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!

الواحد و هو فى الغربة…..مفيش غير أهل بلده إللى ممكن يكسروا مرارة الغربة

So here’s my stories with the several encounters with Egyptians in Riyadh:

The Egyptian embassy in Riyadh:

We all went today to the embassy to report our stolen passports and find out how we will be back to Egypt, we already knew about a few papers to be done from the Saudi authorities, so we have been working on them during the past week.

We arrived at 12:00pm the consulate is located in a very nice building in the “Embassies suburb” in Riyadh.

Entering the building, required us all to lock our phones and had them over to the security guards. The first thing that popped into my mind was the decision of ministry of interior (وزير الداخلية….الأخ المبجل حبيب العادلى) to ban cell phones in police stations, right after the torture incidents (so i thought they’re going to torture us or something inside the consulate, and so they did )

We asked the receptionist what are the required steps, he showed us a paper hanged on the wall with all the requirements, he then gave us 3 papers to fill.

For some weird reason, the 3 papers, has to be filled 3 times (e.g. 3 copies of each one), yes, you have to write the same EXACT information 3 times for 3 different papers (please note that the 3 different forms had my full name,DOB, passport #,address, reason of visit, expected leaving date and phone number in common for all the 3 )

Thats might be because they are trying to save on photocopy ink, or maybe they will choose the one with the best hand writing and use it. I don’t have a clue.

Scrooge McDuck, the treasurer

But HEY!!! welcome to Egypt So far i feel happy being on Egyptian land

Until the guy receiving the papers starts telling us that if we’re planning to submit the papers today, it must be done NOW, or else we come tomorrow.
How the !(&*@#^ can we do that with the 9 stupid forms you gave us to write?it’s like a friggin exam!!!

Just when we are about to finish, the guy put a “Closed” sign on the window and left while saying that he already waited 15 extra minutes for us

Only to discover that the working hours in the consulate passports & Visa section is from 9:00am to 12:00pm wowowowowowowwowowo i want to work there!!!
it’s like a cinema men tes3a le etnashr

3 WHOLE HOURS PER DAY!!! THAT”S ALOT OF WORK!!!!!! الناس دى بتتعب أوى فعلا

يهديك يرضيك يا عم الحج عايزين نرجع بلدنا….مفيش……يا عم ورانا شغل ماينفعش نيجى كل يوم….برضه مفيش
فى اللحظة دى بجد حسيت أن أنا فى مصر….و فى مجمع التحرير كمان

We left then, and planning to again tomorrow early.

I forgot to mention, these 2 encounters with Egyptians in Riyadh:

• Taxi Driver, he kept talking all the way لوك لوك لوك……أكل ودانى and then he took a wrong road because “he missed the one i want” و من كتر الرغى و عدم التركيز دخل شارع غلط غير إللى أنا عايزه.
• There are no TAXES whatsoever here in Saudi Arabia on anything. So in any restaurant or shop, the price on the tag or the brochure is what you pay for, not a PENNY more.
  The only restaurant I saw adding a 10% service charge, was Al fishawy “الفيشاوى” which is an Egyptian restaurant owned and managed by Egyptians.

But it’s not all bad really, i met some *REALLY* good Egyptians here too, i met some people at work who are very nice,helpful and intelligent, and there is also that waiter at the hotel, who has been very nice and doesn’t speak much

I really miss being in Egypt, even though all noise\dirt\corruption and annoying people surrounding you everywhere in the capital , i still miss it and i cant imagine living anywhere else

It’s been a few days since my last blog, a few things happened, but i was so busy to blog (specially that i have no laptop now, so the only chance to blog is from the office, which as you might notice, i would be SO busy, so i can get out of here as soon as possible)

A few good things happened too, i can’t deny that finally things at work began to move a little bit and i made some progress.

Regarding the disasters, nothing really major, except that my tooth was hurting me really bad, dentist said it would cost 800SR just to fix it….it’s much better now, the pain is gone, i hope it’ll stay that way until am back to Egypt.

Apart from that, nothing really serious, just minor stuff, like we go to eat, we all order grilled chicken sandwich, and i am the only one who gets his sandwich with all the salad and topping but without the chicken (it’s ok, i returned it back to the restaurant)

Maybe also that once, where i was waiting for someone in front of the mall, and that weird dude in his car came and tried to “give me a ride”…it was so disturbing

But hell!!! life is much better now (compared to what it was a few days ago, it’s very relative…… moving from -100 to -20 is a great improvement, but you’re still in the minus )

Regarding the passports, we still have to complete some more papers before we could get new passports, we’ll see how it goes, police here is so bad (worse than egypt, can you imagine that?) and the Egyptian embassy is as bad as..ehmm i dunno,, as an Egyptian embassy

أشرف إبن الكاشف…أتسرق يا منزز

First of all, i would like to HATE all the people who did not help us, who ignored us, who robbed us and to the most majority of the Saudi People (i cant say all the saudi people)

It was a wednesday, the end of the week in Saudi Arabia, we finished work, having our rented car in the parking of the place we work at, we put our laptops in the trunk of the car and we head to bring something to eat.

At the mall, (Al Faysaliah mall – الفيصلية ) which is a huge mall and very crowded…we parked and went to get some take-away food.

We spent less than 25 minutes…only to come back to the car in the parking space, to find the window broken and everything is gone

The following stuff  were stolen:

• 6 Laptop computer (mine included)
• 5 Passports (mine included)
• A few hundred dollars were in the laptop bag
• 1 Saudi Ekama
• 1 Book i had borrowed (shame on me)

We were all surprised, we all thought that Saudi Arabia is crime free, specially that they cut the hands of any one who steals.

Wow, what a diet!

We called the police, after almost 20-30mins a very old man came to us, he said that we have to either go by ourselves to the police station, or he could drop us there.

We called our friends here, they came immediately and we all went to the police station, they refused to let us in (we were 7 persons) and they only allowed 2 of us to go in, the rest of us had to wait in the car (for F sake, we all lost our passports, how come you won’t let us in file a report?)

We were in contact by phone, the 2 guys in there told us they are being completely ignored by the police because they are Egyptians, they said it’s expected to take long.

After about 30 mins, they came out, as a Saudi friend came to help and he had some powerfull relations with the police.

Only to find out that they cant do anything as the weekend has started and we can’t do anything until saturday (DOH! the police cant make any reports during weekends…this must be criminals heaven)

So now, i have no passport, not laptop and all the work is gone.

I am pretty sure everything has been sold by now, including the passports.
I guess when i try to come back to Egypt, they will tell me that i can’t go in, as according to their records i am already in Egypt

Looks like i will be stuck here for quite some time..

Just a note for myself in the future…..” I FRIGGIN HATE SAUDI ARABIA NOW!!!! I HATE YOU!!! I HATE YOU!!! I HATE YOU!!!! PISS OFF!!”