Jordan

Wadi Rum – Petra – Karak – Amman – Madaba - Mt Nebo – Jeresh - Irbid

Hi all,


MORE THINGS ABOUT EGYPT

-Egypt has some good beer - Not surprising since they invented the stuff!. Their beers are Stella (not Stella Artois), and Sakkara.

-Egyptians like to offer you presents, then ask for money in return. It's a dishonest way of trying to sell you something. In fact I got fed up with the dishonesty of Egyptians who try to rip you off and charge outrageous prices. Heres a difference - When a Jordanian tells you an outrageous price, he is always joking - When an Egyptian tells you an outrageous price, they actually mean it!

-Although I never witnessed a belly dance, I did get to see a Sufi dance in Cairo, which consists of a person (usually a women) brightly dressed, with layers of coloured stiff cloth disks (usually 3 tied to their waist like a skirt. They would spin around in a circle non stop for almost an hour, leaving a whirl of colours to the sound of musicians playing their instruments. At certain periods in the dance, the Sufi dancer would loosen the topmost disk and spin it up over their body over their head, adding to the effect, before discarding it. The dance ends when all disks are removed. It is definitely something one must go see.


ARRIVAL IN AQABA

To get to Jordan from Egypt, I had to catch the slow ferry across the red sea from Nuweiba to Aqaba. On the way I talked to an Iraqi from Tikrit on holiday, who told me that with the war in Iraq, things are good and things are bad, but at least things are better than before. I suppose even though the reasons for going to war were suspicious and illegal, luckily for the US the result has come out in the positive. But does the end justify the means?

Anyway, getting a visa into Jordan was a bit odd. On the ferry we had to fill in a green form and hand it in with our card to the visa desk. The officer would then rip your card in two pieces and hand you one half back, telling you to pick up your passport at Aqaba port once we arrive.

Having an Australian passport is useful because while other nationalities got crosschecked and baggage searched, all I got was a smile, a "welcome to Jordan" and an automatic wave though!

So, having arrived in Aqaba (to which stands the largest flag I have ever seen, must be at least 20m wide on a flag pole the width of a small office building - probably just to make their point clear that this is Jordan?), I went to Wadi Rum.



BEING NURSED TO HEALTH BY BEDOUINS IN WADI RUM

Wadi Rum is a national park, a wilderness of desert sands with huge jebels AKA rock pillars and formations shaped by the sands, wind and water (when it was under water a billion so years ago), creating fantastic rock formations with ripples, bridges and mushroom shapes - narrow at the base and wide a the top. The colours of the sands and rocks would change colour throughout the day, turning from blue to yellow in the morning, to a soft orange to red at sunset.

It was unfortunate that during my visit I had come down with a nasty stomach bug called Giardiasis. It was also unfortunate that it had reached it's worst when I was 7km away from camp after walking down to check out a beautiful canyon. Luckily there was a Bedouin tent nearby. I quickly made my way up to the tent to find a couple Bedouins, and asked them if they could take me by their jeep to the medical center nearby.

I was taken to the medical center, which was shut as the doctor had decided to go for a walk. So after a bit of driving around the streets we finally found him sitting in a shop talking with the owner.

The doctor was a gentle old man, with a deep slow voice and looked like Count Dooku from Star Wars Attack of the Clones (forgive my movie reference). After administering me a can of 7UP (good for the stomach he said), we drove down together to the medical center where he gave me an injection (for my fever), rehydration tablets and a prescription.

The driver of the Jeep, who was a local Bedouin called Eid, offered that I stay with him and his family for a few days to recover after seeing the doctor. I gratefully accepted.

The Jordan government provides free education and housing for the Bedouins, though not all accept it, preferring their old ways. Some however, such as Eid, amalgamate both. Eid has a house but with a large Bedouin tent of goat hair and plastic lining for reinforcement in the front yard. Here the family congregate around a campfire talking and relaxing - they use the houses mainly to sleep and store equipment. Upon arrival I was directed to the left inside the entrance - this area being the traditional guest area, where I had luckily read up on and knew that I could not venture into the other family or womens areas of the tent. Not that I had plans to, as I was quite happy to stay in bed recovering, while the family (30 in all) went about their normal life around me, tending the goats, going to school, talking and watching cable TV. I enjoyed my stay there talking to the kids, teaching each other English and arabic and showing them origami. My prescription (and money) I had given to a minibus driver to pick up for me in Aqaba, which I received later that day. It's such a nice contrast being among friendly hospitable people after the hassling in Egypt! The only annoying thing was sleeping outside where mosquitos would swam like war planes above me, seeking out and dive bombing into exposed areas of my body when I was asleep.

I was soon strong enough to leave. So I sadly farewelled my Bedouin family and left for Petra...


PETRA - A CITY CARVED INTO A VALLEY

Petra is an amazing place. A whole city carved into the valley walls of pink, purple, black, white and yellow stone, with heaps of amazing views and walking trails around the valleys and mountains. Entering via a long narrow canyon, you emerge into the famous Treasury - a temple with it's pillars, pediments, ornaments all carved from the pink cliff face. People might recognise it as the Temple of the Holy Grail from the movie "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". Continuing along, huge royal tombs follow into the valley, also carved into the cliff faces, as well as houses and shops, all leading up a mountain to the monastery at the top (which is also carved in the rock) amongst spectacular views. As the day goes on the sun continually changes the colour and the effect of the stone city, which makes it look different every time you walk past the same place.

It was amusing having good humoured vendors walking by you pointing to their donkeys (or camels or horses) and yelling out "taxi?"

Stayed at a hotel called Cleo..(sigh)..PETRA (yeah I know such a tacky name), with a Swedish guy called Jacob who I’m travelling through Jordan with. Nice guy but I’m feeling a little uncomfortable about it because I’m not used to travelling with someone else and compromising all the time. But it does make things cheaper, since we both pay less for a double room than a single each, and can also share costs of taxis etc...


KARAK - A CRUSADER CASTLE

Next stop was Karak, which was a bit of an adventure to get to. We caught a service taxi to a town near Karak (as public transport is minimal in Jordan), where we were told we could catch a bus the rest of the way to our destination. Where we were dropped off was actually in the middle of the desert along the highway near a turnoff to Karak. We were told to hail any bus (or in fact any vehicle) that came that way which would offer to drive us to Karak. In other words we found ourselves unexpectedly hitching. We finally found a van that would transport us (and two police officers who were also hitching) and we made it to Karak.

Karak is a crusader desert castle nestled 900m above sea level. It boasts spectacular views, and also contains many dark rooms and tunnels, mostly underground, which you can explore with a flashlight. It became more interesting when a sandstorm covered the sky with a yellow haze which blocked the sun and bathed everything in an yellow hue, which made everything eerie and quiet, and changed any ordinary and mundane thing like the falling of leaves into a mysterious and alien experience.


AMMAN - CAPITAL OF JORDAN

The problem with buses in Jordan is that there is no fixed time for buses to leave and arrive. They will leave once the bus is completely full. Because we did not know this beforehand, we ended up waiting on the bus for 2 hours before it finally left the bus station at Karak to get to Amman (which only took 1 hour)!

Anyway, Amman is the capital of Jordan, a spread out heaving mass of dusty concrete blocks upon 7 hills. There are actually two sides to Amman: The central downtown poorer conservative Islamic areas, and the more affluent modern liberal areas where a plethora of chic European bars, cafes, clubs abound; where girls don't wear the traditional head coverings and veils.

Amman (and in fact most cities in Jordan) have pictures of their royal family members plastered all over the city walls and hanging in peoples homes and cafes. it seems the people of Jordan are proud of their royal family. Could you imagine people in England hanging pictures of Charles and Camilla* in their homes?

*Interesting thought: the sound of the name "Camilla" sounds like the arabic word for "beautiful"!!


MADABA AND MT NEBO

Did a day trip to Madaba, which has some pretty spectacular mosaics, the most famous being a map of the whole holy land, spread out on the floor of one of the churches.

Also went to Mt Nebo, which is the mountain that Moses is said to have looked over at the promised land (Israel), and also died on (though no grave exists). The views from Mt Nebo of Israel is stunning as you can see the whole Jordan valley, dead sea and beyond into the lands of Israel. Moses must have been impressed.


JERESH
Jeresh is a remarkable place. an astonishingly well preserved photogenic roman ruin, with a colonnade of columns scattered all over the place, many still standing, to enclose a large forum in the shape of an oval; huge temples dedicated to various gods still imposing themselves over the town; and the best persevered amphitheatre I’ve ever seen...


SYRIA OR ISRAEL?
I'm currently staying in Irbid, which is Jordan’s second largest city and a heaving university town. This town is near the border crossings to both Syria and Israel. What I hope to do tomorrow is cross into the border of Syria, applying for my visa there. Although I have no recommendation letter or prearranged visas, I've been told my chances are dependant on the moods of the border guards, who might be nice enough to let me in anyway.
But, failing that, I will simply go into Israel instead. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow...