Middle East Adventures

A quick recap. From 1985 to 1991, I worked for a large US Government contractor. I repaired US Embassy and Consulate security systems. I would leave on 2 to 3 month trips and go to anywhere from 3 ‘“10 countries on any given trip. It was a great job and allowed me see many parts of the world that I never otherwise would have had a chance to see. Many of the countries I went to I wish I had never seen. They say travel broadens. Well, many times travel bores as well.

Hoo-ha, moving on now.

I dislike camels. A lot. They are smelly and distempered brutes that would sooner bite you if given the opportunity and if every one of them disappeared tomorrow it wouldn’t break my heart. The people who live in the area where they are the most famous don’t particularly seem to like them either. Whenever one of these brutes swing their heads in their owner’s direction, typically they smack them and force their head elsewhere. Why? Because along with their lack of personal hygiene (the camels I mean), they also spit. Bad enough to get hit with camel slobber, but they also chew their food for a ridiculously long time into a black sludge and spit that at you as well.

On a trip to Egypt, I of course went to see the Pyramids of Giza. They are as spectacular as advertised especially at night when the colored spotlights are on. I wonder if they still do that? No matter. While on a day trip, some Egyptians came up to me and asked if I wanted to ride a camel. It seemed like the touristy thing to do, so I paid my x-number of Egyptian Pounds and rode a camel. They also put some stupid headdress on me (but it looks good on them: snicker), so I had pictures of the affair. No sooner had this camel stood up and started walking when I was ready to get off thanks. The way they walk makes it almost impossible to be comfortable. Imagine being in one of those SUVs with the stupid remote-controlled hydraulic lift kits. Now picture yourself driving along at say 30 miles and hour and without warning one side of your car suddenly lifts in a wholly unexpected way, then returns to normal just in time for the other side to do the same. Besides Cairo, I also went to Alexandria.

On to Israel. We spent time in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Tel Aviv is like just about any touristy-type city you might encounter along the Mediterranean, miles of sandy beaches and lots of opportunities to spend money you might otherwise had kept in your pocket. I ended up driving quite a bit between the two cities because it was more economical to stay in Tel Aviv and drive to Jerusalem, than to get a hotel there. It’s only about an hour’s drive between them on a highway that is very much like an Interstate road here in the States. We were authorized to get a mid-sized car like an Opel (this is the European branch of General Motors), but with several considerable discounts (Govt, AAA, and a Hertz discount), I was able to get a 500 series BMW sedan for the same price. Yeehaw! A much nicer ride as you can imagine and it got me several dates while I was there. At least I think it was the car. I can’t imagine they would have been too impressed with my sparkling personality.

I spent as much time as I was able to walking around the old city of Jerusalem. I ran into Jews, Arabs, men and women of all ages, all of whom seemed delighted to speak with me in English that varied from fluent (many with a decided New York accent, go figure) to broken. They helped me with catch phrases in Hebrew or Arabic depended on their particular religious bend and it was one of the best experiences I had in the Middle East. To walk around in a city with that much history is a humbling experience.

Anyway, while driving back to Tel Aviv one night, I was going a WEE bit over the speed limit (90 KPH, around 55-60 MPH). OK, I was doing 140 KPH. I was pulled over by the Israeli equivalent to the Highway Patrol. I decided the best course of action was to act stupid. Obviously the role I was born to play. By the time the Policeman had approached the vehicle, I handed him about 7 forms of ID. My International Drivers License, my Virginia Drivers License, my Official Passport, my US Embassy ID card, and several others that I had on me at the time. He examined this mound of paper and asked what the speed limit was in the US. I told him it was 55 MPH, and he immediately got agitated and asked me what it was in KPH. I knew but pretended I did not. He sighed and told me it was around 90 KPH. He then asked me how fast I thought I was going and I told him around 110 KPH . He looked at me sharply but did not dispute the number. He then asked me what I thought the speed limit was on this road. I told him I did not know, even though where I pulled over, there was a speed limit sign right in front of the car. At the time, the speed limit sign was a round sign with a black border with the number in the middle. In this case, a big 9-0. He looked at me like I was out of my mind and pointed at the sign in front of the car. ‘What do you think that sign is’? I told him I thought that meant this was Highway 90! He began rubbing his temples with an obvious headache coming on and told me that if I wished to continue driving that I must obey the speed limits. He then shoved all the paperwork back into my car and walked back to his patrol vehicle probably cursing the day he decided to be a policeman and as an afterthought, most likely the day I was born.

On that same trip, I met the only celebrity I have ever encountered in person. Chuck Norris. He was there filming some movie (I used to know, but I forget now) and I met him briefly at an Italian restaurant in Tel Aviv. Very friendly and he’s much shorter than I would have expected. Our next stop was Jordan.

Back in the eighties, the only country in the area that had official diplomatic relations with Israel was Egypt, so in order to get to Jordan; we would have had to fly an El Al flight from Tel Aviv (Ben Gurion Airport) to Cairo and then on to Amman. It just so happened that as we getting ready to leave, the weekly pouch run between Tel Aviv and Amman was going, so they offered us a ride. This was a can’t miss opportunity so we jumped on it. We rode from the Embassy to the Jordan River where a bridge exists called the Allenby (I might have mis-spelled this) Bridge. We got out of the truck and got our Passport stamped on the Israeli side. A man with a big cart came out and loaded everything on and went halfway across the bridge and then took all the boxes off. He then walked back to the Israeli side of the bridge with us just standing there in the middle. Once he was gone, another man with an identical cart came over from the Jordanian side and loaded everything up. We walked to the other side where a Jordainian border guard waited to stamp our passports. I should mention that this was a different passport than the one used in Israel. At the time no Arab country would allow you in with either an Israeli Visa or entry/ exit stamp in your passport. He examined it to make sure we were kosher (so to speak) and allowed us entry. This game is played out in slightly different ways every week. I always wondered where the border official thought we had just come from. We didn’t teleport in, we weren’t suddenly sprung into existence, so where did he think we just came from?

On this same trip while in Jordan, I took an excursion to Petra. If you don’t know what Petra is, look it up on the web. In a nutshell, it is an entire city carved into naturally colored stone walls. Speilberg used it in the third Indiana Jones move. The part where Indy and his father (played to perfection by the great Sean Connery) finally find the site of where the Holy Grail is located. They come through a small canyon and find a majestic, obviously ancient building carved into the walls. Of course there is no crusades-old English knight inside with multitudes of possible Holy Grails, just a carved out of the natural rock living space. It’s beautiful to see and I’m glad I got the chance to do so before the whole area went to hell. The Jordanians I met were for the most part delightful people and very hospitable.

Our next stop was Baghdad, Iraq. In 1985, there was a little thing happening called the Iran/ Iraq war. While we were there, there was a bit of a lull going on, so no major fighting was occurring. From talking to people, we were told that on occasion the air raid sirens would suddenly blare and if you looked in the right direction you could see what appeared to be a flying telephone pole going across the sky. This was a SCUD missile from Iran on its way to some point in Iraq. Neither side seemed to be able to aim them very well, so it was mostly an ineffectual way to do damage to each other. Many people were hurt or killed, but it was mostly by accident, not by design. Being an American meant I was followed pretty much anytime I left the hotel and I was told to assume that my hotel was bugged as well. The big hotel on the Tigris River (It was the Sheraton at the time) had small doors right next to each room that just coincidently corresponded to the location of the mirrors in the bathrooms and the main sleeping areas. Not exactly subtle. I bought some carpets from the Kurdish expeditor at the embassy who got them from relatives in the north. I still have most of them, though I gave some away as gifts over the years.

After Iraq, we went to Saudi Arabia where absolutely nothing interesting happened. Because of Islamic law (Sharia), everything closed five times a day for prayer and if you happened to be in the middle of a meal, too bad for you. Get out. I did see some American style Hot Rods at a used car dealership and most of the major fast-food chains were represented in some fashion. Eating out can be an odd experience because most restaurants are carved into two sections. One part for the men and another for women and children. No mixing is allowed and of course all women wear head-to-toe burkas completely obscuring what they look like.

After Saudi Arabia, we went to Sanaa, North Yeman. Yeman was divided at that time between North and South. It was a political thing as there was very little difference between the two dictatorships, so when they merged years later, it was a relatively smooth transition. There wasn’t much for a foreigner to do there, so I stayed mostly at the hotel when I wasn’t working.

That’s it. I had other trips to the area as the years went by, but the experiences were mostly a rehash of what went on before. I don’t claim to know or understand the way the people in the Middle East think, but what you hear from official channels (ours and theirs) had very little to do with the way I was treated by most of the locals I encountered. For what it’s worth, the people I met were friendly and open, with little of the hostility you see on most western news channels. Just like us, they mostly want to live in peace and raise their children. It’s too bad that the people in power (on all sides) seem to have different thoughts. I guess to sum this up I would say, don’t judge people from that region by how a few idiots behave. Would you want people to judge you by the way, say a bad tempered New Yorker (not that all New Yorkers are this way either) behaves?