Blogs from Jordan, Middle East - page 114

February 4, 2006 (Wadi Musa, Jordan) Shannon: The punctuality of public transportation in Egypt that I had admired in an earlier blog evidently did not apply to private ventures, as we learned when we crossed the Red Sea by ferry to Jordan. The ferry, which was supposed to leave at 2 pm, was still moored to the dock well past 4 pm. Hmmm…not a good start. It was a curious “ferry” anyway, more accurately described as a small cruise ship with a car deck acting in the capacity of a ferry. When we first boarded, leaving our bags down in the cargo hold, we climbed the stairs to the passenger decks. What we found were endless hallways with locked passenger cabins. Where were we supposed to sit for this ride? We finally located a few seats ... read more

We finally cleared the border from Israel back into Jordan to find that we had missed the last bus and all the taxi drivers were wanting to charge us twice the price we had expected to pay. So we started walking and thought we would hitch or find another 'servis' bus somewhere. But typically after walking about 1 km a bus hurtled past us without stopping. We got a lift with a guy who worked at the border in the duty free shop and he took us all the way to our hotel in downtown Amman and even bought us a juice on the way. He would not accept any money for his bother either and I am sure he went out of his way to help us. Back at the hotel we found our bikes ... read more

Minutes before we were about to board our ferry from Nuweiba (Egypt) to the Jordanian port of Aqaba, we received a frantic text message from my parents telling us of a ferry sinking in the Red Sea and hoping we were OK. We were fortunately heading across the Red Sea in the opposite direction and in a much more modern and safe catamaran ferry (like the ones plying the Marlborough Sounds) . We crossed quickly, comfortably and without incident; taking only 1 hour as opposed to the estimated 5 - 36! hours for the slow ferry. Should anyone head out this way we would recommend avoiding the slow ferry as it is only USD11 cheaper than the fast ferry (USD50) and it is rumoured to be nasty. Immigration at the Jordanian border was a lolly sramble ... read more

After five weeks in Egypt, on December 22 I flew from Cairo to Amman, Jordan with the hope of making it to Jerusalem and Bethlehem in time for Christmas. Goodbye, Egypt Cairo is a place you either love or hate, depending on the day. On some days, the chaos, hustle and bustle, and people-watching are great. You revel in the cars and donkey carts vying for position in the streets, haggling over prices and making sure you're not getting ripped off, and listening to heated arguments and discussions emanating from the coffeehouses. You find yourself thinking Where else could I experience all of this? On other days, the noise, overcrowding, and pollution are too much and you crave just one moment of complete silence or a few breaths of clean air. So while I had a ... read more

Hello I took a bus from Aqaba to Amman yesterday. The ride was good, its a fast bus that doesn't stop and was really quite comfortable. The scenery was well, desert, but really cool to see again as I quite enjoy the sand and rock and occasional camel. I toured a few of the sites in Amman including the Citadel and the Roman Theatre. The Citadel is a huge fortress at the top of a hill (of course) that includes an old royal palace and the archeological museum. I wandered all through the ruins, again I had a personal tour guide as the tourist police guy wanted to practice his English.. whatever, he was nice and fairly informative, so it was good. You can see the columns of an old temple, and the ruins are quite ... read more