http://www.flickr.com/photos/25797682@N03/sets/72157604977159596/
--
I spent a few days in Amman not doing that much... getting to grip with Jordan and recovering from Lebanon... shuffling from hotel to another, as the town is pretty much fully booked up.
I felt Amman was a bit of a flat place... it reminded me of Spain a bit, but also America. One time a taxi driver took me into a huge shopping mall instead of downtown like I asked him. The supermarket was just this excesssive and garish place with no individual character whatsoever. (and usually they do?)
One night time I went into eat at the Royal Society for Conservartion of Nature cafe... near downtown, and ironically enough, the Australian embassy was holding a cocktail party in the gallery there!
It wasn't hard to get in, and look at the photos of the diggers building bridges and other things in Jordan in the 1st world war, grab some wine and finger food!
A lot of the people there were retired army officer turned ambassadorial types and their wives.
Then I went to a turkish bath. It was very metrosexual. A lot of the men there get mud sea facials and full body mud covers.
When I enter the steam room, you can see through the little glass holes in the ceiling... two of the very jovial men start singing and clapping in this way I have noticed a lot of people here do, especially school children. It is something I would like to record one day, because I have never heard anything quite like it.
One of the men, when they finish, exclaims, "Psychedelic!!!"
Then we are served this icey fruit drink, kakerde, which is actually a hibiscus infusion... very good!
Then I am put in jacuzzi, talking with the guys there and thoroughly scrubbed by a big man, all the dead skin taken off and then given a 30 minute massage, and opted for the dead sea mud on my face.
The whole experience was pretty good actually, but I was told I missed the best Turkish Bath, which is the old town of Damascus.
One day walking in the old town, I met a pale skinned man in his 50's who showed me where to go... I got talking to him and he said he had a shop. Usually, at this point, I would be trying to get away, but I said to him I would like to see his shop. He says he is a glass blower. Turns out he is Armenian, and makes intricate handmade and painted glass objects and glasses.
His work is a favourite of the ambassodors and once Laura Bush (Dubya's wife) bought a few pieces from him as well as the royalty here. But he said the locals don't understand his work, and only want new things.... not handmade, distinctive pieces. He is a sweet guy and I spend a couple of hours talking to him and having tea, buying a few pieces from him.
I go to some old ruins above the city, and what strikes me are the flowers here... they are very unique and distinctive here and I spend some time with them, listening to them, thinking I will come back another time to make some essences.
I once go to this groovy hangout/restaurant at night and all the rich young people are there... not a head covering in sight. Very western and modern thing that they have hooked into here. So it seems, if you are rich, you can disregard this religiousity for the most part!
Hiring a car in Amman, is not easy, as most of the over 100 hire car companies don't have any cars! This is peak season... eventually I manage to hire a car from Hertz and off I go, up north.
Driving in Amman is quite easy really... but even here, some of the hire car companies will actually drive you out of town so you can avoid the traffic.
Outside of Amman is very built up, the north of the country is quite lush and green and most of the rest of it is desert, so this is where most of the people live.
I go to Jerash to the old Roman Ruins, and again, and the flowers which impress me more. I think at this point, i have been "ruined out" and don't spend much time there.
Then I drive around the hills around Anjoun and find an old pilgramidge site. Before that, I found a spot in the country which effected me quite a lot. I felt that this was a holy place.
Then I go to Anjoun nature reserve, a bit late, so they won't let me go on a walk... but I walk around and look at the flowers more. They are really quite impressive here... I have not seen anything like them before. Turns out the place is King Hussein's old pomegranate orchard...and it is not that big!
Then I drive down the hills, going through a checkpoint, and along the Israeli border and then south to Madaba, where I stay that night.
The next day I go to the Movenpick resort to swim in the dead sea and get wrapped in mud.
The movenpick resort is quite swish, but no real cliched rich people here... but lots of stressed American men talking on their cell phones, mostly just obviously very unhappy people.
Swimming in the dead sea is a bit of a trip... it is very salty because of evaportion over many years, and you can literally stand upright in the water!
I have booked in for a mud wrap as I have heard how therapeutic the dead sea mud is and have never done this before. And I am assuming there is something to having people who know what they are doing, and so I decide to pay not an insignificant amound of money to do this!
So I am put on this massage table like surface on plastic and then covered in mud, which they add local herbs to. Then I am wrapped up in plastic! So then my dude leaves the rooms and leave me there, and I momentarily feel like my dead sister "Laura Palmer"(!)
And actually, very quickly, I sink into the deepest relaxation and state I have experienced for many, many years... and I am into all kinds of things that promote different states of consciousness. I am close to sleep, but don't sleep and my guy (which is dressed like a nurse in white!) comes in the room and unwraps me.
Then I spend the rest of the day using the spa's, swimming the dead sea, getting some sun and using the gym there.
I put some dead sea mud on myself near the sea and let it dry for half an hour, but it doesn't feel nearly quite the same! But clearly quite good for the skin.
The next day I go to the baptism site of Jesus, right near the Israeli border. In fact, it is so close, that there is one point on the site where the only thing that separates Jordan and Israeli is the very narrow River Jordan. And so you are literally 5 metres from Israel! And on the Jordanian side is one guy with a big automatic weapon, and on the Israeli side, a whole military compound flying an Israeli flag.
The actual baptism site looks like somewhere that used to be very official and set up, with romanesque mosaics and what is clearly some sort of step into the water... this is not the image that we genearelly have of Jesus's baptism... more something along the lines of John pouring water of jesus's head in the middle of the river in the wilderness! I didn't really find out that much about it all as the tour was given in Spanish!
I find a tree near the VIP area of the center (not that there are any VIP's around apart from me!) there and make a flower essence from it. I take some of the mother tincture then and it effects me right away.
That night I drive up Mt Nebo, where Moses first saw the holy land and drive south, into Wadi Mujib, a huge canyon which reminds me of the grand canyon. I wasn't expecting it to be like this actually... I arrive quite late and find a hotel near Karak.
The owner tells me of a place where I can have dinner which he recommends. Falafel here is so good... and so cheap, less than $1 AU for a falafel roll.
No falafel I have had elsewhere really compares. Also, hummous here is a bit of a religion. When you order hummous, it is spread out over a plate and you eat it with bread. Unfortunatley, the hummous again, is very, very different to what is called hummous in Australia. (or anywhere else)
The owner of the restaurant is very kind and makes the falafel rolls for me himself, (when usually he has his lackeys doing it!) and he gives me some sesame and coconut bars for free when I leave.
People are generally like that here, very giving and sharing to outsiders. Once I had a haircut, one of the most thorough I have ever had, and the guy said he didn't want any money for it. This is also common, I haven't totally figured it out, whether it is some kind of demonstration to the outsider that they are beyond money in their service to you. Or maybe, they feel this is a virtuos and they are gaining some kind of karma points... but in every case, they don't want to make a big deal about it. Usually, I insist that I pay and they accept!
Here, people who are providing a good or service to you, generally want to do right by you... at least this is what I have found, they don't want to rip you off or take all they can, but only what is fair. This is with reasonable people of course, there are always people trying to take advantage of tourists in different ways.
The next day I go driving off the beaten track a bit... the first time I have had really had the oppurtunity to do so, as in Jordan, unbeaten tracks are not that easy to find.
I really find driving around freely, with everything I am traveling with, very freeing... knowing that I can go anywhere I want and just follow my nose as I wish. It is in fact, one of my favourite things.
Around Midday, I end up going past some villages down a dirt road and end up driving along a precarious one lane road, with a tractor with three bedouins heading towards me. It is one of those roads, in which there is a quite a sharp distance to the bottom.
The guys on the tractor cannot believe it when I pass them... and wonder why I am coming down here. I keep driving and this spike of fear hits me... the road is very precarious and I don't really know where I am going, but I push past it and keep going.
Soon, I realise I am going down into Wadi Mujib! But from the other side I approached it the night before. There are bedouin families with goats along the side of the road and eventually I reach the bottom, where there is a very narrow river and pink flowers growing on a bush. The locals are very interested in me and I feel my presence here is quite precarious too. They watch me above a cliff and I just wave at them.
I then drive off, hoping to go all the way back to the highway, via the dirt road that goes along the river.Soon, I stop near a beduoin tent on the fork on the road and they come over to me, a man and his son, a bit surprised to see me.
They don't speak any english and indicate that I am welcome to tea! So I park my car and walk past their yard, containing baby goats and go inside their tent. They ask me if I would like to eat and I say yes, as I have been getting quite hungry and didn't bring any lunch with me.
Soon they bring me tea, and three big bowls, one containing goats milk, yoghurt and cheese, and also some home made bread.
The milk makes me almost throw up actually... and I have to really fight not to do so as I surrepticiously gag! They don't seem to really notice however. The cheese is very good... very salty though, and I dip the bread in the cheese. It is very rich and strong. The yoghurt is extremely good however, and I drink three cups of this.
As before, the woman is in a different part of the tent and I barely saw her... and cushions are generously provided for me.
There are little goats running around the tent... what seem to me to be sick babies, as there are some needles around... I ask him to pass the medicine to me and it is "ivomectin". I tell him I have taken Ivomectin before when I was sick, in some bizarre form of sign language and we all laugh.
Soon, I have enough lunch, even though he is quite insistant I eat more. Then I have some more tea and then take some photos of the man, as well as the goats and tent.
Soon, I leave, giving the man a headlamp I don't need... (as I have two and actually travel with four torches!) I figure the beduion are SO generous and often almost that is being taken advantage that it is important to give back in kind.
These people are not totally poor, he has an old truck! But I don't even know you could buy a headlamp like this in Jordan, and they are very grateful and I leave.
He told me before (in sign language of course) that I couldn't keep going on the road as it was too hectic, and he was right... so I turn around and go back along the road and out back to Karak.
This time I stay at this hotel right near the castle there.. .which is a crusader castle.
A visit seems compulsory seeing as it is right there... and so early the next day I check it out... these castles are so huge... really the crusades were a much bigger deal than I previously knew, lasting hundreds of years. And these castles are very impressive, but really none too exciting.
The next day I plan to go to Dana Nature Reserve, which is apparently the showpiece of the jordanian RSCN. I stop in Talifa to buy some snacks and cigarettes to give to any beduoin I may encounter again.
A small group of boys about 18 or so stop and ask me where I am from, one of them wants to have his photo taken with me. They are very bright and intelligent young guys who are in the last year of their high school. And like most boys their age, they are obsesssed with girls.
They tell me I should go and see the girls coming out of the university down the road, which is one of the best, if not the best university in Jordan. I say, I have already seen them! I ended up there, because my car got a flat tyre and I just turned into somewhere safe I could change the tyre.
Most of the girls there were wearing headscarfs and most were very, very good looking... at first I couldn't understand why this was so as I hadn't seen such creatures here before, until after I changed the tyres and had to drive past the university entrance in order to turn around.
They would not look at you, and would feel you looking from the car and almost, and sometimes literally turn away and scowl a bit.
Only later did I realise how full on it is for these young women... any sign of eye contact is perceived as flirting. And as my young friends told me, they could not just approach a girl if they liked her. As far as I could ascertain, you have to arrange a meeting with their parents with a view to marriage!
The boys told me that if you approached her, or that you talked to her or anything, you could well be beaten up by her brother!
I suggested that the brothers would have to make a truce, if they wanted to have open relations with girls and maybe there would have to be thousands and thousands of martyr's... killed by brothers defending the family honour!
The boys did not seem too impressed by this, as I could tell, they themselves were likely very much hooked into this story with their own sisters, which for them is not a story. It is just reality.
But this is how I sincerely feel about it... if the young people want change, they themselves have to make those changes and be prepared to fight for it and make sacrifices.
The boys told me, in a somewhat condemnational tone about teenage pregnancy in the west... I said I thought teenage pregancy was a very minor problem, at least in Australian society, maybe 183rd in the order or priority.
And I said that in liberal countries where boys and girls are really taught a very frank and open sex education, like the netherlands, it is rarely a problem, because it doesn't happen nearly as much as in England or Australia. And I said, the dutch boys and girls are very sexual with each other and I have found it to be a very sane and reasonable society.
The boys show me their English textbooks, and they tell me this is the first time that most of them have ever spoken with someone who speaks English as their primary tongue! Soon, I tell them I have to go and we exchange some email addresses and I go.
I pick up two young teenage hitchers just out of town, and then on the way to Dana, I have a crash... or something like a crash.
I am going down a windy road at maybe 60-70 k's an hour, approach a blind turn, which is very steep, which I cannot see so easily and brake... the car begins to skid and goes straight... I am thinking the car will stop soon, but it goes off the road and almost over the edge! Stopping, leaving me and the two boy hitchers on edge as the car seems to begin to go over! As we finaly stop, I say, "We made it!" in an exclaimative, excited way and tell the boys to get out as the back wheels of the car are hanging in the air. It is not like in the movies and there being some kind of 100 metre cliff below us, but it is still quite steep.
I initially think, maybe I can back up the car, but the boys show me that there are big rocks embedded underneath the car which would prevent that! And so the boys call the police, who are very nice and eventually we get a truck to pull the car out. (the truck driver does not want any money for his services, makes it clear he wants NOTHING! but I give the police some high end french cigarettes which they all light up happily!)
Then I have to go with the police to the police station. Initially, I thought, there are much better things I could be doing. But watching and interacting with the police is highly entertaining! I get the impression there is not much crime in Jordan. The police are the most boisterous and happy go lucky people I have met here! The men, when they see each other, kiss each other on the cheeks quite passionately and called each other "loved one" and "dearest" in arabic! (which is normal here btw, it just made an impression on me with these men with guns and in uniform acting this way. And of course there is the element of my sick western mind projecting "village people" connotations on the whole thing!)
They are all interested in me, and chat happily and ask a lot of questions and one of them says he has a cousin who is married to an Australian woman, who works in Canberra as a lawyerl
The police report is a laborious process and takes forever, and then I have to drive to the main police station in Talifa to pay for the police report, which is maybe 30 kilometres away. Funnily enough, there is a police woman there in the office I am taken to... there are a lot of police woman in Jordan... .you can often see them directing traffic.
So finally, I drive back to Dana, and am taken down into the main camp. It is perched right on the main mountain divide between the highland and the lowland. Most of Jordan is on the highland, and Israel (and the lusher land by the coast) quickly begins after getting down into the lowland. Jordan used to be a lot of this land and half of Jerusalem, but the Israeli's claimed this land themselves in the war of 1967. It does seem a bit of a no brainer to just give all this land to the Palestinians...
I get off the bus down to the main camp-site and right away, go on a walk. I am aware they can be quite officious here with their natural spaces and for most of the walks you need a guide. I just start walking on a track which seems innocuos enough and off I go!
It is funny, there is a saying in Arabic, "hell is where there is no other people!" and so this is how the majority of Arab's live. Even these spaces where you can be alone, it is difficult to actually be alone here. I get this sense of distrust about what you will do, alone on the land and they want to watch you. I got this when I was in Wadi Mujib too... a certain unease that the locals have... some of it is protective, but also, I feel they are trying to protect something too.
Dana is silent. Absolute silent and still. It is one of the most peaceful places I have ever been, I cannot wait to get further away from the camp... and head up a hill which looks quite easy with good views and there are obvious tracks.
Soon I get to the top and lie down and just absorb the stillness... like a lot of this land, it effects me being here and I feel I can reach something in myself. There is a clarity gained and I can feel the meridian system in myself, and release energies, mostly just this fear through the shaking of my jaw that I do.
On the way down, I stop at various points, go into the bush and just absorb the stillness... once I distrub a huge black snake that slivers away very quickly. Funny that, I NEVER see snakes in Australia and I go into the bush all the time.
Soon, when I am lying down, I hear a voice shouting, "JULIAN!!!".
Ah, well, they are onto me, and clearly have figured out that I have gone off walking by myself, and know my name from my registration in the guest book.
The guide looks a bit frantic actually... I tell him I'm fine and he says he has spent the last two hours looking for me. As we go back to camp, an American says, "did you find him?" and the guide points to me and I tell him I am an Australian and also Crocodile Dundee's son!
Then the guide gives me mint tea and soon, we take the truck back up to my car and I drive away, on my way to Petra. I get there at night and by sheer miracle, find a good hotel room for two nights. Petra is PACKED this time of year.
I remember seeing my father's slides he took in the late 60's of Petra and being very impressed and have always wanted to go there since then.
Many would also know Petra from the Indiana Jones and the last crusade, towards the end.
Petra is a Nabatean city that existed for some centuries around the beginning of the millinium, mostly gaining its wealth from controlling trade of spice and so on.
In its day, it was said to be very impressive, with plaster and colourful patterns, the Nabateans incorporated all the different styles of all previous civilations - the greeks, the romans and so on.
What is left of their city is some ruins and also, carved into the rock are some tombs, which is the main attraction for most visiting Petra.
I wake up a little late and enter Petra with a lot of the tour groups around 9am... they really are very annoying and I regret it later.
Very quickly, I realise I don't need two days here as my guide books keep saying! (I always travel with two guidebooks to cross rerence what they say!)
Interestingly, (or not so interestingly) as soon as you get off the main tracks, you are virtually alone.
I think that Petra as a natural site is impressive enough... the tombs and carving and ruins don't really impress me as much as I thought I would.... the place itself is wonderful... and the concept of creating a city, within and around the chasm and tunnels around mountains was a great idea.
Towards the end of the day, I go off around the back and actually walk through the mountain via a very narrow openended chasm. It is very nice here... quite a special place.
That night I do the petra by night tour, which is mostly good to go through the sique alone.
The next day I go to wadi rum, which is where they filmed a lot of lawrence of arabia... I get a bedouin to drive me out to T.E. Lawrences house (he was a good bricklayer!).... and walk from there. There are jeeps and 4wd's everywhere here zooming through the sand... and I go on a good three hour walk in the canyons and dunes of wadi rum, and go check out some old inscriptions in the stone.
Then I basically stay in Aqaba two days, doing some snorkeling there, and return my hire car (i have to pay for minor damages to the underside of the car!)
I do some research on the ferry ride to Sinai in Egypt and they all highly recommend not to take the ship! It technically should only take an hour... but is very late and takes hours and hours and would be about the worst ferry I have ever been on.
Arriving into Egypt is very, very, very hectic, on the boat, a guy takes up your passports and then gives them to you on the other side. But he is not just there.... you have to go and find him in an unsigned office where he gives you back your passport, and you have to find the bank and then pay for a VISA, with luggage over stones and dirt this is really tricky and I actually go through "customs" and then have to go back, expecting to be confronted by a desk at some point!
So then I haggle the taxi drivers and eventually get a ride to Dahab in a big white combi van, driven by a boy all dressed in white.
The landscape in the sinai is very impressive.I arrive into Dahab and am dropped off at a really nice and cheap hotel. Dahab is like some kind of pseduo-hippie backpacker heaven, which all these restaurants on the water and so on. But it is mostly a place where divers and snorkellers come to stay on the cheap!
It is all strangely refreshing... novel. Lots of russians here! Eventually I decide to stay here a week and chill out, explore, snorkel and stay in one convenient and bright place before going to Cairo and then back to Australian from Europe.
No comments:
Post a Comment