'Doing' Jordan part 2

Sorry about the delay folks - I've been busy with teaching. Anyways, here's part two of my adventures in Jordan.

Karak

After two nights in Petra I caught a bus north to Karak. Karak is a pleasant enough little town, sitting atop a hill which holds a commanding position over Wadi Araba. For millenia this hill has been the site of fortifications and the most recent occupant is a large castle built by the Crusaders.


I had a nice evening here - I was even offered a job teaching English by a couple of teachers whom I got talking to in the town centre (most notable for it's statue of Salah ad-Din).

The castle itself is fairly impressive, commanding the surrounding countryside of rolling green hills. However, Syria is not exactly short of Medieval fortresses itself, and compared to Krak des Chevaliers or Aleppo Citadel, Karak failed to excite me.


Madaba
The following day I was again confronted with how rubbish Jordan's public transport is. To travel through the, by all accounts absolutely stunning, countryside to the north I would either have had to hire a taxi (expensive) or hitch-hike (risky). Therefore I caught a bus north to Amman before getting a connection southwards to Madaba. On the bus to Madaba I met a nice bunch of Egyptian lads - immigrant workers from the Delta area lured to Jordan by the higher wages. In fact, Jordan has considerable numbers of Egyptian manual workers and labourers. We spent an evening bonding over nargileh and coffee.


The following day I checked out the things that Madaba is famous for - mosaics.

Many of the churches here retain Byzantine era-masterpieces depicting saints, everyday life, and, most famously of all, a Map of the Middle East. I do like mosaics, and these were made by master craftsmen, but I must admit that after a while they began to lost interest for me.
Also, just outside Madaba is Jebel Nebo, the place where Moses is said to have seen the Promised Land and where he died (although no grave has ever been found). The day I was there visibility was not good, so the spires of Jerusalem were not visible. Nevertheless the countryside which was visible was stunning.

All this Christianity began to get to me by the afternoon, so I caught a bus back to the dubious delights of Jordan's capital, Amman.

Amman

A friend described Amman to me as basically a dump and, I'm afraid to say, that he wasn't wrong. It's mushroomed over the course of the second half of the 20th Century, from a small town to a sprawling metropolis of 2 million people. It's dominated by large roads and, aside from a small area Downtown, is dominated by the car... There is no charming Old City - although the few remaining markers of the Roman-era city of Philadelphia do provide a nice contrast to the rather bland concrete of the modern city.

Mind you i had anything but a bland time whilst I was there - I met some crazy people and was inadvertently introduced to some of the seedier places in the city. When I wasn't fighting off the amorous advances of Syrian masseuses or being bemused by the Jordanian equivalent of Soho I was basically chilling out, eating foul (beans), smoking nargileh and hanging out a friend's Downtown stall (which sold all manner of things - from tacky keyrings to nunchukas and everything inbetween!)

Jerash/Irbid
After several days there I felt like I had exhausted all that Amman had to offer. I headed north to accept the invitation of an acquaintance I had made on the road to stay with his family. Therefore i spent my last few days in Jordan taking in the country air around Jerash. What a jolly nice time I had there...

...But boy was it great to get back to Damascus!

Our Man in Damascus - Interview with American Expat

This morning I stumbled upon this thoughtful interview with Damascus-based American photographer Daniel Demeter. Aside from the failure to draw a clear distinction between tourists (those passing through for 7 days-2 weeks) and the many foreigners who stay in Syria for extended periods (to work, to study, to hang out), I think it is well worth your attention because it covers a lot of ground. He gives voice to the mixture of love and respect for Syria mixed with criticism of certain political and social practices which pretty much the whole foreign community here has... Plus his photos are great!

'Doing Jordan' part 1

I have spent the last two weeks visiting Jordan - and what an amazing time I have had. Apart from visiting all the main attractions (detailed below), I leave Jordan having made many new friends, had several (mis-)adventures, spoken a lot of Arabic and generally recharging my batteries after a gruelling couple of weeks trudging around the Damascus property market.

Here is part one of the highlights of what I got up to:

Aqaba

I arrived in Amman, Jordan's capital, on a Friday evening but didn't really have too much time to develop any impressions of the place because the following afternoon my friend Dan and I jetted off down to Aqaba. Aqaba is Jordan's only port located at the end of the cunningly named Gulf of Aqaba and is aptly described as the country's aquatic playground. Dan was going there for some peace and tranquility in order to get a lot of work done whilst for me the prospect of seafood, swimming and sunbathing for a day or two was irresistible.

Temperatures were high - in the mid-30s during the middle of the afternoon, and the Red Sea is truly spectacular, with some wonderful coral reefs and colourful sealife. There is also a fairly small fort made famous by T.E. Lawrence's account of it's capture during the Arab Revolt in 1917. I don't have too much of interest to report except to say that I washed the Damascene dust from my pores and got into a relaxed state of mind ready for my solo travels.


Wadi Rum

After two nights in Aqaba I set off north into the desert. Not being part of an organised tour group meant that I was at the mercy of Jordan's less than completely efficient system of public transport. Consequently I was dropped off by my bus at the road intersection some 20km from the village of Rum and had to walk for 45 mins in the blistering mid-afternoon heat before a friendly driver picked me up and drove me the remaining 17km to the Wadi Rum visitor centre.

Quite simply this place is the location of some of the most extraordinary desert scenary you will ever see. Think a John Ford Western meets Lawrence of Arabia. What made it particularly special was the fact that I stayed in a camp with one Bedouin man, a friend of a friend, called Mohammad (Abu Ra'ad), and aside from a passing range rover containing one English and one Polish couple with their Bedouin guide, I never saw another soul. After the constant noise of Damascus, and the heady seaside resort vibe of Aqaba the complete silence of this awesome landscape was very powerful. I climbed some of hills, sat and watched the sunset and sunrise and marvelled at the desolute beauty of this place (and it's life - even in this most unforgiving of environments there were many yellow, white and blue spring flowers growing up between rocks and through the sand where the water-table was high).

Wadi Musa / Petra

After one night in Wadi Rum it was time to move onto my next port of call. Once again I found myself ill-served by Jordan's bus system and stood alone by the side of a dusty road trying to get one of the few passing cars to take pity on me. I waited for maybe half an hour before I secured a ride to Wadi Musa - the village that sits next to Jordan's premier tourist attraction, the Nabatean city of Petra.

What a contrast to the stately, silent beauty of Wadi Rum (or to the big attractions of Syria, such as Palmyra and Krak des Chevaliers, which, at best, see a couple of dozen visitors a day). Petra was absolutely packed with foreigners! Thousands pass through the gates of the 'Rose City' every day -many in large tour groups. However the big crowds and the attendant begging children and trinket sellers are unable to detract from the wonders of this mysterious, enchanting place. Besides, the crowds tend to stick to a tried and tested route and the site is large enough to make it possible to slip off the beaten track and enjoy Petra's charms in relative peace. For example, large crowds gather at the Treasury (made famous as the final resting place of the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), but very few make the effort to hike up the hill overlooking it to get some wonderful views:

I also enjoyed sitting and talking with some of the Bedouin who come to the site to try to sell cheap jewellery, "old" coins and other tat to the tourists but who are still happy to offer tea and a chat (though some have begun to cynically demand money from foreigners for this seemingly hospitable gesture so beware - I was caught out once during my two days on the site).

Jebel Haroun

On my second day in Petra I decided to hike up to Jebel Haroun. It's 10km from where I was staying so, to stand a chance of getting there before the midday Sun made walking too uncomfortable I left shortly after Fajr (sunrise). Jebel Haroun is the reddish mountain on the left hand side of the picture above. At the summit is the tomb of Prophet Haroun (Aaron - Moses' brother), which is a white-domed building that is visible from miles around, reflecting the light of the Sun as shining out in contrast to the red-brown mountains around it.

I soon left the tourist trail behind me and passed through a couple of Bedouin villages where I stopped to chat, drink a tea and check the way. I only lost the trail when I was trekking up the lower slopes of the Jebel itself and had a difficult hour of basically rock-climbing up a steep dry wadi before I refound the trail and made it to the summit at around 11:30 (five hours after I'd set out).
Boy, was it worth it mash'Allah! The views are absoultely stunning, you can clearly see the impressive Monastery of Petra, and also look out upon Wadi Araba and the Dead Sea - part of the northern part of the Great Rift Valley which runs up from East Africa to Turkey. I stayed on top of the shrine for several hours marvelling at the views, meditating, and recuperating some energy for the descent.
On the way back I stumbled upon the base of a couple of 'special' plainsclothes and armed policemen whom I befriended for a couple of hours. They spend 7 consecutive days in a place without electricity and with limited contact with the outside world so I think they were grateful for some company - and also the chance to make use of my mobile phone battery so they could call their girlfriends and family. I also met a Bedouin boy with a donkey and I couldn't resist the urge to pose with my new friend Zuzu... This boy showed me the (much easier) route I should have taken on the way up. After a couple of hours I made it back to Wadi Musa, exhausted but exhilarated and pleased that I'd made the effort to see something that only a tiny fraction of the many thousands who come to Petra have seen. My time in Petra was absolutely unforgettable and was rounded off with a special screening in my hotel of... you guessed it... Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!