Friday 16th November. FINALLY IN JORDAN

My last cup of coffee in Israel

Finally an Internet cafe with speedy connection.  This is my birthday treat this evening to type as fast as I can and catch up on my adventures!!
The crossing into Jordan was a breeze and rather funny.  I left about 10.30am from outside Eilat's crazy city centre airport and the taxi dropped me off in the middle of nowhere.  Just a border point.  It seemed like I was the only one going through...I paid my tax and the man checking my passport said to me.
 "You have a lovely smile, stay happy on your trip and have a nice birthday next week."  Wow, very different from my harsh welcome into the country!!

I walked through no man's land into Jordan, no one checked any of my bags and suddenly I saw a face I recognised...it was Scottish Daniella, who I met in Haifa,  and her boyfriend.  It was so ridiculously crazy!!!. We hugged and laughed and chatted and the border control men were waiting for us to finish so they could check and stamp our passports. She'd had a wet and windy holiday in Tsfat whilst I'd been blown and rained on in Jerusalem. The guards were laughing too and seemed really flummoxed that we were not rushing through the border checks!  For 5 minutes we talked about our adventures in no-man's land and then finally they got in a taxi to Petra and I got into a taxi for the Arab Dive Resort. We were the only three people going into Jordan at that time and it was a lovely welcome to the country!! It was a shame that we couldn't chat for longer but they only had a few days left in the country and were desperate to get to Petra, whereas I could take things a bit more leisurely.


I really felt like I had crossed into another world.  Better lay out of plants, trees and shrubs (In fact generally greener and far more low-key than brash Eilat.)  To be honest I felt there was a better understanding of the natural environment in which they were living and I felt comfortable. No more Russian and Romanian influenced stodgy food here!
  Israel was better than I thought it would be but often I felt I was just in any generic European country with brash and ugly edges.  Here I had finally arrived in the Middle East.
 Well, once I arrived at the Dive Centre Mourad persuaded me to go diving.  It wasn't busy there and this would be my only opportunity really to try it.  I was mad enough to give it a go and by 3pm I was 9 metres under the sea looking at all the fish and coral. I liked it actually and although my ears did hurt for about 24 hours afterwards it was worth it!

Thank you Safak for the photo.  She was a Turkish journalist staying in the same resort.

That evening I ate gorgeous fish cooked by the Bangladeshi guy there.  Now, Bangladeshi chefs are the kings of cooking fish and he was no exception! I got chatting to Richard, a guy from Devon who's wife had told him to go away on holiday for a week and grab some winter sun before Christmas kicked in. He was a interesting guy and he enjoyed chatting about his family and their mad adventure holidays they go on around the world.
Yes, a great day and I was so proud that I had managed to overcome a fear and that my head hadn't exploded into a million pieces.  OK, that night my  left ear was thumping in pain but by the morning the pain had luckily gone!