ASIANOVERLAND.NET SYDNEY TO LONDON  DAY 130/291/42: AQABA TO WADI RUM,  JORDAN

 “29 October, 1980

A final snorkel amongst the coral & the fish, then to Wadi Rum …. We nearly made the sunset!

Bus registers 8-9 on the richter scale when stationary.

The top decker from the other bus couldn’t even push their own bus – maybe they didn’t know we’re all 10lb weaklings from India.”

The coral reefs and snorkeling at Aqaba were absolutely fantastic, but our driver Les Stringer always needed to suck every last possible bit out of life, so he told me we should go wind surfing. I hadn’t wind surfed before, but Les assured me it was easy. And it was, after a while ….

I finally managed to get my wind surfer going, as there was a northerly wind which took me south. The problem was, I couldn’t turn it around, so I ended up in Sauda Arabian waters. I had gone way too far south, and slowly managed to get the wind surfer to turn west, but this meant I was heading WAYYYYYYYYY ….... out to sea, towards Egypt and some absolutely huge oil tankers and container ships.

Eventually, I could faintly see land in the far distance, probably in Israeli waters now, and thought I recognised the Aqaba beach of Jordan on the horizon. A late wind change/sea breeze meant that I could finally manage to “navigate” towards the Aqaba beach, and eventually returned, to a group of very irate punters, as we were going to be late for the sunset at Wadi Rum.

“Great wind surf mate!!” says Les Stringer, “Don’t worry about the punters. No problem getting to Wadi Rum for the sunset, just watch me”.

Absolutely irrepressible.

The point is that I had probably been wind-surfing in or near four different countries, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and Jordan in the one afternoon (43 years ago today). Yet that same area had most likely been under only one country's control for long periods of about 500 years, for most of the past three thousand years. 

In the Middle Ages, the Arabs and Persians created the muslim Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates, from Spain in the west, India and China in the east and Anatolia in the north, the largest land empires in history. Those Arab and Persian Empires were succeeded by the Ottoman Empire, which controlled all of the Middle East to the Persian border for about 500 years until World War 1. The British Mandate of Palestine then led to one small Middle Eastern area being split up into numerous countries, including Syria, Iraq and Turkiye. Plus the Palestinian people who are refugees and have been left with no country, land, voting rights or human rights. The British "divide and conquer" principle at its best.

Hours later, after the steep climb out of Aqaba, we were hightailing it in the desert at sunset towards Wadi Rum, and the cooks had every pot and pan full on the gas burners. We’ll need to have dinner on the run to Wadi Rum.

Suddenly, the bus makes a massive turn right, and nearly rolls, as Les turns a late right turn he hadn’t seen in the desert. ALL of the dinner, pots and pans and their contents are all over the floor, and the punters are IRATE (again!!!) – not with Les for the harsh right turn in the desert, but with me, for taking so long wind surfing in the Gulf of Aqaba.

As our 1980 Trip Book records, we NEARLY made it for sunset at Wadi Rum.

And the view was absolutely beautiful, as were our hospitable Beduin hosts, whose tents were far more comfortable than our double decker bus.

But I made it up to the punters, by telling them that sunrise at Wadi Rum is even better than the sunset view, so we’ll get up early or stay up all night, to enjoy the Wadi Rum view at sunrise

I recently found out that our driver, Les Stringer, sadly passed away to the big bus in the sky in an unfortunate accident thirteen years ago:

“Les Stringer had a business here in Queenstown running a ski bus to Cardrona ski field in the winter and Milford Sound day trips in summer. Sadly Passed away about 10 years ago in camper van fire”

Les Stringer might not have been Top Deck’s best driver, but he was always a delight to be with, and made the most of every minute of every day, from sunrise to sunset and beyond..... RIP mate …..

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