You'se a dumb motherf*cker, won't you back that Ass up?

You better back that ass up. When you find yourself on the trails of Petra you better check yo self and yo donkey, else you might necessitate regulation from AofA and Ketan B.

If you are anywhere near the Middle East, I highly recommend visiting both the Wadi Rum desert and the ancient city of Petra, described as a "a rose-red city half as old as time." But with Petra, visit early in the morning. Ketan and I visited both early in the morning- when it was beautiful, and also in the afternoon- when the place is invaded by hordes of overweight European tourists and the poor donkeys that carry them.

You think Americans are the only ones with an obesity epidemic?? Come to Petra and talk to the poor donkeys. To see Petra you need to walk around quite a bit, and this has borne an industry of convenience where entrepreneurial young Jordanians employ the labor of donkeys to cart around fat tourists. Hey, it's employment for some locals, feeds the donkeys, and tourists get to see more of the place.

The only issue I have is when a god damn donkey jockey can't keep his donkey in check. So Ketan and I were walking down a steep narrow trail coming down from the High Temple, when this local guy on a donkey comes barreling down the trail from out of nowhere. Now, this was not a tourist, but one of the donkey owners who's trying to sell rides to the tourists. Ketan and I jump out of the way on to a rock, and barely avoid getting bum rushed by a sizable donkey and its large rider. Naturally Ketan and I are a bit pissed about our near collision with an unfriendly ass, but the donkey and rider are far down the trail in a whirl of dust.

As we walk to the next switchback in the trail, we pass by a number of locals and we see the same idiot on his donkey riding in tight circles and whipping the shit out of the poor dumb animal with a thick folded metal coat hanger. Now, I'm no card caring member of PETA, but this is just plain mean. As we walk closer the dude almost runs into us again, and this time KetanB has clearly had enough. He casually shoves our mounted foe and demands angrily, "What the hell are you doing?"

A bit more shouting and we get the idiot's attention.

Idiot: "What vhat, What is dee prollem?"

Ketan: "You almost hit us coming down the trail, you're beating that god damn animal without any result, and you almost ran into us again right now!"

Idiot:"What? It is my ass, what can I do?"

Ananda: "Control your damn ass, that's what you can do!! "

More dismissive comments from the rider, and he almost runs into Ketan again. Now he's gone and done it- KetanB is seriously pissed.

"Why don't you get off your donkey, let's see what happens."

The man on the donkey is now afraid.

"Come on, get off your donkey, and let's see what happens."

Even I'm beginning to wonder, "Shit, what happens when he gets off his donkey?" I mean is Ketan going to hit him? I was pretty annoyed, but I wasn't really ready to throw down over a donkey, though I was, of course, ready to back up KetanB. So… fortunately Ketan wasn't looking to go fisticuffs over an incident with an ass , but he was definitely willing to stand his ground regardless of whether this douche was riding on a donkey.

At this point the moron's extended family arrives on the scene, and they are very concerned as to why these two tourists are yelling at their semi-retarded cousin who's still spinning around on an ass.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?"

"This idiot here almost ran us over while riding down the trail."

The extended family shoots a dirty look over to the village idiot who promptly apologizes to us. Not being One Republic we found the apology to be timely enough, and continued down the trail.

Now, overall we could not have been more impressed with the people of Jordan, but like I mentioned earlier, it's best you control your donkey when riding in the canyons of Petra.

Snow on the Sahara

The Bedouin people are renowned throughout the world for their kindness to strangers. It is the Bedouin way that a guest will be offered the very best a family has to offer in terms of food and water. This tradition evolved from the very harshness of the desert; without relying on others' hospitality, a traveler could never hope to cross the treacherous expanses of desert that the Bedouin call home.

The modern day deluge of tourists has made living up to these time honored traditions something of a challenge, but the Bedouin people in Wadi Rum are still without a doubt some of the nicest people I've met while traveling. As is customary, our guide took Ketan and I to a Bedouin tent where we were served a local, and delicious, sweet tea made with desert mint. As I walked into the tent I noticed that our guide did not remove his sandals, and I was unsure if I should remove my shoes, so I asked him.

He replied, "It is not for us to say whether you should remove your shoes or not, such matters are not at all important, all that is our important is that you are our guest, and that you should be comfortable."

I have never witnessed such humble hospitality.

We had dinner that night in another tent, and afterwards were free to place our mattresses where we liked to sleep under the sky. Our guide joked, "Tonight you stay at a 1 million star hotel." He could not have been more right. We were lucky enough to be there on a moonless night, and the starscape above was something beyond imagination. The sky was a scattering of fresh fallen snow on a carpet of black velvet . You could see our very own Milky Way Galaxy strewn out just above the horizon, but instead of a whitish haze you could see shapes and forms almost like clouds made of stars in the sky.

I barely slept that night, but spent most of it staring up at the sky and listening to the sound of quarreling desert foxes in the distance.

Chase This Light With Me

Today's blog title comes from a fairly recent Jimmy Eat World song, that you can check out here:

Jimmy Eat World - Chase This Light

So, one of the most important things for a photographer is light. The light can make or break a photo. Deserts have amazing light in the evening and early morning, and Wadi Rum is no exception. So with these photos from the desert and Petra, I invite you to chase this light with me…

Dawn's light on windswept desert floor in Wadi Rum

Mid-Afternoon sun on rock formations in Wadi Rum

Late evening light on wind carved sandstone

Photographer's shadow cast by sunset

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Wadi Rum

The canyon floor in Petra

Early morning riders in the Canyon of Petra

The narrow path leading to the temple known as "Al Siq"

The famous view of the temple through the canyon walls

Nabotean Temple of Petra

Praan

This photo is a still from one of the latest and greatest viral videos on the internet of some dude named Matt doing his little jig in seemingly every different country on the planet. He's even dancing in Wadi Rum! The famed desert of Lawrence of Arabia, and where Ketan and I travelled last weekend.

Check out the video here: www.wherethehellismatt.com (it will surely put a smile on your face)

I'm borrowing today's blog title from the song that plays during this video called Praan sung by Palbasha Siddique, a Bangladeshi born teenager from Minnesota who's become an overnight sensation (amazon.com top ten downloads). The song lyrics are from a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, and yes, it's sung in my native language, Bengali. The title Praan translates to "life."

You can download the song here: https://www.yousendit.com/download/TTdHRGx3TXZEa1ZjR0E9PQ

(if you like it, be sure to buy it on Amazon.com downloads to support a new artist!)

Our three day trip to explore neighboring Jordan really brought me back to life, by providing a much needed break from the office and the tiny island of Bahrain. Throughout our trip we were blown away by the hospitality and courtesy of the Jordanian people; whatever Jordan lacks in oil compared to Bahrain and Saudi, it makes up ten-fold in the warmth of its citizens. This was evident even with the ever-present airport taxi drivers trying to hustle a passenger-- upon being turned down would end each conversation with "Welcome to Jordan."

Our rental car was the biggest piece of shit I've ever seen. We had burned CDs for the long car rides awaiting us to find that the thing had only a tape deck. The car was reminiscent of a Yugo in size but drank gas like a Hummer. The one saving grace is that it was a manual transmission, which meant that I would have the chance to learn to drive stick!

What's that? Lame you say that I don't know how to drive stick? Well I do now, (sort of), and I ask how many of you learned how to drive stick while driving at night in a foreign country through a secure military zone? Ah yes, that brings me back to how nice the Jordanians are… the US armed forces are without doubt the greatest concentration of military might the world has ever seen, but I'm afraid to say that the Jordanians have us beat on pure politeness.

An impromptu trip to the Dead Sea late in the afternoon brought us to our destination in the dead of night. "No worries, we'll just find a spot to pull over and take a quick dip." We were eager to experience the salt filled water that makes you so buoyant that you float like a cork. With Islam's holy symbol, a crescent moon, floating on the horizon it seemed like an auspicious time to go float in the sliver of salty water that separates Jordan from Israel. We pulled over at the side of the road in a turnout, and were soon approached by a truck with its headlights right on us… out steps a middle aged man in full military uniform.

Ketan and I: [roll down the window of our car with a collective look of "oh shit" on our faces]

Military guy: Why have you stopped?

Ketan: "Oh we're just deciding where to go."

Military guy: "eh… you cannot stop here, this is a secure military zone."

Ketan and I: Profusely apologizing through gesture and words and saying, "Sorry sorry, we'll leave, we'll leave."

Military guy: "No…. It's ok… you can stay, but eh… just leave very soon, and welcome to Jordan!"

We thanked him and left immediately.

Like I said, these guys are the nicest military ever. Can you freaking imagine the converse of this situation??? Two Arab dudes pulling over in a secure military zone in the US not speaking a lick of English- they would be in Guantanamo Bay getting their balls shocked before you can say George W. Bush.

The encounters with armed Jordanian soldiers and police continued-- increasing in hilarity thanks to some grand miscommunication. At another checkpoint we were stopped by a Jordanian police officer, who was again very friendly…

Cop: "Something something something" [in Arabic]

Us: "Sorry, we only speak English"

Cop: "Ah, welcome to Jordan, passports please."

Us: [Hand over passports]

Cop: [looks at them and hands them back] "Uh… please… step out of the car."

Us: "God help us." [Ketan starts to unbuckle his seat belt.]

Now at this point Ketan is driving, so I'm thinking if they're going to pull him out of the car and do Lord knows what to him, I'd prefer to at least be outside so I can provide eye witness testimony. So I look over to the cop, and ask while gesturing to myself and outside, "Me too?" A look of great concern washes over the cop's face and he waves his hands frantically, "No no no! Paper of the car, Paper of the car!!"

Thank God. He wanted the insurance papers, but when we heard "paper of the car" we had collectively seen enough episodes of 24 to have heard in our minds, "step out of the car."

My favorite encounter was with a jovial young soldier holding an assault rifle with his buddies behind him manning a truck-mounted 50 caliber machine gun. This guy had to be one of the friendliest we encountered. He initially spoke to us in Arabic, then asked us where we were from, welcomed us to Jordan, laughed a bit, paused, and then said…

Soldier: "You must, uh… you must give me… the password."

Us: "Ahh, ha ha ha, yes, the password, of course, ha ha." *nudge nudge wink wink*

[The both of us are sort of nervously laughing and then Ketan in a fit of genius comes up with a password.]

He lookes at the guard and says, "Yes, the password, ok, uh… Insha'Allah." Now, I'm a bit nervous with joking around with any password that references God Almighty, but I say nothing and maintain a stupid looking grin on my face.

The guard looks plainly confused. He stares at us again, "Passports. Passports."

The man had said, "you must give me the passport," and Ketan had responded , "God willing!"

Luckily the man just took us for imbeciles and let us on our merry way.

Hey, sandy, Baby I got your Money Don’t you worry

Show me the money!!! I love Arab people!!!

Money here is the Bahraini Dinar (BD), and it’s broken into “fils” which I affectionately call “falafels.” I just have this great mental image of an old lady reaching into her purse to pull out a few fried garbanzo balls to pay for a newspaper.

Before flying out here, my company gave me a 100 falafel, ahem, fils coin for the pay phone. When I first got here, I tried to make a call and the phone ate my damn coin.

I withdrew some BD at the ATM and went promptly to the Dairy Queen to get change (yes the Dairy Queen establishment has a healthy presence in this kingdom). I handed over 2 BD to get two coins just in case.

The lady looks back annoyed, “We don’t have that much change.”

I’m thinking, “You’re a freaking Dairy Queen and you don’t have two 100 fils coins?

“Fine, just give me change for one,” and I took back one of the two bills.

She hands over TEN 100 fils coins, leaving me totally confused.

Given that I was expecting only one coin, and that I received 10, I figured there is only an upside to this, so I walked away with a pocketful of coins.

Soon thereafter, I realized that 1 Bahraini Dinar = 1,000 fils. Silly me, but I’ve never come across a currency that’s split to 1,000 instead of 100. If you do know of any others outside the middle east, please do share.

Now the sad part of this story is that after almost 7 weeks of working for this company, the 100 falafels I got for the phone call is the only salary I’ve received.

I was supposed to be paid monthly, but the efficiency of our esteemed accountant, not to mention the entire banking system here, is plainly suspect. The first time around they asked for only my routing and checking number. When I asked if they need a Swift code or other bank info, they said, “Oh no, we do this all of the time, this is all we need.”

Ten days later… transaction declined… AofA’s still yellin’ “Show me the money!”

I call back the accountant, this time provide him with all the bank info and tell him to try it again. I tell him to put it through right away, but he can’t. Our bank is Saudi, and Thursday Friday is their weekend, so the earliest he can do it is Saturday. Saturday Sunday are US banking holidays, and then the shit practically starts all over again.

“So when can expect the funds in my bank?”

“Don’t worry, you should have it next week, Insha’Allah.”

Ah!!! The holy, yet somewhat nefarious, “Insha’Allah!!!”

If you ever hear the word “Insha’Allah” in reference to a deadline, you might as well be waiting for the cows to come home. Insha’Allah literally means “God Willing,” and it can be used in a really nice warm spiritual sort of way. But my experience is that it is often used as a blanket excuse for people’s laziness and incompetence— passing the buck from personal ownership to a higher power. In my time here, I’ve heard “Insha’Allah” regarding the arrival of our rental car, our office cell phones, my paycheck, and Nishi’s visa. All overdue, but doubtfully because of Allah’s will.

Now my salary should be significantly more than the 100 fils for a phone call. My bank account next week should be credited with enough dinars to buy plenty of falafels, Insha’Allah.

Forget ODB, until I get paid, I’m OSB, “Ol’ Sandy Bastard.”