Good afternoon readers, I am writing this from the infinite comfort of the hostel I am volunteering at in Mitzpe Ramon, Israel. It's been just over two weeks since I departed my lovely second home in Istanbul for Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories (just to be politically correct).
I will begin with Jordan. Wow. What a bizarre (and freezing cold) place.
And it is Jordan where I want to address my troubles with travelling. There are many different kinds of travelers, some like to stay in five star hotels, some are ignorant, some are racist, some are alone and crazy, some are rich, some are students, some are awesome, and some just should have stayed home.
But maybe there is a division in travelling between cultural exploration and sightseeing, both have their pros and cons but what frustrated me the most about Jordan was my lack of ability (or perseverance?) to immerse myself in the culture. There is a certain tone in Jordan, where white western women appear to have made quite a name for themselves, particularly in the most touristic areas. And regardless of what kind of person you may be, I found, as a solo female traveler, I was always treated the same. I didn't stay long in Jordan, just 10 days, because I became absolutely frustrated with my inability to move independently around the country without being hasseled... about money, about my gender, about my origin, etc.
This is much heavier than I anticipated. If you need some relief check out fail blog.
http://failblog.org/
As always there are always two sides of the coin. You have one side, which was that it kind of sucked to be a girl traveling solo in Jordan because men don't leave you alone. I never once felt unsafe, just really tired of being talked to like I wasn't a real person. And then you have the other side, which is that strikingly large number of tourists (11-12% of GDP accordingly to wikipedia, 8 million visitors in 2010) visiting Jordan because it is the "safe place" in the middle east, and with this comes all sorts of people (who maybe shouldn't have left their country in the first place) who trample all over cultural norms and values, wreaking havoc and bringing ideas which seem natural and normal in the west, to a country where it's really not the same at all. Prices increase, and local culture can be lost, and stereotypes from all parts of the spectrum seem to play out in some sort of self fulfilling prophecy.
I don't want to dissuade people from visiting Jordan, this is a recount of my experiences, observations and nothing more. A lot of people I have run into loved Jordan, and there were parts of it which I did enjoy but overall my level of frustration led me to an early evacuation.
So to conclude I will sum up the important events in Jordan with a simple list.
-couchsurfed with a German ex-pat in Amman, a sandcoloured lego city, and finally I was blessed with the means to have normal french press coffee. It was amazing.
-Jerash, got yelled at in every language you can think about transport back to Amman, ended up in a (scary) private taxi for one dinar...which then turned into 8 by the time we got there. I had previously arrived in Jerash by bus for 1 dinar.
- Petra, absolutely crazy and amazing, steeped in history, bedouins and throngs of tourists. Had Kanafeh, an almost fried cheese with sugar pastry stuff on top. Really nice
-saw camels in the desert
-Caught a ride with two crazy dudes from britain and france, got a flat tire in the middle of the desert near a fat dead dog. Spare tire was also flat, and the rim on the spare, was unfortunately bent all out of shape. We drove very very very very very slowly to the next town, were overcharged to fix the flat.
LONG DAY.
-Cruised to Aqaba, where it was finally warm, all day and all night, (about 10km North of the Saudi border, along the Red Sea). And chilled like there was no tomorrow for four days with this rad Vancouverite whom I had met previously in Petra.
And then I left for Israel.
more, later
Larissa
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