Tours Travel

Travel reflections to the Middle and Near East

As a certified travel agent for four decades, international airline employee, researcher, writer, teacher, and photographer, travel, whether for business or pleasure, has always been an important and integral part of my life. Some 400 trips to all parts of the world, by road, rail, sea and air, involved destinations both mundane and exotic. This article focuses on those in the Middle and Near East.

Turkey:

Located in both Europe and Asia, Turkey offered a glimpse into its rich antiquity with a tour of Ephesus, the ancient Greek city located on the Ionian coast. Built in the 10th century BC. On the site of the earlier capital of Arzawan by Attic and Ionian Greek settlers, it became one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the classical Greek era and flourished under the control of the Roman Republic in 129 BC.

Extensively traveled on foot, it progressively revealed aspects of its past, including the House of the Virgin Mary, the Temple of Hadrian, the Library of Celsus and the Commercial Agora in its ancient section.

The Live Ephesus with the Ephesians show brought their past to life in the present.

A buffet lunch at Le Wagon restaurant, an A-frame wooden building with tree branch support beams, brick and wood walls and a red-tiled roof, featured potato and bean salad, eggplant, stuffed vine, black olives, pickles, filo pastry cheese dough rolls, grilled meatballs with tomato sauce, grilled chicken, yellow rice and baklava.

Post-meal attractions included the Ephesus Museum and St. John’s Monument, and an immersion into Turkey’s ancient past culminated with a Turkish carpet-making demonstration in Kusadasi.

Jordan:

Surrounded by Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, Jordan, the home country of another of my airlines, offered the opportunity to experience and understand the history, culture, cuisine, and people behind the airline I represented. partially. initially through its modern capital, Amman, built on seven hills or “Jebels”.

Mohammed, a colleague I met by chance upon arrival at Queen Alia International Airport, immediately showed typical Jordanian hospitality by volunteering to meet me at my hotel every day and escort me to major sights.

When I was offered local sweets in the bakeries, such as delicate cookies or Kanafa filled with cream and cheese, I walked under their shade as I entered the Golden Souk, perusing local products and handicrafts, and then visited Citadel Hill, located 850 meters above sea level. of the sea at Jebel Al Qala’a and one of the original seven that served as the foundation of Amman.

The Roman Amphitheater, at the foot of Jabal Al-Jofah on a hill facing the Citadel, was a 6,000-seat 2nd-century Roman theater, dating from the time Amman was known as Philadelphia.

Other sights included the four-minaret, single-domed King Hussein Mosque, the largest in the country.

North of the city was Jerash, one of the ten cities of the Decapolis, where the splendor of Rome’s border provinces was preserved through theaters, colonnaded streets, baths, and temples. A knife, which rotated up and down when inserted between the column joints, showed that no cement or other binding substance had been used in their joint.

“Jerash is perhaps the best preserved and most complete provincial Roman city in the world,” according to its description. “To walk through the ancient city is to step back into the world of the 2nd century along the southeastern border of the Roman Empire. It is the most spectacular of these cities, ten of which were loosely allied in an association of cities called the ‘Decapolis.

“Called ‘Gerasa’ in Roman times, it was important not only for its individual monuments, but also for its strict and well-preserved urban plan, built around the colonnaded main street and several intersecting side streets. Among its most notable monuments there is the Cardo, the South Theatre, the Temple of Zeus, the Oval Plaza or Forum, Hadrian’s Arch, the Nymphaeum, the Temple of Artemis Complex, and the smaller North Theatre, or Odeon.

“The city’s 14 churches with their fine mosaics date back to the Byzantine era, when the Eastern Roman Empire looked to Constantinople for political and religious authority.”

Traces of stone chariot wheels, preserved pockets frozen in time, were visible.

Jordanian cuisine typically consisted of the always-available hummus, regardless of the time of day; mensaf, their national dish made of roast lamb with yogurt sauce and served on a bed of rice; and honey-covered cakes.

Jordan’s rich topographical tapestry passed under the wing of my plane several days later during a brief domestic flight to Aqaba, the Red Sea resort; the King’s Road, which had been in continuous use as a trade and transit route for some 5,000 years; the semi-nomadic Bedouin tribes, who still roamed the desert with their sheep, goats, and camels, cooking outdoors by day and sleeping in tents at night; the mysterious desert castles of the 8th century; Wadi Rum, whose lunar landscape topography was from another planet; the eastern shore of the Dead Sea; and, beyond, Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Reflections of the rugged red mountains of the Gulf of Aqaba gave rise to its name Red Sea, Aqaba’s location, which itself offered near-perfect weather for nine months of the year. But prevailing northerly winds ensured crystal clear water for the entire twelve months. As a diver’s paradise, it offered an underworld of coral and color, as well as an aboveground one for swimming, snorkeling, waterskiing, windsurfing, pedal boating, and kayaking.

The hypnotic vista of sand and sea, overlooking the Sinai Peninsula, served as the natural painting seen during alfresco breakfasts at umbrella tables in the warm sun, while the candlelit Aquarius restaurant on the top floor offered crescent-shaped views of the beach. arching toward Israel in the distance.

Jordanian hospitality surfaced in unexpected ways. While traveling to Petra one morning, I offered the driver a piece of fruit from the breakfast buffet and five minutes later he stopped at a local store and bought me a gift back.

Sheltered and hidden by the surrounding mountains, and accessible only by a kilometer-long fissure canyon on horseback, Petra, the lost city of the Nabataeans carved out of the red rock 2000 years ago, was captured by the Romans in the year 106 AD The Treasury, perhaps its very symbol, was the first building glimpsed as the canyon passageway ended in the city. His other important sights included the Monasterio, the huge temple on a hillside; the Roman Theater, carved into the hillside in the center of the city; the Royal Tombs, which still sported their row of six similarly carved monuments from the 1st to 5th centuries AD along the inner face of Petra’s eastern mountains; and the High Place of Sacrifice, with its altar and drains for the blood of sacrificed animals.

United Arab Emirates:

As I approached Dubai, the city of the sovereign state at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula bordering Oman and Saudi Arabia and characterized by its ultra-modern architecture and buzzing nightlife, I lamented not being able to spend more than the allotted few hours to continue the flight. to malaysia

India:

Delhi, both New and Old, served as the gateway to the country, a reality that somewhat shocked me when the stewardess announced shortly after landing: “We are on the ground at Indira Gandhi International Airport, India.”

The new section of the city, marked by wide boulevards and modern buildings reflecting the influence of the British Empire, offered opportunities to visit the Birla Mandir Hindu temple; the Shri Lakshmi Narayan Mandir Temple; the President’s House, his official residence; the Mughal architecture of Humayun’s Tomb, whose double dome later served as a model for the Taj Mahal; the Qutub Minar, the five-tiered tapering Victory Memorial minaret; and the 42.3-meter-high India Gate, the World War I Memorial Arch.

Characterized by narrow streets lined with tricycles, bazaars, mosques, temples, shops and restaurants, Old Delhi offered equally interesting tourist opportunities, such as those at the Red Fort, which was built in 1648 and was located along the eastern edge of the Walled city on the west bank of the Yamuna River. The imposing Jama Masjid structure, built between 1651 and 1656, was one of the largest mosques in India. The Chandni Chowk, or silver square, was a bustling market. And the Raj Ghat was a monument dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi

Curious about the local curry, I found it to be mild, spicy and rich in either vegetarian or meat dishes.

A Sikh driver overcame a four-hour, 233-kilometre-long obstacle course, made up of a narrow path continually traversed by pedestrians, donkey carts and motorized traffic, during a post-day trip to Agra, described as “That cloud Of marble”. Anchored by a holy river, it is a magnificent finale to so many other splendors.”

The Taj Mahal, its centerpiece, required 22 years to complete and was meant to convey the love of a Mughal emperor for his queen immortalized in marble.

The Agra, or Red Fort, the very symbol of the city, marks the citadel that was once the flourishing center of the Moghul dynasty. A fusion of Hindu and Muslim architecture, it was the main residence of its emperors until 1638 when the capital was moved to Delhi.

A carpet-making demonstration preceded the obligatory shopping trip, in this case marquetry, jewelry and handicrafts.

Nepal:

Neighboring Nepal was another fascinating immersion in ancient culture, Buddhist mountain temples and imposing topography, introduced from the first “Namaste” after landing.

Kathmandu, whose exotic surroundings consisted of rows upon rows of mountain walls above which towered towering snow-capped peaks, offered sightseeing opportunities at the Swayambhunath Monkey Temple, Akash Bhairab Temple, Durbar Square, Kuman Temple , the Martyrs’ Memorial Gate and the neoclassical Singha Durbar Palace.

Hardly a mountain climber, I chose to see the majestic peaks of Nepal, epitomized, of course, by Mount Everest, from the comfort of a plane during a scenic flight.

“Royal Nepal’s daily Mountain Flight allows you to enjoy a unique experience to admire the impressive eastern Himalayan range from a distance of less than 14 miles, while comfortably seated aboard a pressurized aircraft,” its brochure describes. “On the outward leg of the trip (going east), the mountain range will, of course, crumble on the left side of the plane. But on the return trip (going west), it will be the same distance away and perfectly clear.” again, visible to passengers seated on the right side”

He described Mount Everest, the range’s crown jewel, as “the generally black rock in the shape of a pyramid,” which, rising to a height of 29,032 feet, was the highest point in the world.” However, others 20 snow-capped peaks floated outside the window, including Lhotse, which was the second highest at 27,940 feet.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *