Journeying Jordan

2008-04-17

Summary

- Aqaba

We cruised along for about 1.5 hours and then the boat stopped. We waited to get off; there was no movement of the people around us. We sat there waiting for 15 minutes or so before somebody from our group asked a member of the crew (one of the few ppl on board who spoke English) when we could get off. The reply was ‘in 15 minutes’. Meanwhile David had gone back for the passports, but was told we’d get them back after getting off the boat. Once again a lot of people on the group started getting pissed off saying they weren’t getting off the boat without their passports. Anyway, after about 30 mins there was some movement in the seats around us, so we got up to get off the boat. We went down to the cargo area and grabbed our bags, then went out to meet our Jordanian tour leader. We then had to take our bags to some room where we waited about 15 minutes for our passports and then took our bags through a security checkpoint. Then onto the bus, we were taken to our hotel in Aqaba. It was then that we realised that the timezone had changed and we had lost an hour (i.e. went forward one hour).

We got to the hotel just after 11:30pm. We got our keycard for the room, yes they use keycards here, not keys; a big technological jump from Egypt. We went up to our room, but the keycard didn’t work in our door, so back down to reception to get the keycard fixed. While we were down there somebody was asking for a twin room instead of the double room they had, so I said we’d swap as we had a twin room but wanted a double (even though our travel agent ensured us that all our bookings had been changed to double rooms). The rooms were very nice, it was very luxurious after coming from Egypt. We went for a walk to find at ATM to get some JD since all I had was 6 JD. Then we walked to a nearby café, Tche Tche Café, for dinner. The food was great and came out nice and warm; a very nice change. Jordan seems to be a lot cleaner and more organised than Egypt. We got back to our room shortly after 1am and went to bed. I woke up during the night and spent a couple of hours in the loo; perhaps it was too soon for me to start having spicy foods after my stomach upset. Oh yeah, the butt washer here is hilarious, we didn’t actually use it, but tried turning it on and the water shoots out at an incredible speed, hitting us in the face and splashing all over the ceiling… we weren’t expecting it to shoot that high!

 

2008-04-18

Summary

- Wadi Rum

- Petra

On Friday morning we didn’t have anything that needed to be done until 11am, which is when we had the pre-departure meeting, so we slept in til 9:30, had breakfast and then got our stuff all packed and organised. We left at noon and headed to Wadi Rum (the desert). The sand here was a pinkish sort of colour, although in some areas you could actually see the transition to a lighter yellowy sand or a darker brownish sand. There were massive rock formations scattered throughout the desert. We watched a short information video on a projector before having lunch. After lunch, we headed out on a desert drive in open 4WDs. We drove out to a canyon and had a look at the old paintings on the surfaces of the rocks. The landscape was incredible here. I was hoping to see an Ibex or Oryx (they have a different type of Oryx here to the ones we saw previously), but no luck; no animals whatsoever.
We left Wadi Rum and headed towards Petra, stopping off for a pano photo opportunity just before sunset. We arrived at our Petra hotel just after 7pm and went up to our rooms. Down for dinner at about 8pm, which was an open buffet; once again a lot of the food was cold, so I stuck to the safer options… which was mainly bread. After dinner I chilled out, watching some TV before going to bed.

2008-04-19

Summary

- Petra Archaeological Park

- Al Khazneh (The Treasury)

- Monastery

- Royal tombs

- High Sacrifice

On Saturday morning, we left at 9am to go to the Petra Archaeological Park. There was an optional horse ride, but it was only for like 500 metres so nobody could be bothered with it; we walked instead. We walked past heaps of Nabataean tombs in the rock formations. We also saw the water channel that had been carved into the side of the canyon, which was used to carry water… obviously. We continued until we reached the treasury, which was used as the holy grail temple in Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade. It was really cool to see that, that was the main reason I’d wanted to go to Jordan. In fact I didn’t really know anything else about Jordan before arriving here. We continued on, walking past the senate ruins, and stopped off for a buffet lunch; same deal… most of the food was cold.
After lunch we had free time to explore whatever we wanted, with the 4 choices being the church, the royal tombs, the high sacrifice and the monastery. We were told that if we did the monastery, which involved going up 800 steps, we wouldn’t have time to do the others. The monastery was supposed to be pretty impressive and I thought we could do more than just the monastery since we had 4.5 hours until we had to be back at the bus, so Skye and I headed up the 800 stairs to the monastery. The views along the way of the valley/canyon was awesome. You were able to get a donkey up to the monastery, but at a price of 25 JD each way ($75 for both ways)… no thanks. Besides I wasn’t sure that it sounded so safe sitting on a donkey that’s going up and down stairs. We reached the top and the monastery was a similar style to the treasury, though it was bigger yet less decorated. We had a bit of a break at the monastery before beginning the descent. I ended up behind a donkey with no rider; I don’t think he was actually supposed to be going back down the stairs but I followed close behind him as he cleared the way nicely We’d kept up a good pace both coming up and coming down, only taking about 1.5 hours all up, leaving us with another 3 hours. Back at the bottom of the stairs, we topped up with water and had a bit of a break before heading towards the church. We decided to skip the church as it didn’t sound as impressive as the other 2 remaining options, so we detoured towards the royal tombs.

Everything here is quite a distance apart; it took about 30 mins to get from the base of the monastery stairs to the base of the royal tombs stairs. The royal tombs were pretty cool; the rock faces they were carved into had many different layers of colours in the rock. I have never seen such colourful rocks as what I’ve seen today; blues, purples, pinks, reds, oranges, yellows, brown, greys; it looked really cool. Form the royal tombs we went back down and got some more water; it was a bloody hot day so we’d been working up a hell of a sweat and were going through our water very quickly. We still had about 2 hours left and had been told it’d take about an hour to walk back through the canyons to the bus. I was game to tackle the 400 steps up to the high sacrifice (I thought the guide had said 400, but Skye thought it was 600) , but it took some convincing to get Skye to come. We walked to the base of the high sacrifice steps and after about 10 minutes of steps we went over the crest of a mound and saw the mountain of steps ahead of us. At this point Skye said I could go up if I wanted to but she was going back. We had about 1.5 hours before we had to be back at the bus, so I knew if I kept going I’d have to keep up the pace to make it up and back down in time to reach the bus. So I trudged on, pumping up the stairs. Just when I thought I was at the place of sacrifice (there was a metal bench there), I discovered the steps just kept on going (I was only about halfway up at that point). In hindsight, perhaps Skye was right and it was 600 steps, as it was more than half as far as the monastery was. When I finally reached the top, the view was pretty spectacular so it had been worth the climb. There was a bunch of locals up the top dancing around in the high sacrifice ‘pit’. I enjoyed the panoramic view for a few minutes before starting the descent.

I met Skye at the bottom and we had about 50 minutes to get back to the bus. We walked back through the canyons; our pace slowing towards the end as we were so exhausted. We made it back to the carpark at about 5:20pm, with 10 minutes to spare. My feet were kaning, so sitting down on the uncomfortable bench was still bliss. We got on the bus at 5:30 and headed back to the hotel. Skye and I decided to go for a swim in the hotel’s indoor swimming pool. It was freezing. I had my feet in for about 5 seconds and they were already numb. The water was not refreshingly cold, it was icy cold. Obviously it has no heating and gets no sunlight; I didn’t actually see anyone get in the pool the whole time we were there; it was so cold it was un-swimable (yes I know that’s not a word!). So we headed back up to our room and I emptied out our bags and began repacking them for easier carrying for the rest of the tour. I watched some TV and then went down for dinner. Buffet dinner, cold food as usual. Even the chicken dish… I was standing there when they brought the chicken and mushroom tray out and put it on the serving table, and I was the second person to scoop food from the tray and it was stone cold. How is anything going to be hot if it’s already cold when they first put it on the buffet table?! Skye wasn’t feeling very well tonight so went to bed early; TD strikes again. I watched some TV and then went downstairs to use the internet for a while to check emails and update blog. When I went to bed I had trouble sleeping; I thought I’d be out like a light after today’s effort.

 

2008-04-20

Summary

- Al Karak Crusader Castle

- Dana village

- Madaba

- Mount Nebo

- Amman

- Pasta Riso

Sunday morning we went down for breadfast; I’m getting really sick of eating bread now. Our bags had been taken from reception and put on another bus, even though we told the bellboy we were in Bus A (we weren’t 100% sure they were on another bus at the time though). We departed at 9am and headed to Crusader Castle. The castle was built about 1000 years ago. The view from the castle is great since the castle was built on the top of a hill. There were catapult balls lying around the castle and Islamic writings/carvings on the walls. We left Crusader Castle and headed to Dana village. The view from here was pretty good, but not as great as some of the other views we’ve had. Nobody could be bothered walking through the village so we headed off towards Madaba. We had a lunch stop along the way at about 1:30pm.

We reached Madaba, but it was decided that we wouldn’t stop off at St George’s Church, but would instead go to Mount Nebo; Moses’ place of death. There was a commemorative pillar for the pope’s visit to Mount Nebo in the year 2000. The view would have been great form the lookout there, but the haze limited how far we could actually see. We continued on our way, stopping off at a mosaic workshop. None of us bought anything as we knew it was a rip-off as the tour guide would get commission from our purchases. A mosaic table of about 80cm diameter was priced at 1700JD! When we arrived in Amman, we checked in at Shepherd Hotel. This hotel was quite a drop standards from the previous 2 hotels we’d stayed at in Jordan. It reminded me quite a bit of King Hotel in Cairo :S We had a twin, but swapped with Dru and Andy as they had a double room and obviously didn’t want one. The double bed was very small, obviously not a queen or a king, and it had a single bed’s sheet on it… great. Our twin room had an air-con, but our new double room only had a swivel fan which made an irritating clicking sound when we turned it on.

We all went to an Italian restaurant down the road, Pasta Riso, and I shared a very cheesy supreme pizza with Andy and Dru. It ended up costing only 2.5JD each for our meals and drinks, bargain! Especially considering yesterday the very ordinary lunch had cost me 11JD and hadn’t filled me up at all. After dinner we were totally stuffed full of cheese. We went back to the hotel for a while before heading out to an Amman club. I had a few beers and smoked some shisha, as did Skye (well not beers, she had cocktails). We tried 3 different flavours of shisha: strawberry, mixed fruit and grape (in the order of how much I liked each one). We headed back to our hotel just after 11pm since we had to be up to leave at 8am for Jerash tomorrow. The sisters, Bonnie and Onnie, had an awesome large room, decked out with a three-seater couch and 2 double-seater couches, as well as real curtains (ones that actually block out light) and nice decor. Looks like we bombed out at this hotel. This brought up hotel discussions; looks like we got the shitty rooms at King Hotel as well, after Dru said his room had 2 balconies. We never even had 1 balcony from the 3 times we’d stayed there. Anyway, we went to bed shortly after to play tug-of-war over the single sheet throughout the night.

 

2008-04-21

Summary

- Jerash

- Dead Sea

- Tche Tche Cafe

On Monday morning we headed off to Jerash. At Jerash there was heaps of ruins, but I couldn’t tell you much about them as I really couldn’t be bothered listening to the tour guide’s monotone voice today. There was a amphitheatre there as long as the remains of a temple or library. Plenty of pillars there and a large mosaic on the floor of one of the ruins. Some local girls asked to have their photo taken with me; this seems to be a common thing in Egypt and Jordan. Dru gets a lot of attention since he is so tall, and when he wears around a Lakers singlet everyone thinks he’s a basketballer. When we left Jerash, a school bus filled with school girl’s went passed our bus. It was hilarious, they were all hanging out the windows screaming at us; we were celebrities.

We went straight from Jerash to the Dead Sea. We’d been contemplating not doing the Dead Sea as it cost 60JD (US$90), which seemed like a bit of a rip-off! We could have done it on our own for less than 30JD, 15JD to get into the resort and a 40JD taxi split between its occupants! The ride to the Dead Sea took about 2 hours. We got to the Dead Sea at about 1ish and went straight to the resort for the buffet lunch. There were a crapload of Frenchies, all trying to push in at the buffet queue… piss off Frenchie, the back of the line’s back there! Lunch was not too bad, but again a few of the dishes were cold, though some were warm which was an improvement. There were plenty of desserts to try as well

After lunch we went swimming in the Dead Sea… or should I say floating, not swimming. We knew we’d float, but nothing quite prepares you for the experience. The amount of buoyancy you get is incredible. I think it is impossible to drown in this water! At times I could not touch the bottom, not because it was so deep, but because I was so buoyant I could not sink enough for my feet to touch the ground. Getting sea water in your mouth is VERY salty and when you get it in your eyes…. ouch! Some tubby pink bellied fat guy splashed around in the water, sending some of it into my eyes… thanks a lot… why don’t you go get a bit more sunburnt you twat! We then covered ourselves in Dead Sea mud, which is supposed to be good for your skin… supposedly. After covering ourselves in mud, we washed off and floated around for a while, before showering with the oldies in bikinis and speedos! We made our way up to the resort pool for a swim. There was a water slide there which was very slow, but I did my best to get a decent run up and swing off the bar to get some speed down the slide. Dru, Andy and I mucked around on the water slide for most of our remaining time at the resort.
At 5pm we got back on the bus and left the Dead Sea. We stopped off at some shop that sells Dead Sea products, but Skye and I didn’t buy anything, all a bit pricey for us. On our way back to the hotel, we passed by Tche Tche Cafe at Abdoun Circle and we told the others about the good meals we’d had at Tche Tche Cafe in Aqaba and their awesome milkshakes. This was enough to win everyone over, so we caught taxis to the Tche Tche Cafe after we’d gotten back to our hotel. The taxi meter read 800 exactly, so we paid 8JD and got out. We later realised that it was actually 800 piastres, which is not even 1JD! (1 JD is divided into 1000 piastres). The taxi driver must have thought it was Christmas! He didn’t say anything to let us know it only cost 1JD… cheeky bugger. Anyway, lesson learnt. I think everyone except David had a Ferrero Rocher milkshake and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. Arguably the best tasting milkshake I have ever had! Dru, Andy and I smoked some shisha while we were there as well; Tche Tche Special was the flavour. It was really nice, topped the other 4 flavours I’d tried previously; very fruity. In the toilets downstairs, all four walls were mirrors. It looked so cool as you could see your reflection from so many angles and over and over again (each reflection was reflected again resulting in a long line of never-ending reflections). There was also music playing and a little TV screen. I had to mention this as most of the toilets we’ve seen on this tour are really dirty and gross, so it was a nice change at the Tche Tche Cafe toilet. We caught a cab back to the hotel and this time paid 1JD! We hung out in Bonnie and Onnie’s pimped out room for a while before heading to bed.

 

2008-04-22

Summary

- Roman Theatre

- Citadel

- Grand Hussein Mosque

- Tche Tche Cafe

On Tuesday our Geckos tour had officially finished, so we planned to meet up with a few others form our group to visit some tourist sites around Amman. I was woken up about 8am by Dru knocking on our door; he wanted to use my laptop for the Internet to check his flight details, so I went downstairs with him and fired it up. After breadfast and getting ready, we caught a couple of taxis to the Roman Theatre. This was a large amphitheatre, with the Odeon nearby; a smaller amphitheatre. There were 2 small museums at the Roman Theatre, which we also visited. It only cost 1JD for entry into the Roman Theatre and 2 museums. We went to some nearby markets afterwards where we watched a guy making designs with different colours of sand he was filling into glass bottles. We would have bought some, along with a few other things, but the price wasn’t right.

We caught another taxi to the citadel. The girls couldn’t be bothered going in, so waited while David and I went up to the ruins. Nothing overly exciting, a mosque and a big cistern… along with lots of ruins, but the view from up there was great. It was only 2JD to get in at the citadel. We caught another taxi to the Grand Hussein Mosque, which turned out being right near the Roman Theatre we’d been to earlier. David sat in front, so I hadn’t noticed that the taxi driver hadn’t reset the meter. When we stopped at the mosque he said ‘5 Dinar’. To which I replied ‘1 Dinar’… he said ‘Okay 3 Dinar’. ‘No 1 Dinar, we know how much it should be, you’re only getting 1 Dinar’ at which point I handed him 1 JD and got out of the taxi. There were people praying inside the mosque, so we weren’t sure if we were allowed in there, and even if I’d been allowed I don’t think that the girls would have been allowed in there. We looked for somewhere to eat Down Town, but found nowhere with any English menus, so just ended up getting snacks. We looked at some souvenir shops; the only thing I found that I wanted was overpriced, but Skye bought a few things. We got in a taxi to go back to the hotel. This time I was in the front seat and asked him to start the meter, to which he replied it was broken and then said 3 Dinars. ‘1 Dinar’ we replied, he just shook his head so we told him to stop the taxi and we got out. As we got out he muttered some crap about the next time we’re in Down Town he won’t help us out… how the hell did he help us out this time?! He just tried to rip us off… we don’t want to see him again anyway so I’m glad that he’d avoid us if he saw us again! We got in another taxi about 10 seconds later, who started up the meter and it cost us 1 JD, although we gave him 1.5 JD. Traffic was busy near the Shepherd Hotel as school had just finished (I think this was about 2:30-3:00ish).

We ended up having lunch at the Shepherd Hotel’s restaurant. I had a turkey sandwich and it was very nice, much better than the stale bread we get for breadfast there each morning. After lunch, I had a shower and then bummed around. We were both very tired, so just lazed around watching TV and using the laptop. We went back to Tche Tche Cafe with Bonnie, Onnie and Jen. Another Ferrero Rocher milkshake…. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! We made sure everyone went down and checked out the toilets We caught a taxi back and decided we’d try to squeeze the 5 of us into the taxi; 4 of us in the backseat. The taxi driver was hilarious, his reaction when the 4 of us got in and then he’s going ‘sleep sleep’ to Bonnie so she’d lie her head down across us so that the police couldn’t see we had 4 in the backseat. He was asking if Bonnie and Onnie were from China and then asked us; we said we were all from China and he was laughing. He kept asking us and then Jen said she was French to which he started talking to her in French, so then we were all saying the only French words we knew like ‘wei’ and ‘merci’. Then I said I was Greek, to which he rattled off something in Greek. When we got to 2nd Circle, he made Bonnie ‘sleep’ again so the police at the circle wouldn’t see her. We ended up tipping him as he was a blast.

When we got back to the hotel, I think the girls were probably busy packing their bags as they were leaving tomorrow morning, so we just chilled out in our room watching TV before going to bed.

 

2008-04-23

Summary

- Lazy day

- Pasta Riso

- Tche Tche Cafe

On Wednesday we got up about 8:45am and must’ve just missed the girls leaving (I think they left around 8:30), but they’d left a goodbye note under our door Today was pretty much a chill out day. We couldn’t be bothered doing much so we just sat around watching tv for most of the day. We walked down to Pasta Riso for lunch and caught a taxi out to Tche Tche Café again for dinner and a Ferrero Rocher milkshake . Other than that it was just packing up our stuff ready for tomorrow’s flight.

 

2008-04-24

Summary

- Flight back to Dubai

On Thursday morning, we got up early for breadfast before our pickup at 8:30am. We got to Amman airport and checked in, went through security etc. Our flight was on time, departing at 11:15am. Lunch on the plane was not overly exciting… a mini hot dog and some cheese biscuits and that was about it…