Wanderlust Heaven!

Wound things up in Turkey.  Was looking forward to warmer weather ahead in Jordan – the chilly air was making me particularly lazy.  Hadn’t done an ounce of exercise in days, weeks even – and I was starting to get annoyed with myself.

Finished ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ by Elizabeth Gilbert.  This book was at the top of the bestseller lists a year or two ago – usually a strike against a book, but in this case it was not.  I half-expected it to be too chicky/whiny…but the author is quite talented and had terrific insights about the places she visited.  The integrating theme seemed a bit forced at the start, but she held things together nicely and what emerged was a thoughtful work about the joys and value of travel…and about how it can help free your tortured soul.  A great travel yarn, with a bit of spirituality thrown in for good measure.  Recommended.

Also started checking out my Jordan country guidebook – seems there’s a fair amount to see.  Not that surprising, given the antiquity of the place and its sites.  Hopefully two weeks will do the trick – given what’s going on these days, I might be facing a somewhat constrained timetable.  I might even need to start treating my country visits like normal people do their holidays…

My last act of tourism in Ankara was a quick trip to the wonderfully-named Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.  Some great stuff in there, including some tablets with the Legend of Gilgamesh and various items from around 5,000-7,000 B.C.  Anatolia is an ancient land and its treasures are manifest.

Didn’t know before visiting this museum that the Gilgamesh legend supposedly took place near Gaziantep.  Sounds like that city is missing a marketing pitch – at least a pitch to geeks who’ve heard of Gilgamesh.

Also was reminded of what a job the Mongols did on these lands – they wasted 80% of Anatolia, as well as smashing the Baghdad Caliphate and hastening the decline of the Muslim world.  That was back around 1250 A.D.  Hmm.

Saw a restaurant called Kebabistan.  Enticing, but I had some errands to do.  Had a rough time finding an internet café with a working printer – had to visit 3 joints to find one.  I had 3 e-tickets to print out for upcoming flights.  Finally took care of that, and was worn out from the experience.  Lay back in my hotel and started a new book, ‘The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,’ by Junot Diaz.  Engrossing story about an obese Dominican immigrant who’s a role-playing/Dungeons & Dragons dork.  Diaz weaves in lots of Tolkien terms and references – funny to see Trujillo’s DR compared to Mordor.  So far, loving this book.

Last night in Turkey, after 6 weeks there.  Took a cab to the ritzy/international part of town, Kavaklidere.  En route saw Ataturk’s Mausoleum lit up – emblematic of Turkey and a nice memory of the place.

Walked around the district for a while.  Had a couple beers at Bar Gitanes, one of those places where they bring you snacks without asking – usually a very bad sign.  And there was a torch singer/synthesizer duo on stage – more bad news.  Still, I was thirsty and decided to hang out for a bit.  Tab wasn’t that ugly – about US$6-7 per beer.  There are stories about tourists getting monstrous bills at Turkish nightclubs – but those are the types of places where girls come and sit by you and ask for drinks.  If you ever find yourself stuck in that sort of place, be very sure to first ask the price of every single thing before they bring it to you.  A bottle of champagne can go for US$500, or more.

Wound up having dinner at Tapa Tapa Tapas, a – wait for it – Spanish-style place with perfectly respectable albondigas (meatballs) and other assorted snacks.  I guess I was sick of heavy Turkish food by that point…so opted for heavy Spanish food.  Do you think that you can get electronic shock therapy to help become a vegetarian?

Hit the sack early, for once.  Had to get up at 4:15 a.m. to head to the airport.  I was flying via Istanbul to Amman, Jordan, using frequent flyer miles.  Of course, that meant that I had to catch an ungodly early flight to Istanbul, then sit there for hours before connecting.  Oh well.  Obama was Pres-Elect and I had love in my heart.  Or something like that.

This was my first flight in ages – since August 18^th, a lifetime ago, when I’d flown from Tashkent to Kyiv.  Really, that does seem like the distant past.

Managed to get up and get to the Ankara airport, which was nice and calm at this hour.  Nothing like Tashkent’s unholy hell.  Ankara has 4-5 million souls but still seems half-deserted at times.  I don’t mind deserted airports, particularly early in the morning when the power of speech seems elusive.

Got to Istanbul.  Four-hour layover there.  Went pretty quickly.  Read the local English newspaper and Time Magazine – Obama galore.  And found a duty-free store which had my long-sought lightweight daypack, to replace the one I’ve been having stitched up for ages.  About 12 Euros – this one seems superior to my current model, which, to be fair, I bought a year and a half ago in Phnom Penh, and was never built for the uses I put it to.

So it was farewell to Turkey, a country I’d greatly enjoyed.  But it was also time to move on.  Had an easy flight to Amman, less than two hours.  Time to get into the Jordanian swing of things – which, at first, meant standing in a long line to get a visa stamp.  Slight torture, but I wasn’t in a real hurry.

Took a bus into the city.  Disembarked when told to – didn’t seem we were really in the city yet, it was pretty wide open, but this was apparently the closest point to downtown, where I’d be staying.  Flagged down a cab.  Major torture ensued.  The cabbie hadn’t heard of my hotel – which was prominently mentioned in my guidebook, so I’d assumed it would be popular and known to cabbies.  Nope.  I had the guidebook map and street name…but I guess they change street names often.  Later on, I’d realize that he was clueless – the street name hadn’t changed.

He did ask a bunch of other drivers, and people on the street, none of whom knew the place.  I asked him to use the Arabic name – not sure he did that, but anyway we were lost.  I finally had him drop me at the King Hussein Mosque, which looked pretty close to my hotel on my map.  Walked around – didn’t see the hotel.  Wandered into another hotel and asked if they’d heard of the Palace Hotel.  The guy at the desk was helpful – he knew it, and drew me a simple map.  Thanked him and walked off.  Came back a half-hour later, not having found it.  He giggled a bit, and had his bellhop show me the way.  Truth be told, it was well-hidden, inside an alleyway.  I tipped the bellhop and was finally able to relax.

I was starting to think that Turkey was Middle East Lite, and that I was now in the real deal.  Jury’s still out, but I just might be right about that.

The Palace Hotel was OK – mediocre rooms, but the price was right and it seemed to be a great place to join tours of nearby sites, one of my aims.  The guy at the front desk wasn’t that helpful – couldn’t answer any of my 5 initial questions, which spanned:

-getting a local SIM card

-seeing if they ran tours to Damascus, as I’d heard they did this

-signing up for a tour of Jerash and other nearby sites

-finding a good international medical center to get a yellow fever booster (more on this soon)

-finding the Indian Embassy to get an entry visa

He did tell me where I could find a beer, at the nearby Jordan Bar.  And near the bar was Hashem Restaurant, an alleyway place with great hummus and falafel.  So I started there…

After lubricating my liver, I felt a bit more relaxed.  A long day, though – from my 4:15 a.m. bell, through two flights and a long layover, concluding with the cab ride from hell.  Meant to go out that night – it was Saturday – but first needed a bit of rest.  Lay down at 7 p.m., set my alarm for 9 p.m.  And woke up the next morning at 7 a.m.  Oh well.  I sometimes do this – and I guess I needed it.  Missed a night out, but promised myself I’d make it up at some point.  New friend Brian (from Turkey adventures) had told me about a nightclub called Nai – wanted to check that out.

Had breakfast, then checked at the front desk about the local tour.  That seemed OK for the next day, so I decided to see Amman today.

The woman now at the front desk was very nice and quite helpful.  I shouldn’t rag too much on the nighttime guy, he was nice enough and also seemed highly devout – saw him praying a few times.  I also should have prayed – for him to answer at least a couple of my questions.  Ouch!

Followed the walking tour outlined in my guidebook – which sometimes results in lost hours and wasted time, but this tour was fairly easy to follow.  Along the way, I:

-had a ridiculously sweet dish called kanafa, at Habiba sweet shop in a small alley near Arab Bank

-walked around a well-preserved Roman Theater right in town

-checked out some cool photos of old Amman at a small museum at the Roman Theater – the city seemed a lot more relaxed and clean back then

-visited the hilltop Citadel, which besides having stupendous views of the city, and some decent ruins, also had the terrific National Archeological Museum which featured several bits of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and some 8,000+-year-old statues – the museum itself was small and modest, in a Western country this collection would be housed in a palace

I noticed early on that Amman has that smell in the air.  A bit like India, and the first time since I’d been in India…even Turkey didn’t have much of an aroma.  I kind of missed this, and I smiled when I made the connection.  Pattern recog, baby, that’s what it’s all about…

Took a cab over to semi-ritzy Abdoun Circle for a late lunch.  Found an Asian place called NoodAsia – hate the name, but it looked good and I went it.  Nearly the entire staff was Filipino – pretty funny.  I guess Pinoys know English and have a customer service mentality – two things the locals here lack.  So it made sense.

Had a temaki (hand roll) and some beef kway teoh noodles – both excellent.  Had really missed ‘real Asian food.’  Noodles, fish, soups – much lighter and healthier than the fare I’d been living on lately.  Good change of pace – not that I’d be keeping it up for long.

Had a few errands to run, per my list of 5 questions above.  First, wanted to see if I could get a yellow fever booster shot – India requires these if you’ve been in Africa, and I’d be in Egypt before flying to Mumbai in early December.  I got a yellow fever jab in Joburg back in January 1999, and they are rated for 10 years, so I’d probably be OK for this trip to India…but wanted to get ahead of the curve in case more trips followed.

Had heard of the Al-Khalidi Medical Center, affiliated with Mass General, I believe.  Went there – found a doc who spoke English – but they didn’t have this vaccine in stock.  He wrote down another place, a hospital run by the Health Ministry, took a longcab ride over there.  Cabbie picked his gargantuan nose the entire time – for a moment I thought I was back in Brooklyn.  Resolved to give him exact change – wasn’t keen to get any bills or coins back from that hand.

The second hospital, Al-Bashir, was even less useful.  Total confusion…almost no English signs or speakers…no hope whatsoever.  Plus I wasted more than an hour finding the emergency room – seriously.  Only to be told by an English-speaking fellow there (I think he was ad administrator) that they didn’t have yellow fever vaccine.  Torture.  I bailed…and resolved to get the booster in Mumbai, where I’d at least have 1) support and 2) English at hand.

Very hard to get things done here in the Middle East.  And Jordan is relatively calm and organized.  Things seem to happen in slo mo.  I was starting to despair, but eventually I began getting traction.  I got a SIM card…I tracked down the Indian Embassy, near Amman’s First Circle (I think there are 7 traffic circles in Amman, these are major reference points…and remind me of Dante).  Had to visit this Embassy the following day to get going on my Indian entry visa.  I was hopeful this process would go smoothly and not be any approximation of my most recent visa nightmare, the Uzbekistan near-fiasco.

Also found an English newspaper, the Jordan times, and read that.  Was starting to settle into local life a bit more.

While walking around, an impish little boy tossed an empty cup at my feet.  Glanced off my shoe – no damage.  The father apologized profusely…I smiled and laughed, a real laugh.  Then I knew that I was starting to relax and not worry so much about vaccines and visas, two of the major pressure points in my life these days.

Did a bit of exercise in the hotel room.  Then walked over to the Jordan bar for a couple beers.  My routine was coming together – after the beer, went to the nearby alley for a couple excellent falafel sandwiches.  When I was just out of university, I used to make falafel (from mix, of course) because it was pretty tasty and super-cheap.  But the falafel over here is just unbeatable – and is still super-cheap.  I can’t get enough of it.  Also serves as a good meat substitute – its filling and has a texture which is semi-meaty.

Had an apple juice at the Palestine Juice Center, one of many fresh juice places around town.  They don’t seem to have pomegranates – too bad, those were one of Turkey’s best offerings.

Read about Obama picking Rahm Emmanuel as his chief of staff.  Not a popular pick here – his dad is an Israeli doctor and the Rahmster is not exactly neutral on Middle East politics.  We’ll see where this goes.

Next day, joined a small group from the hotel for a tour of Jerash and other sites.  Our driver was the humorous Yusuf; there was also Andres from Barcelona, Marcel from Holland, and Pascal from Quebec.  Pretty fun group – lots of busting going on.

First went to Umm Qais, a collection of ruins from where you can see the Sea of Gallillee/Lake Tiberias and the Golan Heights – impressive views

From there we drove to Ajlun Castle, built by the Crusaders in the Middle Ages.  Yusuf got pulled over en route and got a speeding ticket.  We felt bad for him, but were soon teasing him mercilessly.

Finally wound up in Jerash, one of the best-preserved Roman cities in the region.  A fair few tourists running around, but nothing like Ephesus in Turkey – and I dare say that Jerash was even more impressive, the spread was larger and the impression greater.

Throughout the day Marcel and I were hitting it off well – and it turned out that we had arrived in Amman the same night and had nearly the same itinerary planned.  So we decided to travel together for a while, till we either got sick of one another or our plans diverged.  Good to have a sidekick, and nice to be able to split travel costs.

Jordan is much cheaper than Turkey, primarily in transport – petrol seems somewhat cheaper, and there are a zillion taxis eager for business.  Not that much of a public transport system, but the taxis are really cheap and most people hire them to get around the country…which is quite small, much smaller than vast Turkey with its 10-hour bus rides.

After the day tour, took Marcel and Pascal to the Jordan Bar for a few beers.  Then Marcel and I went to Blue Fig, an expat/chi-chi café near Abdoun Circle.  Turns out Marcel was in Japan a few months back, and went to Takayama, one of my favorite spots in Japan.  He even hung out at Red Hill Pub, one of the bars I love most in the world.  Talk about a small world…

After dinner we walked to Abdoun Circle for a drink, and wound up in an ‘Arabic Nightclub’ called Deep Blue.  Again, one of those places where you sit down and they bring over snacks, unbidden.  But this place also had the girls coming over to you, bugging you for drinks.  Seemed most of the lasses were from Morocco – must be hard times over there.  We chatted with a few of the girls but didn’t buy them drinks – they didn’t seem to mind.  Final tab wasn’t cheap, but nothing we couldn’t handle.

I was a bit tired from the day, but Marcel was getting a second wind and seemed happy to have someone to drink with.  So we asked a cabbie to take us to a good place, and he drove out out to the posh Shmeisani ‘hood, where we went into another nightclub, I think called Oscar.  A veritable wall of Arabic sound, where we were ushered to a booth and plied with ‘free’ snacks.  I was somewhat apprehensive about a major-league rip-off in process…but the place turned out to be genuine and full of pretty cool locals who found us hilarious.  More Moroccan ladies came over – we danced with some of them – the crooner came over and sang to us – we spent a lot of loot.  Still, not that outrageous in the grand scheme of things.  And we had a great time – lots of drinks, cozying up to the ladies, and getting a reasonable sense of how Arabic guys with a bit of money have fun at night.  Hopefully I’ll have more of these nights before leaving the region…the fun here is much more undercover than even in Turkey, so you have to look for it and ask around.  But it is generally open to foreigners, as long as you don’t mind spending a bit and trying to fit in.  That’s me…

Got up way too early next next morning, with a solid hangover, and headed to the Indian Embassy to get my visa going.  Warning: torture up ahead.  I walked up to the desk and explained my situation…she reviewed my passport, noticing two Indian visas already in there…then told me that I’d need a formal invitation letter from the company in India, and a personal letter explaining my reason for the proposed trip.  Ugh.  I asked about a simple tourist visa – she said that wouldn’t work, as I already had two Indian visas recently.  I thought that was ridiculous – India’s a place with a huge amount of sites, and a few trips are needed to see the key places.  She agreed with me, but that was their policy – which in effect was, ‘who would be crazy enough to go back to India after one trip there?’  Classic.

Wouldn’t be that hard turning the invite letter around, but I’d now have to return to the Embassy twice more – for drop-off and pick-up.  And I was leaving Amman in a few hours, to head to Madaba.  I walked off in a crap mood, and reviewed my options.  Decided to get the two letters going – wrote the drafts at a computer at the hotel, and sent them off to the company in Mumbai.  Decided to return two mornings hence from Madaba to Amman, only an hour ride each way – not super-painful.  That should get things back on track.

Checked out of the hotel, and took a taxi with Marcel to Madaba, a small mellow town south of Amman that’s used often as a jumping-off point for the Dead Sea and other nearby sites.  Got to Madaba early afternoon…checked into the very accommodating Mariam Hotel, where it seems all foreigners stay, meet, and tour the area from.  Tracked down an awesome falafel shop and gorged.  Visited the local sights – a few nice churches and an ancient map of the region, done in mosaic form.  Thought about going for a swim in the hotel pool but it was too chilly.  Slept for two hours – visiting an Embassy has that effect on me.

Got up and checked emails.  The hotel had wireless, seemed there was nothing the hotel lacked.  It’s run by local Arab Christians – Madaba has lots of them and they’re great proprietors.  Saw that new friend Beril in Turkey commented on my recent blog post – and told me that in Van, in far east Turkey, locals killed 44 goats in honor of Obama being elected the U.S.A.’s 44^th president.  She also put the website with various Obama goat photos in her comment – you can see it in the comments section of my blogsite, check it out, the pics are something else.

Yesterday Marcel and I took the ‘big tour’ around the Madaba area with a few other tourists, Dutch (like Marcel) and Spanish.  The tour included:

-Mt. Nebo, from where Moses saw the Promised Land, then died.  Great views west to Israel…but a bit churchy for me.  I’m not here to see Christian sites, or Islamic ones for that matter – I’d rather see much older stuff.

-Bethany-Beyond-the Jordan – I know what I just wrote, but this was actually pretty interesting, it’s supposedly the place where John the Baptist baptized Jesus.  They only found the site a few years ago.  It’s on the Jordan River, which is a pretty sad sight, at least right here – no more than a few meters across.  The river has shifted over the years, and the baptism site is now mostly dry, with biblical flies swarming you.  For me the highlight was seeing Israel just a few meters away – there’s also a similar site on the Israel side, we waved to the tourists over there.  Felt like I could jump over the Jordan and land in Israel – full of bullets, of course.  I won’t get to Israel for another 6 weeks or so…but it will be worth the wait, I’m sure.

-Driving down the Dead Sea Highway, we passed some massive resorts – the Movenpik, the Marriott, and a couple others.  Nice, but not that exciting.  Good refuge, methinks.

-The Dead Sea.  Hugely entertaining.  We swam at ‘Amman Beach,’ a public section of the sea.  Cousin Mikey had emailed me earlier, telling me not to pee before getting into the salty water – he’d done that and suffered.  I took his advice, and had even deferred shaving my face and getting a haircut.  Swimming in the Dead Sea is perhaps a cliché, but incredibly odd and fun anyway.  I felt like I was in NASA weightlessness training – after getting to waist depth, you start to bob up slightly, and eventually you need to lay on your back – half your body remains above the water, and there you are.  I felt like a little kid and kicked around for at least 45 minutes.  A bit of water got in my mouth and it felt like I’d had 10 margaritas.

Avoided getting a mudpack there – many tourists went in for one, but it looked like a pain to me.  I did have a nice buffet lunch, though – I needed to get the salty taste out of my mouth.

-Final stop:  the Dead Sea Panorama, a hilltop overlooking the sea with a decent little museum with descriptions and exhibits from the area.

Was fairly tired after the long day, but also in a state of minor exhilaration from the ‘swim.’

Checked email and noticed that the India visa request letter had already come back – found a web café and printed it out.  Got a haircut.  Booked a taxi to take me back to Amman, to again visit the Indian Embassy.  Met Marcel for some local beers, and for dinner.  Relaxed and watched the dismal economic news on the BBC.  Just when you’re in a good mood from what you’ve done all day, the news of the world is there to set you straight…

Got up early today and went to the Indian Embassy in Amman.  My cabbie was a warm guy who laughed a lot, barely spoke English, and often patted my shoulder and hand.  Got to the Embassy, while it was raining, right at 9 a.m.  Went up to the gate – it was still closed.  Checked my watch – just past 9.  Then I saw a notice on the gate – ‘Guru Nanak Birthday – 13/11/08 – Embassy Closed.’  No fucking way.  I know about Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion – certainly worthy of a holiday, but I was in India the past two Novembers and never heard a peep about this holiday, and now could not believe it was biting me in the ass.  I’d expressly come back to Amman for my visa, and was now, again, being denied.  Now I was really angry.

But what could I do?  I finally decided, fuming in the cab back to Madaba, to blow off any further attempt in Amman and just wait till I got to Cairo to get this going.  It would be a bit tight, and I’d need to have Mumbai touch base with the Cairo Embassy to ensure 1) no holidays/surprises upcoming and 2) opening hours matched my sked.  I simply refused to consider two more trips to Amman, from farther south in Jordan – too time-consuming and costly.  I am the king at making lemonade out of lemons…we’ll have to see if I can keep doing so.

Oh well.  I already knew that India’s not a user-friendly place.  It’s just that I’ve always gotten Indian visas rather easily – granted, travel agents in accommodating places like Bangkok or the States took care of the torture for me.  Talk about good value – going to Embassies yourself is really just not worth it, if you can at all avoid it.  Here, in the Middle East, you can’t avoid it.

My cabbie tried to cheer my up on the ride back to Madaba.  All the while I was working through the timing implications on my Treo, finally coming up with a workable timetable for shifting from Jordan to Cairo and going to the Indian Embassy there.  Feels like I’m starting work already…

Got back to the hotel.  Checked out.  Collected Marcel, then we got in a cab that would take us south, to the village of Dana, visa a few sites on the way.  First, we stopped at Mukawir, King Herod’s castle where his step-daugher Salome danced for him and asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter.  Granted.  Here’s the dance floor:

Mukawir has a history like Masada’s – the Jews held out here in 72 A.D. until the Romans built a ramp (you can see the rubble on the west side of the hill – but not much left) and took the hilltop.  And the cave photo above is of one of several caves below the castle, one of these is where they beheaded John the Baptist.  Gnarly.

Next, heading south on the King’s Highway, the Grand Canyon of Jordan, Wadi Mujib – fairly impressive sight.  The river flowing through the wadi has been dammed, and the river now barely flows to the Dead Sea – which, as we saw at twilight, has shrunken dramatically at the south end and is a deeply depressing sight.  Aral Sea, anyone.

After that, visited Karak Castle, built by the Crusaders.  Large and impressive.  Taken by Saladdin and his boys in the 12th century.

Finally, just as the sun was setting, we got to the southern end of the Dead Sea, and visited Lot’s Cave, where we and his two daughters fled after the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah, and his wife’s conversion to a salt shaker.  Recall the biblical tale:  his two daughters got him drunk and screwed him, and his line was thus able to continue.  I really should pick up an Old Testament, there are some crazy stories in there.

We had a fair walk up the hill to the cave.  It was now past 5 p.m. and the place was closed/empty – Marcel and I skirted a ‘closed’ sign and went up to the cave, which was fairly cool – nothing inside, of course, but it felt historic and ancient.  Had to see this place while in the neighborhood.  It was pitch black as we made our way back down to our taxi – good little adventure to end the day.  Lot himself would have been proud…

Saw the full moon as we drove another 45 minutes to the village of Dana, from where I sit and write this entry.  My hotel, the aptly named Dana Hotel, is a solid little place where I’ll spend just one night before moving on to famed Petra tomorrow.  Look for some great photos in next week’s entry – Petra is one of the world’s most photogenic places, even when the camera-wielder is yours truly.  Over and out.

Tags: 1, Travel

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