Middle East - Anthony Ham [7]
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
LEBANON
SYRIA
TURKEY
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Telling stories is an age-old tradition in the Middle East. Although public storytelling is a dying art form in the region, every traveller to the Middle East will return home with a bag full of unforgettable experiences. As Lonely Planet authors, we have been criss-crossing the region for years, listening to the ordinary people of the Middle East (the region’s real storytellers), setting out on adventures, then returning home to write our own stories. What follows are some of our favourites.
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EGYPT
Diving the Mighty Thistlegorm
Though other bubble-blowing pundits may be chafing at the bit to disagree, I stand by my conviction that Egypt’s SS Thistlegorm is the premiere wreck dive in the world. This steam-powered, 126.5m-long British armed freighter was on her way to restock army supplies in Tobruk (Libya) when she was sunk in the northern Red Sea by German bombers in 1941. The ship was packed to the brim with cargo – munitions, trucks, armoured cars, motorcycles, uniforms, aircrafts and even locomotives. Now resting just 30m below sea level, the famed freighter is surrounded by the clear waters of the Red Sea with her full payload intact.
The site is 3½ hours by boat from Sharm el-Sheikh, so when diving the Thistlegorm I normally arrange a trip on an overnight live-aboard from Dahab or Sharm. Due to the sheer size of the wreck and the amount of well-preserved paraphernalia on board, the site is usually explored over two dives, though having said that, I have done half-a-dozen dives on this wreck and have yet to see all it has to offer. On our first dive, we circumnavigated the outside of the ship. Everything down here lies preserved exactly as it was when it sank, encrusted in a thick film of algae and barnacles. Fish teem all over the wreck, darting in and out of the deck’s cabins, around the long barrels of heavy-calibre machine guns and deep in the bowels of the cargo hold. Lying a few hundred metres away from the ship on the sandy floor is a locomotive that was thrown off the deck during the original bombing raid. It is one thing to see a sunken ship lying underneath the sea, but the odd sight of a train wreck brings a whole new surreal edge to the dive. Along the top deck we swim through the captain’s cabin and over the dismembered cargo hold where the fateful bombs hit. The highlight of the dive is rounding the stern to see the massive 2m brass propeller, which completely dwarfs the divers as they fin their way around it.
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The SS Thistlegorm is just one of hundreds of dive sites scattered the length and breadth of the Red Sea. Pick up a copy of Lonely Planet’s Diving & Snorkeling the Red Sea for detailed descriptions of more than 80 of the best dive sites in the area.
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The second dive is where the adrenaline kicks in, as we penetrate the twisted bowels of the cargo hold. Using torches to find our way, we grapple along from one section of the ship’s hold to another. Most of the original supplies are still found here: boots, lorries, munitions and more. The most impressive sight is the Bedford trucks, all lined up in a row and each with three perfectly preserved BSA motorcycles mounted on the back. Up close, you can make out the individual details of these 65-year-old relics – from the motorcycle handbrakes to the tachometers on truck dashboards. There are so many details to discover in this living museum of WWII artefacts that one tank of air is barely enough to skim the surface. Before too long we must make our ascent, most of us vowing before we even break the surface that we will return to one the world’s greatest underwater war memorials.
Rafael Wlodarski
A Little Sheesha on the Sidelines
Ahh sheesha, my one weakness. My Achilles heel if you will. In every nook and cranny of the country, in any town of any size, you will always find a café of some description serving shai (tea) and catering to the archaic tradition of smoking tobacco from a sheesha, or water pipe. In Cairo, I love nothing