Middle East
I’m going to be in the Middle East for some of November – specifically in Turkey, Egypt, Kuwait and Dubai.
If any readers have travelled there and have suggestions as to the best places to go, and things to see, feel free to comment below. I don’t have a lot of time in each place, except Egypt.
Also if any readers are currently living in those countries, and want to catch up when I am there, just let me know.
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Tags: DPF, Middle East
October 27th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
1. Get the hell out of Cairo. Siwa is nice.
2. I also recommend flying down to Aswan and then sailing up to Luxor.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
if you are on prescription drugs and going to Dubai check they are not on their banned list. The authorities detained a British person for some reason, gave him a blood test and charged him with having banned drugs in his body, even though he was not carrying them. Presumably the British authorities leaned on the arabs to let him go.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
If you can get to Capadocia in Turkey, you will be please you went. Other wise Gallipoli is good for obvious reasons, Ephesus has some of the best ancient ruins you will see anywhere, Oloudinez has the nicest beach. If you can get a 4 day sailing cruise from Olympus to Fethiye it will be some of the best fun you could have if my experience is anything to go by.
If you only make it to Istanbul the the Blue Mosque is awesome, the Grand Bizarre is good for a look but DO NOT buy a carpet there as you will get screwed.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Istanbul is a marvel. Eat the street food, do some tours, sit in the blue mosqe, get a massage at a Turkish Bath visit Aya Sofia, go to the basillica cistern and the Topkapi pallace (it has a circumcision room if you’re interested). The baths are an odd experience but one of those cultural experiences that can’t be missed, here is Michael Palin at one – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij8YuHIpOjw
If you can get all the way to Cappadocia (sp?) in central Turkey then I can highly reccomend it. The landscape is surreal with towering “Fairy chimneys”. We stayed in Goreme in a cave room inside a fairy chimney which was amazing. There is an open air museum there with churches carved out of the rock filled with byzantine frescoes, spectacular. If you can fit this in (you can get an overnight bus from Istanbul) then you should really head out this way.
Cairo is pretty crazy too, be prepared for some of the wildest taxi rides of your life, seriousy they are mad. Cairo was pretty full on and after seeing the bis sights (Museum, pyramids) I needed a bit of a break from the fast pace of it all. I did a camel ride near the pyramids at dawn which was spectacular but left my arse red and bleeding so I’d probably not do that again.
Alexandria was a lovely laid back seaside town. We only came here as a stop on the way west to Al Alamein (a family grave) but found ourselves loving the atmosphere and seafood. We hired a car and driver to head to Al Alamein which was pretty special but if you had no particular connection to the place then there is no real reason in going.
You should head down to Luxor if you can. It is really touristy (there was a McDonalds there which just seemed wrong) but the temples are amazing. there are plenty of cool cafe/bar/restaurants to escape the crowds for a beer. Perhaps you could do a cruise down the nile to Luxor (I hear they are nice) but we just took an overnight train.
have a great time and can’t wait to see photos on here.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Capadocia in Turkey is definitely very cool. Amazing landscapes. Of course Istanbul is worth quite a few days as well – a week if possible. And if you want to see some seaside on your trip, then the southern coast of Turkey is absolutely beautiful. You can take some very good value and well organised yachting trips. You just sit back on the yacht, swim, eat food, socialise and travel along the coast….
October 27th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
if you’re after a carpet try for Central Turkey as they are heaps cheaper than Istanbul. Haggle like a mother fucker! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n3LL338aGA
October 27th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
The airport at Dubai has unusual Duty Free offerings, like a Rolls Royce car. Also because they frown on drinking piss they let you take in about 2,000 smokes Duty Free!
October 27th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Psycho Milt spent some time in Kuwait I believe. Apart from bullet holes and bits of missile at the airport can’t add much as was in transit.
As far as crumpet is concerned I understand that Gulfies (Gulf Air cabin crew) are legendary.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
I’m off to Egypt in December – first time in the Middle East/North Africa for me, so looking forward to it. We’re doing a 15-day stint in Egypt – some of the key things we were told we should do (apart from the obvious) were visiting Alexandria, a felucca river trip down the Nile, and diving in the Red Sea.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I agree with philonz about Istanbul. I only spent a week there, and 3 days of it at a conference, but managed to squeeze in a lot of sightseeing. But it made me want so much more, and to see more of Turkey as well. The place is at the major crossroads between Asia Minor and Europe; it is STEEPED in history. Walking from the Blue Mosque, I passed so many monuments, and a particularly nice one had a label – “Public monument erected 320 AD”.
And then had dinner at a wonderful cafe, with music, that is right across from Constantine’s monument.
Even the hawkers were fun. Very good natured. “How may I help you spend your money sir?” And somehow they can tell where you are from. “Kia ora” from one stall minder at the Grand Bazaar. And as philonz said, HAGGLE! It’s all part of the experience and it’s expected.
Oh, I am SO envious!! When I was there I stayed at a hotel in the Beyazit, convenient to lots of places.
Don’t forget to write!
October 27th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
If you are in Turkey, go to Göreme in Cappodoccia. Go in hot air the balloons over the amazing geological formations there. You can ride into the mountains by motorbike away from the tourists and see some of the oldest churches in the world cut into caves. But especially take time to meet the people who are some of the best anywhere. Look up Mehmet Dilari at the Orient Bazaar. Mehmet is a lovely man. He is truly expert about antique rugs and is far more interested in telling you about them than selling them. My son and I made such good friends in Göreme when we were there that some of them threw a riverside barbeque for us the night we left. The place and the people are wonderful!
Its all pretty touristy in Dubai, but the camel races are worth a look and so is the indoor ski slope at the top of the mall where you can see Arab men in dish-dash skiing badly. It’s a hoot.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Obviously must see the pyramids and Museum in Cairo. Having a beer watching the sun go down over the Nile and pryamids is great. Aswan is fantastic – stay in Cascades Hotel. Nothing in Alexandria apart from traffic. Most people get sick on the Nile Cruises, unless things have improved in recent years.
Get out of Kuwait as soon as you can, nothing to do/see.
Dubai is for shopping only, unless you want to go indoor skiing. Hotel pools are good, much better than the beaches. Low quality girlie bars, all bars full of smoke.
Turkey is great; agree re Istanbul (Topkapi etc, eating casual) and Ephesus; Gallipoli, Troy, Aegan Coast is fantastic.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
My 2 cents DPF, eat where the locals eat, the food is stunning in the Middle East….. Am sure you like getting out of your comfort zone, so dont frequent any touristy type resturants….
Enjoy, enjoy, then enjoy some more…
October 27th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
15 years since we were there so advice is out of date. Though from the posts above would endorse the lot.
One thing wont have changed – EAT Local and Avoid tourist places.
Walk the back streets, take a Turkish Bath, and if you get to Gallipoli, hire a guide with a local driver – awesome, and very moving.
And if you get home in one piece we look forward to more incisive wit and repartee on Kiwiblog!
October 27th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
JeffW might be right, it might have been Aswan rather than Alexandria friends told us we should go to (we’re going to both I think anyway)…
October 27th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
What you don’t wanna do is utter an expletive -
October 27th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
If you’re travelling in Dubai with your partner, do not under any circumstance allow her to talk you into a visit to the Gold Souk. I speak of this from bitter experience
Skiing at the Mall of the Emirates would certainly be on my list of things to do, and the trip out to the desert with the 4WD’s in the sand-dunes and dinner at a “Bedouin camp” was enjoyable.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I highly recommend going to the Dashur Pyramids as well as the Giza ones. They are just as impressive but in a different manner. They are about a 30 minute drive south of Giza, and you have the added bonus of there being almost no other tourists or touts there, just tourist police. If you are going to Giza get there at the crack of dawn, fewer tourists plus they only let a limited number inside each day.
Dinner at Mojito on the top floor of the Cairo Hilton at night.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Get out of Egypt as fast as you decently can after seeing the pyramids and go to Syria
October 27th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
..yes yes I second that motion on Syria..a must do…
October 27th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Oh, and P.S. Turkish tea, especially the apple tea. Wonderful stuff! Can’t get anything like it outside Turkey, from my experience, but I haven’t tried any of the Turkish quarters in the continental European cities.
And the yogurt drink (forget it’s name). Let’s face it … the traditional Turkish places are non-alcoholic. The ones that serve beer and wine are for the tourists, and you get tourist food.
And cherry juice! I could not believe it when I tried it. Had a can of cherry juice (just like we would see with Coke or Pepsi) with lunch at a cafe in one of the Istanbul suburbs. Elixir!
I could go on and on. Good inexpensive food (away from the tourist restaurants) and usually good courteous service.
sigh. Note to self: Time to start saving to go again. Need to save a LONG time. :-p
October 27th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Egypt, Abu Simbel, unbelievable.
I’m not sure what it’s like now but for years after the German tour bus was gunned down in the Valley of the Kings it was near imposible to travel independently in Egypt. You needed to be on a tour. The tour buses lined up early the morning on the outskirts of town and travelled in convoy between places. Each bus has to have a spare seat for an armed guard, every ATM in Egypt has an armed guard.
Turkey, Istanbul The Blue Mosque, Aya Sofia, Cappadocia like nothing else anywhere, Fetiyhe is the best place on the coast, stay away from all the other places on the Med Coast full of Russians and Poms on cheap packages.
Watch out for the guys selling heavily discounted tickets on the sailing trips down the coast. They oversell them and you end up with people sleeping everywhere all over the boat. The boat you end up on won’t resemble the one on the brochure either. They have to sell to you at discounted prices before you get to the town because once you see the boat you wouldn’t buy a ticket.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Wander through the Rafah Crossing and say gidday to Khaled and Ismail.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Turkey is awesome, esp. Istanbul. I also loved Turkish tea (But the Turks say they are really famous for their coffee!)
If you haven’t been there already – Catch a direct flight from Turkey to Tel Aviv and check out Jerusalem. It is well worth it (although looks like your itinerary is already decided).
Dubai … nyeh.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Egypt is fantastic but there is always a but. Your views on driving will be changed for ever (buckle up when ever possible). Most locals will ask for ‘Backshesh’ not sure of the spelling it’s a local tip (for nothing). Get small denomination coins and notes as fast as you can Bachshesh is vigorously asked for at every opportunity (your bags will be pulled off you and carried etc).
Haggle like a bastard for any thing except food. Tourist police everywhere so pretty safe. The locals sound you out particularly in Cairo ( basically every foreign greeting possible) once they know where you are from thats it. “come to my shop, I have a friend from NZ ” etc. They also work on Egyptian time (be patient) other than that beautiful and the history.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
DPF – I note that Egypt has the worlds highest rate of Death by Flatulence and Related Conditions.
So avoid the beans. We want you back.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:33 am
Cairo is tiresome, Dubai is worth a day at best, but really only to do the Bedouin sand dune tour experience. Dubai itself cannot be walked around, and while a marvel of highrise (and a very very flash metro with a first class section, and hardly any passengers) is really quite ugly and has little to offer.
Be picky with food, avoid salads unless you are sure they are washed, cooked is best with everything. In other words standard instructions for the third world. Western food will be made at best mediocre, so go local – it can be very good, but be picky on meat as it can be of very poor quality.
October 28th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Nile cruise to Egypt is one of the best holiday places I heard. Is it true? Anybody here experienced this before? I am planning for a year end holiday there on a Nile cruise.
October 28th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Do NOT get a massage at a Turkish Bath (Sorry Philonz), never, ever in my life experienced something as disgusting as extremely hairy and moustached men suggesting some “special” massage for extra $$, yuk, yuk, yuk.
October 28th, 2009 at 7:58 am
Urfa/Sanliurfa, birthplace of Abraham & Nearby Harran. Fly from Istanbul.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/destinations/turkey/article5857966.ece
http://journals.worldnomads.com/tk-tempany/gallery/19320/554170.aspx
http://journals.worldnomads.com/tk-tempany/gallery/19320/554171.aspx
October 28th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Try Efes / Pamukkale were two pretty cool sights in Turkey.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Dimmocrazy, I must admit the turkish Bath took me way out of my comfort zone. A large hairy man bent my limbs behind my head and reminded me to leave him a tip. I also couldn’t turn my head for a week. But it was one of the most memorable expieriences of my travels. The architecture was amazing too, here is the link http://www.cagalogluhamami.com.tr/
October 28th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Turks do not like being labelled as part of the Middle East, always a good point to remember.
You will only see a tiny glimpse of any of these places, as you won’t speak the languages, so your impressions will be superficial, but you should have a fun time.
Turkish food is the best on the list you are going to, but if you have the chance to get to Syria you can eat even better. In Istanbul see if you someone can show Haci Abdullah Lokantasi – it’s a great old style restaurant off the main street in Beyoglu (Pera). Also try and get to rejans further down and have a night in Rejans, an old Russian restaurant founded by refugees after the revolution – the lemon vodka is lethal.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Just don’t mention your ancestry to anyone. Especially guys with knives.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Don’t eat the chicken, or the lettuce, or the vegetables, or the hashish.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Besides that you’ll be fine.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Whatever you do, unless you are with some Copts, don’t say “i could kill for some pork ribs”.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Oh, and the apple tea they sell to tourists is just Tang with an apple flavour. Turks rarely touch it but tourists think it’s terribly “authentic”.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:21 am
what ever you do, go and see the cistern in istanbul.
and when you are in istanbul eat red mullet.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Mike S: I watched them make the stuff, and Tang it weren’t. However, that said, you do have to be wary of those trying to give you a little bit less than what you would normally expect.
I just remembered something else not mentioned above – the Byzantine cisterns. Underground caverns used to store water. Massive!
October 28th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Pretty much agree with everything said about Istanbul – but add the Mevlana dervish ceremony to your list. I’m not much into dance shows/religious ritual, but this was cool. Take ferries and drink hot salep (sort of custardy drink made with powdered orchid root). Eat everything ion Turkey, especially Iskender kebap, which is nothing to do with rice as it kebab places here pretend. I’d second the Yeni Rejans restaurant, mainly for atmosphere. The military museum in Istanbul was good, the one in Cairo is a joke (unless it’s changed a lot – back a while it was just a series of displays on how Egypt won every war it fought right back to Alexander).
It was a long time ago when I was in Bursa – a spa town near Istanbul, but it was cool then – nice ferry trip half of the way from Istanbul too. Same goes for Iskenderun down south.
I thought Cappadocia looked great, but was too touristy when I was there in 2002 – I liked the west of Turkey better. Lake Van and surrounds are terrific (another nice ferry trip). Sanli Urfa was amazing, but Diyarbakir was horrible – unless you like being under military occupation. Out west look for the cafes that sell fresh pita bread with cream and honey for breakfast.
Syria is wonderful, and I’d skip much of Egypt for a quick trip to Jordan to see Petra and Wadi Rum.
The best thing I did in Cairo was leave my hat on a bus and spend three days looking for it. I not only recovered my hat, but ended up in all sorts of fascinating bits of Cairo I’d never otherwise have visited. Getting lost in Cairo is easy – take a compass. And look out for fiteer – a sort of pizza made with a filo base.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
In Dubai airport if you are transiting you have to leave your passport at the passport office there. Hopefully they won’t lose it like they did mine when I went to leave. Less of a deal in Dubai, as I had already been detained by authorities in Tehran and couldn’t leave there either. Realised things were getting serious when my official government escorts told me they could not help me any further and walked away, having tried to sort things out with the police or Customs or whoever had detained me. Don’t mention your ancestry, pretty sure this was the reason I was detained in Iran.
If you are keen to buy some xmas pressies go shopping in Dubai and go to the Gold Souk. A mile long avenue of non-stop gold – the best prices in the world. The sand dunes are next to visit and take a trip to the 7 star hotel.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
See if you can get out of Dubai to one of the other states, eat fresh dates with cottage cheese, drink coffee with cardamom and if you can try hangi camel and then hongi a Beduin as they come in from the sand hills.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Well David, I lived there for 8 years, and no one I know kept elma cay in their pantries – it was strictly for the tourists. You can buy it in New World here in Auckland.
Istanbul is full of things to see, you could easily spend 2 weeks just sight-seeing and not see all the main points.
October 28th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Mike S is more than right about the Turk-Arab dynamic. They are not the same and definitely don’t think of themselves thus. The only worse mistake you could make in the Middle East is to label Iranians, who are mostly Persian, as Arabs – they both don’t like that – seriously. Iranians speak Farsi which is an Indo-European language, correctly reflecting the culture. The majority of Iranians are best described as Aryans. Get that, DPF before you run off to Synagogue tomorrow (although Lambcut is sure you already know).
Anyway the Big Kahuna has enough to do. Oy! He is busy with the Musselmen bothering him on Fridays, the Jews bothering him on Saturdays, and the Christians hard at it on Sundays. I think we should all stop God bothering and give him the weekend off.
October 29th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Actually, I’m going to strengthen my own comment and say that you’d be mad to miss Petra if there is the slightest chance of making a side trip from Egypt. Petra is stunning – it makes the great pyramid look like a big pile of rock.
If you are going to the Sinai, Aqaba is only a short ferry trip away. You could easily do Wadi Rum and Petra in four or five days in Jordan.