The Holy Land

At first it worried me. The dramatic absence of women in public, the fireworks celebrating the breaking of the fast each night in the street, the yelling matches that seemed to accompany the sale of anything, the ultra-aggressive driving, the unashamed animal like leers at Lisa - despite me and her conservative dress choice. There was social aggression here that I rarely felt soften.

The first few days were spent in Amman, where Ramadan was being observed to the point of never seeing anyone eat or drink in public during daylight hours. The place began to stir around 6pm, with people rushing home via take-away drink stalls and bakeries, outdoor eateries set up for the onslaught from for the hour after nightfall. We saw few, if any, visitors before heading out along the tourist trail. Some explained that dealing with people who hadn't eaten all day would be trying.

On paper, Jordan has a very organised National Park system, with permanent tents and a variety of services. We visited the office in town, which was beautiful, though the staff gave me little assistance in accessing these services. I also emailed some parks directly, though they wished to be contacted after Eid only. So our plans to tour the NPs over the two weeks began to fade. Here's what we did instead:

Looking over the Downtown. Wondering where I can get a sip of water.

These places smelled as good as they look. A wall full of coffee beans around the corner and magic lotions and potions upstairs added to the aromatic explosion.

The Roman Theatre in Amman was worth the visit. Amazing acoustics from the dead centre and a secret whisper point was tested before I struck this pose.

We headed south-west on a public bus to Madaba, a town famous for Christian mosaics and being the largest (30%) Christian population in the country. We teamed up with another Aussie at the hotel and hired a driver for the day to tour the sights in the area. We're at Mt Nebo, where Moses died and Pope John Paul II visited in 2000 to recognise it as a holy site.

Bethany beyond the Jordan on the Jordanian side. It's been agreed upon that Jesus was babtised by John here. Notice the Israeli flag beyond the fence. It's right on the border. Gunned military men and Hummers everywhere.

Down to the Dead Sea ($10 entry to use the showers), where the salt level is six times normal, so nothing lives there. Lisa is almost lying on the water here. It was a strange sensation to not be able to swim as your feet were above the water. Any attempt to be vertical saw you bob to the top. Very weird.

Above the Dead Sea with our crazy but charming driver, Mohammad. Nothing much to see due to the salty air. On a clear day you can see Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

Hot springs here in the middle of the dessert. It was about 40'C under the falls and a fair bit warmer inside the 'sauna' cave behind the falls. The heat of the water made the ambient temperature seem cooler.

We jumped in a minibus heading down the King's Hwy, stopping in Kharak, Dana and then on to Petra. Sites like these were tucked away in the middle of the desert.

View from the bus heading through Dana NP.

We had met an American on the bus who we then went hotel hunting with in Petra. The three of us met an English girl in the hotel we chose and before we knew it, Lisa had the four of us following this trail of candles for 800m down the Siq to visit "Petra by Night". At the end of the Siq is the famous Treasury building where the crowd sat and came to a hush while a couple of Bedouins played their instruments and told their story. The echo through the canyon against the ancient backdrop was quite spectacular.

Nick, Kat and Lisa after the performance.

The Siq the next morning.

The surprise at the end of the Siq. The Treasury Building, the most famous of the ancient city that has been named as one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World.

One of the many buildings we walked past and through over the next two days. Each is carved into the soft sandstone, some 2000yrs ago.

The Collanade.

Backing our way down some stairs inside a building that will definitely be roped-off in the years to come.

The Monastery is about an hour walk uphill from the last shot. It was quite spectacular to see it in the afternoon sun.

I've included a second shot of the same building, taken by Nick, of me standing in the door way to give some idea of the massive scale of the place.

Looking back on the Monastery on the way to another amazing lookout.

The sacrificial altar on another mountain top. Lisa was particularly taken with the blood drainage system.

Kat wondering why she asked about the birth process in NSW.

I thought this was fascinating, the fascia of a building sheared off and sunken into the sand.

After a few days of being ripped off beyond belief in the tourist town of Wadi Moussa (Petra) but mezmorised by the ancient wonder of the city, we joined Kat on her trip to Wadi Rum for a 4WD tour and a night in the desert under the stars.

Here, climbing to the spring where Lawrence of Arabia got his water.

Walking up then running down one of the many dunes we were to visit.

And again.

And eventually, the girls got my sleeping mat out...

On the same dune, this is the Frenchman who shared the Landcruiser with us. You can see from the depth of his feet how fine the sand was.

A beautiful bridge I declined the opportunity to cross having seen London Bridge on the Great Ocean Road before and after the collapse.

A good shot of Kat as the sun set.

Our Bedouin host for the night. Plenty of sugary cha and cigarettes kept his singing voice just right. He wasn't too keen on my playing his fiddle though so he gave me his drum to bang.

Alex (the Frenchman) had juggled his way around South America so was happy to accompany our noise. Lots of fun.

The view from the Landcruiser as we sped back to the village across Wadi Rum.

Lisa and I made it back to Madaba to spend our last five days relaxing after a week and a bit racing from site to site. We found Mustafa in a little corner store and he was very happy to height-adjust my slacks from Hong Kong.

As has become a bit of a tradition, I had a haircut at a local barber. He was very fast and seemed to be having a very hearty argument with his colleague so I declined the shave with the cut-throat razor. Lisa also got a haircut. Hers was in a shop front covered by heavy curtains, behind which she and her new friends shed their layers and giggled the afternoon away. I did not get a chance to photograph this as I sat outside in the cold. The visit to Jordan was an interesting experience, in a region that is beginning to come back to life after the damage to tourism post 9/11.

We also stopped in Dubai for 24hrs on the way:

Spot the white boy and Lisa window shopping:

Off to Istanbul to meet Claire and Jonathon...

China, Through Jonas' Eyes

Jonas left me with a DVD copy of the pictures he took while we were together. Both his camera and photographic eye left me for dead. I'm still trying to find an Internet Cafe with a DVD player, so stay tuned. They're very good.

Mother of Egg

And then it was just the two of us, alone in a world of Chinese. Many more dumpling breakfasts, noodle soup lunches and meat surprise dinners kept us going as we made a bee line to Sanya, China's own Gold Coast, on Hainan Island. A late night train to Yichiang found us following a Dutchman we'd befriended to his hostel only to find he'd been ripped off so we walked the streets at midnight until we found a clean, comfortable and cheap hotel (with an honest hotelier). Three days later we managed to escape this crazy town after 'hiring' an agent to get us an onward train ticket. He said, with a straight face, that we would not be able to buy the ticket (we knew that) and that he had a special relationship with the ticket seller. We visited the mighty three gorges dam, which was big... and were shooed out of a restaurant being snapped at as 'waigoran' (White Ghosts) - our first sense of explicit racism since the border town of Mengla, four weeks earlier. Fortunately, we were met with many acts of kindness along the way that helped us forget some of the simpler folk out there.

So on we went, having dealt with the mix of pleasure and frustration that comes with visiting a town with no other Western tourists. We had to get to Sanya, then back up towards HK to celebrate mum's birthday in early October.

Looking over the Three Gorges Dam ($34 entry for foreigners, 2minute bus ride and body frisk included). It was a massive structure and did seem to be drawing the crowds (from Beijing and Shanghai) though I can say that I probably won't need to see it again if ever I return to the region.

This is from the same platform, 180' around, I was impressed a little bit here. They have a five-tiered boat lift (It does have a proper name) which seemed to have four large boats in each lane, rising and falling. The crowd with yellow caps and a leader with the tour flag were leaving so I didn't get to see the whole process.


Back down in Yichiang (while our agent was working his magic at the train station) we walked along the Yangtze and sat watching this team for a while. The were carrying what looked like oil drums, hoisted up with bamboo poles, and sang a Chinese shanty song as they ran down the gangway in unison to load the boat over and over again.


Once on the train we relaxed and settled in to our 22hr sleeper to the bottom of Guangdong. As was becoming the trend, someone in the carriage knew a bit of English and was keen to have a chat. This fella (Rike) was a tour guide who had no interest in Lisa but wanted to be my friend, using the Chinese/English dictionary to exchange pleasantries. He was very helpful, jumping off with me at one of the main stations to get some snacks. He stopped me from buying noodles for no obvious reason but when we got going again, he walked over with some noodles and two other items left over from the supplies for his group. The first was an egg, described as 'an egg'. The second he struggled with describing but eventually came out with 'egg mother', being a cryopacked chicken leg of course. Rike and I stayed up into the night, and he got very excited when we stopped at the birthplace of Chairman Mao. Eventually I got to bed but was woken up at about 0630 by Rike who wanted to give me a mooncake for breakfast! He helped arrange a great taxi fare (which we shared with the M&D in the picture below) that went for almost 100km. Train is definitely the way to travel in China.

We made it to Sanya after a few days in Hainan's capital, Haikou, where everyone is a little happier than on the mainland. Sanya was a pleasant enough place to celebrate our anniversary. We treated ourselves to a few nights in a relatively fancy hotel on the beach and had some nice meals out. Strangely, Sanya is mainly patronised by Russian tourists even though it is fairly close to Indochina, sprawling with the usual backpackers. We met no Australians and most touts spoke to us in Russian or Chinese. Most restaurants had Russian and/or Chinese menus and the beach was littered with Russians dripping in gold and coconut oil. My travelling companion did not permit the publication of any sunbathing shots on this post.

On our last night in Sanya, we ate on the beach then wondered why so many Chinese were setting up incense circles and sandcastle altars in the moonlight. Curiosity got the better of us and we wandered amongst the groups. Lisa got talking to one group (pictured) who confirmed it was the moon festival and it was moon cakes all round! We were given some orange cordial to wash down the extra gluggy cakes, a Chinese delicacy involving duck eggs and sold in every food store in fancy red packaging. An acquired taste. I went for an early morning swim the next day and was a little put off by all the rubbish in the water but reassured by the teams of workers sweeping (seriously) the sand.

Dad was flying into Macau soon and Mum to HK just after so we got moving northward, another train trip, another fella wanting to talk to me for the full 17hrs, another series of instant noodles. We made it to Zhuhai and stayed in our first home in a while, that of Tessa, Harvey and Sissi - friends of M&D from the University where they worked. We were made very welcome and spent four days with the family, playing with the ducks, dining out, learning about the zhizhu and generally enjoying the good company. Eventually Mum and Dad arrived and we very much enjoyed both their company and local knowledge for a few days.

One of Tessa's school students was employed to give Lisa a facial, one of the best she's had. I declined.

This is the zhizhu, a stringed instrument that is pleasant enough to the Western ear and played here with a lot of flare by Sissi. Harvey is her biggest fan.

Sissi is also a budding veterinarian. This is one of three ducklings that she combed on this fourth floor windowsill every morning. Sources have confirmed there are now only two.

A ferry trip to pick up mum in HK, 24hrs of shopping for the girls and a few flash meals saw my wallet much lighter though we were better for it, enjoying a brief reprieve from China before jumping right back in again. At about this time, I wrote to Wanda and Jonas, asking if they wanted to meet up again, joining us for a trip into the country with one of Dad's ex-students. The four of us were re-united in 48hrs and joined Dad and Ben Lee for a trip north to Fuxi, still in Guangdong.

At the markets en route, meat products for everyone.

This is Ben Lee below. He took us to DanxiaShan, a mountinous NP not far from his hometown. It was quite a climb so some adventurers hired the locals for a few dollars to help then up the hill. Notice the fella in the botom right of the shot above- most men took their shirts off as it was well into the thirties and humidity was well up.

It is tradition for the men to prop up the rock with sticks, so I did what I was told.

It was quite a hike to the top from water level. We drank the litres of water that we'd brought from home fast so handed over whatever the stalls wanted when we saw some.

At the summit, we struck the local pose and prepared to descend.

The downhill run was well signposted.

Ben, Wanda and Jonas hold on for dear life. OH&S is yet to take a hold in the Middle Kingdom.

Ben Lee translated the sign by this monastary. If we could reach right around together, we'd found the right partner.

We eventually made it to Fuxi, Ben Lee's hometown. On arrival, his mother, Mrs Lee, had a banquet prepared with all manner of tofu, chicken, water lilies and other local specialities. Ben's grandfather has worked the rice padies for most of his 80 odd years and every grain on the table was his own. Plenty of pijiou (beer) and thankful gestures as we ate up. Cousins, Uncles and Aunts etc. helped fill the room with plenty of laughter. This was one of these experiences that no tour group can manufacture. This town is a few hours east of Shoguan and Ben's late Grandmother could not remember seeing a foriegner before my father visited a few years ago. Lisa and Wanda were the first females!

We ate breakfast in the Fuxi market. This women (like Mrs Lee) cooked everything on a wood-fired stove.

She was very excited to serve these strange looking visitors. She also had some pretty crazy dental work with a whole lot of gold and silver.

We spend most days shopping, though we rarely buy. This hat is much heavier than it looks. It was presented as a wet weather hat. I think it has a few layers of fibreglass on top.

As well as being the consumate host in the kitchen, Mrs Lee fixed my rucksack with her leg powered sewing machine. When she heard I was going down the road to use a cobbler, she would hear nothing of it.

I asked Ben if he could recommend a barber. he was a little worried but not as worried as the barber was when I walked in the door. A crowd gathered as my blonde hair hit the ground with all the black locks.

I look concerned because I am. This was 'think ahead motoring' at the most extreme. The good people at Yamazuki Motorcycles in China came up with a design in late 60s and they stuck with it.

Here is the family: Grandad, me, Lisa, Mrs Lee, cousin 'Suzy' who was Lisa or Wanda's best friend, depending on her mood and Ben's Uncle all outside the Lee family mansion, high on the hill. Wanda and Jonas left a day earlier as she had to rush home for Uni from Shenzen. We said fairwell again, but who knows?, we may see them before Christmas as we don't plan to be too far from Munich...

One afternoon, Ben took us on an excursion to 'Old Fuxi'. As we drove on, he explained that one of his Uncles owned a mine out in the hills that he wanted us to see. It was eventually understood that they were mining uranium for power, and it doesn't exist on any map...

The entrance, where we were presented with helmets and no lights. The tracks on the left of the shot are active - a little train with two dripping carriages creaked past us on two occasions. It operates 24/7.

Ben looking unconcerned, Lisa wondering why she's standing in an unofficial Chinese mine. We took the right pathway, meeting 'pants only' miners along the way. The party was pleased whe I suggested we head back after about 300 stairs at 45'.

The view from our bedroom at the Lee house. The valley had this fog every morning and the million ducks in the yards just below got very rowdy at sunrise.

Back in Guangzhou, we met mum and the four of us celebrated her birthday with another three ex-students. A fancy French meal with some good wine near the Concert Hall was quite a treat after going without rich, creamy dishes for so long. These three had ordered a silk dress for mum, made to measure, by those in the know. We shared breakfast in the morning and Lisa and I headed for HK to catch our plane that afternoon to the Middle East.

After almost seven weeks in China, across five provinces, we were ready to move on. Noodles, plumbing, mystery meats and the challenging mix of the language barrier and an alternative logic made for some occasionaly draining adventures. But this is being written some time after we left (China has censored the subversive blogspot!) and looking back, it is such a fascinating place as so many aspects of their culture are beyond comprehension. Though I don't know when, i'm near certain that I'll make a fifth trip at some time in the future, probably after watching the Olympics from a safe distance.