Author archive
29 October 2004
Ferry from Aqaba to Nuweiba At around 0900, after breakfast, we made our way to the ferry terminal at Aqaba for the trip to Nuweiba. The taxi wasn’t allowed to go into the terminal area and it was a little bit of a hassle with luggage for the oldies. We let Pat and Fiona settle […]
28 October 2004
Above: Our camp at Jabal Rum in the morning. We had breakfast at our Jabal Rum camp around 0700. It was the usual Middle Eastern breakfast which I love, consisting of tomato, cucumber and cheeses. The hot pita bread was a bonus! After breakfast, we made our way to Aqaba, adopting two hitchhikers, one […]
27 October 2004
Setting off Today we head to Wadi Rum for a night in the desert, something Fiona particularly wanted to experience. We had absolutely no hurry today and took breakfast at a leisurely pace at 0900. Kim’s tummy played up this morning while mine yesterday afternoon. And Pat’s yesterday morning. On the other hand, Fiona had […]
26 October 2004
The Siq We woke at 0545 for breakfast at 0630, in preparation for our big day at Petra, the Rose Red City. We were at the visitor centre at 0730 to commence our walk through the Siq to Petra. Before we entered the Siq, Pat and Fiona said this wasn’t anything like what they had […]
25 October 2004
Above: Petra by Night. Lanterns in front of the Treasury (the pillars of which are seen in the background). Leaving Madaba We paid and checked-out from the Black Iris Hotel in Madaba. We had a nice chat to the owners. Their son studies in Switzerland (presumably in hotel management) and has an Indonesian Chinese girlfriend. […]
24 October 2004
Madaba Today, we have a road trip covering various sites in the north-west of Jordan: shifting our base to Madaba, Mt Nebo, the Baptismal site of Jesus, and a dip in the Dead Sea. It seems a bit silly to change hotel to Madaba which is only less than an hour out of Amman. Sometimes […]
23 October 2004
Sightseeing I decided that we would have a relaxed start after all the moving around we’ve had recently. But we still woke reasonably early for breakfast at 0730. We were approached by drivers outside the hotel for trips for tomorrow and day after. We got some good information about pricing to help with our decision-making […]
22 October 2004
Above: Making a stop near the border. Today, all of four of us will venture from Syria into a new country, Jordan. We took a taxi to Baramke station to try find a service taxi to Amman. But we didn’t get very far because, en route, the taxi driver found us a service taxi that […]
21 October 2004
Moving down to Damascus Today we head from Aleppo down to Damascus to join up with Pat and Fiona who should have arrived from Hama and Palmyra. We checked-out of Mandaloun Hotel after breakfast and took a taxi to the bus station. We were able to hop on a departing bus immediately after a cursory […]
20 October 2004
Aleppo’s historic hotels We had the breakfast around 0800 at the same basement restaurant which we ate at last night. They seemed set up for the German market with a selection of cold cuts in addition to the usual Middle Eastern egg, cheese, breads and pastries (but no pickles). I ate carefully at breakfast because […]