Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Jordan - Part 2

Monday 10 November
We had an early breakfast and arrived at the gates of Petra at 7am. Mazen our tour leader wasn't authorised to act as a tour guide at Petra so Ahmed, a local guide, spent the morning showing us round the site. As well as our admission to the site and Ahmed's services we also had to pay for a horse ride for the kilometre or so from the main gate to the entrance to the Siq, the narrow rock canyon which leads to the city itself.

Fortunately for me, we didn't have to take the ride we had paid for and I didn't have to pay any extra money to be excused, although I would have felt it was worth it. Although we were listening intently to Ahmed as he told us of the history of Petra, the moment we were really waiting for was our first sight of Al Khazneh "The Treasury" the tomb carved into the rock, which every visitor to Petra knows.


We hadn't realised quite how big the whole Petra site is, with many tombs and temples, and an amphitheatre. Ahmed's guided tour gave us an overview of the main areas as well as giving us an interesting summary of the city's history. By late morning his tour was over, so after a stop for tea Mazen took us up the track with 800 stairs which leads to the monastery at the top of a small mountain above Petra. Along this way were more tombs and looking back there were breathtaking views. All along the route there were other walkers as well as donkeys for hire for those who didn't want to walk up.


At the top we saw the monastery and more breathtaking views. We had more of the sweet mint tea which we had grown to enjoy before retracing our steps back to the main Petra site for lunch.

We spent all afternoon there, too, visiting an old Byzantine church with amazing mosaic floors as well as looking at more of the tombs.

The site used to be inhabited by Bedouin who have now been relocated to a nearby village. Many of these make a living from horse and donkey rides or selling refreshments or jewellery. The children take part in this, leading donkeys or selling mineral rocks.

One jewellery trader called Suleman told us that he was born in one of the caves in Petra. His English was really good, and he could do a perfect Cockney accent. I asked him where he had learned it and he said he just copied the tourists. I would have been less surprised if he had told me that he'd worked in Brick Lane market. He was a very thoughtful and philosophical man he appreciated the income that tourism brought him, but felt that he had lost something with the passing of the simpler life of the past. "If you get more, you need more" he said. He liked to spend his weekends out in the desert with his children.

On the other hand he was using some of his money to send one of his sons to private school for a better education than the village school could provide, and I think he would be happy if at least some of his children were to have professional careers.

That evening Petra was open for one of the "Petra by Night" sessions which they hold. Sue and I assembled at the gates with hundreds of other people. We were given a fairly stern briefing from a local official before we set off, almost in procession. There was to be no talking and no flash photography until we arrived at Al Khazneh, and we were not to walk in large groups. There was one concession to humour - "married couples can walk together of course, and for the singles, good luck!"

So we set off on our "school outing" and straight away some people were talking and using flash photography. The way was lit with candles in paper bags, and the square in front of Al Khazneh was full of candles. We all sat on mats on the ground and listened to local musicians while drinking sweet sage tea before we had a brief speech of welcome. The walk back seemed more natural with people just chatting in small groups. If the organisers had wanted a more solemn air on the approach then maybe they should have had a more formal procession led by musicians or singers.



Saturday, November 22, 2008

Jordan - Part 1

It's been a while since I wrote anything here, but I finally have something worth writing about.

We decided to have one last chance of a holiday in the sunshine this year, so we booked a trip to Jordan. The holiday was an independent pre-planned tour, just the two of us with a local guide rather than a big party.

Friday 7 November
We took a Friday afternoon flight and landed at Amman at about 11pm local time. Processing in the airport, buying an entry visa and collecting our luggage, took some time and we were among the last people from our flight to get through the airport. We looked for our driver, but there was no-one obvious so we phoned the contact from the tour company which we were given in our joining instructions. She said that she would make a call and get a driver to us.

The local taxi drivers were anxious to help and eager to get our business so while we were waiting one of them called our hotel. To our horror they told us that our booking had been cancelled but they still had a room free. We had further calls from the tour company (our rep and her manager) about our driver and the fact that we weren't expected until the following day. After at least another hour we finally got our driver and drove about 30km to the hotel.

Saturday 8 November
After breakfast at the hotel we gave the tour company manager another call and established that he would get a driver to us for that day's excursion. Sammy the driver was charming and friendly and took us on our first trip to the old Roman-era city of Jerash. We spent much of the afternoon touring the ruins before having a late lunch. We were due to visit the Dead Sea the same day, but we discussed this with Sammy and agreed that as it would be dark when we got there we should postpone the trip until tomorrow.

We got back to Madaba for a second night in our hotel and managed to visit the old Orthodox church of St George with its Byzantine-era mosaic map of the Holy Land. In the evening we found a good local restaurant and had another call from the tour manager who told us that our guide would meet us at breakfast. This confused us slightly as we hadn't realised that we would get a guide and a separate driver for the trip.

Sunday 9 November

We met Mazen our guide at breakfast. He discussed the mix-up over the cancellation and the fact that we had missed out the Dead Sea the previous day. He then got off on the wrong foot with Sue by suggesting that we skip the Dead Sea and follow the King's Highway from Madaba. The Dead Sea was one of the things Sue was most looking forward to so she made it quite clear that dropping it from the schedule was not an option. Our guide was chastened and with a quick look at the map we came up with a schedule that we were happy with.

Our first tourist sight of the day was the church on Mount Nebo, the site from which Moses is reputed to have seen the promised land which he would never reach. We looked across the plain of Jordan to Jericho, and knew that Jerusalem lay beyond the hills, too.

Our next stop was the Dead Sea and Sue eagerly changed into her swimming costume, I followed with less enthusiasm, I am not a water baby! We floated in the Dead Sea and after a few minutes I felt I had "Done That" and was ready to get out. Sue was floating happily and thought it was great. Unfortunately my next step was to get some water up my nose and into my throat. It is so full of minerals that it stings, to make matters worse I got a drop in my eye as I was trying to get to shore. I managed to get a drink of fresh water and a beach shower and then decided I had had enough of the Dead Sea. Sue went back in and floated around for a little while longer.

We drove along the shore of the Dead Sea passing the rock pillar known as "Lot's Wife" before turning inland. We stopped for a picture of the sign marking sea level - the Dead Sea is at about -400 metres and is drying out fast. It may be gone in 50 years, like the Aral Sea, if nothing is done. Driving further inland we stopped at the town of Karak where we had lunch before visiting the old Crusader castle there. A local guide gave us a tour of the castle and its underground passages before letting us wander round the ruins taking pictures.

In the afternoon we drove through dramatic scenery before we arrived at the modern town of Petra just as it got dark. Petra was the other "must see" destination on the trip and we would have three nights and two full days there.

To be continued...