أول مرة سقت فيها على طريق سفر في اوروبا قلت الناس دي يا أما عبط, يا أما هبل. سايق في أمان الله وتلاقي يافطة طويلة عريضة قد الفيل أبوزلومة مكتوب عليها احترس, رادار بعد واحد كيلو. بعدها, احترس, رادار بعد 500 متر.

أنا زيي زي أي إنسان مصري طبيعي مفهمتش هما ليه قالوا على مكان الرادار, ماهو كده الناس حتعرف مكان الرادار وتهدي وبعد كده تجري براحتها.

بعدين بعد فترة من العيشة بره, فهمت السبب, فـعشان كده بطل العجب. السبب إن مفيش في اوروبا حاجة اسمها كمين.

الكمين حسب لسان العرب:

كَمَنَ كُمُوناً: اخْتَفى.

وكَمَن له يَكْمُن كُموناً وكَمِن : استَخْفى.

وكمنَ فلانٌ إِذا استخفى في مَكْمَنٍ لا يُفْطَنُ له.

وحسب مختار الصحاح

كَمَنَ اختفى وبابه دخل ومنه الكَمِينُ في الحرب

يعني نفهم من كده إن الحكومة في مصر عملالنا كمين, زي بتاع الحرب , تلاقي الظابط مرقدلك في الدُرة كده وإنت رايح شغلك عالدائري ونفسه ومنى عينه إنك تكسر السرعة عشان ياخدك مخالفة

سيبك من العقد النفسية اللي عند تلات تربع الظباط والفساد والرشاوي و سحب الرخص والكلام ده كله, احنا هنا في سؤال أهم بيطرح نفسه, هي ليه الحكومة عاملة كمين للشعب؟

أنا اكتشفت هنا حاجة غريبة جدا, أنا عارف إن أغلب الناس حتفتكرني ببالغ أو بأضحك عليها, بس أنا اكتشفت إن الشرطة والحكومة في دول تانية, مش بيعتبروهم أعداء! آه بجد, أنا عارف إن إنت لما ظابط بيوقفك في كمين أو لما تشوف مسئول حكومي بيتكلم, بتدخل في الdefense mode وتاخد حذرك وتتعامل مع العدو. بس تخيل إن الناس بره مش بتعمل كده؟

لما سألت على موضوع الرادار ده قالوا لي إن فكرة الرادار إنها تفكرك بالسرعة عشان إنت متجريش, حفاظا على حياتك وحياة اللي معاك في العربية والناس اللي سايقة معاك عالطريق, على عكس الفكرة الشائعة اللي بتقول إن الرادار معمول عشان ياخدك مخالفة.

أعتقد إن ده نفس السبب (بطريقة غير مباشرة) اللي بيخلي الناس هنا تدفع أكتر من عشرين جنيه تمن الجورنال مع إنه محطوط في الشارع وماعليهوش قفل.

هوه هو  نفس السبب اللي بيخلي الناس تدفع تذكرة الأتوبيس مع إن نادر جدا إن حد يسألك عليها, الناس عارفة مصلحتها وماحدش بيقول مجتش عليَّ أنا. عشان كده قلت, الدين مالوش دعوة بالأخلاق. وخلي بالك من الكماين والرادارات الجديدة عالدائري

قدام مصنع كادبوري عالناحيتين, قدام كليوباترا سيتي سنتر, قدام البريتيش سكول وقدام برج سما

أماكن الرادارات نشكر بيومي عليها

Since i was a little kid and i was always wondering why snow was always represented by these shapes of the snow flakes, although i was later told that it actually looks like that. But i never had a chance to investigate this myself nor imagined it’s THAT real

Snow Flake under microscope

Apart from that it’s freezing cold here, only a difference of 20 degrees Celsius from the average temperature in Cairo at this time of the year, walking in the snow is a really cool feeling.

Snow in Geneva

Check link on WikiPedia Article

The following are some quick points to help you plan your future trip:

• Plan ahead, make sure you plan for your upcoming trip with at least double the time you plan to travel, e.g. if you plan to travel for 3 days, start deciding up on everything 1 week before, double this time if you’re travelling abroad.
• Decide what is your target of the trip. (e.g. take photographs, relax, party or see everything around)
• Confirm who is going with you (the people with you on a trip, *REALLY* makes a huge difference on how you enjoy a trip, make sure that everyone is compatible with each other)
• If you are the guide, make sure to announce *ALL* the details to the people going, highlight the *BAD* parts first so you don’t end up with people blaming you for not telling them.
• Read a lot about the place you’re going to.
  Check WikiPedia to read about the city or country you’re going to
  check WikiTravel to read about the tourist attractions in this area
  use google books to check the Lonely Planet Guide for that city or country
  use WikiMapia to see details of areas around the place you’re going to 
  post on the the Trip Advisor forum to ask about any questions you might need to know, many people will be glad to help. 
• Google for local websites about the place you’re going to, you might find more information from the local sources
• Write a detailed plan of the trip, for example:
  Day 1 – 10:00am leave to place X
  Day 1 – 02:00pm lunch at restaurant Z
  Day 1 – 08:00pm Checkin Hotel Y
  Day 2 – 09:00am Monument visiting 
• Try to stick to the plan as much as you can, changes are possible offcourse, but only make them when necessary, also, do not forget to calculate the time you will take to travel from one place to another.
• If you’re not travelling in your own car, make sure to read well about the places you’ll take public transportation from and the times they leave. As you might plan for example to travel from X to Y at 9:00pm while the last bus leaves at 7:00pm, this might destroy your whole plan.
• Make an estimate of the budget, include an average of all the prices you might need to pay, including food, transportation accomodation and gas prices.
• Make a packing list of all what you might need in your trip, before you travel make sure you revise that list not to forget anything.
  You can use this site to create a packing list. 
• Make sure you have entertainment with you for times you spend in transportation, or at nights if you don’t have plans, for example get a book, music or some games.
• Check the weather in the place you’re going to, this is very obvious, but trust me its very important.
• If you have a GPS enabled device, try to find the GPS co-ordinates of the places you’re going to.
• Get a map of the place you’re going to, and find directions on how to get there and keep them in a handy place. Use maps.google.com for some basic maps.
• Make sure you have enough money, your visa card is working, if you’re travelling abraod, US dollars and euros are usually acceptted everywhere, check for best rates to know if you should change in your home country first or not.
• If you’re going camping or to places like a protectorate, make sure to know if you need any special permissions from authoroties.
• Have fun, if something happens, work around it, and continue to have fun

This list is dedicated to ZeroEffect as promised (long time ago )
إيه وجة الشبة بينى و الشمعدان؟

زى الشمعدان بالضبط…..أشرف دايما يوفى بوعده  

It’s all because of Marina, in an indirect way.

My parents went to the north coast and wanted me to join them, but since i hate the north coast and marina, and since i couldn’t afford a vacation of work. I decided to join them on this past weekend, on their way there, my dad had a small car accident (thank God, my parents are fine) so the car is wrecked, so the plan was changed, as i will have to go pick them up from there at the end of next week as they have no car now.

So i have been staying at home alone for quite a few days, and since i had nothing planned for the weekend, i decided to go Dahab to dive. After a beautiful weekend, diving in Dahab, i come back home yesterday (Sunday at 3:30:am) after a nice 6 hours driving, dead tired and wishing for nothing but a bed to sleep!

I open the door, to smell a very disgusting smell, like a dead animal or something, i open the lights, to find the apartment floating in red smelly water.

I discovered that when i was cooking dinner on wednesday, i forgot to close the Deep Freezer properly, so obviously, at that weather, leaving it for 3 days, it melt.

And that red water is melted ice with the blood from all the meat my mom *HAS JUST* stocked for Ramadan, the smell is the moisture from leaving all that crap in this weather for 3 days.

So you can imagine me at 4:00am, dead tired, trying to clean up a HUGE mess…

My first idea, was to make a big barrel of water mixed with Clorox, soap and vinegar to clean this….right after i emptied that mix on the floor, I DISCOVERED (after living in that house for 23 years) that we don’t have a sink(بلاعة) in the kitchen!

Seconds later, water, mixed with soap, vinegar, moisture and blood, started to fill the whole apartment and ruining the carpets (the carpets that my mom brought from the dry clean 10 days ago)… I almost cried

(looked something like this, but with water, blood & soap)

I can’t tell you how much fun i had yesterday (its today early actually), i got no sleep at all, and everything still smells like a dead raccoon. Not to mention how much my mom is frustrated at me, she just wants to kill me.

IF ONLY MY PARENTS DIDN’T GO TO MARINA!!!! (one more reason why not to go to marina & the north coast!)

We only slept like 3-4 hours, but i must say i woke up fresh! the scenery, weather and fresh mountain’s air were all so incredible to miss!

We took a taxi to the entrance of Petra, the distance is not too far, but the village of Wadi Mussa (actually, all of Jordan) is very hilly so it needs a strong car (or legs) .

On the entrance, our guide book said that the tickets for non-jordanians is 21JD(30$), i went to the guy selling the tickets, he instantly recognized that am Egyptian from my accent, he told me that he was in Egypt a few months ago, and asked me how much is the ticket for the Cairo Tower is, i didn’t know exactly, but i thought like 10LE or something. He answered that this was for Egyptians only, for foreigners they charged 10x the amount.

He then gave me 1JD(1.5$) tickets for Jordanians, giving me a VERY good lesson in hospitality, and showing me how we abuse our Arab fellows. ( I was SO HAPPY! i just saved like 450LE)

Going into Petra, we were amazed of how clean it is!!! waste bins everywhere, people cleaning and removing horses feces!!!

Before arriving to the main treasury in Petra, you have to walk for like 20-30 mins, then you go into a small alley and the facade of the treasury starts to appear, there are no words to describe how that looked like

The main treasury

The monastry

Can you really imagine that people actually dig that into a mountain? something that size! in all these places! what did they have in mind? what was their motive to do something like this?

Anyway, we finished the day there, after walking a distance of almost 20KM(maybe more!), offcourse, after all this walking in the sand and mountains, were buried under the dust.

We went back to the hotel, where i called for a turkish bath! a chauffeur came to the hotel to take to the bath.
I went inside, changed my cloth, some nice guy came to me and told me to go inside the steam(sauna) room as much as i like, every once in a while when i get too hot and can’t breath, go outside, take a quick FROZEN COLD shower and go back in until i cannot handle it any longer

After 30 mins of repeating that, i was refreshed already but i had enough, i called for the guy, he came in, took me to another room, had this weird glove that looked like sand paper in his hands, and started to scrub every inch of my body, at first, i didn’t feel comfortable at all(i felt it was a bit…uhmm…..gay) but on second thoughts it was okay. so i just relaxed and let the guy do his work, he took of my body *A LOT* of layers of dead skin! i couldn’t believe all this was actually on me!

He then poured hot water on me, followed by a massage, then (“طقطقة الظهر و الرقبة و المفاصل والصوابع”), he poured more water and told me am done, i then went and took a normal shower, had a cup of tea with herbs and the chauffeur took me back to the hotel (all at the cost of 20JD)

I must say i never felt i was so clean like that day! i was so refreshed, i even forgot about how tired am I and that i can’t even lift myself over my feet. if you’ve never had a Turkish bath, you’ve never been clean!

We had a walk in the village of Wadi Mussa, ate some food in the street looking over the mountains at night

We were supposed to catch a bus at 4:00am going to Amman, after a day that long, we couldnt wake up in time offcourse i woke up on some annoying person honking on the horn in the street, to realize that it’s 5:00am and that’s the bus driver. Long story short, the guy didn’t wait for us and left.

We found another bus going to Amman later, i wasn’t fascinated by Amman at all, it seemed very dull and boring, we didn’t stop there much, it was just a stop on our way to the fame Jerash! The bus dropped us in the bus station where we had to switch for the bus going to Jerash.

Saleh 3afana & Sons

After some waiting time, the bus moved, 30 minutes later, the bus stopped, in the middle of no where we had a flat tire and the driver did not have a spare tire!!!
So we had to stay in the desert waiting for help.

We were planning to have breakfast in Jerash, but after the accident, we started to open some Tuna Cans as we were starving! it tasted great actually!

We had a chat with the bus driver, who seemed to be VERY knowledgeable about Arabic Poems, he kept reciting old poems (شعر جاهلى) in perfect Arabic, this was one of his poems, that seemed very suitable on me:

ان حظي كدقيق فوق شـــــــــوك نثروه *** ثم قالــــــــوا لحفاة يوم ريح اجمعوه

صعب الأمر عليهم قلت يا قوم إتركوه *** إن من أشقاه ربي كيف أنتم تسعدوه

After 30 mins in the burning sun, we were called by other passengers, another smaller bus stopped to give us a ride. The driver was freaked out and very worried to be seen giving strangers a ride, as this bus is for police or military(don’t remember) use only, if the guy got caught, he would be punished severly… but he still done it, and wouldn’t take any money!!! (مش بقولوكوا جدعان و كدة!!)

شيال الحمول!!!

The guy dropped us off in the center of Jerash city (it’s not that big), we had a lot of bags as you can see from the picture above. We couldn’t find any taxi available, few minutes later, we hitched a truck to take us to the monuments, the guy was very glad to drop us off there for free!(أنا قلت إيه؟أنت فاكر نفسك فى مصر ولا إيه)

Jerash is full of roman monuments and looks like they are revamping the whole place Jerash is also the place where they make the famous Music Festival.

We went to the Roman Chariots show, it was very nice, the dresses and equipment they used were not in plastic, people actually performed the show with حماس not like they do it in the Pharaonic Village (we paid 5JD only and not 10JD fees for foreigners)

Finishing the show, we wandered around the roman ruins, we visited the Jerash Theatre, musical stones and a few other places, then we jumped into a microbus for a small ride to the bus station.

From the bus station we took another bus to Irbid where we took a taxi from there to Damascus\Syria.

Bus from Jerash to Irbid

Views on the way to Irbid

Taxis that go from Irbid to Damascus

4500 Syrian Lira, after exchanging a 100 USD bill
AM RICH!!!!!

Border crossing to Syria went VERY smoothly and didn’t take more than 15 minutes

Before getting the syrian VISA, the first impression you get when you arrive to Syria, is the pictures of Bashar and Hafez el Assad, i must say that at first, this was very unbeleivable, but i asked many people and there are ALOT of people who actually LOVE the president so much and many other do not HATE him!!! which is a weird concept to me in Arab country, specially like Syria!!! anyway, the crossing was NOT beruocratic at all! actually it was very easy.

The trip from Irbid to Damascus didn’t take more than 2 hours.

I must say, my first impression in Damascus was this:

WOW!!!

Me in Souq el Hamidiyah a few hours after arriving to Damas!

To be continued….

مطَفَحتِش من نيلها؟

I am back from my trip! WOW, there are no words that can describe how amazing it was.

TOEOG stands for: the Trip Of the Extra Ordinary Gentlemen

We traveled approximately 3250KM in 12 days and spending time in around 27 cities and passing by uncountable number of other cities
Starting from Cairo – Egypt passing by Jordan – Syria – Lebanon then Syria and Jordan again and going back to Cairo.

Apart from the ferry boat part, i can say the trip was flawless, specially the Neweiba part.

Let the story begins , it all started by me and the group of the extraordinary leaving Cairo on the 29th and heading to Taba.

Sleeping on the beach and charging for a long exciting day.

We then headed to Neweiba to catch the ferry, according to my information (which i got from the ticketing office) there are 2 ferries each day, one is fast and takes 1 hour and leaves at 11:00am and the other is slower takes 3 hours and leaves between 3:00 and 4:00pm. Both ferries are runned by the Arab Bridge Maritime Transport company (I HATE YOU F*^#@$ BASTARDS!) the worst transport company in the world, if you tried it, you will NEVER complain about EgyptAir, they are heaven in comparison.

Let’s have a quote from their website and see how the reality is: “Speed of transition from one country to the other in less than an hour and distinguished service in unique, enjoyable and safe trips“

We arrived at 10:30am, finishing the procedures and thinking that we are so late, only to discover that the ferry won’t leave at 11:00, instead it will leave at 1:00pm.

So it was ok, we waited, in the most filthy and un-humane room you could ever imagine, while the weather was unberably hot.

It was 1:00pm, and we started to ask when we will board, and no one really knew, at first, i was getting responses like “in an hour” or so, but then i didn’t get any response at all, no one have any clue what the hell is going on exactly.

It was 4:00pm and no one really knew if there even will be a ferry today or not.

We were all really tired, depressed and started to lose hope, but at 6:30 they opened the boarding gates, to families only, as they are unbeleivably dumb, they sell tickets which are valid for 6 months, so they don’t know how many passenger is going to board the ship.

And since they only have a limited number of seats allowed, they have to sacrifice with persons who don’t have kids or women and make them wait to the next day.

Luckily, they considered us as a family, as there were girls, they wouldn’t let me in, until one of the girls confirmed that i am her “husbndad” so they let me pass.

So, you’d normally think that 8 hours of waiting is more than enough, but hey! did you forget about my bad luck and Karma? We only went to the boat at 6:30pm, then they found out that even after preventing the singles from boarding, they’re still short on seats, so we were at the “raseef” just next to the ferry boat, and the whole crowd arguing\fighting with the crew and employees all demanding to board.

Long story short, we ended up on the ferry boat, but again, it was around 7:00 or 7:30pm, we the ferry boat didn’t move until 9:30-10:00pm, arriving to Aqaba after 1 hour 15 minutes, all *DEAD* tired from more than 12 hours of waiting.

Do you think the horror story just ends here? nope!!!
we get our luggage and then head to the passports section to get ours stamped and leave (our plan to attend Petra Night was demolished, all what we wished for by that time was a shower and a bed). There was people on the other side (Aqaba to Neweiba) who seemed to be living in the ports for days waiting for their turn in the ferry, which scared me ALOT!

Only to be greeted by the officer who has our passports and notifying us that we are not allowed to enter the Jordanian lands! My jaw fell to the ground, while am half asleep and asked why, only to discover that “الرعايا المصريين بيسببوا مشاكل وبيهربوا وأن الأردن فيها عمالة زايدة…وفيما معناه كدة يعنى مش ناقصين” So since we had a Visa to enter Lebanon, they would transfer us to the Syrian borders (يرحلونا للجدود السورية) and they started the transfer procedures.

Offcourse i couldn’t believe what am hearing! because just when i thought it couldn’t get worse than spending 14hours waiting for the ferry, they wouldn’t grant us entry to Jordan and we have to spend more hours traveling to Damascus-Syria!

We found a soldier (أيوة عسكرى….العساكر هناك بتلبس نضيف,بتعرف تقرأ وتكتب وعندها مخ و كدة) and we explained the situation to him, that we are all doctors and engineers and we are coming to Jordan for tourism, we already have HR letters from our companies and that we have enough cash money, the guy *ACTUALLY* listened to us, and went to speak to his superior officer (the guy who refused to give us an entry VISA), the officer let us again into his office, looked at our papers and he understood that we look decent and can’t be coming to escape in Jordan, we’re just a bunch of crazy Egyptians.

So he called his superior (it was midnight by then!!!! 12:00am), woke him up and told him our story, can you believe that he was not punished by his superior for waking him up! instead, the guy told him to grant us access to Jordan!!!!

I actually couldn’t belive myself! If i was told that story, i COULD NEVER believe that an Arab governoment would do something like that!

Anyway, we finished our paperwork, and headed outside, offcourse, not like Egypt, most cities sleep at 10:00pm, so there was no way for us to find a Taxi to take us to Petra, where we had an hotel reservation.

I found a guard on the entrance and asked him where could i find a Taxi now, he told me i can’t, but then he found me dead tired and desperate after all that happened to us, so he called a Taxi driver who is a friend of his, and asked him to come pick us and take us where we want!!!!!

الأردنيين (الأردنيين بجد, مش الفلسطنيين) أكتر ناس جدعان قابلتهم فى حياتى….بجد هما دول بتوع الكرم و النخوة و الشهامة و الحاجات الحلوة دى إللى بنسمع عنها فى القصص

We finally arrived to Petra at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, woke up the receptionist, got our rooms, took a shower and fell asleep!

So, why مطفحتش من نيلها؟ i could really accept the fact that the US, Europe and many other countries are more advanced, more organized, respect their people and provide decent, non humiliating means of living, but to see that in Lebanon(which is supposedly in war), Syria (which has severe international problems and is even poorer than Egypt) and Jordan(who doesn’t have any major industries or agriculture, doesn’t have water etc) to be THAT MUCH BETTER, it’s really disappointing.

• المعاملة الزبالة الزبالة الزبالة الحقيرة إللى إتعاملنا بيها فى ميناء نويبع…ولا قطيع الغنم
• الفرق بين معاملة الضباط الأردنيين والمصريين
• الفرق بين العساكر!!!مفيش وجه مقارنة أصلا
• إزاى الناس كويسة و مش بتستغلك,,مع أنك سائح…على عكس ما أحنا بنعمل معاهم تماما
• نظافة الطرق و الشوارع
• المحافظة على قوانين المرور…التاكسى وقف فى إشارة حمراء فى وسط الصحراء الساعة 2 بالليل…مكنش فى سلعوة معدية…مع ذلك وقف برضو
• إزاى المصريين بيحبوا ياخدوا على قفاهم…وساكتين عادى….على رأى محمد صبحى:”شعبناجميل يتسرق و يصفق” يصفق يعنى يسقف يا جاهل ياللى مفهمتش…أيوة أنت

Next, Episode 1—-> Petra, the Turkish Bath how to be clean!, Jerash, Transportation in Jordan and my beloved Damascus!