Travel Mexico and the World

Bus and rail travel through the Middle East?

Hi! I want to travel through Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, and Egypt early next year. Obviously I will arrive at one of those destinations by plane (from South America), but after than I want to travel by bus, boat, or rail where possible.

Boat will be your best bet. These countries do not share borders, but they are all on the Mediterranean. It would be extremely difficult to reach from Egypt to Lebanon by land because you will have to pass through Palestine, the entry point is Rafa7 and it's closed right now. Indefinitely. Another option is to go by sea to Aqaba in Jordan (much shorter sea trip) then from their go through Jordan longitudinally (passing by most of the major cities and even a good number of important towns) then from their to Damascus, then to Beirut; you can do that in one day and you would find public transportation but it would not be too comfortable. The only way to get to Israel by land is through Jordan and you will have to pass through the West Bank, but the trip is really short (at least for you because no one is going to delay you at immigration), you can get from Amman to Jerusalem in 2 hours time (including immigration – unless you were carried weapons or heroin of course).

From Lebanon to Turkey is much easier, but you will have to pass through Syria. I know that there is a bus service all the way to Ankara and Istanbul (a relative of mine has actually taken that rout) and the busses are quite comfortable, but the road is very long, you will need a whole day to reach to the Turkish border, then you have to travel across the Turos mountains and then Turkey is a very big country, Istanbul is waaaaay up North and Ankara, although in the Middle of the Anadhol, is still quite far.

Inside countries:

Egypt has a railway system, I think it's OK but don't expect anything like what you see in Europe. I would highly discourage you to take a bus, the bus systems there are over crowded and stink, take a taxi - he'll rip you off because you are a tourist and don't know the prices, but he's a better bet. You will probably find some very nice Nile cruses but they are designed for leisure not transportation.

In Egypt my advice is to stick to a tour guid or tour company. Although he people are very nice, it's almost impossible to find your way around unless you have lived there for a while, also, knowing Arabic is very important if you want to communicate with bus and taxi drivers.

You can travel through the whole of Lebanon by car in 2 hours, so you obviously don't need to worry about transportation there. The best mode of transportation is called a "service taxi" (you can find the same in Jordan and Syria), it's a small car that goes through a rout like a bus and you pay per passenger, but you don't have specified stops (except at the beginning and end), you just signal to it when you see it; if the car has a space vacant it stops for you, if not it’ll keep going, very comfortable especially that everything is so close to everything.

I don't know about Turkey, but they don't speak much English there either.

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Regarding the rout, I'd go either Turkey => boat => Lebanon => bus => Syria => bus or service taxi => Amman => bus or taxi => Jerusalem => have no idea how, but probably taxi => Tel Aviv => boat => Alexandria (Egypt) => Nile cruse all the way south to Luxor passing Cairo => plane => home.

Or the other way round (i.e. starting Egypt.)

If you entered Syria, I'd spend a couple of days there, at least one day in Damascus and one in Aleppo. If you are into Architecture you would find some unbelievable old buildings there. The centre of Aleppo and it's Citadel is a UNESCO world heritage site.

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