.
The Blue Hole is massive corral fringed sinkhole that drops over 100m deep and is Egypt's most famous dive site. It would have been a nice spot if it wasn't for the fact that half of the tourists in Egypt turned up whilst we were there. At one point there must have been about 80 people circling the reef top, splashing, shouting and scaring the fish away. Not the most relaxing snorkeling trip we've ever done.
It is very nice here though and incredibly laid back, the exact opposite of Sharm el-Sheikh. We've gone from a five star luxury hotel with swimming pools, private beach and big buffet breakfast to a backpacker guesthouse with . . . not much. To be fair Alaska Camp is really nice and probably one of the better backpacker places that we've stayed at since we started this trip. The room is really smart (and clean!) and we're located just off the beachfront right in the middle of the bay. It just felt like a bit of a come down having stepped straight out of the Hilton.
Dahab town has a really nice atmosphere. The whole of the bay front is lined with Bedouin style bars and restaurants. The bay also has a fairly good reef for snorkeling which is right off the end of the beach.
After a couple of days of soaking up the atmosphere in the bay, yesterday we had a day out at a dive site called the Blue Hole.
The Blue Hole is massive corral fringed sinkhole that drops over 100m deep and is Egypt's most famous dive site. It would have been a nice spot if it wasn't for the fact that half of the tourists in Egypt turned up whilst we were there. At one point there must have been about 80 people circling the reef top, splashing, shouting and scaring the fish away. Not the most relaxing snorkeling trip we've ever done.
25 August 2009
Nightmare journey - part 2
On Thursday we had a bit of a nightmare journey that was partly due to us being in a clapped out old car. We discovered today that going in a new car is probably even more dangerous.
This time instead of crawling through the desert and breaking down every five miles, our taxi driver decided to test out the performance of his car and drive at warp factor 10. I don't think the speedo needle went below 120km/h on the entire journey and seemed to spend most of it's time bouncing around 160. It was the last thing we needed after the near head on collision from a couple of days ago.
This time instead of crawling through the desert and breaking down every five miles, our taxi driver decided to test out the performance of his car and drive at warp factor 10. I don't think the speedo needle went below 120km/h on the entire journey and seemed to spend most of it's time bouncing around 160. It was the last thing we needed after the near head on collision from a couple of days ago.
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