Beginning Our Journey to Egypt and Jordan

Last year, several of our friends, family members, and colleagues questioned our decision to travel to India.  "You're stupid to go there.  It's too hot.  It's too dirty." they said.  When we considered visiting Egypt in 2012, they again raised suspicion about our intelligence.

For the past decade, Egypt had been one of the safest places to travel in the Middle East.  The government had suppressed the radical and militant organizations which had been responsible for horrendous terrorist atrocities in the 1990's.  While their Libyan and Sudanese neighbors had been condemned by the international community, Egypt had been a popular vacationing spot for pasty-white Brits and Russians.  It would have been smart to go at that time.  Nope.  We decided to wait until they had a revolution, riots in the capital, an unpopular military-controlled transition government, increased support for the polarizing Muslim Brotherhood, massacres of Coptic Christians and soccer fans, shark attacks at their beach resorts, and a recent spate of kidnappings in the Sinai by disenchanted Bedouins.  And it might even get worse.  No time in its 5000 year written history has Egypt ever been a democracy.  Even if the elections proceed smoothly as planned this summer, they will have years of growing pains to make it work.  Therefore, we decided that our vacation destination this year would be Egypt just in case the country took a turn for the worse.  Plus, I don't want to go to India again.  It's too hot and dirty.

So The Wife and I thoroughly researched the country's history.  Bob Brier's audiobook lectures on ancient Egypt for The Teaching Company were really informative.  We watched every video we could find about Egypt--the 2006 BBC series, 3D IMAX films about pyramids and mummies, every documentary on the Discovery or History Channel on Egypt (they all have Zahi Hawass mugging for the camera), The Mummy 1 and 2, and even Scooby-Doo in Where's My Mummy?.

We also got our open water certification in anticipation of scuba diving in Sharm El-Sheikh.  Somewhere along the way, we tacked on a couple of days in Jordan to visit the Dead Sea and Petra.  After thoroughly researching exactly where and when we wanted to go, we contacted a tour company called Lady Egypt.  Their representative, Amanda Whittome, was very helpful in tweaking our itinerary and making all the reservations.  Then we waited nervously for two months as the news channels continued to portray Egypt in a negative light.  Finally, the departure day arrived and we were off.

Our journey started off with some disappointments.  On the way over, we had a four hour layover in Paris.  The Wife had been looking forward to hitting up the Lauduree store at the Charles De Gaulle airport for some French macaroons.  We haven't had any since our last visit to France nine years ago as they are almost impossible to find in our area of the U.S.  Our flight was departing from terminal A which is probably the crappy hub since it housed mainly dinky airlines.  A quick survey of the shops came up empty for macaroons.  Fine, we still had two hours, we'll try a different terminal.  That's where the problem arose.  For some inexplicable reason, travel is restricted between different terminals.  Once you get to your terminal, you're stuck there.  What an unbelievably poor design for such a major airport.  The Wife was pissed.  What a big letdown.

Despite the horrible reviews that Royal Jordanian Airlines have received online, we had decided to use them for our last leg of our itinerary.  This was supposed to have gotten us in 1.5 hours earlier than the European carriers.  However, the flight ended up being delayed an hour.  The airline was actually fine with good English-speaking service.  The plane was only half-full, so we had room to spread out.

Once we landed, I sauntered off the plane in my T-shirt expected a blast of nice warm air.  Instead, I got a 41 degree Fahrenheit drizzle.  WTF!  We had expected hot, sunny weather in Jordan.  After all, it's a freakin' desert.  Apparently, we hadn't  done enough of our homework.  It does get cold in the winter, and they were experiencing a particularly unusual cold spell for this time of year.

We met with our driver Bashar from Desert Horizons Tour Company, and he drove us to our hotel at the Dead Sea.  Along the way, we passed a couple of embankments piled high with several inches of snow.  We were pleased to see that the road was smooth and well maintained.  Plus there was minimal traffic or camels to slow us down.  Bashar told us that tourism has been down significantly in Jordan because of the events in the Middle East.  Although Jordan has been a political eye of the hurricane that has swept through their neighbors in Syria and Iraq, foreigners have tended to lump them in with those other countries and stayed away.

During our car ride, I had a chance to interrogate Bashar.  He has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, usually as a tour guide.  Oddly enough, Israel and the West Bank are some of the few places where he has not traveled.  Those places can literally be seen across the Jordan River.  In fact, we could see lights from the city of Jericho penetrating through the fog.  We learned that Bashar's father originally came from Palestine, so we weren't too surprised to hear that he's not a huge fan of the Israeli government. However, he was still very diplomatic about this topic and not hateful against any individuals in generally.

What surprised me was that he is actually somewhat supportive of Bashar al-Assad, the ruler of Syria.  Prior to leaving for our trip, all I heard was news on CNN about street violence and civilian deaths in Syria.  I just assumed that it was the case of another authoritarian government trying to suppress its democracy-loving people.  Our guide whose mother hails from Syria explained that the situation is not that simple.  The country has so many different factions (Sunni's vs Shiites, Turks vs Kurds, Arab tribe A vs Arab tribe B, etc) that it has taken a strong centralized government to prevent outright anarchy and civil war.  While he admits that the current ruler of Syria has done some heinous things (most obviously using tanks against his own people), our guide gave him the lukewarm endorsement, "At least he is better than his father."

We eventually arrived at our hotel the Kempinski Ishtar Dead Sea.

Our hotel room

Hooray for the bidet!  I still don't
know how to use those things.

With few dining options outside the hotel, we ate at their Thai restaurant.  The food was pricey and Westernized, but still very good.

Krupuk (shrimp chips) with hot, spicy, and sour dipping sauces

Fish tempura amuse bouche

Mixed seafood in yellow curry

Chicken with green curry

After dinner, We toured the expansive grounds of the hotel. It's a really a spacious, well-kept property with a modern-style decor.

There are no shortages of fountains or pools at the Kempinski.

View of the Dead Sea from the hotel

There are rooms that open up to lounging areas and swimming pools overlooking the Dead Sea.  It would seem like a really relaxing place to bring the kids in the summertime.  Unfortunately, we were there at the wrong time of year.  It was way too cold to spend any appreciable time outdoors.  That night, I collapsed in bed fearing that we had made a stupid decision coming to the Middle East.

Wrong season!  The place seemed dead.  We barely saw any other guests that night at the resort.

The hotel's pools were beautiful at night.  The air was too cold to even consider taking a swim.