Amman Revisited and The Dead Sea, Jordan

We caught a bus to the airport to pick Kerri up from her Etihad flight from Dubai. Her baggage got lost between Melbourne and Amman so she arrived with just what she was wearing, a small day bag and a few necessities. This was probably due to a combination of a couple of things; the new check-in clerk at Auckland airport and the two hour delay of the flight taking off. She was being paged as she dashed to the boarding gate for her connecting flight.

After registering her loss at the Amman airport and getting a clerk's contact number we headed back to central Amman. She managed to get a few hours sleep on the Auckland to Melbourne leg and another 8 hours on the way to Dubai so she was pretty relaxed.
Downtown, Amman
The next day we visited the Roman ruins: the Nymphaeum (fountain), and the restored Amphitheatre. Later we climbed up to the citadel and Umayyad Palace ruins overlooking the city.
Kerri and the tourist policewoman at the amphitheatre.

The hotel was a easy place to meet people and share experiences. We met Mark from Capetown, South Africa and went out for a meal with him. Mark was keen to find somewhere to eat and have a beer but we had not found anywhere in downtown that served food and alcohol. When Mark asked a shop keeper if the place next to him sold beer he directed us down an alley to a small bar ( The Jordan Bar ) where we could buy a local beer called Petra and it was sold in half litre cans of either 8 or 10% alcohol.

Our American friend, Dan, arrived at the hotel and was put in the room next to us by the friendly staff at the hotel who knew we were expecting him. We met Dan in 1981 while backpacking in the Andes. His schedule happened to coincide with ours so we were able to meet up and travel a bit together.

There are not many nice places to eat in downtown. One restaurant had 3 floors, the first floor had the food set out in bainmaries including sheeps' heads floating in broth, the second floor was for men only and the top floor was for women and families. You could point to what you wanted and the waiter brought it up the two flights to your table or you could choose something from the menu. The photos of the dishes on the menu did not represent anything in the bainmaries and the translations didn't help describe what was in the dish.

Another restaurant we found had waiters in jackets and only an Arabic menu. The waiter offered the night's special and two other dishes: a lamb dish and a chicken dish. I once ordered the chicken dish and found it was too much to eat: half a roasted chicken, rice, and three piles of boiled vegetables. When I requested it the second time with only one vegetable and half of the half chicken I was told no, I had to have the whole dish. They serve other meals like sheep brains and stuffed intestines but only offer the tourists the most expensive dishes. It also had a pastry shop of sticky sweet baklavas.
Filo pastries with pistachios and sugar syrup

The hotel served breakfast in the lounge which was so handy: a boiled egg, triangles of spreadable cheese, jam and pita bread. After breakfast with Dan we shared a taxi to Petra with stops along the way.

The first stop was to look at a pile of rocks which the driver called 'lozz'. After some research we realized he was pointing out the pillar of salt that Lot's wife had turned into when she looked back at the city of Sodom.

The next stop was the Dead Sea. We had to pay to use the facilities at the Amman beach resort and to float in the sea.



John, Dan and Kerri relaxing.
By the time we left Amman' Kerri's bags had still not arrived so she had to swim in my pyjamas but enjoyed the float nevertheless. The salt dried out our skin in no time.

The next stop was at the Crusader fortress of Karak


and then at Shobak which had a secret escape tunnel.


The buildings are well camouflaged being made of the same materials as the surrounding area.

We had a good ride in the taxi and arrived at our hotel in Wadi Musa (Petra) in time to wash up and find somewhere for dinner with a beer.

Madaba, Jordan

We decided to leave the sights of Amman until Kerri arrived from NZ for 2 weeks with us, so we took a bus to Madaba, about an hour from Amman.

Nearly all the streets in the city centre hve been ripped up and new seal and paving is being laid. It will look spectacular when it is finished, but right now the sand blows everywhere and the grinders cutting the stone pavers are both dusty and noisy. The positive thing is that there are no cars any where!

Madaba is pretty laid back. The shop keepers give up hassling you after one attempt of 'Come and look'. There are several nice restaurants in the centre and we enjoyed the hotel where we stayed.

Madaba is nearer the airport than Amman so it is a good option for easing yourself into Jordan.

We visited the Roman ruins where there are several mosaic floors and an old road. They were discovered when a resident wanted to build on the site and it is now a museum and mosaic studio where you can have lessons if you want.

In the Greek Orthodox Church was a mosaic of map of the Holy Land. It was so full of tourists doing a bus tour we missed the ticket office and ticket collector.

We had to do some repairs to our portable water boiler that we had purchased in Syria and the local TV repairman was most obliging. He offered us mint tea while we waited and wouldn't take any payment for soldering the wires back on.

The people of Madaba were very friendly and everyone wishes you a 'Welcome to Jordan' as you pass them in the street.

These lads were sitting at the bus station when we left to go back to Amman. they had pigeons in their boxes and were trying to sell them to the bus passengers.

Jerash, Jordan

The hotels sell tours to many places around Amman but we decided to catch local transport for a fraction of the price and check out the Roman ruins at Jerash. It was built on a Neolithic settlement dating back 6,500 years.

Excavations have been going on here for 85 years and it is estimated that 90% is still not excavated. Around the 4th century, at the time of Alexander the Great, it possibly had a population of 20,000. The Persians invaded in 614 AD followed by the Muslim conquest in 636 AD. A series of earthquakes in 749 caused the settlement's decline. When the Crusaders came through they described it as uninhabited. The ruins were covered with sand over time and this helped preserve them until they were found in 1806 in quite good condition.
The oval forum
Some of the gates still exist as well as the colonnaded street with the original pavers where you can see the ruts caused by the Roman chariots. In the hippodrome they have revived the chariot races after 1500 years.

The amphitheatres have been restored and are used for annual festivals. Council meetings were held in the theatre and some of the seats still have the name of the tribes written in Greek characters on them. We were sung to by an Irish guy who was encouraged by his guide and the acoustics were great.

There are several temples and remains of a synagogue and several churches.
Mosaics
It was a 24 degree day and every girls' high school in the area decided to have a school trip on the day we chose to visit. Many of them sought us out to practise their few words of English and then giggle after being so brave. It became quite tiresome by the end of the day but great that they felt happy to talk to strangers.

We met this handsome couple at the theatre. He had previously worked for the tourist police at the complex and was showing his wife of one week around. He told us she was his cousin and that he had 5000 cousins, maybe he meant 500 but either way he has a lot of cousins!

Amman, Jordan

We took a taxi to the outskirts of Damascus and from the bus station there we took a servees (shared taxi). It was a new Korean car and we shared with a Jordanian Muslim lady who never spoke at all and a businessman from Iran who spoke some English. The driver was a young man who loved smoking and speeding; he wound the speedo up to 200kph while texting on his cellphone!

After the exit formalities at the border, the men visited the duty-free shop to buy packets of cigarettes. Once back in the car we were given cartons to carry for them through the Jordanian border controls. At customs, the car was driven over a pit and checked underneath. We had to open our backpacks and everything was taken out of the car. Every bus and its passengers were treated the same way so it was quite a long wait here.

After leaving the fertile fields of Syria we travelled through desert and rocky terrain. There were many rock crushing companies with lots of makeshift tent towns for the workers.

We were dropped at the servees station and were immediately taken over by locals touts who flagged a taxi down and got a 'buksheesh' from the driver, who in turn took it from us even though we had said we didn't want him to tip the guys. The driver didn't believe we had booked a hotel so followed us in to the reception hoping to get his own tip for introducing us to the hotel. It was not the best welcome to Jordan.

We had booked the hotel online and it was the highest rated place that had 3-bedrooms for the time we wanted. Once inside the 4 bedroom they gave us I saw that it was dusty and hadn't been swept for a long time. It was late and we decided that it would be Ok after a sweep. I hunted out the place and got a broom, moved all the beds and swept the walls, shelves and floor. In no time at all I had all the staff apologizing and trying to take over the cleaning. I decided that they had had their chance and had done a lousy job so I would continue while John went off to find another hotel for the next night. After 2 hours of cleaning, dusting the dirty windows and moping the floor, I turned on the fan to get rid of the dust in the air. By this time the manager was apologizing to John and offering us a discount. We had pre-booked 6 days in total to stay here.
The filth that embarrassed them!
After one night in the hotel, and an uncomfortable one at that because of the hard lumpy mattress we moved on to another place across the street. The manager wouldn't charge us for the night as he was still embarrassed. We did notice on leaving that the stairs and hallways had been swept and mopped so hopefully they were embarrassed enough to change their habits.

We explored some of the back streets of the city but didn't visit any sites as our daughter Kerri is arriving in a few days and we will do it with her then.

We sussed out some eating places and were surprised at how few nice places there were nearby.

We met a South African from Capetown, called Mark, and he managed to find a bar where they served local beer called Petra and at 8% alcohol, one was enough. Most places we have eaten do not serve alcohol so it was a rare find.

Downtown Amman is a busy place but not very pretty. The traffic is hectic and the drivers toot incessantly. The people greet you all the time with 'Welcome in Jordan' or 'What's your name?'. That makes a change from the usual 'Wherrre you frrrom?', with the 'r' trilled.

Amman was originally built on seven hill but now covers nineteen. The site of Amman has been continuously occupied since 3500BC. 'Rabbath Ammon' was the capital of the powerful Ammonites in biblical times. In 1900, there were only 2000 people living here and in 1921 King Abdullah made it the capital of Transjordan and today there are 1.8 million.

We have also met some very nice taxi drivers who have given us tips on places to catch buses and have been honest with using the meters.

It is 'high season' for tourists in Jordan and we see lots of tourists, with a lot of them being French.

Zahle, Lebanon

The city statue.

We caught a minivan (shared taxi) to Chtaura where we had planned to stay and explore more Roman ruins but found that there was no accommodation , other than a four star hotel out of town, so decided to go to the next city of Zahle instead.

What a contrast to anywhere else in Lebanon we have been. The city is built along the banks of a river with houses up the sides of the rocky mountains. The streets were sealed and the paths paved and everything was so clean and organised.

We learnt later that the city had 30 churches and no mosque. We saw very few veiled women and lots of young people driving up and down in their expensive cars talking on their cellphones at the same time. There were advertisements for cola and burbon lining the highways and lots of pubs and nightclubs. Most of these were closed as they open next month when the weather is warmer.

The main street was lined with clothing shops with names like 'Snob', "Flirt', and 'Coquette'. There were so many signs in English and even 'real' supermarkets.

There were the usual Catholic statues of Mary and small shrines on street corners or in parks. The city was the birth place for about 50 poets, writers and thinkers in the past.

We stayed in a hotel that was built in the 1800s and across the street were other buildings of the same age with the same French style of architecture. They had shutters and balconies overlooking the street. Many of the old buildings are being renovated and will give the town a French colonial feel when they are all completed.

We walked to the top of the town and found the open air restaurants that Zahle is famous for. They are jammed into a small space on either side of the river in a small valley and each one is trying to get noticed more than the other. They have playgounds to attract families and canopy-covered areas. None was open but the carpenters and painters were busy painting the canopy frames in bright colours and renovating the kitchens.

The area is also famous for its syrah wines that come from grapes used by the Romans. They also have a strong liquor called arak. We bought a bottle of wine and found a modern bakery selling ciabatta bread and French cheese to get into the European mood of the place.

Baalbek, Lebanon

We caught a minivan from under the motorway bridge in Beirut and headed back towards the border with Syria. We climbed up over the mountains that still had quite a bit of snow on them. At the summit the road was foggy and there were still piles of snow lining the road where the grader had been.

We came down from the hills into the Bekaa Valley and dropped people off at the towns in the valley. The slopes were covered with many small grape vines and fruit trees. An ancient grape grows well in this area and apparently makes good wine. We have not seen any shops that sell wine or, any alcohol for that matter.

We arrived late afternoon in Baalbek and found the first hotel we visited too cold and lacking any kind of heating. The wind was blowing off the snow on the hills above the city so it was important to find a warm place. Eventually we settled on a pension overlooking a narrow main street. It was spotless and had a heater in the middle of the room that had a flue which crossed from one side of the room to the other, over the top of the hanging lights, and out a hole in the wall where it bellowed the black diesel soot outside. The manager told us that he only had generator electricity from 6pm to 12am but the rest of the rest of the day he had mains electricity to heat the hot water. There was a huge lounge with a well decorated diesel heater too and a balcony that got the sun so we could wash and dry our clothes.

Baalbek is famous for its ruins and is another World Heritage site. It is also the home to Hezbollah (Party of God). The Phoenicians named the city Baal after the sun god. The Greeks called it Heliopolis, City of the Sun, and the Romans made it a worship place for their god Jupiter.
The ruins are quite grand. There are temples to Venus and Bacchus as well as a huge court, altars and baths. The entrance fee is expensive and although there are information boards on the site many of them have been damaged and are useless.

The museum, with a few relics, is underground and was freezing cold at this time of the year. Parts of the complex had been turned into a mosque as well. It was interesting to learn that many Roman structures took centuries to build so many were never completed and there are some pillars where the outline has been chiselled and the detail work was never finished.

Just out of the town is a huge spring where the Romans got water. It is now surrounded by vans decked out to sell coffee and hire out hubbly bubbly pipes. The spring is littered with plastic coffee cups and other rubbish that the goldfish swim around. Ducks have made nests on the Roman ruins in the centre of the pond too.

There is a beautifully tiled mosque at the entrance to the city. The handmade tiles have patterns as well as Arabic script on them.


We read that the town used to export ice to Egypt!

There is not a lot to do here but we have enjoyed being out of the bustling large cities and walk about looking at the locals as they carry on with their daily life. We have a backgammon set that our friend Gerti gave us for Christmas and John keeps beating me at that. We exchanged books at a hotel in Damascus and have been sitting in the sun doing some reading and genrally relaxing as the next month will be quite hectic when our daughter will join us.

We have just had news that John's mum, aged 95, has had a small stroke so we are keeping in touch with family who are taking care of her and letting us know how she is doing.

Saida, Lebanon

We headed back to the bus stop under the motorway and caught a small bus to Saida, a short journey from Beirut. Saida precedes Beirut with habitation as it was a prominent and wealthy Phoenician city 6000 years ago.

Just before we arrived in the town centre we passed many families sitting in the long grass, beside the road, having picnics. The men had their hubbly bubbly pipes out and the women were organising the food and children.

Near the city centre is a small island housing a 13th century sea castle founded by the Crusaders. The sea was polluted with styrafoam, old tyres, and thousands of black plastic bags. A strong wind was blowing and the rubbish bobbed on the surface near the sea wall. Coffee vendors tied huge canvas umbrellas to the handrails on the footpath to provide shelter and to entice customers but it was too cold and uncomfortable for that.



The caravanserai was deserted although it was well renovated and in good condition. Maybe it is full of stall holders in the peak season. The bazaar was well presented having been recently renovated. It was the cleanest and best organised one we have seen so far. We could see the furniture makers at work and no one pestered us to look or buy.



We found the Soap Museum that dated back to the 17th century. It has been financed by a foundation and they have a short film showing the processes and have kept the original workshop as it was. The soap is made with olive oil and a bar can take a year or longer to dry.

As we left Saida along the coast road we saw dozens and dozens of young people lining the street. They had their cars parked with music blaring and were watching boys on motorbikes racing up and down the public 4 lane highway around the commuter traffic. The police were nearby but didn't seem to do anything about the racing. The bikes had numbers so it was some kind of organised race. It reminded us of the 'boy racers' in our area, but they come out at night.