We woke around 9am because what we thought to be a tent and later suspected to be an ice box turned out to be an oven. Nice how that works, aye? We were ready for the day's events by 10am and began our quest for food. Ok, it wasn't really a quest as the village is quite small and the restaurant we ended up at was quite close and plainly marked. I'm just trying to make your reading more enjoyable, a little leeway would be appreciated ;o) The thing to do in Wadi Rum, unless you're a glutton for physical abuse, is to get some bedowin dude in a truck to drive your lazy tourist butt around the desert for some predetermined amount of time to some predetermined places for a government set price. What we did was hook up with a couple of friendly US peacecorps chicks (err, broads, whatever) to split a safari to everything interesting for a price negotiated to be substantially lower than the government set price -- pretty cool, aye? We thought so :o) Turns out we saw:
I got pics of all of it which I'm sure made the Jordanian economists happy. I feel that I'm doing my part to make the world a better place ;o)
- a spring (ok, it's a phenomenon that really impresses the desert folks -- woo-freakin-hoo)
- this canyon (right, really big crack in a really big rock *yawn*)
- a small (natural) stone bridge that we simply had to climb up on (this would be me in tourist mode)
- a really cool white spot on the side of a cliff (this wasn't a scheduled point on the trip, and the bedowin didn't even notice it, but we made him stop so we could all look at the thing)
- a large (natural) stone bridge (couldn't climb on this one, but it was kinda impressive)
- had some tea in the shadow of a massive rock (one side of the stone bridge)
- Lawrence of Arabia's house (not much to look at now, but I'm sure in its day it was a, ummm, stone shack)
- some camel drawings on a rock face that were probably done by a 5 year old on a step ladder the day before
- a red sand dune (right, more sand, different color -- whatever)
- and finally the sunset from the "sunset spot" -- oooh, ahhh. Y'all ever seen the sunset in the desert?? The thing that usually makes a sunset cool is like clouds or smaug or something. This is the desert. The thing just smacked into the sand and then it got cold. The "sunset spot" was just a big hillside that you could climb on while waiting for the sun to do its thing. okie dokie.
We got back to the village by 6pm for a nice dinner for a mere 3JD (ok, enough cinicism, it was actually quite tasty). I didn't get any more sunburned than I was before, and the showers were great. Lau and I decided to keep up our Dahab tradition and get in a couple games of backgammon (I think I almost won one of three -- I really hate that guy ;oP). The peacecorps chicks came by and we sat around playing asshole until around midnight -- I did much better than at backgammon. So midnight in the desert, what else to do but head back to the small canvas tent, relax with my pal John Lee Hooker singin' sweetly, and get some shut-eye.
My alarm went off at 6:30. This would normally upset me but it's my own fault for setting it. I actually was awake and moving by 7am, not too bad considering just days ago I slept from 7am to 7pm. Lau and I grabbed some falafel to go and caught a 3JD bus to Petra at 8am. We arrived at Wadi Musa around 10am and checked into the Qaser AL=Bent Hotel where a nice double room (bathroom in the room!) only cost us 5JD (total). Wadi Musa is the little town above Petra -- everyone says they're going to Petra when they're actually going to Wadi Musa). It's a Desert/Mountain town that's built in a canyon. That is, it starts at the top of the canyon and continues all the way down the canyon in a stepped fashion. There is actually grass and some trees growing in places, it reminds me alot of Gleed, WA (yes, I realize that maybe 1 or 2 of you know where or even what Gleed is, but I felt good about the reference). Anyhoo, the hotel is an easy 10 minute walk to Petra and a hellish 20 min walk from Petra. Take a taxi back, really, it's only 1/2JD each ya cheap bastige!
We stowed our luggage, stopped by the store to buy stuff for a sack lunch, and arrived at the gates of Petra at 11:00. The entrance is (per person) 20JD for 1 day, 25JD for 2 days and 30JD for 3 days. If you want more than 3 days I think you will be committed. We opted for the 2 day tickets and felt (in retrospect) that that was exactly the right thing to do. Ok, I'm sitting here trying to figure out how I can do this place justice. It's awesome to say the least. The whole thing is a desert canyon of immense proportions. You enter through the Siq which is simply a massive 1.2km long canyon that dumps you out at the treasury building. The treasury is the most famous monument in Petra. You've undoubtedly seen it (if not then rent Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and skip to the end) so I won't even try to describe it. All I can say is ummm, heh heh heh heh, that's cool. We decided that the next order of business would be to see the Monestry, good call that, although it did take us a good couple hours to climb first down then up to it. Actually that's the story at Petra. All of the tombs and monuments will knock your socks off, but the climb will kick your butt.
We ate lunch up at the Monestry to drink in the view. There was this italian tourist guy up at the monestery playing the theme from The Godfather on a leaf from one of the trees found there that was simply amazing -- everyone actually applauded :o)
Right, back to the rocks and stuff... We met another peacecorps chick on our way down from the Monestry that we had seen the day before in Wadi Rum. She said that the High Place of Sacrifice was not to be missed and had some stairs that "weren't as bad as those to the Monestry" -- yeah, right. Lau and I figured it'd be a good next target so we headed off that direction (it would be around 3pm). We actually missed the turn (they haven't discovered the technology to make signs yet) and accidentally saw the Snake Monument first, which was pretty danged cool in and of itself. After that we found the right path and began our ascent. This is a trek folks. I'm talkin lots of stairs, BIG stairs. Then, when you finally arrive at the top you have a spectacular view... of the stairs down the other side. Dear lord. We made it back to the Treasury by 6pm -- closing time. Only a short 30 min walk back up the Siq to the gate. It actually turned out quite nicely as we saw the nearly full moon against the clear night sky between the walls of the Siq -- it was quite impressive. Another upside was that from about 3pm on we saw only a few people.I should probably note that we were physically exhausted, whiped out, beat, pick a word. We caught a taxi up and couldn't thank the driver enough. The shower in our room was less than awesome but still amazing at the same time. We drug our poor tired old arses down the block to an all-you-can-shove-down-your-cake-hole buffet that was surprisingly good. I stepped up to the challenge and personally ate all I could. From the moans I could tell that Lau also strove for a personal best. The manager of our hotel showed up at the buffet and made some offhand remark like "oh, american, charge him 20JD then" -- I found it offensive which set the tone for a nice chat after supper. About half an hour later we had relaxed enough to actually talk about things and ended on very good terms. Turns out he grew up bedowin and has become westernized. He still says he's bedowin, but by his own definition (which I am irritated to say that I did not write down) he's not. "Bedowin" means that you live by very simple principles in very close relation to the land and your environment. This man simply did not fit that description. Enough of that though, all in all it was a good day :oP
Sunburn update: I began peeling today only in the parts that were actually blistered. It's the nice sort of peeling though, the kind that comes off in nice big pieces -- I was entertained ;oP
Wow! A real bed with sheets and everything! Ok, only a bottom sheet, but still... And the bathroom is actually in our room! Woohoo, welcome back to the world :oD
The bed was overrated. I woke at 3am and again at 4am (I swear I heard it raining). I listened to music until around 5am when I fell asleep again. I almost broke out the sleeping bag. Finally woke at 9:30 enough to find the snooze button on my alarm clock. It's more humid here as the socks I washed the night before weren't yet dry. We had the same intense sun but it's fairly windy with scattered clouds. After seeing most of Petra the day before we decided to find the Crusader Fort and explore that last corner of Petra. Let me just say that they could be a bit more specific about where this friggin thing is and how the hell to get there. We hiked for hours and hours and finally found the fort at 5:30pm. It worked out well as we caught a spectacular sunset (there were some gnarly looking clouds by that time) and saw much more of Petra than I'm sure most tourists ever see. For the record we weren't lost. Sure, we didn't know where we were, how to get where we wanted to go, or how to get back to a place that we recognized, but we were exploring -- if we knew where we were the whole time then it wouldn't be any fun! We saw 12 goat corpses (only skin and bones left, way past the rotting stage), 2 brown lizards, and a grasshopper. 3 Aussies and a Kiwi joined us in our search at two different points during the day and we all finally found the fort.
Two days was perfect for us. We saw all of Petra and had a great time. Both days we nearly fell over with exhaustion which means we timed it just right. Excellent, excellent, excellent. If you are able then you simply must do it. If you're not able then you must work to become able so that you can see it. It's simply something to behold. It's really big, really cool, and all the rocks are really old!
We walked a couple km back to the bottom of the hill where we caught a taxi back to the hotel. Then a shower (better tonight), and on to the buffet where we met an english bloke named Jez, from Birmingham. Pretty nice guy so we invited him to tag along for sheesha afterwards. He's also headed to Amman so you'll see his name pop up in the next two entries -- how exciting! :o)
Sunburn update: Peeling more now. All of the places that weren't peeling yesterday are peeling in full force today, only just the flakey annoying kind. It's so fun being me...
I did a couple of tarot spreads for grins with Lau. We mostly kicked back, talked, and listened to music. I decided to forget the danged bed. I slept in my sleeping bag and gave the friggin blankets to Lau.
Whoa! My sleeping bag is way too powerful for this room. I woke in an incredible sweat and had to unzip the thing to recover. Sheesh, I guess I'm going to have to work at sleeping in a proper room again. The alarm went off at 9am, we became conscious and mobile at around 9:40. No worries, the bus for Amman doesn't leave 'til some time after 11am. We packed, hit the stores for some fruit and bread and then headed off to the bus. The "bus station" is simply the round about in the center of town. You stand out there with the other folks that want to get on the bus and hope that there's room for your body amongst theirs. We got lucky and caught a bus packed with locals. Seats actually opened up for us within 20km which was nice. The roads in Jordan are very nice, and the farther north you go the more green you notice -- as one would expect. The area around Amman looks like the high desert surrounding Yakima, WA, only flatter. I must say that I truly hate that type of landscape -- just rock and scrub broken up by square green patches -- ewww :o( Anyway, we got to Amman around 2pm. It's quite the modern city (yes, there's smaug). Very hilly, fairly clean, and much nicer than Cairo. The people are extremely friendly, and it's not actually that expensive (ok, more expensive than Egypt, but still fairly inexpensive). On recomendation of the hotel in Petra we landed at the Venicia Hotel. For the same 5JD (total for a double) price, it's clean and has fairly good showers, although it's not as nice as what we had in Petra.
As it was only about 3pm by the time we settled in we decided to walk around a see the sights. We found a shwarma vendor that served up edible, though not delicious, sandwiches, and a sweet shop that had some tasty pastries. Then, quite by accident, we happened upon the Roman Amphitheatre. An old man there ended up talking us three (Jez, Lau and I) in to a 30 min tour for 1JD each. It was actually quite the nice tour. The acoustics are amazing in that place. There's a spot where you can stand and speak softly that sounds like you are talking into an ultra-modern sound system. Incredible. After that we hit McDonalds for fries and a coffee (bad coffee is better than no coffee), bought some beer at the local bottle shop, and stepped into a pet shop to see a couple baboon lookin critters (they had square snouts and red butts so we guessed baboons). Back at the common room in the hotel we sat around with Jez, Lau, Me, an argentenian chick, a kiwi dude, and a guy named Mario from Brazil and devoured our beer. The conversation was good and the beer wasn't egyptian -- what more could you ask for? :o) We made plans to go with Mario to the Dead Sea in the morning as Jez had an early flight back to his life. With a 9:30 wakeup call sleep found us by 1am.
Sunburn update: Ok, it's not fun anymore. Still losing flesh bit by bit and it's getting old.
We woke at some time and met Mario around 9:30. The plan was to walk down to catch the local bus which would take us to the Dead Sea for about 0.6JD. It was a good plan. The walk was longer than we anticipated, but not too bad. The directions were less than stellar but as we kept asking folks we honed in on our destination. The most time consuming part was that we were hungry and also needed to buy food for lunch so we stopped in every shop that looked like it had food of sorts. I was hoping for a QFC but it didn't materialize. Anyway, the bus ride there was fairly uneventful and lasted about 1 hour, placing us there around 12:30 to pay our 2.5JD entrance fee. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth at about 350m below sea level. When you're in the sea your skin feels slick, almost slimy, and you are incredibly buoyant. I think all water should be like that. People say you can't swim in it but I found that I could swim just fine. I put just the tip of my finger on my tongue and there was so much salt in the water that it actually burned. After getting out you dry off very fast and salt crystals form on your skin. There is this black clay found at the sea that is supposed to be very good for your skin. Having bad skin at the time I was thinking this to be a good thing and went in search of this mud. Some locals wanted to sell us some but I couldn't bring myself to buy mud that they were just scooping up, so a local named Feras helped us get some the old fashioned way (that would be by scooping it out of the ground like when you were a kid). As the mud dries it really tightens your skin up, which turned out to be an odd sensation. Afterwards Feras was kind enough to guide us to a nearby spring that had relatively low salt and was pretty warm. We still felt the need to step into the cold shower and rinse off before dressing for the ride home. We caught the 3pm bus to Amman with Feras and had quite the good ride back with the locals. Jordanians are the friendliest people I've met so far. The ride went quickly and we grabbed some very good falafel sandwiches on our way back for yet another shower. The water this time was still not hot, but it had no salt in it which my skin was thankful for. After lazing around a bit I then headed to the internet cafe which brings me to where I am now. I've taken way too long here at 1JD per hour. I think the tales of Wadi Rum and Petra got a bit long winded. I'll have to either learn to type faster or use less words :o) Off to bed for me now.
Sunburn update: Jez had heard a theory that the fumes given off by the Dead Sea (forming kind of a haze over the sea) block UV rays so folks don't burn there -- he was wrong. Also, salt drys your skin incredibly. All of my new skin is re-burned (but not so bad as before), and the old burned skin looks worse than before. The sun is not my friend. I'm thinking a nice warm bath with some natural oil in it would be nice. In fact, why don't all y'all take one of those. If I had the opportunity that's where I'd be. What, no time?? Please. What could be so important? Make it hot, light some candles, drop in some nice music and just chill in the dark. I'll stop writing now so you can be on your way. :o)
Sunburn update: It's getting quite boring now, just flesh falling off my body. I'll stop talking about it except possibly to note when it's all over and done with. Sorry we both had to endure it ;o)
Beautiful day! About 62 degrees (farenheit that is), overcast, dripping a bit off and on, just like Seattle ;o) We woke around 10:30 and were actually out by noon. I decided it was time to scrape off the Egyptian dust and become somewhat socially acceptable again (ok, ok, work with me here folks ;o) so I gathered everything but my backup clothes (you know, the last ditch junk that you don't like to wear but keep around for laundry day) and chuck it all to the laundry dudes. That includes my coat, hat, towel, everything. The cost was actually 6.300JD but their math wasn't what it should be so it only cost me 5.300JD (that's like US$7.50 or so, not too bad). The ETR (Estimated Time of Retrieval) is 7:00 -- cool. I decided to hunt around for a Lonely Planet: Israel -- the best handbook for a backpacker headed to Israel. During our search Lau and I stopped into a miriad of shops and came up empty. We did find a nice stationary store and spent slightly longer than you might think "pen shopping" -- a good pen is hard to find! We both settled on the same brand of pen, but he went with the 0.5mm and I with the 0.7mm (ooh, it writes soooo nicely) -- the cost? a mere 0.600JD :o) We also bumped into that nice Irish couple from Dahab. Ok, I realize you have no idea what nice Irish couple that is, but I do and they're nice so that's really all that matters, isn't it? We chatted with them for a bit and gleaned some info on one of the best restaurants I've ever had the pleasure of frequenting (more on that place in a bit). Our stroll gave us the opportunity to get a feel for Amman, and that feeling, I must say, was warm and fuzzy :o) The people here are the most genuinely frienly of any I've met thus far. The quality of goods and services are extremely good, and the prices are more than reasonable. One shop that was of particular interest was one that we thought initially to be a gun shop. It turns out that the place had guns of all varieties (complete with ammunition and accessories) in the front, telescopes and general sporting accessories a bit further in, some shoes outdoor clothes beyond that, then a nice variety of atheletic supplies, and finally ending with children's toys. We thought it not only an odd assortment of goods but an unusual order to put them in (begin with guns, end with kiddie toys). Other impressions were that the clothing was not only cheap (about 20% of US prices) but of a superior quality -- too bad I have no room for more stuff. I'm thinking seriously about ditching some clothes that I don't like so much in favor of some Jordanian apparel.
Hmmm, that paragraph is simply too large. Time for another I'm thinking. Let's see, where was I? Oh yeah. By the time we gave up the book search we were about to tip over from hunger so off to the new restaurant. It turned out to be quite close to our hotel (not more than 1km), but of course we didn't find it on the first shot ;oP The food was superb. We both had rice, potatoes in a savory brown sauce, beef so tender it falls off the bone when you touch it and so tasty it makes me salivate thinking about it, soft-n-warm pita bread, salad (chunky style tomatoes, cucumbers, and cabbage), soup, and a soda each (I had fanta (orange) and Lau had a coke). All of this combined cost us less than 3JD! Ahh, one other interesting note, it was an Iraqi restaurant which was slightly odd for me being an American -- ain't prejudice neat? :o) The people were oh so nice (our waiter's name is Ala'a), not nearly the monsters that our (US) media paints them to be. We're definately going back!
We've been listening to the same few tapes for a while now and found that the tape shops that are found all over the place sell tapes for only 1JD to 1.5JD -- cool. I bought two compilation tapes giving me four total now -- new music, how exciting!
Time to play tourist again. We headed up Amman's highest hill (cake compared to Petra) and saw an excavation of a ruined temple that is thought to be the Temple of Hercules. A notable site was a Jordanian man that had just brought his sheep up to eat off some of the grass (heh). We got a nice pic of the man and his sheep with the temple's pillars as a backdrop. This tourist stuff is kinda fun ;oD We then went looking for this bazaar that some folks had told us that we had to see if we went to Amman. We didn't find it but saw much more of the city. Turns out we had been to the "bazaar" but it was just a street with a mess of shops on it -- nothing like the islamic section of cairo and it's bazaar. The upside is that we found a cool looking coffee shop which was one of the things we had in mind for the evening. Turns out that this place happens to be the best coffee shop on the planet, bar none! (IMHO) The folks are awesome, even by Jordanian standards, the sheesha are the best we've ever had, and a dude came in, sat with us as we were the only tourists in the place, and gave us each an ice cream bar. All he wanted in return was a few minutes of conversation and to welcome us to Jordan -- and we really tried to buy him something (anything) in return.
If you are ever in Jordan then you simply must visit the AL-Zahour Coffee Shop on King Talal Street and tell them that Laurent from Holland and Craig from America sent you -- they will be oh so happy! Sorry, but that's the entire address. You should be able to find it easily tho if you just ask around (did I mention how nice and friendly the Jordanian people are??). The other place to visit would be The Tanoor AL-Habaieb Restaurant on Shabsogh Street. Again, that's the entire address but it's also quite well known and fairly easy to find (near the Roman Amphitheatre in downtown Amman just off King Talal). If you're not actually in the area then I might suggest a trip to Amman just for the Iraqi restaurant and the coffee shop -- make an afternoon of it :o)On our way back from the coffee shop we passed a couple more music booths which led us to buy more tapes. This time I acquired Elvis 56 (awesome album, I have it on CD at home), Madonna Immaculate Mix, and George Michael and Queen with Lisa Stansfield. Look, don't judge me for my taste in music, this was what I was craving so back off ;oP
Back at the ranch (it's just an expression folks) we bumped into an american couple that we had met the night we arrived in Amman. They were heading to Syria that day and were concerned that they wouldn't be admitted to the country even though they had a Syrian visa and made sure that Israeli custom stamped their exit outside of their passport (Syria, Lebanon, and some other countries won't admit anyone that has stamps from Israel -- go figure). The problem that these folks ran into was that they didn't have a stamp in their passport for entry to Jordan -- the Syrian officials are savvy to people leaving Israel and getting stamped outside their passport. After an entire day of trying the couple's attempts to enter were thwarted. Too bad, so sad, a change in itinerary is in order to exclude that lovely country. It's a strange world out here, welcome to the middle east.
Hunger had snuck up on us again so we went to this foul (beans) and hummous place that Mario had been telling us about -- oddly that's all they serve, just foul and hummous. The nice Irish couple was just entering the establishment so after months of cohabitating in Dahab I finally sat down to my first meal with them. Very nice folks indeed and we had a lovely meal and shared post-Dahabian experiences (ooh, new word!). Although the foul and hummous was great we weren't completely satiated so we grabbed a falafel pita on the way back up to our hotel (not bad but I've had better). Mario and a trio of Canadians were in the common area so we hung out for a bit of a chat with some backgammon on the side (you can take the kid out of Dahab, but you can't take Dahab out of the kid... or something like that ;o). The Canadians were engrossed in Canadian politics, as they had been since they got there the day before, so we were left with Mario as entertainment -- more than enough for any two men! He broke out his video camera and we reviewed our day at the Dead Sea which left us laughing as we relived the experience. His plans were to go see the Desert Castles, which sounded good to us, so the plans we had made to see Jerash were postponed for one more day so that we could join him on "safari" -- we're sharing a taxi for 10JD each for a day tour of 4 or 5 castles. That should be great! Arrangements were made for us to meet the driver at 9am, which made our 2pm bedtime a bit late but hey, we're on vacation! :oP
That's got to be enough for one day, I know it was for me.
As I said, no Jerash today, instead we're headed to see the Desert Castles with "Super Mario". My alarm chirped it's less than friendly hello at 8:05, I woke up somewhere around 8:30, dashed over to the laundry to pick up my stuff and found out that they meant 7pm not 7am (grrr), and met our driver (Mohommad, of course) at 9am. The day is overcast and the wind is blowing slightly out of the, ummm, ok I have no clue what direction it was blowing out of but suffice to say that it was blowing. I mean who really cares what direction the wind was blowing out of. What do I look like a friggin meteorologist?? Get over it already. Sheesh. :o)
Our first castle was Qasr Al-Kharaneh. It's your typical square castle in the middle of the friggin desert (I have no clue what they would use a castle for in the middle of nowhere, but hey, it was there so we looked at it). This was in fact my first castle! Woohoo! Much to my dismay there wasn't a dungeon (or a dragon for that matter), but it wasn't ruined much so we were impressed. Aside from being a fortress this place had the added advantage that from the top you could see anyone coming at you for easily 10km. That's gotta stand for something in a fight.
Our next stop was a hunting lodge and bath house called Qasr AL-Amra. This one also wasn't ruined much, but was much smaller and frankly unimpressive overall. It did have some nice portions of paintings (frescoes??) on the walls in the reception, and a well that had an interesting mechanism for drawing the water up, but other than that it was a brick building in the middle of nowhere. *yawn* Onward...
Ok, the attentive reader will notice that we hadn't eaten anything and by this time it's getting to be around noon. All of this adds up to, you guessed it folks, hunger with a capital GRRRRRR! We got our friendly driver to stop in a small town called Azrak for a couple of the better falafel pitas that I've enjoyed in my travels. Notable points about this town are that it is 50km from Saudi Arabia and 200km from Iraq. I found that to be kinda cool in a somewhat apprehensive sorta way. Another point of interest would be Azrak Castle. This place was much larger than the other castle, in the middle of a smallish town, about half ruined, and again no dungeon :o( The claim is that it used to be over 3 storeys high, but we only saw two of them. And it's more of a complex than a castle, although I'm thinking the outer walls made up the castle itself and the interior was simply a courtyard with a building of unknown function in the center. Ah, a nice tie-in to Wadi Rum would be that Lawrence of Arabia wintered here with his troops in 1917. Boy this Larry the Arab sure gets around!
Our driver, being the enterprising fellow that he is, stopped for a bit at this cool restaurant that we ate nothing at because of our falafel feed less than an hour previous. It's made entirely of lava rocks and is simply massive. The owner/manager/whatever was very proud of it and felt the need to show us every aspect of the place -- I felt compelled to listen and was actually interested. Nice place if you're ever in the neighborhood and are looking for an upscale joint for chow. Oh, and the complimentary arabic coffee was quite nice ;o)
Anyone with a weak stomach might want to skip this paragraph as it gets a bit gooey. On our way out of Azrak headed for our next (and final) castle we saw an oil tanker truck tipped over on the side of the road with its payload spilled impressively all over the desert. We got Mohommad to stop and go back to the site so we could check it out. Turns out that it was an Iraqi oil truck that had had a blowout on its front passenger tire about 3 hours previous. The thing was trashed. The cab was completely crumpled and laying behind the tank, the tank was on its side and axels were strewn both hither and yawn. Most notable were the coat, scarf, one shoe, and bits of gray matter lying about. As one might guess the driver didn't make it. I actually paused to reflect that this was the first point that made me consider an Iraqi citizen as a person and not some foul beast to be bombed into submission. What a trajedy. The upside (yes, I am a morbid bastard) is that this was my first time seeing actual brains. My god, did I actually type that??
We were in a very sober mood as we drove away, but the Mariah Carey tape that Mohommad supplied soon restored our spirits (now that's sick!). Our final castle was the completely ruined Qasr AL-Hallabat (hmmm, there's something fishy about that name... *grin*). Notably it was made of both whitish and blackish blocks (before it was ruined of course), and there was a boy tending a herd of goats nearby. I saw a hole in the floor that was completely filled with fallen blocks that looked to be the entrance to a dungeon but Lau and Mario refused to help me remove the blocks to explore further. Sure, some of the blocks were fairly massive but I belive that two of us could have managed most of them (I wonder if self-inflicted hernia is covered under my travel insurance...). We left the boy to his goats after a brief photo op and headed back for Amman at around 3:30, arriving back at our hotel at 4pm.
The politically mired Canadian trio had been replaced by Tim, Damian, and Lydia, all of whom are Aussies looking to be in their early 20's -- nice upgrade I thought ;o) Tim and Damian used to drink together but Tim hadn't touched the sauce in over a year. This is an important note since the boys were well into their first bottle of Vodka with the specific intent of having a smashing reunion. Ahhh, friends :o) We invited them to accompany Lau, Mario, and me to the Iraqi restaurant and then to the world's finest coffee shop but they'd have none of it. Lydia was on a quest for chicken and they had their evening mapped out to the last drop. No worries, we were on our way. The restaurant was full so we shared a table with a man who was in the middle of supper. Turns out his name was Mohommad (no, really) and was my first (living) Iraqi! Helluva nice guy, an engineer by education and a web master by trade. Very well educated and excellent english. Dinner was an international affair with Brazil, Holland, America, and Iraq represented. The conversation was quite light with political overtones. We all agreed that all politicians should be flushed and peace declared world wide. We all exchanged e-mail addresses as he invited us for Iraqi tea - yum! That was quite the enjoyable experience with the brief exception of the waiter that walked up (as Mohommad was away from the table) and said to me "American? Bagdad!" with motions and sound effects of missiles bombing the city. That kinda made me nervous as it drew the attention of most of the other employees. I assured them that it wasn't me and things slipped smoothly back to normal.
Laurent caved and bought two scarves that are commonly seen on the head of most arabs. It was only 5.5JD so what the hay, I bought one too. Officially it's called a hat'ta (approximate spelling I'm sure. They come with this black headband to hold it in place and look like a small picnic blanket (small red checkerboard pattern on a white background).
Back to the coffee shop where we played backgammon, smoked sheesha, and drank arabic coffee for a few hours. These guys are great. We became great friends and Lau and I are now sorry to be leaving Amman so soon. We told them that we would stop by between returning from Jerash and leaving for Israel for a photos and shook hands and said our good-byes probably 10 times. By that time (around 11:30pm) our regular internet cafe was closed so we headed down to a 24-hour joint that we spotted during our "tour" of the city the day before. That brings me current so I'll close and try to get to sleep asap (it's 2:30 now). Jerash and Israel await!
Ok, early morning didn't find us as early as we would hope since we got to sleep around 4am. By the time we actually on the bus and moving it was 11:30am. The good news is that it was only a 40 min ride to Jerash instead of the 2 hours that we had been told so the day wasn't a total wash. On our way out of the hotel we saw Tim, Damian, and Lydia (the inebriated aussies from my previous posting). They were pained but in good spirits (no pun intended ;o). The weather is mostly cloudy with light wind gusts and between 50 and 60 degrees (farenheit) -- nice day to see a dead city I'm thinking. We arrived at Jerash just after noon and paid the 5JD entrance fee. The place is a couple thousand years old so it's understandably about half ruined (I think I'm being generous here). Lots of nice roman junk. Most notable was the sheer size of the place. It took us about 2 1/2 hours to cover it all just looking at things casually. There were a couple of amphitheatres, one of which could hold 15,000 people in its hayday. The acoustics seemed to work fine, although when we tested them (Lau ran to the top of the place and I spoke at normal volume from "the place") it seemed not to work so well (to be honest he couldn't hear me at all). So much for ancient sound systems. We did get some nice pictures, some of which may end up on this site as I plan to develop that role of film while in Jerusalem, hopefully getting the pics on a photo-disc (don't hold your breath).
I've noticed a trend while exploring that I don't believe is limited to just myself and Lau but is kind of disturbing. It seems that we have an obsession with stairs. If we see stairs of any kind we are compelled to climb them. It must have something to do with wanting to get to high ground to get a better view, but it sure is tiring. On that note I should also mention that the upside to exploring ruins is that most of the walls appear to be stairs of some sort (fallen blocks and such). This makes for alot of climbing during the exploration process -- sick and sad, in that order.
We finished up with the ruined roman city at about 3pm and arrived back in Amman at about 5:30 (the return bus was a milk run of sorts as half the bus wanted to get off before reaching the terminal. Next order of business is dinner at the Iraqi restaurant, coffee, sheesha, and backgammon at our favorite shop (pics to take and good-byes to be said), and then internet duty (here I am). We decided just before sleep the night before that it would be better to go to Jerusalem early in the morning than late at night as logding is much cheaper in Amman. So, tomorrow morning we'll be off acrossed the King Hussein bridge and over to Jerusalem -- should take about 4 hours because we have both Jordanian and Israeli customs to deal with. Hopefully sleep will find me by 2am...
Oh. My. God. This would be the day that I broke my web site. The damned internet cafe I was at had some difficulties (like it would time out when I tried to upload a file) so I wasted a few hours trying to get my newly edited files up. The bad part is that not only didn't the new version get there but a version that was truncated arrived instead. On top of all that I had to pay for the time I wasted trying to upload (ok, only like 4 dollars, but still) and the dork insisted I was on 20 more minutes than I had actually been there (add another dollar) and they sold me a floppy (used, by the way!) which added another buck and a half! Talk about annoying >:o( C'est la vie. I took the files along with me to be uploaded at a later date and better cafe. Oh, and sleep found me around 5am.
Doh! We woke at 10:30. Check out time is 11am and we had to pack still. No worries, right? We checked out at 11:30 and found out that the Israeli border closes at 2pm on friday. Hell, we weren't planning to leave town until 2pm! Ok, we grabbed a cab directly and skipped the internet -- I'll fix my site in Israel. We paid 6.5JD each for the cab to the border. That was a bit more than we should have paid but not too terribly bad for a 2 hour ride. We stopped on the way for some shawerma take out and even bought for the driver since it was cheap and he was kind enough to stop for us. Incidentally, it was the best shawerma either of us had ever had :o) We reached the border at 1:20 and paid the 4JD exit fee. They have a nice thing going in that you have to take their bus between borders (about a 10 min ride in no-man's land), and it cost's 1.5JD. We used the Allenby bridge crossing over the River Jordan and were the last folks to cross the borde before it closed. The only way to get from the border to Jerusalem (unless you're arabic) is to take a service taxi for 30NIS (sheckels) -- the dollar is worth around 4 sheckels right now. Fine, we paid the fare and reached Jerusalem by 4:00.
The ride to Jerusalem acquainted us with an Aussie named Tim. Nice guy with a quick wit. The three of us decided to head over to The New Swedish Hostel which claimed a clean bed at a nice price. The first person we encountered after leaving the service taxi was a cab driver that assured us that no busses were running because it was friday. Right. We caught a bus for 1.5NIS to the Jafa gate -- but missed the gate and ended up walking back farther than if we had skipped the bus all together. No worries, the walk probably did us good, right? Turns out that the hostel is clean, the showers are hot with lots of water, it costs 20NIS per night (not so bad) but is very tiny. It's tiny in the way that you have to hunch over when standing over the toilet, and squeeze between the 15 bunks in the main dorm room, but the folks are nice and the price was right so what the hey.
We spent our night walking with a good ol' boy named Ben from our hostel. He's half french, born in Holland, Jewish carrying an Israeli passport, and recently lived in Alaska and Florida (alternately of course) for 20 years. Interesting fellow to say the least.
There's an intersting english girl here named Anna who comes equipped with a quick smile and an open mind. She, Lau, and I had the first enjoyable conversation about religion that I've had in years. I'll not go into the details but I must say that I'm happy to not be religious as it allows me to skip all of that pesky self persecution ;o)
The hostel boasts free coffee and tea, which is quite nice, and sleep found us around 1:30.
- Editor's Note:
- Jerusalem... what can be said about the capitol of the Holy Land? Alot and not much in my opinion. And I must stress before I go on (and on and on) about this country that it, as with anything on this site, is merely my opinion. If you feel the need to become offended then this would probably be a good place to do it. I'm a cynic and believe that the worst aspects of humanity can be found in organized religion. Ah then why, you may ask, am I here? To see for myself these places and people that I have read about while growing up. I'm done now and have no urge to return. Don't get me wrong, there are positive aspects to my visit. Haifa is beautiful and I did meet a couple of nice individuals. All in all it's probably not as bad as I've written up -- and monkeys might fly out of my (heh, heh, heh...). It just seems to me that god's chosen people are tolerate the rest of us long enough to get our money, and if we aren't buying something from them at the time then they simply can't be bothered. Bitter? Oh a tad...
I woke around 10:30 which was nice. Immediately after getting up I found that I'm not fond of tea with sage. Sure, sure, it's not disgusting or anything, but I prefer damned near anything else ;o) Anna, Lau, and I decided to head over and check out the western wall (a.k.a. The Wailing Wall) and the Dome of the Rock. On our way over we came acrossed the most interesting gate I've ever seen. It was large, made of steel, painted green, and had a couple of heavily armed guards posted at the door. Through it you could see the Dome of the rock in all its majesty. The interesting part about the gate was that it only allowed arabs to pass through. I felt compelled to get a picture of the gate first from the inside and then, after walking quite a distance to find another gate that would allow us to pass, from the other side. So much for everyone being equal. We opted not to go into the Dome of the Rock as we had seen our fair share of mosques and didn't want to pay the 38NIS entrance fee. It was shiny and a pretty gold color on the outside tho ;o) The wailing wall has folks praying at it 24/7. The orthodox jews all look the same (barring hair color and size): black suit, beard, curly locks dangling in front of their ears, wide brim round hat, and like that. They go up very near the wall and bow back and forth so their nose nearly touches the wall. It's kind of interesting and I wonder how often they actually smack their face into the rocks. Another cool thing is that it appears that god is online as you can e-mail and fax your prayers to the wall. Nice to see that the old boy is keeping up with technology :o)
I was extremely tired for some reason so went back to catch some z's from 3-6. We shared pasta with chicken, red sauce, peppers, and onions and of course the ever present pita bread. It was nice to have some real food for a change. Afterwards Lau and I played a bit of micro-backgammon on his travel board. I can't complain as it's larger than my (non-existant) board, but suffice to say that it was not the fast paced action that we have grown accustomed to.
I accidentally awoke at 5:30 - doh! I listened to music for a while and finally drug my laze arse out of bed at 7:45. The plan was to head for Yad Vashem -- the Jewish Holocaust Museum. We had been duly warned that it would be grueling, mentally exhausting, depressing, etc, etc, etc. Lau and I tagged along with a german fellow that was staying with us at the hostel. The guy (whose name escapes me, sorry) is doing his thesis on what's happened to folks after the holocaust so he's quite familiar with the museum. Because he had work to do there we simply followed him to the place and arranged to meet up later that afternoon. The most impressive exhibit in the museum was the Hall of Children -- a memorial to all of the children that had been killed during the holocaust. They set it up as a dark room with mirrored walls and a single candle whose image reflected to give the appearance of millions of candles. There was a soothing voice naming each child in the background that completed the effect nicely. We ended up at the Historical Museum, which was the largest area by far. Because my historical knowledge is less than it should be I was hoping to see some insights about not just what happened but why it happened -- that is, how entire nations came to follow a man in an endeavor that is distasteful (to put it mildly) when you look at it in retrospect. Sadly the museum didn't even hint at the why but simply addressed the what. I was disgusted. I can't believe that so much work went into that place and they didn't bother to mention anything about why it happened. Everyone I've spoken to simply says that nobody knows why it happened, that we can't know why. I find that hard to believe. There must be records of what Hitler was telling people to get them to follow him. He must have rationalized it somehow. Interesting that that entire aspect was overlooked by the museum's creators. My conversations turned to that topic instead of concentrating on the holocaust itself -- I wonder if the place has that effect on anyone else or if everone simply says "golly, what a bad thing" and moves on.
Back to the present... That evening Lau, Niklas (a danish), Daniel (american), Anna (english), Rebecca (amercian), and I went out looking for beer and came up empty. Fine, no worries, we were told of another hostel (Tobasco Hostel) in Old Jerusalem that has happy hour (2 beers for 10NIS) from 10-11pm. Needless to say, we went -- oh, and it was a blast! The DJ is Steven, this scottish guy that only likes classical music. We thought it odd that he was a DJ at first but then it makes sense since he only plays what we want to hear and isn't bothered by his own personal preferences. Another interesting thing about Steven is that he's the son of the arabic owner -- but he looks and sounds 100% scottish. I wonder the conflicts a scottish muslim has going on internally ;o)
Lau, Anna, Niklas, Rebecca, and I decided that the time had come for us to ascend the Mount of Olives -- it's overrated. We saw the Chapel of the Ascention but didn't pay to go in, The Garden of Gesthemane -- it's just a garden folks, and the Church of Pater Noster where Jesus first said the Lord's Prayer. That place was cool because it had plaques all over the place with the Lord's Prayer in different languages. Back on down "Olive Hill" (heh) we went. That evening contained an e-mail session, some backgammon, and of course a visit to the Tobasco Tea room :oP~~.
Dang, woke at 7am, listened to some music and finally got up at 9am. I went to find a shave and got one for 15NIS -- I'm gonna have to break down and buy a friggin razor one of these days, but egypt got me spoiled. Turns out these folks in Jerusalem don't do the quality shave that my egyptian barber did -- and charge a much higher price.
Lau and I both wanted to do some things in New Jerusalem so headed that way. There is something about israeli women. It could be the uniform and M-16 slung over their shoulder, but it's definately something ;oP~~ Too bad they have the attitude to go with it :o( First stop was a travel company so that Lau could arrange his flight home on 17 April (sniffle, sob -- poor fella). Next I found a nice used book store and bought 4 books for 55NIS -- not such a bad price, but still not so good either. I think I've become spoiled by the used book stores in the states. I stopped in a couple of places and inquired about a minidisc player -- they had none and couldn't be bothere to suggest another place. I finally found one shop that sold them and the cheapest model I could find was for 2000NIS (that's over US$500 folks -- I'm thinkin I'll pick a different country to make that purchase in). Headed back to the ranch at 3pm -- the weather is nice and it's time for a siesta ;o)
We hung out for a while at the hostel and then went out into the shops for some food. I actually read for a while and then we made another fine dinner. A mood had abducted me so our standard trip to tobasco and then to a new place in New Jerusalem called Mike's Place was not nearly as fun as it could have been. Bummer.
Woke around 9:30 and caught a quick shower. I suppose I should mention that the showers in the New Swedish hostel are small, the head is detachable and sadly not attachable, but the water is hot and plentiful. Lau, Anna, and I headed off for O' Little Town of Bethlehem and found it to be a large-ish (22,000 people) dirty seething pool of tourism. My cynicism is bolstered. The trip only cost us 3NIS and took 30 mins (each way). We went first to the university to meet up with Rebecca. Another american girl tagged along with her so the 5 of us had lunch at a quick and dirty place across the street. We were back at our hostel by 4pm to just hang out, read, sleep, etc. We did a bit of e-mail and then hit up the Tobasco Tea Room to have no tea whatsoever at 10pm.
I slept like a baby -- waking multiple times in a less than cheerful mood. Finally drug my butt outta bed around noon and headed off with Lau and Anna to walk the Via Dolorosa -- that would be the path Jesus walked with the cross on his way to -- well you know the story... Turns out that the city has been built up significantly so that the streets are about 3 meters above the actual stones that Jesus walked on. Our first stop was a beautiful little courtyard complete with chirping birds. I wonder if they imported them for the ambiance. The place contained two chapels: The Church of the Flagellation (scourging) and The Church of the Condemnation. The walk covered many chapels and churches celebrating where Jesus fell and where he stopped to talk to women and stuff. It finally ended with the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which contains the actual rock which reportedly is the rock that cracked when Jesus died. It also has the reported tomb of Jesus, but I didn't think those places were so close to eachother, however I could be wrong...
Lau had an urge to walk the Armenian Quarter of Old Jerusalem so I figured I'd tag along. It was good that I went as my mood left me part way through. The place is very cool, much nicer than other quarters in Old Jerusalem. We saw repeatedly signs about the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and wondered why we hadn't heard about that but the Jewish Genocide was so famous. I guess that since there was no world war then it wasn't really noteworthy. We happened by the Syrian Orthodox Club just as the kids were beginning their drum practice -- the initial beat took us by surprise almost knocking us over. We had to go back and watch as they were extremely good.
Back to myself we headed over to Tobasco for a very happy hour where we met three american girls named Sarah, Rachael, and Kate who were over here studying or something. They were heading out into the new city so Lau and I did the chivalrous thing and walked them to a cab up at Jaffa Gate. On our way back we met Steven (the arabic/scottish DJ from Tobasco) and Gallit and Debbie (two english girls on vacation) who were on their way over to Mike's Place to meet Steven't father and his friend (both arabs). Not wanting the night to end we headed over with them. Turns out that Gallit is a photographer so had much in common with Laurent who has interests in that direction. There was an orthodox jew who was playing guitar in the live band (that's odd in itself) who then got a very deep massage by a skinhead from his band. I'd love to see the pics that Gallit snapped of that as I'm sure they look like they are killing eachother. Debbie and I were both drunk enough to have that in common so the evening went along smoothly :o) We left Mike's Place somewhere around 4am and realized that the New Swedish Hostel has a lockout at 3am -- hmmmm, this was not good. Lau and I got beds in the Tobasco Hostel and I found them to be quite comfortable.
We officially moved to the Tobasco Hostel :o)
The move took a good part of the day. We hung out and slept occasionally and finally ate at 5pm in the Tobasco Tea Room. Upon seeing the group from the night before flashes of conversation and behavior started coming back. Debbie's first words pretty much sum up the situation: "Oh my god, the muslims!" (remember that Steven's dad and friend are both Muslim). Not to worry, they had a big smile for us and thought the evening was good fun. Not wanting a repeat evening, Lau and I mainly chatted and danced (ok, Lau chatted and I danced) at happy hour with our friends from the other hostel, Niklas, Daniel, and Anna. A much more respectable night ;o) I tested the showers of our new hostel and found them to be amazing -- just what the doctor ordered.