Jordan Day 2

We managed to stay awake until dinner at 8 pm last night with only a few nods of the head in front of the TV. We did not loiter over dinner, but we did stay until the birthday cake came out for Vijay (pronounced Veeya, no J, and she is very adamant about it). We turned the lights out at 9.45 pm and slept pretty much through until our wake up call at 7 am this morning.

We had breakfast and then quickly went on Skype to talk to Laura, Reilly and Kris. Really lovely to talk to them, and to see them as well, especially when the others who hired sim cards and data cards haven't been able to get them to work.

Then it was onto the bus at 8.30 am, and today we were accompanied by our tour guide, Aladeen, and a Tourist Policeman on the bus. It seems that all tour groups travelling around Jordan are required to have one of these policemen on the bus. He came in very handy when we were negotiating a U turn and got out of the bus to direct the traffic for us.  This is a view of the countryside on the way north of Amman.

We headed to Jerash, which is an ancient Roman/Greek city which has some original, but also restored ruins.  We spent 3 hours at the ruins which meant that we walked about 3 kms by the time we got back to the bus. The ruins included many columns, large gates, a meeting area surrounded by columns, and two theatres.

 

One of the ladies on the tour was persuaded to sing for us in the first theatre, and this was mostly just our group. She was also persuaded to sing in the second theatre, but in this one she was accompanied by 3 Arab musicians, 2 playing bagpipes and 1 playing the drum, and there were lots more tourists. She was very good.

We had lunch in a very nice Jordanian restaurant, which is similar to a Turkish restaurant, serving lots of various salads, pasta, couscous and just a little chicken and fish.  Very refreshing.  After lunch we came back to Amman where we drove through the Palestinian Refugee camp from the 1967 war.  It was not a camp as we would think of it, but a suburb of houses that have been constructed on top of each other up the hills.  There were lots of people selling second hand furniture along the sides of the roads, and cars would stop wherever they wanted, and the bus had to negotiate its way through the gaps.  The traffic is a real experience and Mal was prompted to come up with yet another Dad joke:
"What is imported into Jordan by the millions, but never used?" Answer: car indicators.

Then is was onto the ancient Citadel on the top of a hill, where again there were issues with getting the bus through the traffic.  Cars park wherever they want and we tried to go around a corner, but didn’t quite fit so he had to reverse and go the long way around.  The citadel was more Roman/Greek ruins, and also contained a museum that had the history of Jordan from the stone age to 1915.  It seems that the dead sea scrolls had been housed there, but have been moved to a new museum that is not yet open.

More traffic negotiation to get to another theatre where there was a display of Jordanian clothing over the years, and some mosaics from the 6^th century.  Last stop was at the Parliament house and the King Hussein Mosque.  Then it was back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner.

Jordan day 1

Thursday we headed off to Sydney on the little plane at 6.20am and then the Thai 747 took off on time and arrived in Bangkok almost 9 hours later.  Not sure about the “smooth as silk” service the airline promised:  Singapore Airlines takes some beating.  The plane was quite hot, 26.8 degrees according to Mal’s  trusty travel watch.

There were 5 other people also on the tour around us, 3 from Canberra which has never happened on any other tour we’ve done. Then a loooong wait (8 hours) in the Bangkok airport which was hotter than the plane. The Thais certainly seem to enjoy their heat, and seeing as most of them were wearing long jeans perhaps they were a little cold. Julie can’t wait to get back here for 8 days to enjoy that mid-30’s humidity. 

Onto the El AL 747 leaving at 00.30 and a very long flight of 11 hours, presumably because the Israelis can’t fly over Iran, Iraq and Jordan and so the plane has to go the long way around, up the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba.  Didn’t take too long to clear customs and then the 16 of us (12 psychs and 4 partners) were met by the tour organiser and put on a bus to Jordan.  The route took us through quite heavily wooded areas outside Tel Aviv and lots of apartment blocks on hills,

then went around the outskirts of Jerasulem where we saw our first fenced off settlement area.  

 

Then down to -385 metres below sea level with glimpses of the Dead Sea. The desert around here is what we expected to see.

Crossing the Jordan River into Jordan involved long waits in about 4 different spots.  Apparently there were many Muslims on their way to Mecca.  Julie blinked and missed the Jordan River: it might have been 10 metres wide.

The trip through the Jordan valley and up into the hills where Amman is situated was interesting and Amman itself is a city made of large white blocks with the odd bit of standout architecture, as shown in this view from our hotel. 

 

The Jordan tour guide took us to a Lebanese restaurant where unsurprisingly all the middle east food tasted better than at home – creamy smooth hummus to die for, etc.  Dinner at 8 in the hotel then early night after a pretty gruelling 43 hours in transit.

 

Tour of Jordan, Israel and Thailand 2013

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