Jordan

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'That little twat stole my fucking cat.' Hannah was outraged. I had spent the previous hour playing at being a human ping pong ball, batted from desk to desk in Jordanian customs. I'd had to buy dinar from a policeman when I found all the money changers were closed, I'd had to wait in line behind two dozen chained convicts, and now I had to fetch Han in to prove I wasn't people smuggling.

But Hannah had bigger problems. 'It was probably the best pet out of all of them we have found on our travels. Even better than the dog I had in Bodrum. He loved me as much as I loved him - he was just so strong and assertive. I would have even given him a cheese puff. We just didn't have enough time, that fuckbag stole him.' She was completely distraught, 'it was that boy's fault, my cat didn't want to leave me but he was dragged off.'

I in turn, dragged Han off from where she wanted to be, and plonked her in front of the customs. As soon as her photo was taken, she ran off to check if 'her cat' had returned. I finished the customs with a minimum of fuss, and returned outside.

Hannah was still sat on the edge of the kerb, on edge of this country, waiting for a ferry to a strange new one, but she had only one thing on her mind. 'I've not seen him, I bet they've taken him home. He was just so strong! There is a one eyed black cat and a skinny one with big ears, but I just can't see mine.'

'Wait!' She stopped me before I could reply to her crazy cat stealing madness.' The one eyed black is fighting with another cat in the bin, what happens if that is my cat?!' Her eyes flashed. 'That fuckbag, I'll punch him in his good eye if he's attacking my cat.' Then her eyes softened. 'Nah, I don't believe my cat would fight over a bin, he would share.

She got up and brushed the Jordanian dust off of her trousers, she wandered off like a Panda popped toddler, muttering some nonsense about the cat 'I've never had a cat sit on me with such authority, he was just so strong.' She trolled off, with only one thing on her mind, leaving me scribbling under the piss yellow lamp light.

Arabs drank tea and smoked, as fat bats flapped in the thick night. In front of me, two kids tormented a poor stray, spitting and throwing stones at it, people bought tea and coffee from a chai wallah on the kerb, and Han looked for her lost love. 'I can't find him, so I've got to find another one.'

She hadn't found him, she had returned, catless and bereaved, broken hearted and lost. Now she wanted another one to steal. For the next hour, a stray couldn't walk past without having cheese puffs rolled at it, as squeaky cat noises emanated from Han. A fuzzy announcement came over the tannoy, the Arab kids ceased torturing the kitten, and up and down the waiting line of cars, cigarettes were tossed to the floor and drivers jumped into their cars. For thirty seconds, the border point was a hive of activity. Then everything stopped. False start. We suited up, and rode down the whole length of the line to the front of the queue. A kindly old policeman took our tickets, complimented me on my Arabic, and waved us throught the gates to the waiting ferry. We were stopped at the ferry by a pair of surly young men in plain clothes, who took our passports and told us to wait where we were. They laughed at Han, as she was carrying a plastic bag against her leg, and the insect repellent that she is constantly coated with had caused the print to rub off on her leg. They came back a minute late, after giggling over our passports, and took our exit documents. Then left again. I felt a scamming coming along. I tried to speak to them in Arabic and English, but they kept on repeating - in English - 'no English.' The scamming seemed inevitable. It's funny how you can go through a whole country being understood perfectly well in both languages but as soon as you come to a border point, people understand neither, and only listen to dollar signs. We were kept waiting on that grey port for over half an hour, while the two men loaded every single foot passenger waiting behind us, and then every single vehicle passenger. They then gave us our passports back, and with a smile, waved us on. It wasn't a scam after all - merely an act designed to emphasise that our place as foreigners was at the very bottom of the pecking order.

By the time we parked our bike, which was dubiously tied to a support with one piece of yarn, and passed more customs desks, every flat surface on the boat was covered in prostate and already sleeping forms. We wedged ourselves in a corner on the top deck and Han fell asleep immediately, probably dreaming of her bloody lost cat.

I sit against the rusty railings and write this. There is barely space left on the deck to weave between circles of cross legged smokers and huddles of men shouting unnecessarily loudly into phones. The windless air hangs in a cloud over the boat, tainted with the smells that only a Middle Eastern climate and a Middle Eastern diet can produce. Cutting through the noxious fog in waves come drifts of marijuana smoke, despite the numerous anti-drug warning posters peeling from the greasy walls. Hannah's sleeping body draws lecherous stares from every man walking by. I am a believer in taking cultures and people as they come, after all, we are guests in their home, not vice-versa - but it is one thing about Middle Eastern culture that I find difficult to abide. Hannah, or any other Western woman for that matter, cannot walk anywhere without garnering hungry unveiled stares. To an Englishman it seems so rude.

Having said that it is the one thing I can't stomach, I lied slightly, the complete inability to queue is another thing. Customs halls become one giant free for all, as everyone attempts to shove their way to the front of the hustle, to push their documents under the nose of a bored official. Queues are one thing I miss about the Western world, a mark of civilisation, they facilitate and regulate. I never thought I missed anything in particular about Britain, but we are bloody good at queuing. I miss that. And bacon.

Just when you are starting to think that you hate everybody, someone comes along to restore your faith in humanity. As I sat writing negatively about Arab men, I was approached by a Jordanian, about my age. He had seen me take my shirt off to lay over Hannah, and brought his blanket over, and draped it over her. He gave me a smile, and asked me to bring it back when she woke up, then disappeared. Damn people and all their goodness.

The Egyptian customs ahead of me daunt me. No queues there I am guessing. I don't particularly look forward to most border crossings. In my limited experience the least savoury, least competent people are drawn to them, their incompetence only equalled in amount by their greed. They are also generally expensive and time consuming. I'm not a fan of fighting through the non-queues, and being bounced from office to office, parting with obscene amounts of money to disinterested and misanthropic NCOs. A well run border crossing can be a surprising joy, but I am not expecting the Egyptian one to be one of these. A hugely over-staffed, under-paid and under-trained security force doesn't encourage a lack of corruption. I'm fully expecting backsheesh central, in addition to huge 'official' tariffs. It doesn't help that my Egyptian dialect seems to be sadly lacking.

I have never had any experience with the dialect, but as I sit here writing this, I listen to the Egyptians on board. They are easy to differentiate from the Jordanians, partially as most have darker, more African features, but mostly because the Jordanians speak something I can recognise as a language. The Egyptian dialect obviously still sounds like an Arab tongue, just an Arab tongue after a razor-blade french kiss. Oh well, it's all a game. I'll let you know how we get on. For now I will sit and watch the sun rise over the mountains of Saudi. The night is disappearing into the day, and the sunrays creep slowly towards us in a bright orange beam across the millpond sea.

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