Journeys, Jordan..... but no kittens.

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I'm in the same hotel lobby. A film starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Rik Mayall (I'm shocked such a beast exists) is playing. It's been a lazy day today, yesterday we half heartedly decided on the Dead Sea as our day trip, but as with most half hearted plans it did not materialize. The combination of no easy public transport (taxi drivers kept assuring us there were 'no' buses to the sea - why didn't we let them drive us instead?) and the fatal mistake of not setting an alarm meant that at 11 o clock this morning we were sitting on our beds, guidebooks splayed open, looking out of the window and thinking about swimming pools. After breakfast (hard boiled egg, flat bread and jam - every hotel in every country has served us this - how I long for cereal and ice cold milk) we agreed to go to a top end (having read Lonely Planet too much I now refer to establishments as 'budget', 'mid-range' or 'top end') hotel and use their pool. After a bit of telephoning around, we got an average price of 30JD - about 30 pounds. To use a pool. So there has been no swimming today. I long for a swim, mostly because I am constantly so hot that the premise of jumping into a pool really entices me. So in Turkey we have found the holy grail - a budget hotel with a pool. Until then, we'll have to wait......


We leave for Damascus this weekend after almost a week in Jordan. I can barely remember the journey, oddly because at 25 hours it's a significant proportion of our time. 9 hours on a coach, 3 hours in a dusty bus station outside Sharm el-Sheikh, 3 further hours on a bus that I mistakenly described as 'plush' (it had a kind of velvet swag hanging from the roof, hence my delusion, but it was actually filthy and un-air conditioned), 4 hours waiting in a port where we got the impression western girls are a real rarity, 4 hours on a ferry (the high point of the journey - we persuaded the staff to admit us into the first class cabin - it was empty but we charmed them significantly enough to be led in via the kitchen and had it all to ourselves) and then two hours in a taxi to Petra (we decided against Aqaba).


The taxi journey gave us our introduction to Jordan and it was a good start. The driver had been haggled down to a low price (lower than the market average we later discovered) and he had a leather-seated, air conditioned Mercedes. He also had - joy of joys - a cassette of 90's power ballads. And as you probably know there is nothing I love more than a good power ballad. We whiled away the two hours singing along to Take That and East 17. The driver was quite fond of us I think, he stopped to buy us ice creams and fruit juice (we hadn't asked for these but they were forced on us with what I now know to be the usual Jordanian hospitality). Actually he had no sense of urgency at all, making us get out of the car to look at the stars (beautiful indeed but, after a 23 hour journey, not quite what we felt like doing) and another stop to look at the view over Petra. He also attempted to persuade us to stay in a different hotel than the one we'd chosen, but luckily we've both got pretty good at forcefully declining any offers. Anyway, we arrived at Cleopetra (great pun, eh?) at about midnight, to a cheerful - if somewhat irritating - hotel owner who insisted we sit down with him for tea. EVENTUALLY we were allowed to go to our rooms. Now, this is the point I'd been looking forward to since the day before. I don't really think that I ask for much - a bathroom with a good shower, a clean room with a comfortable bed. All I wanted to do was shower and go to bed. We were shown to the room and Mary and I just looked at each other in silence for a moment. It was small - not usually a problem - with two beds, a chest of drawers with a cracked mirror, a coatstand that looked as though it was from the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey, a fluroescent strip light and an unenthusiastic fan. The bathroom was laid out so that you had to sit sideways on the toilet with your feet dangling in the shower basin. Worst of all, it was dirty - dirty walls, dirty floors, dirty carpet. And we'd booked for three nights.


Luckily, Petra is a charming enough place for this to not be too problematic. Here is a concise synopsis of our activities in Petra: we visited the ancient city of Petra, we had dinner at the hostel and chatted to a lovely Mormon who led the most wholesome life imaginable - hiking, running, spending time with her family who she called 'fun'. We went to a pharmacist when I got a blocked ear. We had tea in the desert, late at night. We got told off by the hostel owner when we got back too late. We visited the Brooke horse hospital. We got on a bus to Amman on Tuesday morning.


Amman is very different to everywhere we've been. It's thoroughly modern, no ancient souqs, no twisting alleys, no impressive mosques. It is also built on 19 hills; great for picture-perfect photos, not so great for someone with my level of fitness - I am constantly out of breath. The first place we went on Tuesday was a bookshop-cafe-bar in an upmarket suburb of Amman. It looked - and sounded - like an American suburb - flat roofed villas with palm trees over hanging into the street. And many American voices courtesy of the international university. This cafe really had the 'hip young things' (more Lonely Planet speak) of Amman. The girls were all wearing tight jeans and high heels and had Louis Vuitton style bags.


Anyway, having written in great detail about trivial happenings, and imparted nothing of importance, I am bringing this blog to an end...... but I will update soon about our recent adventures - and the kittens - I must remember the kittens.

xxx

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