I Am So Not Complaining

I walked into the Pharmacy with Tian in tow because learning to communicate a yeast infection to a pharmacist in a language you don't really speak is an important life skill. However, Tian was so disgusted by the thought of watching her mother communicate said thought that she flew from the shop before I could start pantomiming "itchy crotch".

TMI? I think not, for it was the yeast infection that should have stood as a warning for the rest of the day--a day for which Mastercard is made, if you can find a place that will accept a Mastercard that is not EuroMastercard.

But I am not complaining.

We took the tram to Parc Fleur de la Source, exiting at the end of the line instead of at that stop that said "Parc Fleur". Two hours of towing our luggage around behind us later, we found the park.

Look who was waiting for us in the park.

No complaints. It was cold and the roads were not built for rolly bags but the clouds eventually passed and the park, once we got there, was grassy, with a train and water features everywhere. And there were free toilets that didn't smell too yucky. Yup. No whining here.

And the peacock was waiting, too!

We caught the tram back into the city in the evening and found a Korean restaurant where the kimchee chigae was made with sugar and the pho (in a Korean restaurant?) lacked the mandatory basil leaves as well as the jalapenos.

But I am not whinging. It was food and it was hot, and I didn't have to clean up after us.

We got to the train station at 10:30 p.m., ready to board our overnight train to Toulouse at 11:55 p.m. I took Tehva to the station toilet where she managed to catch the door as another passenger exited. But the minute Tehva closed the door the room went dark and the floor erupted in a geyser. That sign that said, "Toilet cleaned after every customer" was totally true.

But no complaints. Our ankles were very clean and Tehva catching that door saved us 30 cents.

As I exited the toilet, I saw a scrolling message. In effect, it translated as, "There are no trains tonight because of the French strike. Thank you for your understanding, suckers." That explained the fact that we could not find our train on the marquis when we walked in.

But I am so not bitching about this. I booked the tickets in April, talked up the whole sleeper car thing for weeks, and suddenly found myself stuck in Orleans, France. But of course I was not alone in this endeavor--all of France knew not to be there, but Tony was there. And so were the three children who proceeded in the next hour to get wobbly lower lips and then confess all their troubles to a random Londoner in the Ibis Hotel lobby (where there were no rooms available at 11 p.m. by the way) while Tony and I, thanks to the kindness of Claude the night manager, tried to rearrange our train tickets via the internet.

Nope...no train

That didn't work out since our ticket did not register as ever having been purchased.

Claude sneered at us for reproducing too many times but did call over to the Best Western around the corner, explaining that they might be able to accommodate a party of our enormous size. For the right price.

We peeled the kids from the Ibis Hotel's lobby, where they had all sat drooling patiently on the plastic furniture, watching bad French TV. We led them to the Best Western, where we paid the right price for a tiny but tastefully decorated room that would allow too many children to sleep on various surfaces not really meant for sleeping.

I suspect that Claude got a kickback but at least we were not sleeping in the cold train station with the homeless woman whom Tehva inexplicably had named "Sex Worms".

On the way to our room in the Best Western, Tehva managed to break their classy throwback elevator. Fortunately they did not charge us for this infraction, but they did suggest that we might want to pay another $100 US for breakfast the next morning. In response we wearily asked how long we could stay in the room before they would evict us the next morning and then, like a couple of cheap whores, calculated how much money we were paying an hour for the room. It made us feel a little bit better.

But I am so not complaining because in the end we got where we wanted to go, and we got to ride the train first class, "JUST LIKE HARRY POTTER!"

But that is something else to celebrate entirely.

First class!

You Can Ride My Donkey...But It Will Cost You

Tehva is the dirtiest child in the developed world.

If the theories on asthma and allergies are correct, and if they do in fact develop in some children as a result of an overly-sanitary environment, then Tehva will never develop these types of health issues. And neither will her children. In fact, I am currently questioning our decision to have had her immunized at all as I am pretty sure that she has been exposed to and developed immunity to all varieties of the pox and all major parasites. She is, in short, a mess, and nothing has brought that out more strongly than Petra.

We arrived in the cowboy town of Wadi Musa in the evening as everything was just coming alive. Poorly spelled, hand-painted signs were at every turn—“Highly Recommendeb Coffee” and “Enjoy You Tim Here” and “Wel Come to Petra!”—optimistic to the end, it felt like we had truly arrived at Jordan’s premier backpacker grotto. We parked the car, called our hosts, Vale and Ali, and then settled in to wait for one of them to turn up.

Tehva wandered over to a tree and summarily began stripping it of pine cones, alternating between shoving them in her pockets and tossing them cheekily at a group of Chinese tourists trying to flash photos of her endeavors. When she came back to us, she had a scalp full of pine cone bits, bulging pockets, and a scowl on her face. She growled at Silas but deigned to allow Tony to help her into the back of Ali’s pickup truck for the trip through town to their place.

The next morning we dressed all three kids as tidily as we could manage after a week on the road with less than a week’s worth of clothing and headed to Petra. After selling a kidney to pay for the entrance fee (“Well, at least it’s cheaper than a day at Disney Land!”—I really tried to put a positive spin on the price of admission) we entered into day one of, well, Petra. Really, I wasn’t sure what to expect, other than to pay a fortune for admission, to become dehydrated, and to be harassed endlessly by little boys with donkeys.

The donkeys minus the little boys

We wandered down through the Siq, which is a long, narrow rock corridor that stretches about 800 shaded meters 

and terminates here:

The Treasury, minus Indiana Jones

It is the answer to why the ancient Nabataens put their city where it did--nobody can get in or out of Petra without being seen and heard coming through the Siq. 

Within minutes of entering the Siq, fifteen people had asked Tehva if she wanted to ride their horses. One boy offered with a wink to have Tian ride his monkey. Tehva’s clothing went from clean to dingy by virtue of the fact that she was stroking each pack animal as we passed by, but by the time we arrived at the The Treasury, we had lost Tehva.

Not to worry, though, we found her here:

With her BFF, the Treasury-side seller

  

Now that we were in front of the Treasury, we had to contend with offers of camel rides, postcards, carriage rides, jewelry, Bedouin tea with sage, and tiny carved animals with even tinier carved animals inside. At the same time our attention was drawn to Russian touristas wearing high heeled shoes (how is it they haven’t fallen over yet?), Chinese tourists snapping thousands of photos with rapid fire, high-tech cameras,  Korean tourists demanding that their travel companions take another photo over here, and hundreds of Arab League nationals filling in the blanks. We never noticed Tehva bathing herself in the fine dust that drifts down from the stone walls.

The distraction of watching the world watch Petra

Even the locals enjoy the show

We walked further into the ruins and into an area with a coliseum carved from the rock itself. In the confusion of the open marketplace that has evolved in this area, we lost Tehva completely, found her again, discovered her jacket was gone, found her jacket, and then lost her again. She was in her element—in a half-cobblestoned, half-dust strewn confusion of color and motion. Within an hour she was completely camouflaged by the reddish-brown dust. Having smeared herself with handful after handful of the soft, cold stuff, she looked like any one of the Bedouin children who were prowling the area with pockets stuffed full of trinkets to pawn.

Here's a taste of Petra Day One--Find Tehva

What, you can't find her? Neither could we.

She disappeared completely for an hour and Tian found her trying to sell rocks for a dinar a pop (about a dollar apiece), standing next to the Roman ruin of a nymphaeum. She ran off again and then turned up at the very back of the ruins, near the Crusaders’ castle. She was on the back of a donkey, accompanying two boys named Omar and Abdullah. She had struck a bargain with the boys, promising them that she would help them attract tourists to ride their donkeys through the ruins. She had proposed a 30-70 split of the profits, with them receiving the larger share since they were the ones supplying the transportation.

Guiding the people in Petra

I gave up on Tehva for the rest of the day, abandoning her to the siren call of a life spent selling overpriced rides on pack mules. By the end of that first day, she had befriended the majority of the Bedouin children working within Petra, or at least manipulated them enough to allow them to think that they had been befriended. 

Tehva and her new BFFs, Rami and Monika the Mule

By the end of the second day she had her own puppy and was inexplicably riding a donkey named Layla through Petra freely, without a guide. When asked whose donkey it was, she just shrugged and said, “It’s my friend’s. If you want a ride, I will give you one but you will have to pay me 7 dinar.”

Her new best friend, Rami, had invited her to come live with him in the Bedouin village, and we considered sending her. After all, a trip there might allow her to find a new home for her puppy, and the possibility of a dowry loomed large in our minds. It just might help offset the cost of admission to Petra! But in the end, Tehva chose to come back with us. She even submitted to a shower, and sleeps at this very moment, clean and smelling sweet, across the room from me.

So I guess I should have started out by saying that Tehva was the dirtiest child in the developed world. However, she is also one of the cleverest. She managed to spend two days in Petra doing exactly what we all wanted to do—she spent 80% of her time on horseback/muleback/donkeyback and never paid a penny for the privilege. She ran with the Bedouin children, spent the entire day drinking sweet sage tea, and was indulged at every turn.

There is something to be said for being dirty. And for being Tehva.
 

On the Road to the Valley of the Crescent Moon

We arrived in Wadi Musa (that translates roughly as Moses’s Valley River) after two days in the warm but pricey embrace of the Dead Sea. Staying in a five-star resort was the big splurge of our trip and we had to half-starve the kids to afford two nights there. I thought, therefore, that they would be relieved to go, but the hunger must have gone to their heads because there was much gnashing of teeth as we left the Dead Sea resort strip.

The Dead Sea cost such a fortune that we were left to scavenge for salt crystals

We had just stopped at an over-priced shop for a bagful of dry goods to keep us in eats for the trip away from the Dead Sea and back into the mountains, and were pulling away from the store when Tian sighed and said, “Silas, what was your favorite part of the trip so far?”

He sighed in response and looked out the window. “I loved the Dead Sea resort.”

Tian’s tummy rumbled (because she hadn’t eaten much in the previous 48 hours—no outside food allowed past the X-ray machines and the resort charged five-star prices) and then she sighed. “I also loved it. It was my favorite part, too.”

Ah, the medicinal mud

They sighed and reminisced for most of the first hour of our drive, while we followed the wide, two-laned King’s Road. “Do you remember when we floated in the Dead Sea? That was amazing.”

And the medicinal waters

 “Yes, and the mud scrubs we did? Those were great. My skin still feels soft.”

Lovin' the mud

Along the road up toward Petra

Looking back at the valley we had climbed. Sheep ahead...

They continued like this until we finally saw a small brown sign directing us off of the main road and up into the mountains. The road took us past a collection of canvas tents stamped in faded blue ink with UNHCR. “Refugee camp?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” These tents were another reminder of what we kept running into here—Syria and her plight. Tourism was down, the Jordanians said, because of Syria. Fewer jobs were to be had in the country in general because of the Syria. Food prices were up because of Syria. In the Dead Sea resort we had been insulated from this reality, although only barely. Just before we were waved through the final security checkpoint that guards the Dead Sea from the rest of Jordan, we had passed a ramshackle sprawl of UNHCR tents. 

Syria and the collection of refugees we were passing at that moment quieted everyone for a bit, but just a bit. Tian fell asleep. Silas gazed out the window at the mountains, and the rows of tomato plants that were ripe for harvest. Tehva listened to a book. We snaked further into the mountains and into a tiny village. And then another tiny village. None of these villages had names. Were we going the right way? I was once again reminded that we were without a map in an Arabic-speaking country where none of us spoke enough Arabic to get past, “Where is the toilet?” and “Give me the red ball.”

And then Tony brought the car to a screeching halt.

Oh crap

A sea of goats and sheep surrounded us on a crumbling road hanging off of the side of cliff. We sat like the Americans we are, unsure of how to react to a flock of livestock in the middle of road. Should we honk the horn? Turn around? Sit patiently and wait? Step out of the vehicle and flag the nearest shepherd?

“Silas, will you get out of the car, please, and get the sheep out of the road?” It came out of my mouth almost before I could conceive of the brilliance of my solution.

Instant shepherd

Silas jumped out, did a few “Yah”s, and the way forward opened, like the parting of the Red Sea. And how appropriate that this parting landed us very quickly in the town of Wadi Musa, Moses’s River Valley, and in the town that abuts Petra. You know? Petra.

Yes, you know. Petra.   

Madaba

Madaba is the city of mosaics as it sports, well, I am not sure of the exact count, but there are a hecka lotta mosaics. 

Some are in dismal shape, having been destroyed by tourists, raiders, or the church itself. Some are in incredible condition having been restored by trained mosaic restorers. Some were found and protected from the beginning. All are surrounded by a city familiar with tourists and their quirks, and it was into this city that we launched ourselves this morning, but only after Tehva realized she had no underwear, Silas came to the shocking realization that he had grown an inch since leaving Muscat four days ago, and Tian resolved to become fluent in Ibo language (think Pig Latin on steroids). As a result we were delayed getting down to breakfast since Tehva had to have a breakdown about her lack of undergarments, Silas had to ponder the implications of life with cold ankles, and Tian was repeating, “Okay, I want to say ‘I am ready’…I-bo ibambo ribo-eddie. Is that right? No. Okay…again.”

Breakfast came in spite of our late arrival—buttery hummus studded with whole chickpeas and green chili and drowning in olive oil, scrambled eggs cooked in enough olive oil to allow for dipping after the eggs were gone, sliced fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, a plate of whipped labneh, and coffee and tea. This made Silas feel better about his cold ankles as the coffee warmed all of his bits and it gave Tian something to practice besides “I am ready.” Now she could say “C-i-bo-off-ee. Is that right? No? Okay…again.” And Tehva could also break down about something other than her bare bum. The tea was too hot, the eggs were too plain, Silas was too annoying, and the cups were too slow in coming from the dishwasher.

In spite of the moaning and whining, we were out the door in time to see Madaba come alive with the morning. We passed vegetable vendors setting up next to their blue pickup trucks and ooed and ahed at the vibrant colors of the produce as well as the leafy greens picked fresh from the fields. We passed children running through the streets with change clutched in one hand and fresh flat bread clutched in the other. We passed stalled traffic, with cars blaring their horns at the delay, and minibuses parked to block two lanes of traffic, waiting for locals and tourists to board for destinations near and far. Haze and diesel fumes hung in the morning chill.

By late afternoon we had seen all bazillion mosaics to be seen in Madaba, drawn water from the rain water cistern deep in the bowels of the St. John Church (shrine to the beheading of John the Baptist--EWWWWW!), bought trinkets and baubles from half a dozen vendors, enjoyed a cup of tea or two, chit-chatted with fellow American tourists, apprenticed with a sand-in-a-jar artisan, been tailed by a young Jordanian who introduced himself with “Hi-I-am-not-dangerous-I-just-like-to-practice-English-with-yes!”, translated for a Chinese couple, and shattered a snow globe on the floor of a shop. And one of us also cried over that, but I won’t say who he was. But I will tell you it was not Tony.

The sand artist--loved him

The rain water cistern deep under St. John's Church/Shrine

Surrounded by art of the ages and he turns to Games magazine

The embodiment of threatening

As each of the days has passed here, I have been impressed by the easy manner in which real life integrates with the past in Jordan. It is especially impressive in Madaba, where the stuff that surrounds the people here has evolved to spark countless wars, but has also encouraged people everywhere to be good and right. And I think we are all endlessly happy to be here, in spite of the broken snow globes, frigid body parts, and general whininess. 

Umm-Kay...I mean, Umm Qais

An overseas trip to a developing country will teach you a lot of things about your children. Their intolerances and discomforts surface first. Their deepest desires surface next. And of course there is always the reconfirmation of the things that you already know but manage to ignore most of the time when living in the relative comfort of home.

Silas’s discomforts surfaced right off of the plane. The person who so kindly rented us a car without a deposit or credit card number picked us up in his 1969 Land Rover. We rocked through the area surrounding Amman’s Queen Alia Airport, driving the wrong way on one way roads, trying to escape the airport without paying for parking, and attempting to conjur enough English to make small talk. I was doing the same with my very lame Arabic. If someone wants to talk about their green balls or oranges they bought, I am game, but plunk me in a car in Jordan and I am lost. I was so involved in my contemplation of the conjugation of “to like” that I failed to notice Silas nearly in tears.

When we finally met up with our rental car, in a parking lot that looked like the apocalypse meets the Mojave Desert, Silas wandered off. When he returned to us he lamented, “Why do I feel so…outcast?” Of course we laughed at him (mistake one) since I have never encountered Silas using this word in conversation. This made him feel even more outcast. Then we asked for clarification (mistake two) since Silas does not clarify. Ever.

But we finally managed to squeeze from him that he was less than impressed with the general state of Jordan’s architecture. Even a brief history of Jordan’s recent history explaining the reason for the look of things did not cheer him out of his outcastness.

 Once we hit the Roman ruins at Umm Qais, though, he perked up a bit. Masha’allah.

Still not thrilled about this Jordan thing

But the Roman toilets made everything better

Tian on the other hand was Miss Chipper from the moment we hit the ground in Amman. After I pointed out how people were greeting one another at the airport (smooch other person’s hand and then press hand to forehead several times, then kiss on one cheek once followed by two kisses on the other with a pause after the second, and then a third kiss) she went wild with the observations. And she persisted in observing all the way to Umm Qais, which was an inexplicable distance away from Amman. According to my phone’s GPS, Jordan Lonely Planet, and the Jordanians we had spoken to, Umm Qais was just 100 km from Amman—an easy 90 minute drive.

It took us about 3000 hours to get there. And I swear we drove through Israel, Lebanon, and Syria on the way.

And for all 3000 hours, Tian was making observations, satisfying that deep-seated desire to know everything about the world RIGHT NOW. “Dad, I think we are going in circles. Look, there is another Flower Petrol Station!”

“Tian, it’s a chain.”

“Oh. Oh wait! Look! There goes another Flower Petrol Station. Dad! Turn around! You’re going the wrong way!”

“Tian, chill. And buckle your seatbelt.”

“I don’t have a seatbelt. I wonder if all cars in Jordan lack seatbelts? Does it smell like cigarettes in here to you? I wonder if lots of Jordanians smoke. Dad, did you notice that there are lots of little stands on the side of the road here? I love this! And look at all the trees. Look! There are pine cones! Oh wow…look at that. Can we stop there? Dad. You are going in circles. When will we get there?  Oh! Look! Another sign for Umm Qais. Oooo, I think we just turned the wrong way…I just saw that Flower Petrol Station again.”

Miss Perky with the guide

Miss Perky staring into catacombs

Miss Perky with a centuries old bead that a mole unearthed and left behind on the Roman road

And Tehva has been continuing in her search for the perfect family that will take her in. The only condition is that they not be us. Other than that, anybody will do.  In Muscat we are able to ignore this because she has polled all available families and, sadly, no one can accommodate her right now. But Jordan is a whole new country with a population not yet immune to her charms.

Tehva...pretty typical of her first day in Umm Qais...outside of the Grotty Hotel

We arrived at and checked into the Grotty Hotel (name changed to protect the grotty) in Umm Qais and Tehva started working it right away at the falafel shop out front. She managed to score a handful of falafel fresh from the deep fryer within seconds of hitting the pavement and, within an hour every shop keeper on the Main Street knew her name. But no one offered her kinship and so she remains with us.

Yes, travel teaches much—especially travel with children.

Travel Layers and the Loss Thereof

Travellers journey with layers of protection, undetectable to the naked eye, but there nonetheless. They are there to protect from the unknown and unpredictable and, like hair, they thin and recede with age. My layers used to be so thick that I could ride for 14 hours on a frigid bus, and then sleep in a 50 cent hotel on a straw mattress. I would happily awake the next morning, drink a cup of bitter tea for breakfast, and, not even changing my underwear, hike out of town to a remote location, thumb a ride, and carry on with my journey in the back of a truck piled high with freshly slaughtered pigs.

Then I had children and my layers thinned and sluffed away until I now question my ability to tolerate a lumpy mattress or a hotel without a pool. I have begun to suspect that I am one of THOSE travellers.

We left the steamy Middle East on a Thursday, steadily swimming our way through the humidity and heat of a 125 degree night, and boarded a British Airways Boeing 777 in the midst of a lecture from Silas on the assembly of this particular fleet member. "They drop the middle piece between the front and rear pieces and then glue them together!" Glue? Honestly, I could hardly hear what he was saying for the muddle-headedness that comes with the combination of high temperatures and lack of sleep. As we stumbled to the departure hall in Muscat, I also realized quite suddenly that I was grossly outnumbered, three to one. Good-bye travel layer one.

In spite of the staggering odds stacked against me, we not only made it onto British Air Flight 72, we also disembarked the plane in London without excessive whining, wet pants, or lost or misplaced items. Before exiting Heathrow Airport, I had acquired a map of the Tube, one of London bus routes, a pre-paid mass transit card, and NO extra children. Man, I was on a roll.

Here is where the travel layers really begin to crumble away in quick succession.

Travel layer two went when we encountered the Arctic air mass that surrounds England. Silas swore he was about to lose a limb to the chill the minute we stepped out of the warm confines of Heathrow. Tian unpredictably kicked off her sandals and began to prance about the sidewalk in front of the airport, shrieking, "Brrrr! Oh my gosh! It's freezing here!" Tehva saw this as her cue to also peel off her sneakers and try it out. I mostly just stood and stared off into the distance, pretending I did not know my own children while Silas tried to reenter the womb in an attempt to warm himself.

Travel layer three succumbed to our hotel situation. We had three small people, four enormous bags, and a hotel purported to be "a good bit of a distance away". The nice man at the airport information desk recommended using the 150 bus since not only is it free but "it will drop you right in front of the hotel." I lugged all four bags onboard and, in the calm of the Heathrow Station, marveled at the efficiency and convenience of public transport. The bus ride was pleasant, we enjoyed a private coach, and, just as the nice man had said, we were dropped right in front of the Sheraton Hotel. Unfortunately it was the wrong Sheraton Hotel.

As I digested this wrong hotel news, Tian pampered her bears, Tehva grabbed her crotch and danced, and Silas hung on my sleeve, looking frantic at this unexpected turn of events. The concierge eyed our four enormous bags and three relatively small children with an ill-concealed smile, and then commented, "I could call you cab but it will be quite expensive." He paused and then added, disbelievingly, "Did you really make it all the way to the hotel from the bus stop all by yourselves?" All that had required was crossing a car park, but he seemed impressed by this, so I nodded enthusiastically, hoping that feat would impress him enough that he would bundle us into his personal vehicle and transport us the unknown distance to our real hotel. This did not come to fruition and, instead, we found ourselves back out at the bus stop, waiting for a different bus.

Real hotel reached, travel layer four began to disintegrate as I received the surprising news that we would not be able to check in until much later in the day. However, the hotel magnanimously offered use of their public toilets so that we could "freshen up". Not so surprisingly, I could not find my tooth brush or deodorant to freshen up, Silas got frantically lost on the way to the toilet, and Tehva came rushing over to tell me, "I just peed in my pants a little."

Travel layer five, I am pleased to write, never left me because, after this, events took a turn for the better. My ability to navigate the Tube came back quicker than you can say, "Steak and kidney pie" and we were in Central London by mid-morning. We fought the crowds to see the changing of guard, the climbed on the lions in Trafalgar Square, played in St. James and Green Parks, walked down Pall Mall, heard Big Ben ring, and rode a "double checker bus" (thank you, Tehva).

We visited King Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace, ate pub food, tested the temperature in the Thames, looked the wrong way when crossing the road, and ate Pringles and bread and butter sandwiches in front of the hotel TV. We got caught in a frigid rain, ate bad Indian food, visited the British Museum, removed Tehva from the British Museum when she threw a tantrum, visited the Tower of London, chatted with a costumed interpreter for an hour, threatened to lock Tehva in the Tower of London, and learned that London Bridge and Tower Bridge are NOT the same thing.

We oggled the Globe Theater, tried to sneak into a performance at the Globe Theater, hit too many gift shops, desperately searched for a toilet near Westminster Station, peed at the base of Big Ben, and fell asleep on the Tube. The kids petted every dog that happened across their path in the five days we were there and, had I taken a photo of every dog petting incident as Silas had wanted me to, I would have filled our digital camera's card on the first day.

That trip done, I am happy to say that I retain one travel layer which I am saving for next summer's outward jaunt. Care to join us anyone?