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Raed Haddad

If you hire Raed Haddad to convey you through the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, be sure to bring a recording device.  You will be getting the equaivelnt of an honors' seminar in the history of the Arabian peninsula, and you won't want to miss a thing.  His knowledge on the subject is inexhaustible.  Whether narrating the rise and fall of the Nabaetan kingdom or unpacking the long-range effects of the Arab victory at the Yarmuk, he fills tourists with the dizzying sense that they are treading atop millennia of civilization.  Minus that perspective, a visit to the Holy Land is just a spell at Club Med with extra sand.


This isn't to say that Raed is a pedant or a know-it-all.  God forbid.  Personable, down-to-earth, sensitive to the limits of the occidental attention span, and above all fun, he's more like a scoutmaster with a long reading list and an uncanny memory.  To say that his English is perfect would do it a disservice.  Raed speaks exactly -- and I mean exactly -- like John Wayne.  Although that can be a bit jarring when he takes you to Wadi Rum, recognizable from David Lean's epic Lawrence of Arabia, the general effect is of getting an unexpected and welcome reminder of home.