SUEZ CANAL Wed. June 19

            By 7am when I woke up we were already commencing our transit of the Suez Canal. I started with the impression there would be stone/concrete walls on both sides and we would be carefully negotiating between them.

            No such thing. It was a wide waterway (50 metres wide?) with low lying land on both sides. No walls here at all. Just lots of sand in the view outside our cabin balcony door.

            Breakfast upstairs on Level 14 meant we could see the view on the Port side of the ship, and here there were villages with houses and some crops. The desert was held at bay, and there was fresh water irrigation.

            Back on our balcony, where we spent most of the day, we could only see the Starboard side view (northern bank).  Lots of sand, sand hills and occasional military establishments. These consisted of a substantial building with a tower outside, outhouse buildings and views of occasional soldiers with guns slung across their backs. There were also usually a few palm trees round about.

            There was a sandy road of sorts along the side of the canal, with one or two vehicles in the course of a few hours. Soldiers with guns were often spaced 50 metres apart ‘on guard’ facing the canal. These were only near the encampments. What were they guarding against? We couldn’t work it out. Not pirates here, we thought.

            After a couple of hours we passed into the Little Bitter Lakes, then the Large (?) Bitter Lakes. These were natural depressions which filled with sea water from the canal, and we moved towards the Port side to allow passage of ships which had started from the other end. Ships travel from each end in convoy. The captain told us we were the second in our convoy, with a military ship of some sort in front. Don’t know how many in our convoy. While we were idling along at 8 or 9 kms an hour, the convoy from the Mediterranean end came through and passed us. There were six cargo vessels, most with containers.

            At the end of the Bitter Lakes, we headed on. There was more local traffic now. Small fishing boats trailing nets with two or three people. Often one was a boy rowing while the man at the back was throwing out the net.  Then a tarred road appeared from the distance in the desert, and there was a small wharf for the local ferry.  At one of these there were cars and two trucks waiting and loading onto a ferry tied up at the wharf. As we went by we saw the roll on roll off ferry start to pull away and be ready to go across the canal between our ship and the next in the convoy.

Life must go on. 

            A trip upstairs for lunch and we saw the other side of  the canal was much different. Houses and green crops, large military camps with living quarters for rank and file soldiers, and officers’ quarters further along with lots of palms and other trees on higher ground. Better buildings than the concrete ‘bunkers’ for the soldiers.

            There were two significant cultural facilities to see during the afternoon. The first was the War Memorial on our starboard bank. In the centre was a  tall bayonet shaped ornament, and it was surrounded by coloured stone paths and paving, with gardens and palm trees. It was quite magnificent there in the desert, facing the northern bank of the canal. There were lots of rusting metal wrecks poking out of the sand as we went along. I thought these must be relics of the Israeli-Egypt conflicts years ago.

            The other significant feature was the huge bridge across the canal. It stretched four and a half kilometres into the desert before our eyes. There was a similar four and half kilometres approach on the other side as well so that the bridge could be raised high enough in the middle for ships to pass under. We could see traffic – mainly trucks – going over both ways. The Japanese built this bridge some years ago for the Egyptian government. It was most impressive. Which I could show you from my photos if only I knew how to do photos!

            On the bank below the bridge there was a local ferry wharf, with five trucks and some cars lined up waiting. Obviously they were taking advantage of the lower cost of the ferry, so the bridge toll must have been expensive.

            Further along the Canal split into two channels to allow ships from both ends to pass each other. I was surprised to learn that there were many canals in history. Egyptian Pharaohs had the idea to join the two lots of water. These canals were smaller affairs dug through the desert sand and joined the Red Sea and the Nile river. Ships then went down the Nile to join the Mediterranean. These were not long lasting and just eventually silted up.

            By twenty past three we had finished our transit of the Suez Canal and sailed out into the Mediterranean. The Sea Princess has issued me with fancy printed certificate of “Suez Canal Transit” which says I was on board the m/v Sea Princess when she transited the Suez Canal during her World Cruise Voyage, Wednesday, 19^th June 2013. This is signed by the Captain.

AQABA, JORDAN Mon, June 17

Aqaba, Jordan – on the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea – is a very different kettle of fish from Safaga, Egypt, on the other side of the Red Sea. During the night the Sea Princess followed the coast of Egypt on the port side, then the coast of Arabia on the starboard side to berth at Aqaba about 9am.

The bare, brown desert peaks tower over the city, which combines neat concrete square buildings with the much more modern resorts and hotels of a tourist paradise. Aqaba offers sandy beaches, clear blue water and a fascinating coral reef. The Red Sea water is very blue, and people who swam in it yesterday, on the Egyptian side, said it is cold. The temperature expected today the ship told us was to be 35 degrees.

The ship is berthed in the cargo port, so shuttle buses were provided into town. No one is allowed to walk around the cargo wharves. We took our wheelchair across the high quality black tarred wharf to the shuttle bus with all the other passengers and crew who wanted to go ashore. The bus dropped its entrance step so that it was not so high off the ground, the driver stowed the wheelchair underneath, and we drove through the outskirts of the city to a resort overlooking the Gulf of Aqaba with lots of small boats dotted on the blue water.

Again there were lots of taxi offering deals of one hour around the city, but we started off in the heat with just us and the wheelchair. It was too hot, and there were deep gutters and steps everywhere to make wheelchair progress difficult. A large map in a bus shelter showed us we were on the edge of the city, and we decided to take a taxi into ‘town’ to the post office so we could post our Egyptian post cards from Jordan, and wander around a bit.

Roads are good with three or four lanes, and parking on the side. Roundabouts are huge and manage to spew traffic about in slightly alarming ways, with good quality modern cars going in all directions. Near the port there is a huge flagpole with the large Jordanian flag held near horizontal by today’s wind. There were lots of flags in evidence right around the city. And lots of photos of the Royal Family.

When we found the Post Office to buy stamps they would not take the US$s that Bruce offered, so he parked me in a bit of shade provided by a notice board and trudged off to find a bank. It was a surprise to find the local currency – the Jordan Dinar – was higher than the American Dollar, which was only worth about three quartres of a Dinar.

By then the hassle and the heat began to tell. There are steps everywhere: up gutters, in the open doors of markets, bazaars and shops along the footpath, and even in the parks with tree shade here and there. The highlight was Bruce finding a Liquor store where he thought he’d buy some red wine or his ‘five o’clock’ tipple in the cabin before dinner. He was reluctant to buy the Jordanian wine which was the only variety on offer, so I suggested he be brave and regard it as a cultural experience.

Taxis here are grassy green and seem to be found in special taxi ranks. We couldn’t find a rank, so Bruce found a quieter street and tried hailing one. A driver stopped, picked us up and had several phone conversations on his mobile while driving to ask what fare he should charge. Several times he passed the phone back to Bruce who found himself begging pardons of ‘the boss’ whom he couldn’t understand anyway, and they eventually agreed Five Dinar would be OK. The driver found the particular resort where the Princess Shuttles dropped and picked up passengers.

We were met at the gangway by crew with cold wet washers and cauldrons of very cold water.

The ship’s Excursions today went out to the Ancient city of Petra, and to the Wadi Rum in four wheel drives through  the rough desert country. Both  excursions were expected to be hot and tiring.

Again – it was very pleasant and civilized for us to rejoin the cool of the ship and have a late lunch.

Tomorrow is a ‘sea day’ for the intrepid travellers to Petra and Wadi Rum to recover, and we all look forward to the experience of the Suez Canal the following day. All day.

SAFAGA Sun, June 16

            Safaga – pronounced ‘suffer-ga’ by the locals – is hot and basically desert.

            The Princess Shuttle Bus took us from the ship to the gate of this ‘Red Sea Port’ around the wharves through trucks loading and unloading in what looked to us a haphazard way of mixed cargoes of grubby bundles of nondescript goods, unpackaged washing machines? large suitcases. Here and there were piles of unwrapped things. I saw lots of brightly coloured children’s push bikes (for 5-8 year olds?) lying in heaps. Were they coming or going?   Who knows!

            Lots of men on the wharves in long pants or flowing grey garments. Not a patch on the crisp whites of Dubai.

            We reached the end of the bus ride and found ourselves out in the desert heat, surrounded by a group of men who it turned out were taxi drivers touting for business. There was a man with a pad and biro who seemed to be trying to organize the traffic. He kept writing distances and multiplying by so much a kilometre (or was it mile?) and it all seemed such a shemozzle that we gave it a miss and negotiated our own fare for an hour to the city and back for US$20.  This seemed a lot to me as the exchange rate of the Egyptian Pound to US$ was suggested by the ship’s paper at something like seven to one.

            Anyway off we went with our driver – whose taxi was parked further out on the street (cheaper than closer to the port?) and headed for the ‘Old City’. What a run down, tired old place it turned out to be. Very old concrete buildings that looked like bunkers, broken footpaths with a few old houses which reminded me of old country places in Australia from the 1800s “with it’s hat about its ears”. But they had satellite dishes stuck somewhere on the sagging roof.

            Our driver was friendly. Showed us the street he lived in, and said he had one wife and two small children – a girl and boy under five. He stopped in front of  a shop in the ‘old city’ main road where the shopkeeper met us at the curb and invited us in. At least his run down place had an old airconditioner puffing out cool air. It was so hot in the street. The taxi was very run down, had windows permanently half open which couldn’t be moved, grotty seat covers and a dashboard clock permanently saying ten to one. Airconditioning? Not likely.

            The shop had quite a good variety of Egyptian souvenirs. Unfortunately for the shopkeeper – who kept wanting to give us a ‘welcome drink’ – we moved to a retirement village less than a year ago and had to dispose of similar souvenirs of a lifetime. No space. And no wish to acquire more. This ‘welcome drink’ was probably tea of some sort, but who knows made of what water? With what bugs?

So we bought postcards. He offered two for US$1.00. I said three and he said OK.

            More people from the ship arrived, peered around and left. No purchases. We eventually bought a carrybag woven from what was probably river reeds. (Like the basket Moses was put in on the Nile in the bible story?). Bruce negotiated at US$12 for it, declined the invitation to ‘see upstairs’, and the shopkeeper saw us off in great friendship and gratitude.  There was then a great discussion about the cost. Our taximan wanted to take us to the ‘New City’ for some more money. Bruce agreed to pay an extra US$5 and we took off down the grotty road, passing several donkey carts, decrepit utes and vans, and women all in long hot black robes leaving the Market with plastic bags of food.

            I looked at the women and said to Bruce that I was glad I hadn’t been born here. He said I’d have a different colour skin, and different parents.

            The only well kept buildings in the Old City were the mosques, with their towers. As we left the ‘Old City’ we passed a butcher’s shop with sides of meat and various cuts hanging outside in the open air and heat. Just then a fly made its way in through the permanently open window and kept trying to stick to my eyes, nose or mouth. I kept batting it away, and it eventually disappeared. Back out the window I suppose, where the hanging carcasses were more attractive.

We passed the hospital, and a better style of shops, ‘hotels’ and coffee shops began to line the main road – which had improved greatly. There were “Apothecaries”, souvenir shops, and jewelers. There were lots of half finished buildings along the roads. Some were two storey with downstairs already being used, but the upstairs just poking up to the sky with half finished pillars or roofs.

            There were even patches of greenery - with flowering red bougainvilleas – and round about lots of very tired looking palm trees.  As we came to the main tourist hotel the road was lined with green shrubs in brick casing. These each seemed to have their own drip feed water supply. Where does  Safaga get its water? It has to be desalinated. The desert sand and dry hills and peaks crowd in to one side of the highway.

            When we got back to the Port and sat in the Princess Shuttle to go ‘home’ to the cool of the ship, we calculated how much the excursion into Safaga had cost. The whole experience was less than US$50 – much cheaper than any ship Excursion  on offer. And we had ‘enjoyed’ the experience of Safaga – basically a fishing town our taximan told us. It now seems to be the port for the exploration of the remains of Ancient Egyptian Civilization.

We kept thinking of our friends at table who had set out about 7am to drive through the desert for hours to The Valley of The Kings, Luxor and the Temple of Karnak. They would be walking around in this debilitating heat to take in the highlights of this Ancient Civilization. They were not due back to the ship till about 8pm.

            We thought we were very happy with our visit to local Safaga, and our speedy return to the cool of the Sea Princess for lunch.            

AT SEA Fri, Jun14

            We are now in the Red Sea heading for Egypt. The sea is calm today. No ‘white horses’ at all and no pitch or swell.  That’s a big relief as we had a few days where the floor rose and fell under my feet and walking frame in a most discombobulating way. I never mind if it moves about at night when I’m in bed. I can feel and hear the crashes, but I can just go with it and consider myself being rocked on the bosom of the deep. And I sleep.

            It is much more pleasant now. Today we had lunch in the Pizzeria with friends of a very old friend of Bruce’s. He had given us their names and it took a bit of making contact.  The desk on Level 5 won’t give you the phone number of people you are looking for. ‘Privacy’ I guess. They look it up, ring the number and hand you the phone. If they’re not in their cabin you can leave a message with your name and phone number on their phone to ask them to call. After a couple of messages left for each other we eventually met today.

            The Pizzeria is a very pleasant place on Deck 8. Tables are well laid out and chairs comfortable, and you are far enough away from noisy areas to make chatting easy. For lunch they only serve pizza of various sorts. We had dinner there one night and had Antipasta. There was also Lasagna in fancy little oval dishes. Today there was no rush and we had a comfortable chat to these friends of friends over our pizzas.

            The night before last there was a ‘formal night’ to welcome in the new passengers who came on board at Dubai. Quite a lot of people disembarked at Dubai as it is the end of the first segment of “Round the World”. The next segment ends at Dover in England, then New York and finally Sydney. 

            The ‘Dress Code’ for Formal Nights in the Traditional Dining Venues is laid down as

·      Evening gown, cocktail dress, or elegant pants suit for women

·      Tuxedo, dark suit or dinner jacket and slacks for men.

People more or less adhere to these mandates. Not as much as some ships I have been on where there are lots of Americans. American ladies come prepared with proper Evening Dresses, have their hair done in the salon and really dress up. Lots of the men bring proper tuxedos and look very smart.  Austalians are far more laid back about it all, but still manage to look ‘dressed up’.

      Even our table waiters were dressed up for the evening.

One of the perks of being Elite Passengers (that is have sailed with Princess for over 150 days) is that you may request canapés to be served in your cabin. At 4.30 we were served three prawn and sesame seed canapés, and three chocolate covered strawberries.  The chocolate strawberries are dressed formally with white chocolate shirtfronts complete with chocolate bow ties and buttons, and a complete jacket of milk chocolate. They are such cute little fellows that I managed to take their photos, which I hope I can reproduce here. In general I can’t ‘do’ photos, but grandson Darcy – the family tech-head – has sent me detailed instructions.

There are sometimes ‘cocktail parties’ in one of the lounges with the Captain. These are for particular groups (eg the Elite Passengers) and are strictly by invitation issued to your cabin. The waiters hand around ‘cocktails’ called things like ‘rum punch’ (mainly fruit juice) and little canapés on trays. The drinks are passed around freely, but the canapés are more scarce.

Between the first and second dinner sittings, a ‘champagne waterfall’ may be set up in the atrium. Glasses are built up into circular pyramid, with champagne poured into the top glass to overflow all the way to the bottom, and free ‘champagne’ is passed around by the bar waiters. If the ship is moving too much the champagne waterfall obviously can’t survive, so is dispensed with.

There are always plenty of ‘photo opportunities’ on Formal nights. The photo people are always anxious for opportunities to take and then sell lots of photos.

These are on display on large frames in the Photo Shop Area on Deck 7, and are  attractive but relatively expensive. 

DUBAI Mon, June 10, 2013

            Did you see “Lawrence of Arabia” years ago? In your mind call up miles of yellow sand, men in flowing white robes, Arab tents and lots of camels.

            Fifty years ago this is what the modern state of Dubai was like. Not anymore though. Dubai is probably the most modern city in the world. Lots of skyscrapers – including the tallest building in the world. That is, at the moment. Other places a planning to overtake it in the near future.  But now the needle top of the current Baj  ?  stands above the crenulated  peaks of the other towers of the new city.

            What made the sudden difference? OIL! Oil was discovered in the Emirate of Dubai in the early 1960s. Previous to this there was a local fishing village with an old local market place, so the local industries were fishing and trade.

            When we docked at the wharf in Port Rahid the sight of the tall skyscrapers was overwhelming, and I no longer thought of the sand that had piled along the approaches. Here everything was modern. Eight lane highways, shiney modern cars. Plenty of trees and grassy green verges everywhere. Flowers on the sidewalks and vivid flowers on the flame trees along roads. Not a camel in sight. Where had the ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ landscape gone?

            Sheik Said bin Maktroum, his son and grandsons were far-seeing about the oil. They invited in the wisest economists, architects, engineers and planners of the world to use their oil money to build a new Dubai. They established a sound economy with international trade and local manufacture based on oil products and by-products.  Oil, they knew, would run out. So they planned and used the money for the future.

            They shared the oil-money with their people with free health schemes, free education –even free housing for locals. “Locals” meaning original Dubai citizens who make up only 20% of the population today. The other 80% are ‘foreigners’ who supply the bulk of the workforce. While you work you are welcome in Dubai. There is no taxation. You rent your home. Foreigners could technically buy a home but few could afford the upwards of A$1 million. Foreign companies are welcome to invest in buildings and projects.

            There are beautifully designed golden stone mosques everywhere with their mesuin towers reaching up to the sky. Our guide said it was the idea to have two mosques to each suburban area so people could walk easily to pray five times a day at the mosque if they chose to.

            We visited the ‘gold souk’ – a street and area of small old shops famous for the trade in gold and precious metals/jewellery. The ‘souk’ is a market place or area where similar goods are traded. Most are still the old fashioned ‘local’ small shops – not modern market places.  Though there are several of these with thousands of shops under the one roof, so to speak. We did think of taking a local shuttle to one of these when we got back to the ship from our local tour, but by then we were too worn out by the heat (40degrees and dry) and the extent and variety of modern Dubai.

            Other interesting things we learnt from Ahmad, our guide, who had moved to Dubai from Morocco seventeen years ago with wife and family:

·      Women have equal rights with the men – except a woman can never inherit being sheik.

·      Women drive cars and move around freely

·      'Local’ men are easily identified by their white flowing robes and head turbans – a cool form of dress from their desert dwelling forebears.    Think ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ here

·      ‘Local’ women wear black (must be very hot!)

·      The other 80% choose their own form of dress.  There’s a special ‘souk’ of shops with lots of brightly coloured fabrics on show. The men planting flowers along the footpaths wore green uniforms and must have been hot. They looked as if they were Indian or Pakistani, so may have been used to the heat.

·      The beach area we visited looked like a normal beach with people ‘sunbaking’ and swimming. Maybe tourists? Or local ‘foreigners’ ? There is a special beach for ‘women only’ where they can swim in privacy.

·      In one of the big ‘malls’ there is a ‘ski’ area complete with snow. You can burn to a crisp on a beach in 40degrees in the morning and visit the snow in the afternoon.

·      Our guide told us there was complete freedom of religion with other churches scattered around Dubai. I guess this was as long as you didn’t try to convert any of the Muslim population to your religion

·      Everywhere was immaculately clean. Men in orange uniforms picked up any rubbish around, and swept up the sand in gutters.

·      Our guide said there were penalties for littering, and crime of any kind was viewed very seriously. Death penalties applied for things like drugs.

·      We saw no police anywhere, in spite of this. Though all the buses and taxis had signs which said “Am I driving safely? If not please ring . . . .’  or ‘email . . .’

·      It may rain twice a year, with no more than 10cms a year. All the water for drinking and watering all the greenery is from the sea, through several large desalination plants.  The seasons are ‘hot dry summer’ and ‘hot dry winter’.

Dubai is one of seven Emirates who have joined together to form one nation of the United Arab Emirates, of which the capital is Abu Dhabi. Each is governed by a Sheik with inherited power, and States differ in their approach to modern development. The total population of the U.A.E.  is about four and a half million people – less than Sydney.