BBC Front Row on Theeb
After a few tweets and a bit of pestering, I was lucky enough to be invited by presenter Samira Ahmed onto Front Row, the main daily arts programme on BBC Radio 4 in the UK, to talk about Theeb, a new and – in my entirely humble opinion – brilliant film by Jordanian director Naji…
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Rough Guide to Jordan
A shade late (sorry about that), this is to say that the new edition of my Rough Guide to Jordan is now out, buyable anywhere in the world as a printed book (yay!) – ask for ISBN 978-14053-89792 – or downloadable as an e-book (boo!) here. Rough Guides (in fact, the amazing Martin Dunford; how many…
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Get on the bus
News via Alternative Egypt of an interesting little tourism start-up on Egypt’s south Sinai coast – the Bedouin Bus, run by a small group of community entrepreneurs who’ve clearly put their heads together, done some thinking and are ready to fulfil a need among their existing clients (both tourists and, intriguingly, locals) for decent, reliable…
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Jordan off-off the beaten track
Here’s a conceited bit of blogging for you. I just saw this post at WorldNomads.com, written by Megan Czisz, about going “off the beaten path” (or track!) in Jordan. Megan defines this as Amman, roast chicken, the King’s Highway, Dana, Petra and Wadi Rum. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it is kinda remarkable how the…
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No longer deserted
Jordan doesn’t often get into Wallpaper, the leading international magazine on fashion and design. But this is an eye-opener, revealed in the last couple of days – a scheme for super-luxurious, environmentally sound lodges in Jordan’s Wadi Rum desert, designed by US architect Chad Oppenheim [profile] [website] for completion in 2014. Reading Wallpaper’s brief article,…
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From Black to Red
Last week the Jordan Times reported that the tourism ministers of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey were proposing a common tourist visa valid across all four countries. From the Black Sea to the Red Sea, from Istanbul to Damascus, and from Ephesus to Baalbek to Palmyra to Petra, one visa would fit all. A great…
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Top Gear, sour grapes
It was last January – Jan 2010, that is – when I first heard that a BBC researcher from Top Gear was interested in having a chat with me about a Christmas special they were planning, where the three presenters – Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May – would drive across the Middle East….
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easyJet opens up Jordan
After last week’s news about the swingeing increases in Jordan’s visa fees for independent travellers comes the startling announcement that easyJet – Europe’s second-largest low-cost airline – is launching flights to Jordan, starting on 27 March 2011. easyJet is intending to operate three flights a week from London Gatwick to Amman’s Queen Alia airport, with…
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On the sofa
Plenty to blog about – no time to do it. In the meantime, make yourself a cuppa, put your feet up and have a giggle at me on the daytime TV sofa, talking about how wonderful Jordan is – David Symes of the Jordan Tourism Board in the UK recently commissioned a web TV show…
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And the winner is…
When Kathryn Bigelow stood up to accept the Best Director Oscar yesterday – for The Hurt Locker, a movie about a US army bomb-disposal unit in Iraq – she dedicated the award to the people of Jordan, where the film was shot. For a modest, often-overlooked country in a region of big headlines, such a…
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An old friend
The last time I saw Toufoul was in Amman in 1998 – and, to be honest, I don’t really remember her that well. Back then I was washed up after a year in Jordan, suddenly single again, and she was one of a bunch of friends I was roaming around with, trying to keep real…
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Premium-priced Petra
It’s been a(nother) phenomenally busy time. After a string of writing deadlines, which filled the Christmas/New Year break, I’ve just got back from ten days in Lebanon and Jordan to discover that work lined up for Jan and Feb which would have paid almost £3,500 has fallen through – and then today I’ve also had…
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Centenary cities
Which is the most ethnically diverse city in the Middle East? Go on, have a think. What’s your best guess? Dubai? My guess might surprise you. If you discount Mecca during the haj – which hosts 3 million people from seemingly every country in the world – I’d say the answer is Tel Aviv. I…
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Landmark achievement
Back in June I blogged about how a tour-guide friend from Jordan, Yamaan Safady, had been shortlisted for a major award – the Paul Morrison Guide Awards 2009, run by Wanderlust magazine in the UK. I was at the awards ceremony last night, at London’s Royal Geographical Society, and I can report that Yamaan took the Silver…
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Red Dead
Ferociously busy at the moment, ahead of a trip next week – I’ve got several stories I want to blog about, but only time now to post this BBC news report from Jordan by Natalia Antelava about the plans to build a Red-Dead Canal, linking the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, and thus (a) providing…
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Frankincense Trail: travel notes
I blogged in detail here about Episode One of the BBC’s travelogue The Frankincense Trail, where Kate Humble travels across the Middle East. Episode Two was, I thought, much better – an absorbing (and probably unique) hour of prime-time terrestrial TV devoted to showcasing Saudi Arabia as a tourist destination. There was, fortunately, much less…
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The age of the train
After a generation of inaction – and increasingly bad traffic congestion – the six GCC countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) have finally started to build decent public transport systems. Dubai’s metro opens in a few days’ time. Abu Dhabi’s metro is expected within five years, alongside an urban tram network….
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Oryx tale soup
Yesterday, twenty Arabian oryx – a kind of white antelope, native to the Middle East – were released into the wild at Wadi Rum in Jordan, as the latest step in efforts to reintroduce the animal to the wild after its near-extinction in the 1970s. A bit of background: oryx once roamed widely from Egypt…
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Gulf of understanding
I was lucky, a couple of years ago, to have been put in touch with Andrew Humphreys – formerly an author with Time Out and Lonely Planet (Egypt, Syria et al), ex-freelancer for Condé Nast Traveller etc. He’d just been appointed editor of Gulf Life, the new inflight magazine for Bahrain’s Gulf Air, to be…
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On the waterfront
Another Middle East megaproject trundles on, this time the $10-billion Marsa Zayed (‘Zayed Harbour’) development in Jordan’s Red Sea resort city of Aqaba. For years Aqaba’s beaches played second fiddle to its port – which, during the 1990s, was the gateway for goods trucked to and from sanctions-bound Iraq. Since the creation of the low-tax Aqaba…
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River dance
A fascinating article from 7iber.com (pronounce it “hibber”) about the difficulties for travellers attempting to use the King Hussein Bridge/Allenby Bridge border crossing over the River Jordan. The author, Daoud Kuttab, is a renowned Palestinian journalist, and writes in detail about the tortuous border problems – and financial corruption involved – from a Palestinian perspective….
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Go Yamaan!
Just heard that Jordanian tour guide Yamaan Safady has been shortlisted for the Paul Morrison Guide Awards 2009, run by Wanderlust magazine in the UK. Fantastic news! Yamaan is a great guy, and he knows Jordan’s backcountry like nobody else. Looking forward to the awards ceremony in October… UPDATE (12 Sept 09): Check out this…
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Walking the walk
It’s been a few days since I had a chance to blog – not least because I’m now away updating my Rough Guide to Switzerland (writing this on the TGV from Zurich to Basel). I’ve had it in mind to put down something about this BBC story profiling a group calling themselves the Jerusalem Peacemakers…