Egypt’s baksheesh industry..will it survive?

The people who are benefiting the least Mubarak leaving office sooner than later are his police forces and political allies.  They are the ones who ask for the baksheesh even if they don’t do anything helpful or even help someone cross the street safely in Downtown Cairo. Some took to the streets and were taking part in Pro-Mubarak demonstrations in Cairo today. Anderson Cooper and his crew got attacked by members of this crowd while reporting. It included men on camels and horse back seen in the photos above who usually come in handy when tourist go to see Abu Simbel and visit Giza.  They seem to just be as useful as those police cars that have a doll placed in the front seat to deter people from speeding on US Highways. When I was there a few years ago an officer said it was ok to climb one of the pyramids in Giza for a little baksheesh that it.  If only Zahi Hawass was there to witness.

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It is now a requirement for foreign travelers going down to the Upper Nile near the border to Sudan to be escorted by a Egyptian military convoy.  I just felt like a speeding line of sitting ducks but what do I know. A higher ranking officer of the tourist caravan target practice group.  Our driver seemed to know him since the officer had left his rifle in the van. Opps…probably didn’t have any bullets in it because he knew he would start running if anything started going down. Our he driver throw it to him like he was in a movie like he was in a Dirty Harry movie.  Kind of like giving a high five..catch yeah later.

Egypt needs its tourism since it historically it makes up around 10% of it’s GDP and employs 12.6% of Egyptians. In May 2010, Reuters projected that Egypt was recovering from the global economic crisis and fore-casted a steady growth of at least 2-5% this year.  It’s surprising on how much more money the Tourism industry makes than the revenue generated from the Suez Canal.  I’m not an economist but things are going to get pretty bad in the country if this mess doesn’t clean up soon.   The peak travel season will be soon coming to end in May.  Let’s hope its only a few months lost, not too much is destroyed and the people of Egypt are in a better place economically and politically.

The Howls of the Rebel River in Hama Syria

The highlight of the city of Hama is by no doubt the norias or “wheels of pots”.  Seventeen now remain standing and occasionally running above the Nahr al-Assi, aka Rebel River.   Many know it as being the Orontes River.  It’s presently the job of the office of Antiquities in Hama to make sure that these remaining wheels can still function as they did 1000-years-ago and remain aesthetically pleasing drawing in tourists and travelers.   Authors Needham and Ronan described them as “the most splendid norias ever constructed.” and they are right to some degree.

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According to author Joseph Needham, the Noria are believed to have been first constructed in India around 350 B.C.  The technology later spread east to China and then west to the Mediterranean Region.  What was unique about Norias is that they are powered only by flowing water .   Cows, camels, wind, steam or even people are unnecessary.   Unfortunately, the water to be needs to high enough to work properly. The climate in Hama allows them to work around 5 months out of  the year.  The use of dams and the luck of a rainy spring keeps the creaking wheels spinning.

The norias are thought to have been constructed in Hama during the Byzantine era but the jury is still out on whether it was earlier.  It is known that their numbers peaked to around 30 during the Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1510). The Turkish governor ordered the restoration of the Roman built water wheels after he conquered the area.  They made the 200-year-old wheels bigger and added more along the river.  The norias brought water to its inhabitants and their farms.  The crop yields skyrocketed, trade increased and it’s people grew rich.  The Orontes Valley still remains Syria’s agricultural heartland.
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The quiet town of Palmyra

The bus rolled into Tadmor, or as most know it as Palmyra, a little over 3 hours after it left the Harasta Pullman terminal in Damascus. Taking local buses is always fun and tricky if you don’t speak or understand the native language. The final destination wasn’t Palmyra and even if it was the bus driver was calling it Tadmor. Palmyra is a small town and I still wasn’t sure if it had a bus station? I guess a good street map (LP #fail) complete with important things like where the bus stops would have been helpful. We’ve adapted to LP and other guidebook fails by now, so we had to just go with it, use our brains and harness our powers of perception.  So what we knew was the bus must be stopping soon since it’s getting close to the scheduled time of arrival and I see two others travelers getting ready to leave.  It’s highly likely that we are on same Syrian LP/Routard trail.  We also start to get ready to spring from the hot bus.   The bus stops, we thanked the bus driver and chose a direction which hopefully led into town.  We then found a safe place to get a quick look at the crappy LP map but it didn’t matter because no one seemed to want to bother us with questions like “Do you need any help?”  “Where are you staying or need to go? ” “I can drive you!” etc.

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Cairo and it’s baksheesh and sheesha

It’s hot and almost too hot, smoggy and as always, the streets are filled with cars, horse and buggies and motorbikes.   Taking the camera out and trying to capture what it’s like to walk around Cairo is the last thing I think about doing.  Just want to get around without loosing a body part or my life.  Something as small as a distracting camera could put me that much closer to being in harms way.  Getting hit by any one of the reckless drivers of Cairo was not in the plan.  Here, like many places of the world (Beijing and Hanoi are a couple of good examples) there are no rules, cars disregard anything smaller than them (people and animals included), the traffic lanes are not recognized and it’s every man, baby, horse and old lady for themselves.

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Old Cairo: Coptic Hanging Churches and the Oldest Mosque in Africa

Old Cairo is where most major religions of the country and continent meet.  The AmrIbn el-Aas Mosque and the Hanging Church reside in this part of town and have been neighbors for almost for almost 1400 years.  They are both amazing structures to view and can’t be missed on a trip to Cairo.

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Not so Dead Cities of Syria

Imagine having a UNESCO Heritage site all to yourself? This is what I found late in the day when I got a ride out to see Al Basa and Sejilla from Hama, Syria. The two sites aren’t officially recognized by UNESCO but are both protected by the Syrian Antiquity law and listed under the category of archaeological sites and registered by the Syrian Minister of Culture.   It’s getting late in the day 4:30 and the overseer at Serjilla is waiting in his car as this lone visitor shows up. The place closes at 5pm and I’m given the look which tells me to pretty much get a move on with a smile. So there’s about 10 acres of area (lots to cover and “enjoy”) and time is ticking. I’m sure some backish (tip or bribe) will extend my welcome but it’s something I don’t like to do.

The one thing great thing to my timing is that I’m able to see the area by myself and the quality late afternoon light will hopefully give me great shots. I’ll need these later since it will allow me to examine what I only had time to take a picture of.

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Beginning in the 4th Century, this area once housed a wealthy group of Christians settlers. Things like the bath houses and fertile land, and it’s closeness to trade centers like Apamea and Antioch all together can only conclude that this was a village of well to do citizens. The soil is so fertile that it presently is the site of  many working fruit orchards and oil groves.

The houses, baths, temples, sarcophagi (tombs) and churches they are housed in can still be identified and it doesn’t take much of an imagination to picture what this village used to look like when it was occupied many centuries ago. The town was at a crossroads between the trade destinations of Antioch and Apamea and continued to be inhabited by the same Christians despite being conquered by the Crusaders in 1098 and later the Arabs in 1123. An earthquake is what caused this village to be abandoned in the late 12th century. Many archways, walls, and whole rooms are still fully intact which is amazing. It’s not too hard to envision what the village must have looked like centuries ago.

It’s a wonder why it’s not recognized by UNESCO. This is a big reason to check out and support sites that are not on the list. It’s very important to treat them with care and respect they deserve and allow them to be open to others in the future.  This should go unsaid but please don’t climb up or take away things that need to stay there. Pictures should be the only souvenir you take back with you as tempting as it may be to stick one little piece of rock in your pocket.

Hama and it’s great Beehives

We were at a crossroads in Syria and needed to figure out whether the next stop should be the ancient city of Hama aka Hamah (Epiphania) or Homs aka Hims, Syria?    We then turned to the help of the internet.  We checked out some somewhat reliable travel forums, did some quick Google searches, read a little  and decided that Hama was a good jumping point to see several sites including: Krak des Chevaliers, Apamea, Qasr ibn Wardan, the Dead Cities or Serjilla and of course the Norias in town. Besides, its mid-June and it’s getting into the upper 80’s F.   This is probably why we have found very few travelers and have the sites pretty much to ourselves.   This is a good and bad thing.  We still have to make our way up through eastern Turkey but we will be trekking up to see  Mount Nemrut (2150m altitude) and it’s still chilly before the sun rises so no real hurry. We’re ok staying here for a few days.

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The Bearded Rockskipper and why we travel

The Bearded Rockskipper is what those odd fish/lizard/snake creatures are called.  I had been combing the internet just to satisfy my curiosity.  I can get a bit obsessed when it comes to figuring out why?, what? or how come? while traveling.  I guess it’s why I travel because I will hopefully always be curious.

My walk along the shore in Grand Baie Mauritius turned into a marine biology expedition for this travel geek.  Just what was that shiny, dark green creature hopping to and fro amongst its neighbors the sea urchin and fiddler crab.  Of course, when I got back to my hotel and asked the innkeeper about it, it all got lost in translation (gave me a quizzical look) and he gave up and moved on to more imperative things.  I can’t blame him since this was probably a discovery for him when he was 2 years old and something really not interesting him.

Experiences like this one and many others on the road exemplify the true meaning of traveling and how it makes an outsider look at an unfamiliar world with fresh eyes.  Trying to rap my head around why locals live their lives the way they do, what the local version of the squirrel or minnow in this case is, what are the social norms and what’s considered acceptable behavior (don’t really like pissing any one-off), and understanding there are things that can’t be simply explained .  This is what travel is to me.  Always asking why or what is that?

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Palawan: it’s bumpy roads, beautiful beaches and bugs…

Winterstorm in Central Park

Just waiting for the next SNOWPOCALYPSE!  Something that the locals and visitors in El Nido on Palawan are probably not ever worried about but not to say they don’t have the wet and windy equivalent.  The snow is about as inevidable as a typhoon in that region but right now it is sunny and above 70 degrees.  I’m used to snow like a villager in South East Asia is used to rain.  I spent my youth surrounded by snow in Columbus Ohio and blizzards in New England.  I have to admit…the snow is nice for about 10 minutes here in NYC but after a few dogs wander through the fresh white stuff, the garbage reappears and it’s again just a big grey winter mess.

Now, back to El Nido.  Getting there and just about anywhere in the Philippines “involves amusing travel and transportation modes. Taking these various local transportation forms is a traveling thrill in itself” says a local tour company’s website.   At least there are many rewards to putting your life in peril and among them are getting off the beaten backpack trail and having an amazing time once the overland Jeepney, by sea ferry ride  and/or air journey by Turbo Prop is over.

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