Amman

Our final night in Jordan was spent in Amman, the largest city and capital of Jordan.  We drove in on a Friday afternoon, after the Friday afternoon prayer and when all the souqs burst to life.  Our technology let us down for the first time during the trip, and between our confusion and heavy traffic, it took us a very long time to find our hostel in the old part of city.  (Very old - we had a view of a Roman theater from our room!)

After taking a few minutes to recover, we went to Hashem Cafe, one of the most famous restaurants in Amman.  It is one of the royal family's favorite haunts.  We didn't see any kings or queens while we were there, but did consume an enormous plate of bite-size felafel.

Afterwards, we wandered around to the various souqs.  We bought a little of the famous Middle Eastern "seven spice mix," which can apparently consist of more than seven spices, but definitely includes black and white pepper, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, coriander and nutmeg.  The ingredients are blended together, and are best (so we're told) on meat, rice dishes, and bread.

We capped off the night with very sweet tea in a quiet park.

 

Petra

We finally know what it feels like to be Indiana Jones.  

The most famous monument in Petra is the Treasury, where Indiana finds the holy grail.  If we were looking for the holy grail, that is where we would look too.  We would start underground -- there is an entire story which isn't visible in the picture.

The Nabateans built Petra around 300 BC, and were their peak from 100 BC to 100 AD before they were annexed by the Romans.  Petra is filled with incredible structures (mostly tombs) carved into rose-colored rocks.

 

The Nabateans were incredibly wealthy -- and not very war-like -- and expected the Romans would be interested in taking them over.  They lavished the Romans with gold and other gifts, and must have built this theater to keep them entertained when they visited.

Besides the Treasury, the monastery is considered the most spectacular ruin in Petra.  It is a strenuous but beautiful hike from the main city (the biggest complaint about Petra is the number of stairs).

 

We weren't disappointed when we made it to the top.  It is hard to believe how big the buildings are.  Here is the monestary, with a tiny little head at the base as point of comparison.


The view on the way back down reminded us our trip to Utah.

The Byzantines made it to Petra, of course, and spent enough time to tile the floor of a church.

The land was beautiful, and must have been more so when it was a bit more lush.  But even when Petra was inhabited, it was very dry, and the Nabateans built an elaborate system to store water during flash floods.  The floods were enough to create an oasis and support agriculture during prolonged droughts. 

Later, we walked up to the High Place of Sacrifice, which the Nabateans thoughtfully situated where the sacrificed would have a great final view.

We spent parts of three days in Petra, which was enough time to see everything we wanted to see.  The final day we arrived as the park opened, and it felt like we had it to ourselves (other than the locals who live in / on the outskirts of Petra) for hours.

The King's Highway

The King's Highway is an ancient trade route from Egypt to Iran, and control of the road was source of many conflicts beginning in Biblical times.  Now anyone can drive on it with a Jordanian visa and a functional automobile.  We had some doubts about our vehicle -- the knobs on the window cranks fell off as soon as we got in the car -- but it was almost certainly more comfortable than taking a camel.

Along the way we stopped at Madaba, home to amazing Byzantine mosaics.

The Byzantines built several churches in Madaba, and Madaba now has the largest Christian population in Jordan.

The next stop on the King's Highway was a castle built by the crusaders built in the 12th century, and the largest such castle outside of Syria.  The castle was several stories -- the stables were three levels! -- and was very carefully organized to store and conserve water.  The kitchens were spread over several rooms, and they had enormous vats for pressing grapes into wine.  It must have been cozy in the winter, but no amount of wine would convince us to spend a sweltering summer in the castle.

Dead Sea

We think the water in Abu Dhabi is salty.  It is so hot here that water from the surface evaporates and the remaining seawater feel like brine.  But our part of the Arabian Gulf (4% salt) has nothing on the Dead Sea (35% salt).  The Dead Sea is exactly as it's been described to us -- it feels normal at first, but the further you wade in, the harder it is to keep your feet on the ground.  And even for the less buoyant among us, floating in just about any position is possible.

Across the sea is Palestine -- if we could somehow carry drinking water with us, we think it would be an easy swim.

There are reefs made of salt, which is quite prickly on the toes -- all the more reason to float on top.

Swimming in the Dead Sea was an interesting experience, but there is more to see in Jordan so after one night, we continued our tour of the country...

Jerash

We have been planning to visit Jordan since we decided to move to Abu Dhabi, and finally went during the five day National Day weekend.  Lots of our fellow UAE residents had the same idea -- we saw the same people all over the country during our trip.  This was made easier by the fact that tourism is down by half this year -- although Jordan hasn't had any incidents, tourists are scared off by the chaos in Syria and Palestine/Israel.  

Our first stop was to Jerash, site of the largest Roman ruins outside of Italy.  The big arch at the front was built in honor of Hadrian's visit in 129 AD.

 Jerash was leveled by an earthquake in 749AD (it sounds to us that Jordan has a catastrophic earthquake every few hundred years), and it hasn't been rebuilt as much as it would have been in the US and Europe.  That made it harder to guess what certain things were, but made us marvel that the Romans could build anything that was still left standing.

This is a huge stone wheel which was used to make olive oil.  Jordan has microclimates, just like our favorite City by the Bay -- within a few miles lush forest would turn into Abu Dhabi-like sand.  So while we didn't see any olive trees near Jerash it wasn't hard to imagine that they used to be there, or that they weren't far off.

The huge forum reminded us of the open space near St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome.

 Because there weren't demarcated paths, and tourists to the site were left alone, we did a lot of scrambling up old stones to look around.

Here is a "leaning column" -- if you stick a pin at the base of the column, you can see the pin going up and down by a few millimeters.  We think it is the same philosophy as the Inca stones in Peru: in an earthquake, you need to have a little give so that your structure doesn't crumble on top of you.  But we were glad that this wasn't tested out while we were at Jerash.  

It was striking to see "old Jerash" and "new Jerash" in contrast.  This is common all over Jordan -- extremely old, sometimes well-preserved and sometimes not, next to extremely new.

Happy National Day (43rd edition)

It seems like it was only yesterday that the UAE turned 42.  This year, we enjoyed National Day abroad, but still had plenty of time to take in the lavish decorations.

On the way to the airport very early (or very late, depending on one's schedule) on National Day, two Emiratis pulled up to us and asked, "it is our National Day -- are you happy?"  We said yes -- but didn't tell them it was partly because we were about to escape the impending madness.

Sharjah

Summer is over, the weather is good and tourists are streaming into the UAE.  And not just into Dubai - last weekend the final race of the Formula 1 season was held in Abu Dhabi, which meant real traffic, hour-long queues for taxis, and strange sightings across the UAE.  In other words, a perfect time to leave town and explore Sharjah.

Sharjah is the emirate directly north of Dubai.  It has taken us anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours to travel between downtown Dubai and the city of Sharjah.  This time we left Abu Dhabi on Friday morning, guaranteeing a relatively traffic-free trip.

Sharjah is the most conservative emirate and is famous for its cultural center.  It has nearly half of all the museums in the UAE and a well-preserved fort.




The Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization had artifacts from the Berlin Museum of Islamic Art when we were there, but we enjoyed the permanent collection, which focuses especially on contributions to science, most of all.

We were most pleasantly surprised by Sharjah's corniche.  Sharjah is built along two bays, and there is a great running and bicycle path along both, as well as on a bridge which connects the two.  We were very, very slightly reminded of the amazing bicycle paths in Stockholm.

The Blue Souq is a pair of beautiful buildings right on the water.  We were eager to be charmed by the inside, but unfortunately it is more mall-y than souq-y.

We enjoyed getting to know one of the other emirates, and may be back for its most famous event, the Festival of Lights.

Safa Park

Safa Park is one of the rare green patches that make Dubai a conceivable habitat for outdoor beings. From inside it, the metallic city glows gorgeously....

....until the occasional sand storm envelops all but the nearest towers. You can just barely see the Burj in this picture. 

What you can begin to grasp, though, is how many birds frequent the rare green spaces in Dubai. The park is full of birds (it is renowned for bird watching) in the sky, and soccer players on the ground, with field after field of games going.

As always, signage is ... curious. Someone managed to think up a fantastic term for "Parking." 

A Passage to India, volume II: Munnar Hill Station

When we make tea now, we pause a little lovingly in scooping out the tea leaves. We know exactly where they came from. 

Tea is serious business in Munnar. The tea factory we visited had mission statements, growth targets and a rigorous accounting system...

...and a few tea leaves, too.  

Where did the tea come from?  Everywhere.

The only leaves harvested for tea are the bright, new leaves. The rest are trimmed back into wavy rows. Fields are burned every eight years. The plants survive: they are old . Some fields date back as far as 1902.

Tea farmers plant silver oaks every few meters as a natural irrigation system. In the rainy season, the roots of the trees soak up water. As the land dries out, the roots release water, and the tea plants gladly soak it up. 

By a happy coincidence, the silver oaks are also quite lovely.

For all its idyllic scenery, the trip to Munnar began with a fair amount of anxiety. Margaret was traveling under an assumed name, so far as her travel documents were concerned. Our friend Dan, meanwhile, checked his bag at the last minute. It contained not only his wallet and passport, but his beloved iPhone, too. So we had a suspenseful wait in line to board our plane, followed by a suspenseful few hours in the air. 

Luckily, all ended well. Apparently it's ok to travel under an assumed name in India, and usually, bags turn up when and where they're supposed to.

It was a five hour drive to Munnar, which we both remember in great detail. There was the moment when a truck emblazoned with "Jesus Christ Will Save You" barreled towards our tiny car.
There was the darkly comic realization that our car had Hindu, Christian, Islamic, and secular spiritual precautions against accidents dangling from its rear-view. There were the skull and cross bones signs, which were, if anything, understatements of the driving conditions.

There was the moment when we turned and saw monkeys, sitting on a wall just off the road.

We have no photographic evidence of any of this.

And then there was arriving in Munnar, when we grudgingly realized that in spite of all our anxiety, and in spite of the impending prospect of driving back on exactly the same road (crossbones and all),  we had landed somewhere wonderful.

In the mornings, there were sunrise runs through the fields of tea, past waterfalls. The air smelled like tea -- fresh, green, and gorgeous. On occasion, there were monkeys playing overhead.

And there was walking, too, through the tea fields and down to the lake, past waterfalls and through jungle-like spice gardens. At all times, we were looking for elephants.

And we found one. A few locals pointed one out to us, saying excitedly "elephant, elephant!" We finally spotted him, his ear twitching on the hillside opposite. He's in this picture, just a shadow in the middle of the treeline!

Despite his attempt at camouflage, this frog was easier to spot.

In the afternoons, Munnar grew warm and foggy and rainy. Inside, listening to the rain fall, we learned a traditional Indian game -- a cross between pool and tiddly-winks. We were terrible at it. For consolation, there was ping pong, and pool, and spades.

Kerala is one of the more Catholic regions of India. There are almost as many churches dotting the countryside as there are temples. (In some cases, we found the churches and temples pretty much indistinguishable.)

It is odd to go someplace to which we will almost surely not return. Perhaps that makes Munnar more memorable -- so visually striking, so bursting with the smell of tea, and so friendly. We will not sip tea in quite the same way for a while. 

And when our current supply runs out, we're already contemplating Lockhart Tea Factory's rather complicated mail-order system.....