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!
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