Bosman's Bush Telegraph
- 14 November 2000
Hello all
Well the
bush telegraph is a bit of a misnomer at the moment considering the fact that
we are well and truly into the middle east - but to call it the middle eastern
missive or something in that vein doesn't seem right - so I guess bush
telegraph it is! So much has happened
in the last week that it is difficult to decide where to start. I guess the big news is that we waved
goodbye to the African continent from the deck of the Al Judi last Saturday
afternoon. Suprisingly enough, we had mixed feelings about leaving. I had though that we would only feel extreme
relief and jubilation to be shot of all the infuriating African bureaucracy and
ghastly roads but instead we felt rather sad to be leaving the continent that
we have spent the last 7 months exploring.
Most of all I think that we miss the simplicity and the slower pace of
life, although those are just the things we complained of when we were
travelling through. Go figure! Although
we were sad to see the African continent fade into the distance we were not sad
to say goodbye to the Sudanese customs officials who had prepared a special bon
voyage gift of a six hour customs marathon for us before they would let us
board the ship. Most of the six hours
were spent waiting, which we figure must be an ancient Sudanese torture method
(death by boredom!). To make matters
worse, when a Sudanese person wants to tell you to wait they make what we view
to be a very vulgar and offensive gesture by clasping all five fingers of one
hand together and hoisting it into the air.
In our culture it has quite a different meaning and is enough to get
your back up immediately. We have since discovered that Saudis and Jordanians
do exactly the same thing. We played
the waiting game however and tried to retain as much dignity as possible and they
eventually let us go when it became apparent that we were the last people that
the Al Judi was still waiting for before she sailed.
The ship,
which, by the way, was hardly the QE2, took about 16 hours to cross the red sea
and reach Jedda, Saudi Arabia. Luckily
we had our tickets upgraded at no extra charge and were
given a
cabin in the first class section. Cabin it was, first class it was not but at
least we were able to get some shut-eye and escape from the mobs on the
deck.. From the deck of the Al Judi,
Jedda looked amazing and the differences between north Africa and the middle
east became apparent immediately. Huge
skyscrapers, fly-overs, concrete everywhere - quite unlike anything we had seen
in the last couple of months. The Jedda
port is a very organized place and we were quickly ferried by bus from the ship
to the immigration hall to be met by a host of Saudi immigration officials all
mincing about in skin tight mustard coloured uniforms. This was the part I had been dreading and I
was clutching my sarong/doekie-thing nervously expecting to be shouted at for
not having my head covered. The
officials did not seem to concerned about my exposed locks but the first
question that was asked (even before we entered the immigration hall) was
whether we were married. Once this fact
was established, everyone seemed to relax and things progressed smoothly. Every inch of our hand luggage was searched
for contraband and when they had established that we were on the level we were
allowed to progress to the vehicle inspection section. We waited almost an hour for our car to be
brought from the ship - for this privilege we had to pay the slick Al Judi
agent a whopping US$15 - what for we could not establish as he seemed to spend
most of the hour cruising the customs area in his cadillac or peering at us
though his expensive sunglasses but everyone else did the same so we were not
going to rock the boat/cadillac. We
were told that our car was being searched for drugs and we were to be patient
(very ominous indeed!) Eventually the
car was brought around and the customs officials set about searching it. I must say that the whole process was very
half hearted as to open everything would have meant a couple of days work. The process was quickly curtailed when they
discovered our mountain of dirty laundry.
The officials were not so kind to the Sudanese who were importing cars,
they had every inch of the car searched, boxes torn open, carpets lifted, spare
wheels removed - we were just happy that our meagre possessions were not
exposed to this type of scrutiny!
We left the
port at midday only to find ourselves in the midst of Saudi lunch hour -
everything (and I mean everything) including the lunch places, close at midday
and only reopen in the late
afternoon. This was most distressing as we discovered
that Macdonalds (American franchise or no) was closed and the Big Mac we had
been promising ourselves since Nairobi was not going to happen (and we were
ravenous). In desperation we pulled
into the Hyatt hotel hoping that at
least they
would be serving lunch. They were and
we gorged ourselves on the most delicious lasagne and salad. It was while we were having lunch that we
met the Hyatt food and beverage director, Marcus Ptok. Marcus is a German (although he speaks
english with a British accent) who had done a two year stint at the Grand Roche
hotel in Paarl and who had spotted our SA registered car in the parking lot and
had sought us out for a yarn about the South African wine lands (our favourite
topic of course!) I rather suspect
though, that it was the diesel leaking out of our car and causing a rather
embarrassing stain in the Hyatt parking lot that brought us to his attention
and the wine issue was just an opener.
Marcus invited us to have dinner with him at the Hyatt's roof top
restaurant later that evening and it was over mezze and Jedda delight (the
Saudi version of champagne - sans alcohol) that he initiated us into the
strange ways of the Saudis. I am not quite sure whether he was exaggerating
some of his stories for our benefit (egged on by the fact that our jaws dropped
visibly at each delectable morsel of gossip) but he told us of how the Saudis
don't work at all and that all their labour is imported from outside (as a
result the Hyatt has a staff made up of 38 different nationalities), how if you
want to have a function which includes both male and female guests you needed
permission from the Central Intelligence Department, ditto if you wanted to
have more than 30 people in a room. All
of this creates some serious headaches for a European food and beverage manager
at one of the poshest hotels in Jedda - I mean, just that evening, the Canadian
ambassador had had the gall to arrive at a function with his wife in tow -
which nearly caused an international incident.
We were joined later by Tony, the hotel's Lebanese banquet manager who
seemed determined to match and better any story Marcus could come up with. Tony was well versed in the subtleties of
Saudi road kill and went to great lengths to tell us just how
"finished" we would be if we hit a camel while driving in Saudi. Not only would our car be written off but we
would have to pay compensation to the owner.
It seems that there are all sorts of
unwritten rules, for instance, if you hit a camel at night you pay but
if you hit one during the day it is the owner's fault and he pays. Compensation
for a camel fatality is no laughing matter - Tony told us very solemnly that
one camel was worth between 50 000 and 60 000 Riyals (about R120 000). For the
rest of our trip through Saudi we were paranoid about hitting a camel and kept
our eyes open for the sneaky buggers.
After an
excellent evening which culminated in a round of smoking the traditional
sheesha pipe we said goodbye to Tony and Marcus feeling even more nervous about
the Saudi culture in general. The next day we headed north along the desert
highway towards the Jordanian border - a massive distance of over 1200
kilometres. Driving in Saudi is
downright unpleasant at best and totally hazardous at worst. In Jedda itself, most roads have at least
three lanes in each direction, with two service lanes on either side (the
service lanes are for ditherers and people turning off etc). Everyone drives
VERY fast and they are all very irritable (a fact I ascribe to the fact that
their heads are overheated by virtue of their dish cloths). Petrol and diesel flow freely and diesel
costs only R0.70 per litre so everyone drives the most enormous American cars
(Nev calls them yank tanks). Our worst
fear (aside from hitting a camel) as we headed north was that we might stray
into the holy city of Medina which is strictly off limits to non Muslims. Tony and Marcus had warned us that it we
happened to be caught in Medina (even by accident) we would be locked up. Luckily, when we got to Medina we realized
that this was not a huge problem as there are signs, police, barricades all
directing non Muslims onto the so-called "Christian highway" which
gives the city a wide berth. After 12 hours straight driving, Nev was looking a
little green around the gills (as women can't drive he had to do it all) so we
decided to stop over at Tabuk before hitting the border the next day.
The crossing
into Jordan was painless and we noticed an immediate relaxing in the attitudes
of the Jordanian people (as compared to their Saudi counterparts). First and foremost, after a couple of dry
months through Saudi and Sudan we were able to have our first cold beer and boy
did it taste good. We were amazed to
discover just how strong the Jordanian currency is - the Jordanian dinar is
stronger than the dollar and it was quite odd to change 100 dollars and get a
couple of notes instead of shopping bags full as we did in places like
Sudan. Another novelty item was the
number of western tourists who we encountered in Jordan - literally busloads
full. Quite odd when we are used to being the only tourists around - we kept
getting the heads of Dutch grannies in our photos (a hazard of foreign travel I
guess!)
Our first
stop was the ancient city of Petra which is one of the most breathtaking
historical sites we have ever visited.
It truly is a lost city hidden deep in the mountains which is reached
through a 1.2 km Siq (canyon) which in some places is only 2 metres wide but
towers over you to a height of almost 200 metres. Petra was apparently featured
in one of the Indiana Jones movies although for the life of me I cant remember
which. We spent two glorious days
exploring the tombs, temples and amphitheatres of Petra lapping up the ancient
history and civilization. I was lucky
enough to spend my birthday at Petra - I could not have wished for a more
memorable spot. Petra was definitely one of the highlights of our trip and is
well worth a visit if any of you are venturing
this way. From Petra we headed
south to Aqaba on the red sea where we met up with Brian and Hugh who are doing
the same sort of trip and who we have been chatting to via email. It was great to finally meet them and to
catch up on their adventures. We also
met a couple of crazy bikers who are doing the trip from north to south on
their very cool motorbikes. From Aqaba
we headed into the desert and spent an unforgettable night in the Wadi Rum area
before heading north to Madaba and Mount Nebo (where Moses was showed the promised
land). Our last stop yesterday was at
the Dead Sea which is just the most bizarre spot – its more than 340 metres
below sea level and the water is thick with salts like Bromine and Iodine. We had our swim, or rather our bob before
heading to Amman. Today we hit the
ancient ruins at Jerash before heading north to Syria.
Well, I
guess that's it in a nutshell - hope you are all well, lots of love,
Penny and Neville