Char Brings you to the Middle East

This is to fulfill the request from the Mongolia thread. This will be my last thread on traveling. I plan to have a break from this before all of us gets tired of it

I made the trip in Nov 2010. I was pretty glad I made the trip, Arab Spring started 1 month after my trip

The trip took place before I bought a DLSR camera so its taken with a point and shoot. Quality might not be as good as some of my earlier travelogue

This trip featured 4 countries, UAE, Eygpt, Israel and Jordan. I actually planned to visit Syria, even went all the way to KL to get my visa done but I missed it due to timing issue. Now I'm not sure when I can ever visit that place. Nov was winter for them, the weather was actually pretty nice, temperature was mostly in the low to mid 20s

UAE was a 2 day stopover. The majority of the trip took place in Egypt where I joined a tour. I spent about 5 days in Jordan and made a day trip to Jerusalem. More details below

UAE: Dubai

The flight to Cairo stopover in Dubai. I took the opportunity to visit the city by joining a city tour. Pretty modern city. Even the bus stop here have aircon

The Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world


Most freaking expensive hotel in the world


Mosque which was used to explain Islam to tourist


Can't remember the name of this river



Dubai Museum


Gold Market


Biggest Gold Ring in the World


Egypt
Cairo

The main reason for making this trip was to visit Egypt. If U guys have not notice already, I am a bit of a history nerd. I like visiting places with a lot of ancient historical significance. I joined a 10 day tour in Egypt. First stop was Cairo.

The Great Pyramids from afar. Just in case you are wondering, yeah the pyramids are not in the middle of the freaking desert, in fact it is like 50m from the main road in the outskirts of Cairo


Police on Camels at the Pyramids


They are freaking huge


There are actually 3 pyramids there


OK I had to crop my face out of this one that's why it looks weird



Flight from Cairo to Abu Simbel. First time on a Embraer plane


Abu Simbel
Cannot take pics inside. The temple was actually move here from another location, original location was flooded after they built the Aswan Dam.





The tour included a 3 day cruise down the Nile. The cruise started from Aswan


First stop of the cruise is Komombo



I have a very creative housekeeper. I get a different animal every time I return to my room



2nd stop Edfu




The cruise stops at Luxor
The Deir Al Bahari Temple



Entrance to the Valley of the Kings. The guide doesn't allow us to bring our cameras inside so this is as far as I could get


Karnak Temple




Luxor Temple




From Luxor it was onwards to Sharm El Shek, a famous beach resort. I did some diving in the Red Sea almost drown there due to faulty equipment



Last stop in Egypt, Mt Catherine the place where Moses got his 10 Commandments
Christians should be familiar with this place. St Catherine Church


The Burning Bush


OK end of part 1. Part 2 will feature Israel and Jordan

Great photos as usual.

Bring us to Oxley please

Nice pics, but where are the chiobus?

Thank you very much. Tried to give you points but can't as have given before.

mojito said:

Bring us to Oxley please

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Thank you for politicizing this tourism thread.

Part 2. After leaving St Catherine, I arrived at the port of Nuweiba. The plan was to take a boat ride to Aquaba, Jordan. It was the Haj period and I ended up getting stuck at the port for the entire day. The ship was delayed by more than 12 hrs, this would later led to switching my original plan to visit Syria to Israel instead

I wasted an entire day for the sea crossing to Jordan. I was stuck staying in Aquaba for a day instead of heading to Petra. I found some accommodations and head to Petra the next day. On the way to Petra the driver made a brief drive into the famous desert area, Wadi Rum



Next stop Petra. This place was freaking huge, and ancient city curve out of the mountains


Main entrance to the city


They call this passage the Siq. The passage between the 2 cliffs was about 1+ - 2km



Once you clear the siq, The Treasury greets U



Residential Area


A Theater cut from the mountain


Did I mention this place was huge


The Monastery. This was a good 40-50min climb up the hill at the edge of Petra



Donkey was used to transport goods up to the top. U can ride one to the top as well


After Petra I headed to Amman. Didn't really had any good shots there. The original plan was to head over to Syria to visit Aleppo and head up to Damascus and fly back to Cairo to catch my flight home. Due to the massive delay at the Egypt Jordanian crossing, I would not be able to make my flight. I couldn't get any other flights out as well. So I ended up changing the plan and decided to take a day trip to Israel from Amman since we don't need a visa and fly back to Cairo from Jordan the next day. I kinda regret the decision now. No idea when I will ever get to visit Syria again

I managed to arrange a ride with a shared taxi to the border which isn't far from Amman. From there you take the border bus into Jerusalem. The border crossing is insanely troublesome to say the least. I reach the border at around 8am in the morning, I didn't cross the Israeli side until close to 12pm. I also managed to get both the Jordanian and Israeli side not to stamp on my passport in case I needed to travel to any Arab countries in the future. They stamp it on a piece of paper instead.

The bus ride from Jordan to Israel was probably something like 2-3km. The ride took close to 1.5hr. They stopped and waited like 3-4 times and made us go down the bus twice just so they could see our faces. Over at the Israeli side, if you didn't have any luggage it makes it way easier else it's another round of checks. They also had a short interview with me before letting me pass through.

Oh and after getting here I realize why it's called Holy land. Bloody hell, chio bu everywhere. And no I didn't have any pic of chio bu

I managed to get the Hotel in Amman to arrange a taxi in Jerusalem to bring me around the city for a day. First stop Mount of Olive looking over old Jerusalem


Than it's over to old Jerusalem. Every entrance have arm guards. Here is Dome of the Rock


The Wailing Wall



Just outside old Jerusalem, a modern shopping area for lunch


After lunch head back into old Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre


This was supposedly the exact spot where Jesus was laid to rest



Tomb of Jesus


Tomb of Mary


After that I headed back to Amman, Jordan and took a flight back to Cairo and from there, home.

BTW for those heading to the Middle East, make sure to get some Baklava, a kind of peanut pastry. The thing is freaking delicious

OK this will end my travelogue for now. Don't worry I still have plenty of places to post, US, Most of Western and Central Europe, South Korea, more places in Japan and India, Australia, etc. I'll rather give this series a rest for now.

Nice pics. I'll be in Dubai end dec. Any recommended places of interest for me? CAn I do city tour on my own or join tour group is better?

kulgai said:

Nice pics. I'll be in Dubai end dec. Any recommended places of interest for me? CAn I do city tour on my own or join tour group is better?

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U can tour the city on your own but the public transport isnt very good so you'll probably end up taking cab around the place. I was only there for 2 days so I can't really recommend on anything. If U have no idea what the place is about U might want to take a day tour on the first day and check with the local guide what you can do there

What LoveLy pics Char..thanks so much !

Char_Azn said:

U can tour the city on your own but the public transport isnt very good so you'll probably end up taking cab around the place. I was only there for 2 days so I can't really recommend on anything. If U have no idea what the place is about U might want to take a day tour on the first day and check with the local guide what you can do there

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thank you!

why show us your blur photo? at least pick up the best one, dun tell me those photo are you best one?
read my thread about camera recommendation, JESUS CHRIST.

singveld said:

why show us your blur photo? JESUS CHRIST.

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show us some of your best collection please

visiting these sites better than disneyland and universal studios for kids. pity its not accessible any more.

singveld said:

why show us your blur photo? at least pick up the best one, dun tell me those photo are you best one?
read my thread about camera recommendation, JESUS CHRIST.

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First off, Already declared I was using a lousy camera

2ndly, already mentioned many times before in just about all my previous travel thread, I'm not good at photography

Finally to answer your question, Yes I have better photos. The reason why I chose some of this blur ones is because I think they are more significant in showing the things I want pple to see. I can show them the same thing from multiple different angles or I could show everyone police on camels. I think the latter would be a bit more interesting even though it may be blur

char, any arabian dancing girls?

Very nice shots.

Char_Azn said:

because I think they are more significant in showing the things I want pple to see

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good lad, why no chio bu peektures?

gingerlyn said:

char, any arabian dancing girls?

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Saw one fat one on the cruise

zhihau said:

good lad, why no chio bu peektures?

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Here, the only "Chio Bu" pic I have