June 2005 · Middle East Trip
David & Noel Coory's Journey to Israel and Jordan
A travel diary documenting the first leg of an epic Middle East adventure —Lebanon to Israel and Jordan
First Look
Overall Impressions of Jordan
- Head-covered women.
- Old traditional families and customs.
- Very cheap shopping and hundreds of small shops.
- High value currency, their Dinar is worth more than the US dollar.
- Mosques everywhere.
- Jordan Valley border very hot.
- Arranged marriages.
First Look
Overall Impressions of Israel
- Palestinian Arabs mostly warm and friendly.
- Jews paler skinned, mostly arrogant and unfriendly.
- Hasidim Jews in black suits and top hats, curly locks.
- Palestinian Arabs oppressed by Jews.
- Palestinian Arabs forbidden to enter parts of Israel.
- Giant 12 metre high, 200 km long concrete wall being built by Jews to divide off Arabs.
- Heaps of garbage and old cars in Palestinian areas.
- Whole of Jordan Valley hot.
- Nice fruit in Jericho.
First Look
Overall Impressions of Jerusalem
- Unsightly black tents and shacks in Bedouin camps on outskirts of Jerusalem.
- Same junk jewellery sold everywhere.
- Arab Souk markets everywhere (if you’ve seen ten shops you’ve seen them all).
- Churches everywhere.
- Constant mosque calls to prayer and ringing church bells in Jerusalem.
- Skull caps (kepars) always worn by practising Jews.
- The sometimes funny, tummy-forward walk of , with their hands behind their backs.
- Hasidim Jews more cheerful than non-Hasidim Jews.
- Thistles growing everywhere.
- Thousands of tomb stones on the sides of the Mount of Olives.
- Hills and more hills.
- Impressive night views of city lights.
- Heavy young military police presence, armed with AK47 type sub-machine guns.
LEAVING JERUSALEM
Our Final Morning In Israel
We both enjoyed a good sleep last night and have our last breakfast in the hotel this morning. We then go the lobby and settle our bill for our room service meal. It comes to US$11 a day. Very reasonable we think.
The hotel accidentally include our daily tariff as well on our bill printout. This is the prepaid part, paid for by Sinbad Tours. It is only US$55 a day (NZ$82), for the two of us, including breakfasts. Seems very cheap. I suspect Sinbad added quite a bit more on top of that.
“It comes to US$11 a day.”
BACK TO JORDAN
Crossing The Border Once More
We have to return to Amman in Jordan today, in order to fly from there to Egypt. Our driver is on the dot time wise as usual. It is Imad again. Today he has a big new bus
He tells us he taking us to the hot Jordan River Israel-Jordan border crossing where we were stranded a week ago. So it would appear that the mistake of last week was the fault of Sinbad Tours, not the Jordan tour operator.
The bus is quiet and comfortable. It takes us about two hours to reach the crossing. We have to wait about an hour at the border crossing for our shuttle bus to arrive. Then we ride the five minutes over to the Jordan side of the border crossing. It’s now about 11.30am.
We meet the same older guide as before and are happy to again have our same driver Hussein. He is the young Moslem man who explained so much about Jordan customs to us last week. They drive us into the city of Amman, about an hour distant from the border crossing.
“It takes us about two hours to reach the crossing.”
A HALF-DAY TOUR OF AMMAN
Exploring Jordan’s Capital
As our flight does not leave until 8.30 tonight, we ask our guide if he can arrange to give us a tour of the city of Amman. He consults with Hussein and then says we can have him as guide and Hussein as our driver for US$30 each. We agree to this and thus begins a fascinating half day tour.
The weather in Amman is warm and sunny but not hot. We are first taken to a hill-top ruin of an old palace complex and temple, dating back to Roman days. Here we have to hire another guide (see photo below) which costs us US$7 each. From these ruins we can see spectacular views of Amman, a city of two million people.
Most of the buildings are white stone. Our guide tells us that all new buildings are required to be made of white limestone for appearance sake, to match the old. The city has very few trees.
We can see the curved stone seating of an old Roman theatre below us. According to our guide it is still used for sports events today.
“From these ruins we can see spectacular views of Amman, a city of two million people.”
THE AMMAN CITADEL MUSEUM
Relics From Jordan’s Ancient Past
Our guide then leads us around the old palace and temple site, explaining things as he goes. Some of the building walls were constructed using large stones and then cementing smaller stones into the crevices.
Then we are taken to the excellent little Jordan Archaeological Museum, within the ruins. But before we go in, we see outside, a fragment of a huge stone hand. Our guide tells us it is the only remaining part of a monstrous statue that was originally on the site.
Below is a photo of myself comparing this hand with my hand. You can get an idea of how huge the statue was. Inside the museum we see another coat of chain mail armour. Also some genuine oil lamps. One has seven wicks. Most only have one.
There are some samples of the Dead Sea Scrolls on display. Very interesting. On display are some skulls, one of which has several holes in the crown, two of which look as if they have been drilled.
We also see burial bones, gathered together to fit into one of the small sarcophagus tombs that we saw back in Jerusalem. This has taken us about an hour.
“Inside the museum we see another coat of chain mail armour.”
DRIVING THROUGH AMMAN
A City Proud Of Its Heritage
We return to our taxi where Hussein and our guide are patiently waiting. They then drive us around Amman showing us more of their fascinating city.
These two men are obviously very proud of Jordan and its people and traditions. And well they should be. It seems to be a well run kingdom, with high morale and mostly happy, contented people. It is also very clean.
We see a Toyota Camry car with a completely Arabic number plate. All the other plates we have seen combine ordinary numbers with some Arabic letters. I ask the driver for an explanation. He says that particular car is from Saudi Arabia. It is also painted white, like just about every car from that very hot country.
“These two men are obviously very proud of Jordan and its people and traditions.”
THE MARKETS OF AMMAN
The Most Fascinating Street Of The Trip
We are next taken to an extremely busy street, both with cars and people. The street is lined with what seem to be endless tiny shops. Our driver and guide park the taxi and Noel and I get out for a walk around. This is the most interesting street we have seen on our trip. Even anywhere in the world according to Noel.
There are hundreds of tiny shops, selling all kinds of things you could ever think of, on both sides of the street, all with ultra-cheap prices. The shops spill right out onto the pavement with goods for sale often stacked on the footpath.
The typical shop contains three or four male family members, sitting around the entrance talking and inviting you into their shop. There are shoe makers and shoe repairers and repairers of everything under the sun. All kinds of foods, nearly all in their natural raw state or dried. Jewellery, lights, clothes, hardware, houseware, paint, material, cottons, car parts, birds, electrical goods, second hand goods.
Marie would just love this place. I manage at last to find a proper body-builder’s black singlet for Alec. Very cheap. Noel finds a nice necklace for Mum.
The one-way traffic in this street is never-ending, and the footpaths are crowded with people. Yet Hussein told us it was a quiet time. He said, “It hot this time day. You come back night time. Be double this people.”
We do not see any obese people at all among the crowds. We stop at a little drink shop and have a mug full of squeezed or pureed mango and banana. Half a Jordan Dinar which is 75 cents NZ.
A little further down the road we see a young man feeding long sugar cane stalks into a crusher and sugar juice flowing out the bottom. The cost is about NZ 50 cents for a huge glass. So we have one each. Quite nice. Noel describes the taste as “like sweet beer without the fizz.”
We then explore some of the other food shops near by. None of them have supermarket type processed foods, all Just a huge variety of basic raw foods – nuts, grains, spices of all varieties and huge quantities of fruit.
Budgies also seem to be a very popular sale item for some reason. There were hundreds in cages. The few shop keepers we speak to seem proud of Amman also. After about an hour we walk back to our taxi and tour the city some more.
“This is the most interesting street we have seen on our trip.”
FAREWELL TO JORDAN
Flying On To Egypt
Soon it is time to go to Queen Adair International airport, which is a surprisingly long way out of the city, about 35 kms, to catch our plane to Egypt.
While we wait at the airport for our boarding call to Egypt, I try to sneak a surreptitious photograph a Saudi Arabian woman who is completely enclosed, except for her eyes, hands and lower arms, in a black Burka. However she spots me and moves off. Later I manage to get a side picture of her. Her eyes are made up to the nines. Very dramatic, and she had what looked like temporary henna tattoos on her hands and lower arms.
Noel manages to change US$100 into $10’s, $5’s and $1’s which are useful for tips. We come across some huge packets of cigarettes. I take a picture of Noel holding them.
Also while we are waiting at the airport, the Moslem call to prayer sounds. Soon afterward we notice over in a quiet area of the airport lounge, several Moslem men have removed their shoes, and even socks, and are kneeling or bowing in prayer.
Our crowded Air Jordan flight is half an hour later taking off. Yet despite this, none of the Arabs are in a hurry to find and take their seats. Nearly everybody is relaxed, calm and talkative. Quite different from the normal Western experience. We take off and head for Cairo again.
“Our crowded Air Jordan flight is half an hour later taking off.”
David & Noel Coory · Middle East Trip
June 2005 · Tauranga, New Zealand to Singapore and beyond Redesigned with care · Original travel diary preserved