Like most people we were pretty shocked by the events in Israel on the 7th of October, although at first we didn’t really think much about the impact that it would have on our trip.
Two things changed that. Firstly, a policeman in Alexandria shot dead two Israeli tourists and their tour guide. Alexandria was part of our itinerary. Then there was a report by a BBC journalist travelling between Egypt and Amman in Jordan. There were five road blocks on that journey where there had been none only a month before.
In 1995 I had travelled under such conditions in Rwanda and Mozambique. It wasn’t pleasant when I was younger and backpacking, I certainly didn’t fancy it on this trip. We already knew from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office site that even before this, both Egypt and Jordan had areas that were ‘no-go’, but we still felt that we would be safe enough. Now, it could only get worse, not better. We both agreed that it was time to think of rerouting.
So, it was straight to India. When we sat down to reorganise things we realised that, as much as we had been looking forward to Egypt and Jordan, having that extra 7 weeks in India and South East Asia was going to make the trip so much more relaxed. There is never enough time but, seven weeks in each was going to be much better than four.
I did spare a thought for all those people in Jordan and Egypt that we’d booked accommodation with, all local people. Since we had used Booking dot com we were able to cancel most at no cost - to us that is.
I’m sure we could have left it as it was and still been safe enough, but it was hard to know then. Waiting to find out wasn’t an option and in the end we were happy with our decision.
Now it was time to get down to finalising China and get those visas before anything else.
