Jordan 25 April 2014
Crossing the Jordan
In the morning, Geni, Peter, Elly and I ( by now the only ones left Aside from John and Bronia who stayed on a few more days ), loaded ourselves into our van and headed for the Sheikh Hussein crossing into Jordan. When we arrived we found the place nearly deserted, but soon the big buses started to arrive. We plodded our way through the Israeli passport control, and then hopped on a bus for all of 3 minutes, to get to the Jordanian side. Elly and Geni had paused in the duty free shop for a while, and Elly spent some time getting a tax refund for stuff she had bought, so we were losing the race against the bus loads, however, just as we were about to join the queue, Murad, our guide appeared out of nowhere, and told us to leave our bags and go with him.
Then followed a slightly embarrassing jumping of queues, saying “excuse me” as we pushed past people, and we were through before we knew it. The embarrassment only lasted a couple of minutes as we looked back at the lengthening queue.
Murad, and our new driver Achmed, took us in hand as we drove towards the town of Jurash, which, in itself isn’t notable, however, it contains some of the most extensive Roman ruins in the world – the reason being that, instead of just leaving the ruins as, basically an area of rubble, they have elected to restore them, using both excavated material, and, where necessary, modern substitutes, to give an overall impression of what the old city looked like.
It isn’t a complete replica by any means, but is restored enough to allow you to know what it looked like.
We entered through Hadrian’s Gate, which has been partially restored. From there to the Forum, which is an oval colonnaded area, and from where you can see up the hill to the Temple of Zeus, and, at the other end on rising ground, the Temple of Artemis. As we walked towards the Temple of Artemis we could see the whole city, with the Cardo, the main north south road, lined with columns, and another road, running east west, also lined with columns, intersecting the Cardo. There is a theatre near the Temple of Zeus, and also a beautiful fountain beside the Cardo.
There are ruins here from various stages of history, not only those of the Roman Empire. It is a very impressive sight, and it is interesting to see it as an alternative way of preserving ruins by using modern materials and equipment without noticeably being a patch up job.
The Fountain along the CardoFrom Jerash we headed south for quite a long drive, stopping for lunch at a restaurant which offered some shade and food. At the outside entrance was the “Baker” standing in front of his open oven, which, I am sure, cooks him to well done on hot days. He kneaded a piece of dough, rolling it flat, putting holes in it with his fingers, then tossing it spinning into the air, catching it and slapping it onto a thick piece of heat proof fabric. From there he leant into the oven and slammed the bread against the inside where it stuck and cooked. We sampled some of his wares with our lunch, and it was pretty good.
After lunch as we were driving, and Murad asked us if we would like to visit his house, and his wife would make us coffee, and roast some chick peas for us. We were a little reluctant, and I being my cynical self, assumed that it was a ploy to make us feel obligated to give him a better tip. However, we said we would accept his offer, and so, we pulled into his drive and met his wife and four children.
His house was very nice, as were his wife and kids. Many houses built in Jordan have concrete poles extending through the roof, with reinforcement protruding through the top of the poles.
The theory is that when the children have children, they build a second floor, and the kids move in above the parents.
Murad didn’t have that arrangement, although they had a side by side arrangement, so the parents live next door.
On we drove south towards Petra, and shortly before we arrived, we detoured a little to look across at a castle on a hill top, which was still fairly substantial. This was built by King Baldwin, the first king of Jerusalem, and was used to protect the camel trains which passed through this region.
Finally we arrived in Petra, which is a mid sized town, quite neat and tidy in appearance, then to our hotel, which was right across the street from the entrance to old Petra
Petra 26 April
Wow. What can you say about this place? Everyone told us that Petra was amazing, but this is mind boggling.
We entered(across the road), and started on a gentle down slope. Murad diverted us across to a shop, probably run by his brother, however, what we did see was a very skilled person working with sand in a small bottle. He did a demo for us, filling the small bottle with some of a couple of different colours of crushed rock, looking very much like sand, and proceeded to poke around in the bottle, finishing up with the shape of a camel. Very clever, particularly because, even if you shake the bottle, the sand doesn’t move, it stays as he designed it. Also, if after a time the bottle drops and breaks, the crushed rock has solidified and remains intact the way it was made.
Continuing on we then entered the gorge. At this point we were assailed by offers of donkey rides and horse drawn carriage rides, for those who couldn’t, or thought they couldn’t make it on their own. To their credit, once we said no thanks, they left us alone.
We were very lucky, because this attraction is so popular, it is usually very crowded, but this morning it was almost deserted, sounding quite echoey ( how do you spell that?).
It was good for us, but, sadly the tourist trade here has fallen dramatically, primarily because of ISIS activity in Syria, making people uncertain about the whole area, and some of the large hotels are actually going to close down, which is a pity, given the magic of this place.
The gorge has been formed by earthquake activity, which has torn the rock apart, and left a path about 15 – 20 metres wide, completely engulfed by towering sheer cliffs about 300 metres high. In most places you can see that the opposing sides of the gorge match with each other, indicating how they were torn apart from each other.
The other striking thing are the colours of the rock, brilliant reds, blues, yellows all around. In some places you would swear that a great artist had somehow scrambled up the rock wall and painted a magnificent work, with swirling shapes and patterns, too brilliant to be by chance, but, no, it is all natural.
As we progressed further into the gorge, moving aside as the echoing clatter of donkey hooves came up behind us, we started to see man’s intervention, in the form of tombs built into the rock face. These were for the wealthy, and had standard forms do decoration above them, usually a set of steps indicating the path to heaven, and below, the tomb itself cut into a man made cave. All robbed many years ago of course, but the precision of the rock cutting is amazing considering the tools they must have had available.
The TreasuryAround one corner, we caught a glimpse, and then a little further on, we saw the whole thing – the image everyone associates with Petra, the Treasury. This is a magnificent creation, carved into the sheer cliff face, originally built as a mausoleum, but misnamed the Treasury because of rumours that either pirates had stored treasure there, or it had been used as a treasury at some time. There are bullet holes in the facade, where, supposedly, the Bedouins used to fire their rifles at the wall hoping some of the treasure may fall out. Whatever, it is an exciting thing to see. It featured in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and was portrayed as the entrance to the resting place of the Holy Grail.
This, however, is not the end of Petra. We continued on past many tombs in the cliff face, all with the same general design features, until we exited the gorge.
This area was the capital of the Nabataean kingdom from the 6th century BC, and was subsequently taken over by the Romans in the first century, then the Byzantine Empire took control, and finally the Muslims took control, so there is evidence of all these civilisations here.
We walked along the remains of a Roman road towards another gate, similar to the one in Jurash, after which we headed towards the “Thousand Steps”.
This sounded fairly daunting in the hot sun, but we were all anxious to do it, because it led to a monastery at the top of the climb. This was a structure almost identical to the Treasury, although a little less ornate. The climb was actually only about 900 steps (Peter counted them!), although when we arrived at the monastery there was another climb to do to reach a lookout point, from which we could see across to the west, and also down across the mountains of Petra.
The Monastry
There was actually a bit of competition, because there were two viewing areas, both with signs saying “Best View”. We went to the highest one first ( and in my case, only – I had had enough sun without inviting more), then the others trooped across to the other viewing area while I hid under the shade of a large boulder.
Donkeys were everywhere, loaded up with tourists who didn’t feel the need to climb 1000 steps, the poor things, they must do that climb several times a day, and cats! Cats are everywhere in Jordan, with, obviously no effort being made to control the problem.
On our return to the bottom, we walked back a short way, and I stopped for a beer, as my intrepid travelling partners decided to climb another 800 steps to the High Place of Sacrifice, where sacrificial offerings were made, and from where you could look down over the whole of Petra, and see, at the top, the stone on which the animals were killed, and the channel for the blood to drain away. ( what fun!)
Apparently the last few metres of the climb were a bit scary and dangerous, but you had to do it oath wise you wouldn’t see anything. Peter had to come to the rescue of both the women to get them there. Shame on me for resting again in the shade!
Finally we made it back, through the gorge again, this time with afternoon light putting a different perspective on things.
The end of an amazing day, with such astonishing things, both natural and man made.
Bedouin woman at High Place of Sacrifice
Geni with a stray cat on 800 step climb to High Place of Sacrifice
Bedouin with his donkey near the Treasury
View across from above the Monastery Wadi Rum 27 April 2014
Our last day in Jordan began with a drive further south to a place called Wadi Rum. Wadi means valley, and Rum is just a name, not significant as far as we were told.We arrived at the entrance to be met with our Bedouin driver, Moses, a pleasant, quiet sort of guy. This area is under Bedouin control, so you can’t just come in and start touring around yourself.
We were in the back of a battered old ute with bench seats on either side, and, fortunately for me, a cover over the roof.We drove off into the desert, with massive rock hills and sand dunes all around us. The hills were reminiscent of the Petra rock, with patterns and colours throughout. We stopped and climbed a sand dune, which wasn’t easy – Pete echoed my thoughts exactly as he called out ” I feel like Percy Cerutti” a nice view from the top and lots of sand in our shoes, we headed back to our limousine.
Our next stop was the camel stop – camels lying around all over the place, actually sitting mostly, with a couple lying down giving the impression of death. Geni and Elly decided that they would like to do a camel ride! Pete and I rolled our eyes, but said nothing. Off they went on their trusty steeds, as we drove to our next stop to wait for them. The camel ride lasted for about 15 minutes, and as Pete said, you could hire a car for a day in Australia for that money.
We stopped at a large Bedouin tent, made of goat hair, very professionally, where we were given a cup of herb tea. Of course they have lots of knick knacks there to sell. The guy tried to tell Pete that he looked like a Bedouin with his moustache, and tried to put a red and white towel on his head – once they do that to you it’s hard to refuse to buy it. Pete was quite positive in his response – no way!
The scenery was magnificent, with these enormous towering rock mountains, and sand dunes filling the gaps between. Lawrence of Arabia was in this area, and there is reference to the Seven Pillars, which we saw on our way, a large multi faceted rock with vertical pillar like protrusions down the side.
During the drive Elly asked me where the iPad was, so I told her it was in her camera bag, where I had put it that morning. She said that it wasn’t there. Panic! We stopped the car and got out and searched the car and the bags – no iPad. I distinctly remembered putting it in her camera bag that morning, even which slot I put it in.Murad rang the hotel and asked them to look in our room, although I could see no way it could be there, because of the above, and we had checked the room before we left.We were amazed when they rang and said they had found it. What a relief, I had over a weeks blog just waiting for some photos for me to post it. However, I still couldn’t understand why it was in our room.The tour company said they had a driver who was coming from Petra to Amman and he would bring it. What a relief. ( we thought).Back in our normal transport, we turned north to head towards Amman. As we got closer, we diverted Madaba, to visit the Church of St George. This was originally scrappy unused land full of rubble, when the Greek Orthodox people moved into the area, and asked for land to be made available for them to build a church. They were allocated this land, and started to clear it. During the clearing process, they came upon a large mosaic which depicted, minus a few areas, the entire land stretching from what is now northern Israel, across to the Mediterranean and, in the other direction, Jordan.This was a major discovery, so the church was actually constructed to fit around the mosaic, and that mosaic is produced as a copy by current mosaic manufacturers.
Further on we actually called in to a mosaic manufacturing business where they made some very impressive stuff, from bowls to chairs, tables, almost anything, with amazing quality
On to Mount Nebo, where Moses was supposedly shown the Promised Land. Unfortunately we didn’t rank so highly with God as Moses, because we could only just see the northern tip of the Dead Sea, because of the haze.
Murad and Achmed gave us a tour around the outskirts and through the city of Amman, before we went to the hotel, mainly the nice areas, where all the embassies are. Murad insisted that Elly not take any photos, or they might get into serious trouble with a capital T. This is never a good thing to tell Elly.
After checking in to the hotel, Elly and I had to get organised because we had a 1:00 am pick up to go to the airport for our flight through to Chiang Mai, so we were sweating on the driver, who was supposed to deliver the iPad before 7:00 pm. He finally arrived after 9:00 so I dashed down to the lobby, with some reward money for him. Imagine my surprise when he handed me a Kindle, not an iPad! Geni had left her Kindle in her room, and hadn’t realised it, and they had found nothing in our room. The iPad was gone.We backtracked our movements, and it had been in the camera bag until it was left with all our other luggage on the hotel trolley, while Elly went to the toilet. That is the only time it was out of our sight the whole morning until we found it had gone. Someone had pinched it!
Chiang Mai 28 April 2014
We spent this day, from a pick up at 1:00am, flying from Amman to Dubai, Bangkok and Chiang Mai in Thailand. We were still upset about the iPad, particularly losing all the seven or eight days of the blog. A response Elly gives when someone says money doesn’t buy happiness is “It is better to cry in the back of a limo than to cry in the back of a bus”, and as we had used up most of our remaining frequent flyer points to pay for business class, I said as we settled into our pods on the A380 from Dubai to Bangkok, “I guess we are crying in the back of a limo”.
Crying in the back of a limoChiang Mai 29 April 2014
We had settled nicely into the hotel Shangri La, where we had originally booked a standard room, but when we checked in, they offered us a package which included a room upgrade, breakfast, and a two hour Happy Hour every evening – how could we refuse?
Our first and main mission was to find an Apple Store to replace our stolen iPad. We did find it at a shopping mall near the airport, although it wasn’t an Apple Store like those we know at home, and the Genius Bar (for those who know the Apple Store system) was certainly not full of genii.However, we managed to bite the bullet and buy ourselves a new iPad, and told ourselves that the old one was showing signs of dementia, and really needed to be replaced anyway. Now the task remained of recollecting all the events from the previous week.In the evening we went along to Happy Hour, of course, and found wine and food and a nice view, so we proceeded to eat and drink so much we didn’t need any dinner!
Flight of the Gibbons 30 April 2014
Today we had decided to go on a Zip Line adventure called Flight of the Gibbon. This was at Elly’s instigation- of course- why wouldn’t someone who is scared of heights ( yes I know she is a pilot ) book in for something which involves being hooked up to a wire suspended across the top of a jungle, and being launched at high speed towards a tree platform 800 metres away?
In fact we did this about 10 times over the course of a couple of hours – it was great fun, with people whizzing over the top of us shrieking, as we crossed paths with other zippers.It is called the Flight of the Gibbon because there are Gibbons in the trees at one spot, very low in number because of poaching, but we spotted a couple, although Elly only had her little camera, so no close up safari type photos.
We had a couple of guys looking after our group of six, and they had a great sense of humour, giving us a lot of cheek. However, we were really impressed with their scrupulous safety procedures. No one, at any time was disconnected from a safety line, if you had to be released, they would hook a second line on before disconnecting the other line. They even did this with themselves, but it was done so professionally you almost didn’t notice.
Three of our group, two brothers and a girl were Los Angeles police officers, and the other girl’s work was looking after her father’s property portfolio in the U.S. “protecting your inheritance?” I asked. “Absolutely,” she said. Nice work if you can get it.
We took a Tuk Tuk (sorry) out to dinner that night to a lovely restaurant called The Riverside, which, strangely, was on the river. Beautiful balmy weather and good food.
Hong Kong 1 May 2014
Up at 03:00am to catch our flight to Hong Kong. It was great to be back in the place we love so much, after spending 9 years there. Our dear friends Kim and Kai had kindly offered for us to stay with them, but they had visitors already for the night, so we checked in to a nearby hotel for a night.Our son, Michael was in town touring with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, so we had timed our arrival to meet up with him, and attend the concert on the 3rd. As it happened, our other son, Daniel, who had been attending a medical convention in London, was here with his girlfriend, Cecci.
Michael was showing some of his orchestra mates the sights of Hong Kong, so we met Dan & Cecci for happy hour, before we all met for dinner. We found ( the boys found ) a beautiful, atmospheric, very trendy restaurant Mott 32, just the typical Hong Kong place you find when you want to spoil yourself, and had a fabulous night together. It was very special, and our last chance because Dan and Cecci had to head back to Melbourne to work. Just a pity we didn’t have daughters Claire and Eleanor with us, that would have been something, because they love Hong Kong too.
Hong Kong 2 May 2014
We did manage to squeeze in another meeting with Dan and Cecci this morning, with a Yum Cha at Hong Kong City Hall. This is an event we remembered well from our time in Hong Kong, and we managed to coordinate to have Kim and daughter Mai, who has known our boys since school days, also our friends Cawsi and Diana, as well as Donna Blake, here from the U.K. with son Oliver, who is a dear friend of Dan’s since school days in Hong Kong, and his fiancé Maya. How we managed to be in Hong Kong at the same time I have no idea. Michael was missing because of rehearsals. We had a great, noisy Yum Cha, good fun.Hong Kong has changed a lot over the last several years, 16 years since we left. Property prices have doubled, then doubled, then doubled again, and the rental for a normal sort of apartment is around A$20,000 per month! However, it is a city which is vibrant and full of life, with new buildings going up everywhere, we love it!Next on the agenda (more food) was a ferry ride to Lamma Island with Kim and Kai and Mai to one of the many Chinese restaurants on the waterfront there. Michael brought along half a dozen of the orchestra members to join us. Having Kai as our interpreter made life easy, so we left the ordering to him. Elly and I had met some of the orchestra previously, in Norway and in Melbourne. They are a great bunch of people, an eclectic mix from all over the world, including various European countries, Israel, Iceland, Australia and the U.K. They welcomed us into their company, and we thoroughly enjoyed the night with them.
Hong Kong 3 May 2014
After a very late night, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed, (now staying at Kim and Kai’s place) to make our way to Diana and Cawsi’s apartment for a late brunch. We could get used to this lifestyle again, we have done it before.A bit of a rest during the afternoon prepared us for the Mahler Chamber Orchestra concert at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, a Beethoven program including two Piano Concertos. Six of us attended, with good seats and a good view of Michael. Cawsi, ever the comedian, brought along a bottle of wine ( 2 in fact) for us to have during interval. Better than that dross they sell there, he advised.A great concert, thoroughly enjoyed by all, and then Elly and I met up with the orchestra at a cute, obscure bar one of them had discovered, and partied on till late o’clock, and were advised by Michael that, apparently, the orchestra says we are in the running for the world’s coolest parents! How about that? Finally we said a fond farewell to them all, and to Michael. They continue on their tour to Taipei, Korea and Japan, before heading back to Europe.
Back home at 3:00am.
Hong Kong 4 May 2014
Elly and Kim took crazy dog Marcel for a walk around the Peak in the morning where you have the best views of Hong Kong.
Went for a drive with Kim down along the eastern side of Hong Kong Island to Stanley, where we lived for the first four years of our time in Hong Kong. We drove first to Shek O, which is on the South East corner of the Island, and which we remember as a fairly untidy beach area, with broken concrete paths, but, a place, nevertheless that we did go occasionally with the kids. It has been transformed into a lovely clean beach, and we had lunch at a new restaurant right on the beach.
Shek O beachOn to Stanley, which still has the market, and a waterfront bar or two, but now has a shopping mall, which we have seen before, but wasn’t there in our time in Hong Kong. Elly and Kim went to do some shopping while I put my feet up with a cup of coffee, and tried to do some catchup on the blog.On the drive back, I felt it difficult, at times, to get my bearings in what used to be very familiar territory, because of the immense building that has changed the landscape, and is still continuing. This place is a one-off in the world, and is simply remarkable. In the evening we had an invitation to dinner from an old friend, Alistair Hayman, on the roof of his apartment. It was a balmy evening, and it brought back a lot of memories of life in Hong Kong, on the roof with the towering apartment blocks all around, lit up, and the clouds overhead reflecting the city lights, we both just soaked it all up and loved it.
It’s only red wine!Leaving Hong Kong May 5 2014
Late start for our last day. Kim and Elly go out to bank and lunch and MTR which now extends to Kennedy Town in the west. That evening we had dinner with the same friends at a new hawker style restaurant in western Central which was amazingly BYO grog. Unheard of in HK in our days.
Off to the airport for the final leg home.