Traveling Alone as a Women in the Middle East

Riding in a cab from Amman to Petra

So as I thought about writing this I was awestruck in the culture shock between two worlds. Hours ago I was on the beach in the sleepy town of Aquaba, Jordan feeling uncomfortably under dressed in a long sleeve shirt and knee length skirt as most of the women on the beach were covered. After crossing the border into Eliat just a few miles away I felt awkwardly overdressed in techno music blaring, jam packed, Miami spring break-esk, beaches of Israel. It is difficult to believe that one border crossing can be so drastic and really gives a good context for the cultural differences between Israel and the lands they are enclosed by and why this conflict is absolutely crazy from a cultural perspective.

These are some young orthodox boys praying in the morning for the sun festival which occurs once every 28 years when the sun is in the same alignment that it was during creation.

So how did I get here? Last week I went to the north to Tsavt, a mountain town that houses the largest following of Kaballah (they actually rejected Madonna from buying a house in this community) to experience an Orthodox Seder....that's right Orthodox Seder. Like Shabbat rules, lots of hand washing and praying, 6 hours in length. We started the service at 8:30 at night (must be well after sundown) and at 1:30 I gave up and went to bed but the ceremony continued until 3 in the morning. I was feeling super sick at the time and was glad I could rest in such a peaceful place. It was a pretty intense experience for me and while I am glad I could get a glimpse of the Orthodox lifestyle I am glad I don't have to follow these rules in my everyday life. It made me think a lot about religion, what it is, and what it means if it is only something you visit from time to time and respect but don't strictly follow.

Then Mindy called saying that one of her women went into labor so I rushed over on the bus an hour away only to find that it was a false alarm and that her contractions which were at once every 4 minutes had completely dissipated (as I write this a week later she still has not given birth yet). Then being so close to the Northern border I changed my plans drastically. I was going to go to Egypt and sit on the beach for a few days but instead I hopped across the border to Jordan with my friend Isabel. As we are driving towards the border surrounded by lush green wheat fields and ponds I joked with Isabel "watch we are going to cross the border and be in a desert surrounded by camels". However this was not far from the truth. I wasn't sure if it was the result of ecology, economics, or policy (maybe water rights issues?) or all of the above, but we crossed the border into a vastly different countryside that was dry, poor, and yes lots of camels. Really it was shocking.

The busy center of Amman

Jordan is a very interesting and often skipped place in the middle east. In 67' when the Palestinians "fled" everyone remembers that no one would take the refugees. Well 65% of Jordan's population is actually Palestinian the rest are Bedouins, and Jordanians that all come together in a balancing act of cultures. The country looks large on the map but is mostly made of desert so most of the people live along the eastern coast. Together, Isabel and I traveled to the capital of Amman where we had an amazing meal of foual in a bustling little tavern with live sitar music and men and women of all ages smoking however you want to call it gila, shisha or at home we call it hooka. The next day Isabel left to go back home and I headed down for Petra.

Petra
Petra was a most difficult place to travel as a woman. I was consistently hustled. I couldn't take more then 3 steps outside of my door without someone approaching me asking me if I needed help. The questions were as follows:
1: Where are you from?
2: Are you married?
3: Where are you going? I will take you
4: Come have a drink with me?
Petra
On a good day its not an issue. I can fend them off or I just stick with the first person who comes up to me in a given time and they fend off the rest. It becomes laughable at a certain point. The positive side is that they refuse to take any money from me so I ended up getting all of my meals, groceries, and one hotel completely paid for because they refuse to accept my money. Petra

The downside is nothing is for nothing and it freaked me out that they wouldn't accept my money and I wasn't about to give them anything else. So Petra was a bad day. The site its self was truly remarkable. Really its like going to remote parts of the canyon lands in Utah and then BAM! multiple tthousands year old structures in your face. I woke up at 6 in the morning and got there before the crowds so I got some good photos without the anthill of people that followed later in the afternoon. I spent 8 hours walking up canyons and monuments all the while being hastled by people. At this point I was hot, tired, dehydrated, and was slightly freaking out about the hotel manager who was busy transferring my things to a private room just for me. When a tour guide who was leading a group of 50 older folks left his group to tail me for 45 minutes to escort me I pretty mush lost it, ran back up to my hotel, chugged 3 liters of water, packed up my things, and when the manager left for a few minutes to get something I ran out of the place to the bus station. It was hilarious, I was so disengaged that I get to the bus station and the people were like "where are you going" and I was like "I don't know I have no idea I haven't really thought about it yet." This is one of the men who showed me around Aqaba

At this point I really just wanted to talk to a woman. I swear ever since I left Isabel I hadn't even seen a woman. The cabs, the buses, the streets were filled completely with men. Finally I negotiated with a cab to take me to Aquaba along the coast. There I treated myself to a Turkish bath (also run completely by men) where I sat in a steam room and refreshed myself and finally had a chance to relax. I walked around the town, and made friends with a man who was selling spices and had like 15 cups of tea and Turkish coffee and he set me up with his friend who took me in his glass bottom boat and I got to go snorkeling all the next day for free.

finally relaxing on the Red Sea

As I am sitting here in the bus headed back to Jerusalem among a crowd of Young partiers I can only look back and think about these past few days as a pretty big accomplishment for me. While it was difficult to travel alone and constantly be questioned, it was all for the most part out of curiosity, kindness, and concern. All of this disappeared as I crossed the border. I got stuck in the back of the bus and a 15 year old boy has fallen asleep on my lap while his friend behind me refuses to take his feet from my face, and his other friend in front trying to wake up the boy on my lap is bombarding me with pillows and condom balloons while all 9 of them blast different music from the cell phones. All I can do is laugh.

Bonus Shot: This is Mustafa, Aisha's son who I think is quite possibly the most adorable child in the world