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  

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!

So! am finally back from hibernation

It’s been a long time since my last post, there are A LOT of things that happened here is a brief of what has been going on lately:

• I came back from Saudi Arabia, in one piece, no more problems.
• I took a week off of work
• I went to visit Egyptian monuments, to refresh my memory and clear all the remains of the Saudi experience.
• I went to the country side for one day.
• I went to Sokhna for a day. (The amount of food eaten on that day, is enough to feed 10 Ethiopians families for a week)

I came back from Saudi after midnight, i haven’t told my parents am coming back, because i had an all-day meeting in a few hours, my parents would go crazy if just leave them after all this time in Saudi.

Luckily, they were staying in out other apartment in Shorouk, so i went home and had some sleep, went to the annual meeting, it was held in Fairmont (Sheraton Heliopolis), it was nice, but as usual, some minor bad luck.

I decided to leave early and missed Dolly Shahine, i would really love to put a picture here to show you what i have missed (specially that I JUST CAME BACK FROM SAUDI #@$*& ARABIA), but i can’t because it would be indecent

Just to give you an idea….imagine a beach in Marina…she was wearing exactly the same things worn on beaches….except there was no beach, no sea and nobody else was wearing anything *NEAR* what she was wearing, beside everyone was just STARING at her..eh…ehm…ma3aleina   (in case you want photos, check facebook )

I came back yesterday from my hiking trip in the desert of Sinai (Al Karm ecolodge).

It was really nice, specially that i knew the places and the people from my last visit there, which made my life much easier.

In this trip, not only i enjoyed the place\weather\adventure\experience but i learned a lot of lessons too, mostly from the people with me in the trip.

This is the first time i organize a trip, and the second time i travel with people that i don’t know (my first time was really good and the people were just great -by great i mean they were like me )

Learned Lesson #1:
DO NOT RELY ON PEOPLES WORD!!!!
it is very normal that someone cancels the trip 1 hour before we leave, it doesn’t really matter if it jeopardizes your plans or makes a short in the money (some expenses are shared between everyone, e.g. transportation)

That happened with 2 persons (they don’t know each other) just 1 hour before the trip.
I don’t really mind that you cancel, but i need an early notification, specially that you confirmed several times before.

Anyway, i had 2 friends with me from work coming, we move late from work because one of them had things to do, he also got lost on the way as he was following my car, and we were running so lat, and you know how traffic is on a thursday evening so i had to use some driving skills, which resulted in me going on the Autostrad, and he going on da2ery.

After a lot of phone calls, we managed to meet in Youssef Abbas near my home, where i was supposed to park my car and join them in the other car.
Only to find one of them frustrated from the other and they are not getting along at all!

Learned Lesson #2:
Not every one get along, and not everyone can handle people in a nice way, people could be rude sometimes

The other friend join in my car, and needed to get to an ATM, we went to one nearby, then headed to my home, again, the other friend following got lost (DOH! ) so i told him to wait where he is and we walked to him.

Arriving at the meeting point, more than 1 hour late. we’re the last people to arrive, everyone gives me the dirty look, specially that am the trip organizer and i made sure to annoy everyone not to come late.

I introduced myself, and we had a quick intro meeting, then we started to load the bags in the bus.

We were 8 persons in a microbus (you know this 14 persons toyota one’s?3ataba 3ataba, ramseeesssssss) , after a few hours and a lot of “are we there yet?”

Learned Lesson #3:
It doesn’t matter whether you’re 20 or 30, you can still not be a grown up….it’s not the age that matters, i have seen 15 years old who are more mature and grownup than people over 25

We arrived at a city called Al Tarfah “الطرفه” it’s a VERY small city 15KM before St. Katerine, the city does not have mobile coverage, and as expected no was in the whole city as it was 1:00am specially that it was FREEEZING cold (we knew later it was 2 degrees)

To go to Al Karm, i had to arrange with someone from Al Tarfah to meet us, and takes us in 4×4 into the middle of the desert where Al Karm is located, as normal cars can’t go there.

We couldn’t find the guy waiting or anything, i actually was not sure if that was the correct meeting spot or not, the city is very small we went through it a few times with the bus trying to find anyone awake to ask him, specially that there is no mobile coverage and i can’t call anyone.

We got desperate, we went back to the place where i thought we should meet him, and we started to raise our voices calling his name “ya 3am 3eeeeeedddddd – يا عم عيييييييدددددددد”, luckily, he woke up.

We started moving the bags to his car, to find people bringing weird things (e.g. carton of water(12 bottles for 2 days for 2 persons?), dates(bala7), milk, etc) That is not a problem at all, i don’t really mind, am not lifting anything myself the problem is that i sent a very detailed email to all attendees, stating clearly what to bring, and most people either didn’t read it, or ignored it, so we ended up missing very important stuff (e.g. strong durable shoes suitable for hours of walking in the mountains, and heave sweaters etc)

Learned Lesson #4:
People will never listen until they experience it themselves, you have to say things more than 10 times to make sure they understand, you will always be UNDERESTIMATED in what you say, and people will usually think that you are over reacting.

Anyway, it’s none of my business, i don’t give a darn actually, i got my stuff ready.

We get into the back of a truck with our luggages, and we headed to Al Karm, offcourse, some people did not like that we’re moving in a truck, obviously they overlooked everything(refer to previous learned lessons) i wrote in the email and were expecting to go in a 5 stars resort like Sharm El Sheikh but in the middle of the desert.

Entering Al karm, we are welcomed by the Bedouins, the people there are very friendly i know them from before, they show us to our rooms. The place is all built with rocks, there is no electricity or mobile coverage. The place is lit by candles, torches and solar powered lamps.
The water comes from the wells dug by the Bedouins, and the toilets are “self decomposing” toilets, off course, some people did not like this, specially the toilets parts (in my humble opinion, they are WAY much better than many modern toilets i have seen in Cairo -e.g. Al Kasr Al Ainy Hospoital مستشفى القصر العينى- at least it doesn’t smell, and the seats are clean.

Also, next morning i had comments on “are the utensils clean enough?can i have a plastic spoon?why does the blanket smell?(i told u in the email to bring your own, but you didn’t remember?)am afraid of the insects?can someone come show me the way to the bathroom because am afraid?“

Learned Lesson #5:
Some men(supposed to be, at least it says so on the ID) can be such a 10 years old sissy girl

We woke up early(after a REALLY cold night), we washed up, the water is EXTREMELY cold, but it was quite refreshing after a few minutes

We had a nice breakfast, composed of eggs (shakshouka شكشوكة) cheese with zaatar and olive oil, Bedouins bread, green salad and tin jam. very delicious actually, we had the breakfast in the sun, surrounded by the mountains and sitting on the sand. it was great.

A few minutes later(10:00am), we started to pack our backpacks, we meet our guide, and we headed to the mountains, the views are UNBELIEVABLE, extremely beautiful, the weather was perfect too, not so chili and not hot too.

We walked a nice walk until a mountain called “Al hageeg – الهجيج” we started climbing, resting every now and then, taking photographs and stuff.

We kept walking and moving until around 1:30 or 2:00 pm, some people started to get tired, frustrated and lazy, they kept slowing our movement, which (due to my previous experience) could lead to the sunset while we’re still in the mountains, where we will be stuck and not able to come back, specially that we have no torch on us, which will lead to us dieing freezing from the cold

Some people lost temper and shouted at each other, and some disputes happened, it was not nice, nor mature, but it passed.

Learned Lesson #6:
Some people cannot control their tongues, some people cannot control their anger or temper, and sometimes people can be rude to you for no obvious reason.

Mentioning rudeness, some people think that others are inferior or are “خدامين أبوك” just because they are not from the same social level, so words like “please” and “thank you” does not exist. and also think that only because you paid someone money, you are allowed to control him in every possible way and comment on his way of doing work rudely or even make fun of him.

Learned Lesson #7:
Don’t be shocked if people are not behaving the way your parents taught you, that should be expected, people are DIFFERENT (IN EVERY WAY)

Finally, we arrive back to Al Karm at around 5:30pm, everyone (including me) was dead tired, except for the guide(Ghoneim – غنيم) off course he only had two sips of water the whole day (not joking) while we consumed liters of water, coke and snacks.

We had showers, while we could barely walk on our feet, for some reason, my shower did not have any hot water, it was extremely cold, i was being tortured while taking the shower, but i survived, and to be honest, that was the most refreshing shower i ever had.

We grouped again and went to dinner, it was an ok meal, composed of zucchini (not sure if it’s the correct name) Kosa “كوسة” , rice, soup with lentils and grilled chicken. It was not the best meal i ever had, but it was ok, actually, after 7-8 hours of walking and climbing mountains, i could eat anything, if they gave me kaware3 i would have eaten it.

Followed by some tea and a VERY interesting chat around the camp fire with Amm Jameel “عم جميل” he is running the ecolodge, he is VERY nice, has a lot of entertaining stories, and the guy is a “Walking Encyclopedia”, he seriously is!

we went to bed at around 8:00pm !!

I woke up around mid night, to find some camera flash in my eyes, but i don’t give a damn (you know how i sleep) and i woke up next morning at 7:45am

When i woke up, i find some tensions between the people, obviously some people from the other room, woke up in the middle of the night, and were trying to be fun and kept annoying the others, and they had a good clash

Again, we washup with the cold water, and have our breakfast, the breakfast is beans “فول” bread, green salad and cheese. it was delicious.

I meet with Amm Jameel to finalize some money issues, and he brought the shoes of one of the group as they teared up while walking the day before.
We then agree that we will go to the canyons in his Jeep Wrangler car, we’ll leave our luggage in another truck at Al Tarfah until we come back from the canyons where the bus will meet us in Tarfah too.

We all(8 persons + Amm Jameel) try to fit in the Wrangler, it was very tiring, and could have been recorded in the Guinness records, after a trip of more than 1 hour (driving on 60Km\Hour) we arrive to the Canyons in Wadi 7odra “عين حضرة” we walk for a less than an hour then we arrive to the canyon entrance.

The entrance is bit steepy, and you need a rope to descend, it was nice and adventurous offcourse, not as thrilling as the British people we met, who were just coming down descending the highest mountain in the area “Al Banat – the girls- Mountain جبل البنات” using professional equipments, on the most dangerous side of the mountain.

It was the first time for Amm Jameel in this specific canyon, but amazingly, he knew the way and predicted all possible routes and he even knew when and where we will meet a dead end, these people are very skilled in tracing foot prints and knowing directions, they recognize any foot print in the sand and can know when it was made, by what animal and which way it was going, they could even know if it was old or young, if it’s pregnant or not. and if it’s a man or a car they could tell if he was lifting something heavy and many other things!!!

We finished the canyon, arriving to 3en 7odra, we didn’t have much time to visit the other canyon near it, it was very interesting last time i was there, but we were late with that pace we were moving, because everyone is tired.

We stopped in the “3en” to rest and have a cup of tea, the Bedouins also have very nice herb to drink called “Rabl – الربل”, we also bought some souvenirs from the young girls. You should bargain, but the prices are generally low, 5LE per piece on average.

We then walked back to the cars (we had to climb another STEEEEP sand hill, followed by a small mountain on the way), it was sunset already.

We arrived in Tarfah, one hour late for the driver, we moved our luggages to the bus, said good bye, had a picture with Amm Jameel and we started the trip back home.

I didn’t ride beside the driver on the trip back home, because of many reasons(not to be revealed now )

On the way, we were starving, we had to stop in “Abu Redeis – أبو رديس” which is a small town, on the way to Ras Sudr, it’s used as homes for workers in petroleum companies. We had quick meal there, it was good (1\4 grilled chicken, soup, rice and vegetables 15LE)

The driver asked me if i could join back in the front with him because he had enough with the guy sitting there already.

Learned Lesson #8:
Some people cannot sense when they go over limit, or when other people are fed up with them (check my post on “Melody tata7ada el malal“

On the way back, some (un)funny people made a few jokes, that were quite rude, to me and to the driver, i did not respond to any of them, because:

1. I was so tired
2. I wanted to end the day peacefully
3. I had fun and it didn’t want to ruin the day
4. I have enough people who hate me

We arrived home safely, with minor disturbance from the checkpoints.

I had fun, it was a nice trip, though i learned a lot of lessons, the hard way…but the over all was good

I might go again soon when i have time, but this time i’ll put the learned lessons in mind

BTW, in case you want to know, the trip cost is 325LE including everything tips, accommodation, guides, transportation food and everything.

e.g. 1 night stay in Al Karm  = 35LE
1 Meal starts from 15 – 30 LE
Guide per day 75-100LE