[kragen]

How did the sleeping with Bedouins thing work? Do you, like, walk into a coffee house in a Bedouin neighborhood and hope to meet someone who will invite you to stay at their house? Or is it more a meeting on the road kind of thing? Do the monasteries charge you hotel-room-like fees, or do you have to belong to their religion, or what?

[DifE-Q]

Well...there are no Bedouin neighborhoods. I am talking about Bedouin that are still Bedouin traveling around in the desert. So yes...meet them, befriend them...sleep the night and get fed. But sometimes you can stay a week or so and help work, etc. Let them know where you want to go and they will tell you how to get there..and hook you up with more contacts. Sometimes those are family that live in towns and you stay with them at their house. The monasteries and convents were about $10 to even 7$ a night in Syria and Jordan and included a clean room and a breakfast. Convents were generally about $5 more expensive and the women there were kind of mean.....so we went to the monasteries most often.

We did meet people on the road that helped us out too...but most of the time is was from walking around in the remote parts of a town or area and looking lost or walking up to a Bedouin tent.

[kragen]

Cool, that sounds wonderful! Did you speak Arabic before you got there?