Day 26 - Evening in Amman

After the tour I went out to dinner with a different group of people from the hostel.  We went to a rooftop restaurant where I had to stay under 4.25JD, since that's all I had left.  I was able to spend exactly 4JD on a salad and hummus.

The restaurant was incredibly trendy for Amman.  All of the fashion-forward people in Jordan were there.  That basically means the women had eye makeup and painted fingernails in addition to their black garb.  We didn't order hookah, though it appeared that all the other tables did.

After dinner we went back and I scheduled a driver to pick me up for the airport at 5am.  Public transportation isn't the best option in Amman.  Off to Paris in the morning.

Dinner.

Day 26 - Crazy Driver

Our drive was bizarre.  The driver insisted on listening to nothing but his favorite 80s hits.  I took a video of how crazy the drive was.  A Jordanian, two Malaysians, two Scots, and an American are driving a KIA minivan in the desert listening to ABBA while the driver wears a Texas cowboy hat and sings along.  He became angry when the Scots were talking during one of the songs.  He said, "Quiet!  I love this song!"

The CD looped 8 or 9 times over the course of the day.

The driver had to stay with us everywhere we went because he had nowhere else to go.  Remember, he's not a tour guide, just a hired driver.  Rather than tell us about local sites, he would tell us about his marital problems and about how he has family in Virginia and Texas, but can't come to the US because he has relations with the Syrian army.  Good times.

I was playing cards at the pool with the Scottish girls and he wanted to join in.  Then when we finished, he insisted on keeping the cards as a gift because he said playing cards are highly taxed in Jordan.  They were Jubilee cards, so they are actually probably worth a good amount as a collectible in Jordan.

Driving in Jordan is much more organized than in Asia, but also more aggressive.  If you want to drive faster than someone else, you tailgate them while honking angrily and they move over.  I just don't see that working in the US.

Day 26 - Other Pictures from the Day

The driver's hat from Texas!

Welcome to Palestine.

Local transportation.

Replica Bin Laden compound for upcoming James Cameron movie.

Diet pepsi?

Day 26 - The Dead Sea

After the Panorama, we went to the Amman Beach Resort on the Dead Sea.  It costs 16JD for foreigners, which seemed a little pricy, but there wasn't really a choice.  Everything here has a tiered pricing system.  Jordanians get in free or pay 1-2JD at places.  Arabs pay 5-6JD.  "Foreigners" pay 10+.  I suppose we have that in the US to an extent, but it's pretty blatant in Jordan.

The girls and I went right to the water to try it out.

Dead Sea beach.

Scottish girls trying to read the newspaper.

The water is really weird.  First, it's really hot.  That means it's really not pleasant to get in since the air temperature is so high.  Second, it's unbelievably salty, so the tiniest cut burns horribly.  I have a few knicks and scrapes from all my walking and I felt it burning pretty bad.  After a little while, your fingernails start burning because the salt seeps into your fingertips somehow.

Still, it's pretty entertaining to be able to float so well.  Sinking is impossible.  I grabbed my knees and held them to my chest.  My shoulders stayed out of the water.  It's like wearing a life jacket at all times.

There are chunks of salt everywhere, so that's pretty strange as well.  The girls collected bottles of mud to take with them back to Scotland.  I think mud qualifies as a liquid for airport security, but I'm not totally sure.  It does make your skin really soft.  There was a random guy on the beach offering to coat people for 5JD, but it just as easy to dig it up yourself.  Many Muslim women in full dress were putting it on their faces even though the rest of their body was covered.  That was sort of funny.

As I said, the water is hot, so your head (and anything other parts above water) sweat.  But you can't wipe the sweat off because your hands are salty.  I was splashed by a single drop that landed on my lip.  Even though I was careful to let it drip off, I tasted a bit on my lips.  WOW.  You do NOT want to drink the Dead Sea.  It would be a particularly cruel way to execute someone.  Two boys were trying to dunk each other down the beach from me.  The loser (the younger brother) ran screaming up the beach towards the shower.  Apparently Dead Sea water in the eyes is unpleasant.

I needed fresh water to get the salt out of my mouth, so I headed to the pool area.  It was nice, though a little strange because everyone wears their clothes while swimming.  Young children look normal, but adult females swim in outfits that I am sure often drown them.

Pool area.

Don't fall in!  You will drown in that thing!

Islamic pool party.

I ate lunch after cooling off in the pool.  It was an overpriced buffet, but again, there was no alternative.

The driver told me that UV rays from the sun cannot reach the Dead Sea.  I didn't believe him, but the Scottish girls said the same thing.  I forgot to bring sunscreen, so I had planned to only swim for 20 minutes or so, but they reassured me.  But...they lied.  After a few hours, I was pretty crispy.  In fact, I found myself with the worst sunburn of my life.  I look like a tomato.  I can't take a picture of my shoulders on my own, but this is what I look like.

Not me, but same skin tone.

So wearing a shirt hurts.  Wearing a backpack really hurts.  Actually, sitting still hurts.  I have no aloe vera, but hopefully some Tylenol will help.

Day 26 - Morning Jordan Sights

I went downstairs for breakfast (which is included in the hostel price!) and looked at the menu.

So colorful!

The second option seemed like a very strange breakfast choice.  The first seemed okay, but I went with the third.  The tea was really good.  I had three cups of mint tea before leaving to meet the driver.

I paid 20JD for a driver to take me to different sights around Jordan.  The price was actually 100JD, but I split the cost with four other people.  There was a Malaysian couple and two girls from Scotland.  I sat up front with the driver.

When we got in the car, he was on the phone with a local radio station.  He turned up the volume and we listened to him speak on-air!  That was an interesting start.  Later I found out he called in to complain about old furniture being thrown in the street.

Our first stop was Madaba, a city famous for its excavations of mosaic churches.

All the pictures are made of tiny tiles.

Floor outside.

Close-up of one of the walls.

After touring the church, we went to one of the active excavations.

Rebuilding the church with original materials.

Then we went to the town to look at some shops.  As expected, they mainly sold copies of mosaics.  There were a few other interesting items, like this sword.

Yes, it was real.  Very sharp too.

I don't have space for souvenirs, but I pretended like I was interested since I think the driver gets a commission when we buy at a store he takes us to.  Fortunately, the Malaysian couple were on a shopping spree, so it let the rest of us off the hook.

After the mosaic town, we headed to Mount Nebo.

Moses Memorial.

The Promised Land as Moses saw it.

 The Promised Land doesn't really look all that wonderful.  I think I would have been upset if I traveled all this way and found out the land I had been promised was a desert.  Then again, it's better than slavery in Egypt.

They are building a massive memorial to Moses on the site, but for now it was just a small museum and the monument above.  After Mount Nebo, we went to the Dead Sea Panorama.

The Dead Sea.

Israel is in the background.

 There was a museum of the Dead Sea on the site as well.  It mainly dealt with how the Dead Sea is disappearing.  It did have one pretty interesting display.

Jordanian scientists are very precise.

I'm not sure I believe all the information presented, but it was fun to read about all the dangerous chemicals in the water.  What a great way to get excited about swimming!

Day 25 - Amman

So...Jordan is a desert.  I'm not sure why people chose to live here at some time in the past, but they must have been crazy.

My driver picked me up at the airport with a sign.  It turns out he's from North Carolina.  He owned a convenience store in Durham, but he was robbed at gunpoint and moved to Jordan.  He says the US is much too dangerous for his family and he needed a safer country.  Luckily this means he speaks pretty good English.

He gave me a driving tour on the way to the hostel explaining Jordanian history and how great the country is.  Then he bought me a Jordanian flag from a guy walking in the middle of the road.  He said all proud Jordanians have a flag on their car.  I did notice the flag is everywhere.

Surprisingly, all signs were in both Arabic and English.  There is way more English in Jordan than Tel Aviv.

I arrived at the hostel and went upstairs to escape the heat.  That idea didn't work since the hostel appears to use windows and fans to provide shelter.  I met a Dutch researcher who is here to study dust devils.  He might have the most obscure job I've ever heard of.  We went to dinner together with an Iraqi and a guy from Fiji.  We are quite the multiculutral dinner party.  We were forced to the upstairs tourist area so we wouldn't upset the locals, but that worked out OK for us.

National Dish of Jordan

 The national Jordanian dish is lamb with rice.  The lamb seems to be cut randomly for each person.  I got a lot of meat and some stomach.  Lamb stomach actually tastes much better than cow stomach.

After dinner I booked a tour for the morning and went to bed.  The tour starts at 8am and I have to eat breakfast.

Day 25 - Flight to Amman

I woke up before 8am to give myself plenty of time to catch my 12:30 flight.  I left the hostel by 8:30 and caught a minibus to the bus station.  I had planned to walk, but an Israeli soldier from the beach last night was also going to the train station and I saw him get on the minibus.  I quickly jumped on too.

I was at the station by 8:45, way ahead of schedule.  The solider told me to take platform 2, so I lined up there.  All signs were in Hebrew, so I had absolutely nothing to go on.  I looked around and everyone on my platform had luggage, so that was a good sign.  Here are some soliders waiting with me for the train.



They are a common sight around town.

I boarded the train when it came and tried to look for familiar sights.  I couldn't find any.  The first stop came after 15 minutes.  It had a Hebrew name and was not the airport.  No one got off, so I figured it was a minor stop on the way to the airport.  The airport was 30 minutes away from Tel Aviv by taxi, so I figured I would give the train roughly the same amount of time.  A large number of people left with luggage at the second stop and I saw barbed wire, so I got off too.  All annoucements are in Hebrew, but Ben Gurion is the same in both languages.

I found myself in Rehovot.  Without wifi, I had no idea where this was.  It turned out to be the complete wrong direction.  It was now 9:30 and my flight was in three hours.  It would take 30 minutes to get back to Tel Aviv Central and another 30 to get back to the airport.  Plus, there could be transfer time at the station between trains.  After adding in Israeli airport security, there was a good chance I would miss my flight.

After Seoul and Bangkok, I couldn't risk it, so I took a taxi to the airport.  Goodbye 200 shekels.  Luckily it was only 200, because I only had 208 shekels left.

The taxi dropped me off at 10:10, giving me almost 2 and half hours.  That was good because security in Israel is pretty intense.  I was interviewed for 15 minutes by four different people who asked me the exact same questions.  They seemed very concerned that I had been in Malaysia and was taking a flight to Amman on Royal Jordanian.  They kept asking if I had friends or family there and if I could speak Arabic.  After answering the same questions in the same way for each officer, I was allowed to go get a boarding pass.

Then I was stopped at a new checkpoint and verified before being allowed to go to the departure security screening.  Then my ID was checked again at the gate to security.  Then I was assigned an entire lane to myself.  I didn't know why, but I figured it out soon.  Every single item was hand inspected.  When you have two backpacks, that takes a while.  My portable hard drive was suspicious apparently and so was my flashlight.  After running everything through the x-ray twice, hand inspecting everything once, and hand inspecting suspicious items again, I made it through a little before 11am.

I went to the Dan lounge which I think is the only one at Ben Gurion.  It looked like all Oneworld airlines used it.  The lounge was pretty basic, but I was only staying an hour, so that was OK.  There was nothing but crackers and raw vegetables with dip to eat.  I left at noon to board my flight, but when I arrived it was delayed.  And delayed.  And delayed.  I grabbed some hummus with my 8 shekels and had lunch.  My flight finally departed at 2:45.

The flight was short and I was the only person in the business class cabin.  I slept from take-off to landing.  After the bus transfer from the plane, I went to the visa line to buy my Jordanian Visa.  The sign said credit cards accepted, but it turns out they aren't.  The exchange counter wouldn't accept my Thai Baht or anything from Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Korea.  I'm very glad I saved by Yen, because it's the only currency I had that Jordan would take.  Every other person in the line used a crisp $100 USD bill.  Oh, the irony of being the one person in line not paying in US currency.

The visa line the second time was chaotic as a huge group of Arabs from some country were rejected one by one for some reason.  I tried my confidence trick.  It worked.  I just walked up to the counter and handed a 20JD bill.  Seconds later I had a visa.  Why wait in the back of an unorganized blob of people?

With that, I entered the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.