The princely state, under Britain’s Raj, allowed a feudal lord – often a maharaja, sometimes a nawab or nizam or rana – some, mostly internal control over his chunk of India. The chunks, big, small and in between, were many: in 1947, before independence and the end of princely states, 565 had representatives in a chamber of India’s legislative assembly.
Jerusalem
A predawn haze lit the kilometre of road before us. We trudged along it, still groggy from the half hearted slumber of our bus ride from Cairo. Through a small strip ‘of no man’s land’ we entered Israel, and left Egypt behind us.
The immigration office was small, with gleaming white tiles on the floor and large cardboard posters dangling on strings from the ceiling. Grinning people were pasted onto the almost life-size cut outs – comically posing: hands on their hips – with their names below in colourful bubble letters.
We came face to face with one of the poster pinups: a large, stern-faced woman in a khaki uniform. She bore no resemblance to the cheerful photo that hung above her scowling face. “Passports,” she growled, holding her hand out impatiently. She flicked through the pages. “What you have been doing in Syria?”
“Travelling,” I answered, matter of factly.
She glared at me. “What you have been doing there? Where you have been there?” Her voice demanded an answer. It was louder now.
“Petra…” I began.
“Where in Syria!” she bellowed. I had slipped up: Petra was the famous archaeological site we’d visited in Jordan, not Syria. Her voice, the speed of her questions, her scowl: they were all designed to make me nervous, to make me slip up. I had nothing to hide, but felt guilty.
“Palmyra, I mean…” I stammered. “We visited Palmyra. And Aleppo, Damascus, Crac de Chevaliers…” She cut me short.
“But why you have been there?” She spat the words out; her disgust with Syria, her nation’s enemy neighbour, was clear.
“We went to Syria to travel, to visit these places…” I offered, wondering what it was she wanted to hear, when all I could provide was the truth. She did not respond.
“And where in Israel you want to go?”
“To Jerusalem,” I answered confidently. “Just Jerusalem. We have very little time unfortunately… we fly to India on Friday.”
She cocked her head toward Iain. “Does he speak?” There was repulsion in her voice.
“I do indeed,” he answered brusquely, offended.
“Why you want to go to Jerusalem?” she continued, suspiciously.
“It is a very historical place,” I said flatly. Surely this was obvious.
“But what is there for you?” She was emotional now; she shouted the question. Beyond knowing what to say, I mumbled, shrugged, and gave up. We were admitted to the baggage scanning area. Continue reading Jerusalem>>
Tout Like an Egyptian
A train deposited Iain and I in Aswan four hours behind schedule. A crowd of soldiers in combat uniforms guarded the platform, torso sized shields in their fists. A large group of convicts had been transported in the train that had taken us overnight from Cairo.
“We must hurry now,” said Omar, who strode through the station lobby, looking back to see if we were keeping up. “The bus to Aswan Dam will be waiting for you.” We had somewhat reluctantly booked a week long trip from Aswan to Luxor, including a night in a felucca on the Nile and visits to various ancient sites. Police escorted convoys have become compulsory for tourists travelling between the two cities because of Egypt’s recent terrorist attacks. It is difficult and time consuming for independent travellers to join these convoys, and most surrender to a package tour. And so it was that we became two among a group to be shepherded along this over-trodden tourist trail. Already it felt against the grain.
We followed behind Omar closely, my backpack weighing down on a hungry, exhausted body. The ‘Tourist Breakfast’ on the train had been obscenely overpriced; we avoided it. Sleeping sitting up had only been as comfortable as, well, sleeping sitting up. A meal and a shower were foremost in my mind. And there would be enough time for both, Omar promised, even if lunch was a takeaway eaten on the bus. Continue reading Tout Like an Egyptian>>
Cairo
Ports are transitional: the places where countries merge, before coexisting on boats. Men had staggered clumsily through the pitching Ulysses, which took us from Rosslare to Cherbourg. They drank Guinness in the cabaret bar, and watched wide smiling dancers perform can cans or off balance jigs. On the less bumpy journey from Brindisi to Patras, men in fitted suits fingered worry beads, and the ship’s menu offered espressos and my first muddy Greek coffee.
At Aqaba, where we were to board a ferry for Nuweiba, two lazy lines and the Red Sea met: Claire and I could see four countries. To our south was Saudi Arabia. Egypt was visible across the water, pulling us west, away from Shanghai; next to it was Israel. And we were in Jordan, where shouting men moved household furniture and awkward, heavy sacks from the roof of a bus to the trailers behind a haggard tractor. The tractor belched greasy black smoke; it would later drag these trailers to the ferry’s hull, where they would be stacked behind trucks and a few out of place private cars. Continue reading Cairo>>
Petra
Deep in the desert of Jordan we roamed,
In a rose tinted city named Petra, borne from stone.
Three hundred years before Christ it was built,
The Nabataeans mastered carving, the heat did nought but wilt.
Spice and silk passed through Petra to the East,
Trade was commanded by the Nabataeans, long deceased.
Earthquakes shook the city, and people fled
But stone refused surrender, and the city remained unbent. Continue reading Petra>>
Amman and the Dead Sea
Heavy water rolled gently towards my toes, over thick layers of caked salt, like rock candy, which had sunk to the seafloor. I stepped gingerly forward, avoiding the sharp edges of broken salt, and the water got quickly deeper, along a slip sliding slope. Soon, I was in disorienting suspension, legs kicking the air, laughing at my own attempts to swim.
Israel was across the water; its dry, sinuous hills rose quickly past brown gravel beaches, identical to the small, Jordanian owned stretch of equally course sand behind me, where Claire lazed beneath a hexagonal wooden umbrella, with only her legs extending into the weak winter sun. The Dead Sea was Yam ha-Mavet there and al-Bahr al-Mayyit here; the Hebrew and Arabic words for death also resembled each other closely. Continue reading Amman and the Dead Sea>>
