Hey,
So we have just spent the last 5 days in Istanbul. It was pretty cool. We stayed at a hostel called Cordial House. For $12 a night it was fine, nothing as good as the place in Goreme though. Goreme had a great atmosphere about it, and the staff were so friendly and helpful.
The first day we went to the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya. The Blue Mosque was beautiful, but I still think the best mosque I have seen so far is the Ummayed Mosque in Damascus. The Blue mosque is amazing architectually (yes that’s a word) but the Ummayed mosque had the most stunning courtyard.
But by far, the best building I have seen is the Aya Sofya. That was indescribable. Not as beautiful as the blue mosque on the outside, but the inside was just so awesome. Note: Both the Ummayed and the Aya Sofya were churches before they became mosques... Interesting that they are the best I have seen so far :). Anyway, The Aya Sofya still had some Christian paintings and designs and mosaics even though it is now a mosque.
Our hostel was in Sultanahmet, which is a really touristy area. We were about 400 metres from the Aya Sofya and I would not recommend staying in this area. The prices were triple in terms of food etc! Not good for students on a tight budget. But by the 3rd day we took a tram to Beyoglu and that was a much nicer place. No hassling from restauranteurs or shop keepers wanting you to come into their business. I though Amman was bad with men, but here...unbelievable!
We went to the Grand Bazaar a few times, and we got lines like “sweetie, kiss my lips”, “lady, lady, you dropped something!” I made the mistake of turning around... “My heart!” they would reply. And I also got...” I saw you yesterday!” I just kept walking this time... Another man asks him “when, when did you see her?”... “in my dreams!” the other would say. Arghhhh it was awful! We got followed once to by the worst stalker in the world. He was so bad and so not subtle about it. In the end I think we scared him more than he scared us. I just turned around and stopped and glared at him as if to say “I know what your doing...and you suck at it” and when he realised we knew he was following us, he got scared and left us alone.
The Grand Bazaar really was crap compared to the souqs in Syria, both Damascus and Halab. I guess we are so used to bargaining and getting things dirt cheap, but here they won’t have any of it. I asked one guy how much the price of these copper painted plates were and he said 35 lira!!! In Jordan you could get them for 5JD, so 10 lira, (10AU), so I told him that, and he said to me rather rudely “well go back to Jordan and get it then!”, and I replied, “Well I am going back there, so I will!” and stormed out. The Turks are way more ruder in the souqs than in Syria and Jordan. They hassle you, especially ‘coz we’re girls, and when we ignore them they follow us and insult us. So I didn’t really like the Grand Bazaar that much. The Spice Bazaar was nice, lots of turkish delight and dried fruit, but ridiculously expensive. It’s one of the big tourist hot spots, so the prices are crazy.
So all in all, Istanbul was ok, I’m going back there for a few days after this trip to Gallipoli, Tory and Ephesus. I still want to see a few more things there like the Topkapi Palace, and take a boat up the Bosphorus. Jo and I have just arrived in Canakkale (pronounced with a Ch)
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
cappodocia
We just spent the last few days in a town called Goreme in Cappodocia. It was so amazing. You have to check out my facebook photos to see what the landscape is like there, because it's way too hard to explain.
The first day after we arrived we went to the open air museum and looked at all these churches and caves which had been carved into the rock. It was so incredible.
After that we headed back into town and bought some lunch at this little cafe. The food was great! Jo and I had these turkish crepe things with spinach and a really yummy salad. In syria they are similar to saj's but i can't remember the turkish name for them atm.
In that cafe we got talking to the owner about what were the best things to see, and he offered us one of his employees to drive us around for the day, which was really nice. It;s winter here, so business is sooo slow for these guys, so they kinda pick up whatver work they can. So this guy took us around to all these places and was really helpful, getting us in an out of the fairy chimneys, and when he couldn't understand us, he rang the guy back at the shop to translate. At the end of our tour, we gave him $20, he didn't want to take it, but we made him.
The next day we went on a tour of an underground city and for a hike through the ilhara valley. It was a fantastic tour, and was worth the fifty lira we paid for it. Again, you have to see the photos to see what I mean. But we had to share a bus with these whining brits. We knew them already becuase back at the hostel they complain about EVERYTHING!!!!! "my foods not hot enough... fix it" nah it wasn't that bad... we just had to put up with it for a good 8 hours.
That night we caught a 7pm bus for istanbul. 11 hour trip... it wasn't too much fun at the start. we got the back row seats, and it took us about three hours to work out that our seats do in fact lean back... we just couldn't find the buttons... our bad. after that it was easier to try and sleep. i've had worse bus rides, but it proabably wasn't the best. but i did get to sleep most of the way.
So this morning we arrived in Istanbul. Took an hour to find a hostel, with thanks to the helpful locals who had conflicting directions :) but eventually we found it. it's quite nice. and only $12 aussie a night, so no complaining there. We couldn't check in until 12pm so we went to get a coffee and went for a walk around the Sultanahmet part of the city where we are staying.
One thing that sucks about Istanbul is that it's expensive. Especially compared to Jordan. Food prices are still better than Australia, but it kinda sucks when you have to eat out for every meal. So we've already sussed out some of the cheaper options.
Not sure if I'm gonna stay here for a full week and then head onto troy, ephesus and gallipoli once Belinda and Jo leave, or if I do it with them in the next few days and then head back to Istanbul. I leave here on the 20th for Beirut, so I've got plenty of time.
Ok keep you all posted
lots of love
carly
The first day after we arrived we went to the open air museum and looked at all these churches and caves which had been carved into the rock. It was so incredible.
After that we headed back into town and bought some lunch at this little cafe. The food was great! Jo and I had these turkish crepe things with spinach and a really yummy salad. In syria they are similar to saj's but i can't remember the turkish name for them atm.
In that cafe we got talking to the owner about what were the best things to see, and he offered us one of his employees to drive us around for the day, which was really nice. It;s winter here, so business is sooo slow for these guys, so they kinda pick up whatver work they can. So this guy took us around to all these places and was really helpful, getting us in an out of the fairy chimneys, and when he couldn't understand us, he rang the guy back at the shop to translate. At the end of our tour, we gave him $20, he didn't want to take it, but we made him.
The next day we went on a tour of an underground city and for a hike through the ilhara valley. It was a fantastic tour, and was worth the fifty lira we paid for it. Again, you have to see the photos to see what I mean. But we had to share a bus with these whining brits. We knew them already becuase back at the hostel they complain about EVERYTHING!!!!! "my foods not hot enough... fix it" nah it wasn't that bad... we just had to put up with it for a good 8 hours.
That night we caught a 7pm bus for istanbul. 11 hour trip... it wasn't too much fun at the start. we got the back row seats, and it took us about three hours to work out that our seats do in fact lean back... we just couldn't find the buttons... our bad. after that it was easier to try and sleep. i've had worse bus rides, but it proabably wasn't the best. but i did get to sleep most of the way.
So this morning we arrived in Istanbul. Took an hour to find a hostel, with thanks to the helpful locals who had conflicting directions :) but eventually we found it. it's quite nice. and only $12 aussie a night, so no complaining there. We couldn't check in until 12pm so we went to get a coffee and went for a walk around the Sultanahmet part of the city where we are staying.
One thing that sucks about Istanbul is that it's expensive. Especially compared to Jordan. Food prices are still better than Australia, but it kinda sucks when you have to eat out for every meal. So we've already sussed out some of the cheaper options.
Not sure if I'm gonna stay here for a full week and then head onto troy, ephesus and gallipoli once Belinda and Jo leave, or if I do it with them in the next few days and then head back to Istanbul. I leave here on the 20th for Beirut, so I've got plenty of time.
Ok keep you all posted
lots of love
carly
Sunday, February 1, 2009
turkey!
oday we woke up at 5:30 to a call to prayer gone wrong! It kept making feedback screeches and then would cut out, and then the imams voice would start again. I couldn’t help but laugh...but it was quite an annoying way to wake up.
We grabbed breakfast at the bakery, some cheese bread thing, and then grabbed a taxi to the bus station. Turkey is definitely going to take some getting used to because we had to pay 12.50 for a trip to the bus station, and in Amman that would have cost us 3.00 aussie dollars. But food is relatively cheap here When we got to the bus station we tried to find a bus directly to Goreme in Cappodocia, but none went there direct, so we caught a JET bus for 7 hours to a town called Aksaray, which was an hour away from Goreme. When we got to the outskirts of Aksaray the bus stopped at a rest station and we got a bit worried because normally when buses stop, they stop at a bus station, so we tried asking if we were going to be going to the bus station, or if the bus was just going to continue onto Ankara. Well... Let’s just say Turkey is not a country that you can get by in easily with no language skills. We were lucky that another man walking past overheard us and came up saying in English “I think I can help you”.
So it turns out that the bus wasn’t going to go to the bus station but they arranged a Servees to take us there instead. So we got in the servees and didn’t really know what was happening. He rambled something off in Turkish and the only words we recognised were ‘Bus’ and ‘Goreme’. So that was fine until he drove straight past the otogar (bus station). And we’re like “we wanna go there”... And he rambled off again...and we didn’t understand...again... But we knew he could understand a little Arabic, so we just spoke in Arabic to him. Anyway, so he took us to some bus company office, but they didn’t have a direct bus to Goreme, only to a nearby town, and we didn’t wanna stuff around and be waiting for buses in the dark, so we said to our servees driver “no, take us to the otogar!” But he wouldn’t listen and tried spinning some bull dust story that the otogar closed at 4pm and continued to take us somewhere else. By this stage we were pretty pissed off ‘coz we were in some strange town with a taxi driver who was more concerned about getting a commission than getting us to Goreme. At the second place he took us to Jo lost it at him and in really forceful, slow arabic, shouted... “NURIIDO AN NATHABA ILA OTOGAR” which means ‘We. Want. To Go to. The. Otogar!!” and he let off what must of been a few swear words in turkish and finally drove us there. We were then worried what he was going to charge us, because he’d been driving us around for half an hour! But he charged us nothing, so that was good.
At the otogar we found a direct bus at 6:30pm to Goreme, accept coz the guy knew it was the only bus he charged us a mint, and even the student line and the begging didn’t help us. Not to worry, because we finally got here and the hostel picked us up from the bus station. The place we’re staying in tonight is soooo cool. It’s in caves kinda like cooper peedy and its sooooo beautiful. We have only seen the surroundings at night, but we can’t wait to see everything tomorrow morning! The hostel does food here too, which was great coz we were starving when we arrived. So we all got a lovely home cooked stirfry and it was so yummy! And this place has internet access thank goodness coz I don’t have a phone and I hadn’t been able to contact home for 2 days.
So tomorrow we might do a tour around the place on foot. Maybe by bus... You can do balloon flights over Cappodocia, but its like 140 euros... So not gonna happen...
Oh yeah we drove through snow today on the way here!!!! It was so awesome. My first time seeing snow... Yeah I know, call me a hillbilly from sunny Australia, but it was soooo coool. I took lots of photos!
Well I’m off to bed... It’s amazing how tired you get from sitting on a bus for 9 hours all day!
Love carly
We grabbed breakfast at the bakery, some cheese bread thing, and then grabbed a taxi to the bus station. Turkey is definitely going to take some getting used to because we had to pay 12.50 for a trip to the bus station, and in Amman that would have cost us 3.00 aussie dollars. But food is relatively cheap here When we got to the bus station we tried to find a bus directly to Goreme in Cappodocia, but none went there direct, so we caught a JET bus for 7 hours to a town called Aksaray, which was an hour away from Goreme. When we got to the outskirts of Aksaray the bus stopped at a rest station and we got a bit worried because normally when buses stop, they stop at a bus station, so we tried asking if we were going to be going to the bus station, or if the bus was just going to continue onto Ankara. Well... Let’s just say Turkey is not a country that you can get by in easily with no language skills. We were lucky that another man walking past overheard us and came up saying in English “I think I can help you”.
So it turns out that the bus wasn’t going to go to the bus station but they arranged a Servees to take us there instead. So we got in the servees and didn’t really know what was happening. He rambled something off in Turkish and the only words we recognised were ‘Bus’ and ‘Goreme’. So that was fine until he drove straight past the otogar (bus station). And we’re like “we wanna go there”... And he rambled off again...and we didn’t understand...again... But we knew he could understand a little Arabic, so we just spoke in Arabic to him. Anyway, so he took us to some bus company office, but they didn’t have a direct bus to Goreme, only to a nearby town, and we didn’t wanna stuff around and be waiting for buses in the dark, so we said to our servees driver “no, take us to the otogar!” But he wouldn’t listen and tried spinning some bull dust story that the otogar closed at 4pm and continued to take us somewhere else. By this stage we were pretty pissed off ‘coz we were in some strange town with a taxi driver who was more concerned about getting a commission than getting us to Goreme. At the second place he took us to Jo lost it at him and in really forceful, slow arabic, shouted... “NURIIDO AN NATHABA ILA OTOGAR” which means ‘We. Want. To Go to. The. Otogar!!” and he let off what must of been a few swear words in turkish and finally drove us there. We were then worried what he was going to charge us, because he’d been driving us around for half an hour! But he charged us nothing, so that was good.
At the otogar we found a direct bus at 6:30pm to Goreme, accept coz the guy knew it was the only bus he charged us a mint, and even the student line and the begging didn’t help us. Not to worry, because we finally got here and the hostel picked us up from the bus station. The place we’re staying in tonight is soooo cool. It’s in caves kinda like cooper peedy and its sooooo beautiful. We have only seen the surroundings at night, but we can’t wait to see everything tomorrow morning! The hostel does food here too, which was great coz we were starving when we arrived. So we all got a lovely home cooked stirfry and it was so yummy! And this place has internet access thank goodness coz I don’t have a phone and I hadn’t been able to contact home for 2 days.
So tomorrow we might do a tour around the place on foot. Maybe by bus... You can do balloon flights over Cappodocia, but its like 140 euros... So not gonna happen...
Oh yeah we drove through snow today on the way here!!!! It was so awesome. My first time seeing snow... Yeah I know, call me a hillbilly from sunny Australia, but it was soooo coool. I took lots of photos!
Well I’m off to bed... It’s amazing how tired you get from sitting on a bus for 9 hours all day!
Love carly
on the road
So my travelling has begun! The last week in Amman was pretty full on and unfortunately had a bit of an incident with some people living in our apartments, so for safety myself and my roommate moved in with Rohan and Sandi and Amelia for the last few days. Rohan and Sandi are the lovely, amazing people who took all of us in for Christmas. It was so nice of them to have Alyson and I for the last few days. I have learnt so much from this family over the past 2 months, which I am so grateful for.
So Belinda, Jo and I left at about 9am on Thursday morning. We headed to Abdali bus station in downtown amman, but we missed all the buses to Damascus by about half an hour. It was pretty funny actually. We got taxis right down to the bottom of the station and ended up hiking, with ALL our luggage to the top of the hill for a couple of kilometres... In the end we got a service taxi which only cost 10JD each and took about 2 hours off the time it would’ve taken if we had caught the bus.
Once in Damascus we stayed in the Sultan hotel near the Hijaz Station. Some of the guys stayed in this hotel last time we were in Syria. It’s was a nice, clean hotel and had hot water, so we decided to go there again. After ditching our bags we took Belinda to the main Souq’s and places we visited when we were there after Christmas. We had dinner at Jabri House again as well. It’s a really beautiful restaurant that has fairly cheap food.
This morning we woke up early at 6am, woke up the poor hotel staff sleeping on the couch in the foyer to get breakfast. Surely they could have scored themselves a room, but I guess they need someone maning the desk 24/7. Breakfast was included and they gave us enough bread so that we could made ourselves Vegemite rolls for lunch. Then we headed to the bus station and hunted for a bus to Turkey, but soon found out that there were no buses direct to Turkey until 10pm! So we got on a bus to Aleppo for 4.5 hours. My seat was wet and we couldn’t work out why until it really started bucketing down with rain and it started pouring through a crack above my head! So I moved seats. Once in Aleppo we searched fr a bus to Turkey and this time there were none until 5am the next morning! We really didn’t want to stay the night in Aleppo, so we found a service taxi that would take us across the border.
And it was the best decision we made! It was a nice, new car, and our Turkish driver was so lovely! When we got to the border crossing it was chaos! The border crossings I’ve been through so far have separate lanes for buses and trucks and cars and taxis...well this was insane, it was everyone on a two way road... So one lane in one direction and it was hell!!! Our taxi driver was awesome though and managed to weave in and out of all the buses and trucks... And pissed a few people off in the process as we skipped about 2km of line up! Haha... And the Syrian guards found our Arabic hilarious, but they didn’t make us open up all our bags, which is good, ‘coz it’s such a pain. One guard asked us “Do you have anything not good?” And we are all like “la, la (no no)” and laughed.
I can really tell that my Arabic has improved since I’ve travelled through Jordan and Syria. Most of the time when we travel, everything has been organised for us through Hakeem, so we don’t get to do any kind of bargaining. This has been so much fun so far. As soon as we speak Arabic they’re taken by surprise, and usually lower the cost. Then we pull the ‘taalibaat!!!’ (students!) in a whiny voice and plead with them, and we get the price we want. One guy asked us what we were studying and when we said Arabic, he dropped the price instantly. I think they seem to have a lot more respect for us when we use arabic.
So yeah, then we got through the turkish border and by the way it has been pouring down with rain non-stop since we entered Aleppo. So our bags were drenched...shoes drenched... Our taxi driver took us to the hotel I’m writing from right now called Divan Oteli. This was the hotel recommended in the lonely planet(LP) guide, and we are really impressed so far. Clean, hot water and heating (which we need tonight because some of our clothes got drenched in our bags, still trying to work out how...). So yeah. After we got here we chilled for a bit ‘coz we’d been on the road since 8:30am until 6pm. Then we ventured out for some food. There was a nice restaurant (again LP reco) and it was cheap too. I had lentil soup and some spinach and tomato spiced bread thing. Then on the way home we went to the supermarket to grab some things, and they had turkish delight, and we though it was kind of fitting to eat turkish delight on our first night in Turkey, so we got some and it was delicious!!! Best I’ve ever had... You’d wanna hope so too seeing as I’m in Turkey and all.
But so far Turkey has been very very pretty! Reminds me a lot of the Adelaide Hills. It’s so green! And the houses are very European style. It’s hard to think that we only just left the desert and Arab speaking world. We keep talking in Arabic here! They actually understand us! Which is great, coz no one here speaks English. It was funny even with our taxi driver, whose first language is Turkish, and our first language is English, but yet the only way we could communicate was in Arabic! The same thing happened again in the restaurant tonight. But the further west we travel the less we will be able to use Arabic unfortunately.
Well tomorrow we leave for Cappodocia, so we will probably be travelling again for another 8 hours. So I’d better get some sleep!
Love carly
So Belinda, Jo and I left at about 9am on Thursday morning. We headed to Abdali bus station in downtown amman, but we missed all the buses to Damascus by about half an hour. It was pretty funny actually. We got taxis right down to the bottom of the station and ended up hiking, with ALL our luggage to the top of the hill for a couple of kilometres... In the end we got a service taxi which only cost 10JD each and took about 2 hours off the time it would’ve taken if we had caught the bus.
Once in Damascus we stayed in the Sultan hotel near the Hijaz Station. Some of the guys stayed in this hotel last time we were in Syria. It’s was a nice, clean hotel and had hot water, so we decided to go there again. After ditching our bags we took Belinda to the main Souq’s and places we visited when we were there after Christmas. We had dinner at Jabri House again as well. It’s a really beautiful restaurant that has fairly cheap food.
This morning we woke up early at 6am, woke up the poor hotel staff sleeping on the couch in the foyer to get breakfast. Surely they could have scored themselves a room, but I guess they need someone maning the desk 24/7. Breakfast was included and they gave us enough bread so that we could made ourselves Vegemite rolls for lunch. Then we headed to the bus station and hunted for a bus to Turkey, but soon found out that there were no buses direct to Turkey until 10pm! So we got on a bus to Aleppo for 4.5 hours. My seat was wet and we couldn’t work out why until it really started bucketing down with rain and it started pouring through a crack above my head! So I moved seats. Once in Aleppo we searched fr a bus to Turkey and this time there were none until 5am the next morning! We really didn’t want to stay the night in Aleppo, so we found a service taxi that would take us across the border.
And it was the best decision we made! It was a nice, new car, and our Turkish driver was so lovely! When we got to the border crossing it was chaos! The border crossings I’ve been through so far have separate lanes for buses and trucks and cars and taxis...well this was insane, it was everyone on a two way road... So one lane in one direction and it was hell!!! Our taxi driver was awesome though and managed to weave in and out of all the buses and trucks... And pissed a few people off in the process as we skipped about 2km of line up! Haha... And the Syrian guards found our Arabic hilarious, but they didn’t make us open up all our bags, which is good, ‘coz it’s such a pain. One guard asked us “Do you have anything not good?” And we are all like “la, la (no no)” and laughed.
I can really tell that my Arabic has improved since I’ve travelled through Jordan and Syria. Most of the time when we travel, everything has been organised for us through Hakeem, so we don’t get to do any kind of bargaining. This has been so much fun so far. As soon as we speak Arabic they’re taken by surprise, and usually lower the cost. Then we pull the ‘taalibaat!!!’ (students!) in a whiny voice and plead with them, and we get the price we want. One guy asked us what we were studying and when we said Arabic, he dropped the price instantly. I think they seem to have a lot more respect for us when we use arabic.
So yeah, then we got through the turkish border and by the way it has been pouring down with rain non-stop since we entered Aleppo. So our bags were drenched...shoes drenched... Our taxi driver took us to the hotel I’m writing from right now called Divan Oteli. This was the hotel recommended in the lonely planet(LP) guide, and we are really impressed so far. Clean, hot water and heating (which we need tonight because some of our clothes got drenched in our bags, still trying to work out how...). So yeah. After we got here we chilled for a bit ‘coz we’d been on the road since 8:30am until 6pm. Then we ventured out for some food. There was a nice restaurant (again LP reco) and it was cheap too. I had lentil soup and some spinach and tomato spiced bread thing. Then on the way home we went to the supermarket to grab some things, and they had turkish delight, and we though it was kind of fitting to eat turkish delight on our first night in Turkey, so we got some and it was delicious!!! Best I’ve ever had... You’d wanna hope so too seeing as I’m in Turkey and all.
But so far Turkey has been very very pretty! Reminds me a lot of the Adelaide Hills. It’s so green! And the houses are very European style. It’s hard to think that we only just left the desert and Arab speaking world. We keep talking in Arabic here! They actually understand us! Which is great, coz no one here speaks English. It was funny even with our taxi driver, whose first language is Turkish, and our first language is English, but yet the only way we could communicate was in Arabic! The same thing happened again in the restaurant tonight. But the further west we travel the less we will be able to use Arabic unfortunately.
Well tomorrow we leave for Cappodocia, so we will probably be travelling again for another 8 hours. So I’d better get some sleep!
Love carly
Friday, January 23, 2009
last week in amman
so this week is my last week in amman. in shallah this time next week i will be in dahab egypt, soaking up some sun!
so I have been studing like crazy coz i have my final exam this wednesday. although i have to say the experience has been made so much more fun since having obtained my arabic/english/french/turkish/german/chinese talking dictionary!!! only $200AU!!! very very cheap.
yesterday i packed up a whole lot of stuff to send home. which may or may not weigh around 15 kilos! but i can't carry it aorund with me and there's no way im paying for extra luggage for emirates coz it's like 50euros pe kilo that your over. so i'm shipping it home and hopefully it won't coz too much. need to find a stronger box tho. the one i have might not handle the trip home. note about jordanian post offices. they don't sell boxes, enevelopes... anything that you need to send stuff in and its really frustrating. we've been rocking up to all the grocery stores asking for empty boxes!
I'm really going to miss Amman. It doesn't have the same charm to it like Damascus or Syria, but i guess I just have so many great memories of the time I have spent here that it will be hard to leave. And I have made some great local friends who i wish i could get to know more!
I'm also going to miss all my Deakin friends! It's goign to be so wierd going home and not having them there because they live in a different state. I've already scheduled in two trips to Melbourne when I get home! but hey, free accomodation!
So Molly and I have recruited some fellow students who will now be travelling with us to Egypt and Turkey. Ba'haa, Chris, Ken and Clare. So that'll be great. Ba'haa speaks fluent Arabic and Clare has lived in Egypt for 9months before coming here, so she's gonna help us in egypt and she speaks fluent Egyptian. so i'm so excited for the study to end and the travelling to start.
keep you posted
Carly
so I have been studing like crazy coz i have my final exam this wednesday. although i have to say the experience has been made so much more fun since having obtained my arabic/english/french/turkish/german/chinese talking dictionary!!! only $200AU!!! very very cheap.
yesterday i packed up a whole lot of stuff to send home. which may or may not weigh around 15 kilos! but i can't carry it aorund with me and there's no way im paying for extra luggage for emirates coz it's like 50euros pe kilo that your over. so i'm shipping it home and hopefully it won't coz too much. need to find a stronger box tho. the one i have might not handle the trip home. note about jordanian post offices. they don't sell boxes, enevelopes... anything that you need to send stuff in and its really frustrating. we've been rocking up to all the grocery stores asking for empty boxes!
I'm really going to miss Amman. It doesn't have the same charm to it like Damascus or Syria, but i guess I just have so many great memories of the time I have spent here that it will be hard to leave. And I have made some great local friends who i wish i could get to know more!
I'm also going to miss all my Deakin friends! It's goign to be so wierd going home and not having them there because they live in a different state. I've already scheduled in two trips to Melbourne when I get home! but hey, free accomodation!
So Molly and I have recruited some fellow students who will now be travelling with us to Egypt and Turkey. Ba'haa, Chris, Ken and Clare. So that'll be great. Ba'haa speaks fluent Arabic and Clare has lived in Egypt for 9months before coming here, so she's gonna help us in egypt and she speaks fluent Egyptian. so i'm so excited for the study to end and the travelling to start.
keep you posted
Carly
the jordan baptism site and the dead sea
so last weekend was our last trip in jordan. we bussed it for an hour and a hlaf to the jordan rive baptism site where Jesus was baptised by John the baptist and where John did most of his ministry. we rocked up at the gate and got told that today was the day of the ephinany, which is a major celebration day for the church, especially the orthodox church... and that meant there were 5000 people at the Baptism site. so we were all like nah, let's wait and do it tomorrow. but then our tour guide said that coz today is a special day we get in for free, and being the cheap stingy students that we are, we all changed our minds and decided to brave the crowds.
not the bet idea. first of all the actuall access to the jordan river was closed, so we ouldn't actually see anything. second... there were def more than 5000 people there! it was chaos! but at the same time it was cool to see all these orthodox priests in fancy robes, and it was the only time in Jordan where I was part of the majority of people around me... Christian adn without a headscarf. so that was cool.
after that we headed off to our resort hotel on the dead sea. It was a nice day, not too hot nor too cold, so we all headed straight to the dead sea to float and cover ourselves in mud. it was pretty cool. excpet i managed to get warer in my eyes and it burned like hell for aorund about 10 minutes, until i could cry it all out!
this hotel was by far the nicest we have stayed in! Dinner was so yummy... all this hot meat and roast vegies, and dessert was incredible too!! we were all getting excited about what breakfast was going to be like the night before, because arabic breakfasts include bread, cucumber tomato, boild egggs and cheese... and i'm quite simply over arabic breakfasts. the last couple of trips i took my jar of vegemite with me and toastes my bread on the heater just to have a non-arab breakfast. newho... so the next mornign we were not disappointed!
there was cereal! not just one type either... there were 4types... and all this amazing bread and a toaster~!!!!!! and eggs and turkey bacon (yeah turkey bacon...just not as good as real pig) and croissants and pastries and real coffee and juice and omgoodness it was amazing! haha... rian and i rocked up to breaky at 7:30am... i left at 10am... and took about half the food with me... free lunch! except i had to evade the hotel staff coz they knew wat i was up to.:)
so after breaky we went straight into the dead sea again. mainly becoz you know how you're not supposed to swim after eating coz you would drown... and that just wasnt gonna happen seeing as it was the dead sea and all... but the second time in hurt so much more. coz the day before we scrubbed oursleves in mud and it scratched us and so it really really stung!
oh and the day before after we scrubbed oursleves in mud and washed oursleves off in freezing cold water. we were desperate for hot showers and we got to our hotel rooms...and the hot water wasn;t working!!!! it was awful... and we got so mad coz it was such a nice hotel... the hot water should have been working. neways at dinner that night hakeem told us the taps were opposite... so we felt stupid... but at least we didn't do a Nick who called up maintenence and they came in and turned it the other way. they must have thought we were the biggests bunch of idiots!
so yeah... that was my trip to the dead sea... we didn;t get up to much, just relaxing really.
catch ya
carly
not the bet idea. first of all the actuall access to the jordan river was closed, so we ouldn't actually see anything. second... there were def more than 5000 people there! it was chaos! but at the same time it was cool to see all these orthodox priests in fancy robes, and it was the only time in Jordan where I was part of the majority of people around me... Christian adn without a headscarf. so that was cool.
after that we headed off to our resort hotel on the dead sea. It was a nice day, not too hot nor too cold, so we all headed straight to the dead sea to float and cover ourselves in mud. it was pretty cool. excpet i managed to get warer in my eyes and it burned like hell for aorund about 10 minutes, until i could cry it all out!
this hotel was by far the nicest we have stayed in! Dinner was so yummy... all this hot meat and roast vegies, and dessert was incredible too!! we were all getting excited about what breakfast was going to be like the night before, because arabic breakfasts include bread, cucumber tomato, boild egggs and cheese... and i'm quite simply over arabic breakfasts. the last couple of trips i took my jar of vegemite with me and toastes my bread on the heater just to have a non-arab breakfast. newho... so the next mornign we were not disappointed!
there was cereal! not just one type either... there were 4types... and all this amazing bread and a toaster~!!!!!! and eggs and turkey bacon (yeah turkey bacon...just not as good as real pig) and croissants and pastries and real coffee and juice and omgoodness it was amazing! haha... rian and i rocked up to breaky at 7:30am... i left at 10am... and took about half the food with me... free lunch! except i had to evade the hotel staff coz they knew wat i was up to.:)
so after breaky we went straight into the dead sea again. mainly becoz you know how you're not supposed to swim after eating coz you would drown... and that just wasnt gonna happen seeing as it was the dead sea and all... but the second time in hurt so much more. coz the day before we scrubbed oursleves in mud and it scratched us and so it really really stung!
oh and the day before after we scrubbed oursleves in mud and washed oursleves off in freezing cold water. we were desperate for hot showers and we got to our hotel rooms...and the hot water wasn;t working!!!! it was awful... and we got so mad coz it was such a nice hotel... the hot water should have been working. neways at dinner that night hakeem told us the taps were opposite... so we felt stupid... but at least we didn't do a Nick who called up maintenence and they came in and turned it the other way. they must have thought we were the biggests bunch of idiots!
so yeah... that was my trip to the dead sea... we didn;t get up to much, just relaxing really.
catch ya
carly
petra
So I’m way behind with my blog atm. Apologies for that. So two major things that I have done since last writing were 1) Petra and 2) The Dead Sea...so
Petra
Was the most incredible thing in my life. We spent two days at Petra. The first we just wandered around looking at the major things like the Treasury and the tombs around the place. It takes about 1/2 and hour to walk down the Siq and we got swamped by little Bedouin kids and their underfed donkeys, all competing with each other for our butts on their donkeys. We didn’t spend a huge amount of time in Petra the first day, and that night we had a hamam (Turkish bath) where we got steamed, exfoliated and massaged and showered for $30 aussie dollars.
The next morning we arose at 6am to head off to Petra by 7am. This is the best time to do Petra, because none of the Bedouin kids with their donkeys are up yet, and either are all the tourists, so we had the whole place to ourselves, bar a couple of camels starting work for the day. We rode horses to the entrance for ‘tawlib price’-student price... Being a student is awesome... Normally entry into Petra costs 25JD $50 AU and coz we are UoJ students we got in both days for 1JD!!!!!!! ... Newho
So we started the hike up to the Monastery which is in the mountains outside of the main Petra area... You can be lazy and get donkeys up to the top, but it;s so much more satisfying to walk up. It wasn’t too hard, managed to get to the top in an hour and a half. Views were amazing.
And then we saw it...
A white dome in a mountain about 10km away from us and about another 1km in height compared to where we were... Ok maybe not that high.... But it was pretty high.
Aaron’s tomb! (btw Aaron was Moses bro)
Elle and had a new challenge! We were gonna get there and back to the bus by 3pm. So we teamed up with ex-army super man Stewart, and David and Iain and made our way for Aaron’s tomb. All the locals we met along the way thought we were deranged and crazy that we were walking all the way there. One Bedouin man offered us a lift to the top in his car... For 10JD each!!! We kept walking.
We hadn’t had a break at all since starting our walk up to the monastery, so I was seriously needing a rest... But ex-army crazy man didn’t need breaks... So Iain and I had to stop at one stage coz we were so exhausted. And again...and again... We must have stopped about 8 times. I’ve never done anything so physically challenging in my life before... Not even in cadets. I’m so proud of Elle... Her pride fuelled her efforts to keep up with Stewart. She wasn’t gonna let being a girl slow her down.
After about 2.5 hours after leaving the Monastery Iain and I finally made it to the top. My legs cramped with every single step for the last 1km I think! But making it to the top was so awesome! I’m so glad I didn’t give up. Then came the walk back down... Which took another 2.5 hours. It shouldn’t have taken us that long but my knee was slowing me down. I really don’t know how we made it back walking! And we were running late. The bus was leaving at 3pm and at 3pm we were just entering the main section of Petra...it was still another 40 minute walk to the town! So Iain and I ran towards a kid with a donkey who looked awfully surprised that we were actually wanting a ride! I fell off of the donkey getting on coz my legs seized up with cramps! Haha... And then we galloped. Yes I didn’t think it was possible to gallop on a donkey...but it is... And it’s painful! So we belted it up to the Treasury and then paid off another boy to take us up the Siq...donkeys aren’t actually allowed up there, which we didn’t know...so we got pulled over by tourist police on their scary massive horses... So then we had to run full pelt out the Siq to the horses which would take us to the main entrance. And we paid extra for the horses to gallop the whole way! It was like my own Indiana Jones adventure! And we finally made it to the bus... At 3:30pm! But turns out that Hakeem changed the leaving time from 3pm to 3:30... So that was good news.
But man we must have stank on the way home. We walked non-stop for 7.5 hours and my jeans were soaked. My face had a thick layer of dirt on it. My butt hurt from galloping on horses and donkeys. My legs didn’t function... But it was so totally worth every minute of it. I’ve never had such an experience in my life before. If I got to go again I would definitely not do Aaron’s tomb and the monastery in the same day...
So that is my tale of Petra. If anyone ever has the opportunity to be in this part of the world one day...DO NOT MISS THIS... It’s so good.
Peace
Carly
Petra
Was the most incredible thing in my life. We spent two days at Petra. The first we just wandered around looking at the major things like the Treasury and the tombs around the place. It takes about 1/2 and hour to walk down the Siq and we got swamped by little Bedouin kids and their underfed donkeys, all competing with each other for our butts on their donkeys. We didn’t spend a huge amount of time in Petra the first day, and that night we had a hamam (Turkish bath) where we got steamed, exfoliated and massaged and showered for $30 aussie dollars.
The next morning we arose at 6am to head off to Petra by 7am. This is the best time to do Petra, because none of the Bedouin kids with their donkeys are up yet, and either are all the tourists, so we had the whole place to ourselves, bar a couple of camels starting work for the day. We rode horses to the entrance for ‘tawlib price’-student price... Being a student is awesome... Normally entry into Petra costs 25JD $50 AU and coz we are UoJ students we got in both days for 1JD!!!!!!! ... Newho
So we started the hike up to the Monastery which is in the mountains outside of the main Petra area... You can be lazy and get donkeys up to the top, but it;s so much more satisfying to walk up. It wasn’t too hard, managed to get to the top in an hour and a half. Views were amazing.
And then we saw it...
A white dome in a mountain about 10km away from us and about another 1km in height compared to where we were... Ok maybe not that high.... But it was pretty high.
Aaron’s tomb! (btw Aaron was Moses bro)
Elle and had a new challenge! We were gonna get there and back to the bus by 3pm. So we teamed up with ex-army super man Stewart, and David and Iain and made our way for Aaron’s tomb. All the locals we met along the way thought we were deranged and crazy that we were walking all the way there. One Bedouin man offered us a lift to the top in his car... For 10JD each!!! We kept walking.
We hadn’t had a break at all since starting our walk up to the monastery, so I was seriously needing a rest... But ex-army crazy man didn’t need breaks... So Iain and I had to stop at one stage coz we were so exhausted. And again...and again... We must have stopped about 8 times. I’ve never done anything so physically challenging in my life before... Not even in cadets. I’m so proud of Elle... Her pride fuelled her efforts to keep up with Stewart. She wasn’t gonna let being a girl slow her down.
After about 2.5 hours after leaving the Monastery Iain and I finally made it to the top. My legs cramped with every single step for the last 1km I think! But making it to the top was so awesome! I’m so glad I didn’t give up. Then came the walk back down... Which took another 2.5 hours. It shouldn’t have taken us that long but my knee was slowing me down. I really don’t know how we made it back walking! And we were running late. The bus was leaving at 3pm and at 3pm we were just entering the main section of Petra...it was still another 40 minute walk to the town! So Iain and I ran towards a kid with a donkey who looked awfully surprised that we were actually wanting a ride! I fell off of the donkey getting on coz my legs seized up with cramps! Haha... And then we galloped. Yes I didn’t think it was possible to gallop on a donkey...but it is... And it’s painful! So we belted it up to the Treasury and then paid off another boy to take us up the Siq...donkeys aren’t actually allowed up there, which we didn’t know...so we got pulled over by tourist police on their scary massive horses... So then we had to run full pelt out the Siq to the horses which would take us to the main entrance. And we paid extra for the horses to gallop the whole way! It was like my own Indiana Jones adventure! And we finally made it to the bus... At 3:30pm! But turns out that Hakeem changed the leaving time from 3pm to 3:30... So that was good news.
But man we must have stank on the way home. We walked non-stop for 7.5 hours and my jeans were soaked. My face had a thick layer of dirt on it. My butt hurt from galloping on horses and donkeys. My legs didn’t function... But it was so totally worth every minute of it. I’ve never had such an experience in my life before. If I got to go again I would definitely not do Aaron’s tomb and the monastery in the same day...
So that is my tale of Petra. If anyone ever has the opportunity to be in this part of the world one day...DO NOT MISS THIS... It’s so good.
Peace
Carly
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