Having arrived in Tel Aviv on Thursday I began to work out my plans for the trip. I had a list of places that I wanted to see but I had kept my schedule intentionally free. That was a good thing because the Middle East is a very religious place (Surprise Surprise). Strangely enough, Israel seems to be more religious than its immediate neighbors. It has a hint of theocracy about it and what that means in practical terms is that everything shuts down on the Sabbath. Most businesses including many restaurants and stores are included in this, as well as all the buses and museums. So being in Israel on a Saturday is pretty dull.The Christian, Armenian, and Arab quarters of the Old City (where I was staying) didn't all keep to this but it would have seriously hampered my movements to remain. So I took my trip across the border to Jordan a little sooner than planned. While I did get a chance to see a bit of Jerusalem that night I'm leaving that 'till the Jerusalem section later because I saw most of the city during the day after I got back from Jordan.
Getting there wasn't as easy as I'd have liked. First of the there are three border crossings to Jordan. The Sheikh Hussein one is in the north below the Sea of Galilee and the Eilat/Aqaba one is at the far south border of both countries. The third one is the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge which is near Jericho just north of the Deas Sea and is a real oddity for several reasons. Firstly they don't issue visas which means that you have to get one from the Jordanian embassy in advance. Second, it's in occupied Palestine which means that there is a mass of legal loopholes concerning it. For example, as far as Jordan is concerned people using the bridge are going into Palestine and not Israel which is good for all those people who don't want an Israeli stamp on their passport (ie. if they're traveling into any other country in the area apart from Egypt. Those are the only states that recognize Israel as a nation). Israel doesn't see things that way but are content to let in the visitors using that loophole provided that they go through a typically rigorous security check. The other strange thing about the border is that you can't take your vehicle across. That wasn't a problem for me since I was taking buses, but it must be annoying for anyone else. Fortunately, I was aiming for the Sheikh Hussein crossing in the north. My plan was to make a 2-3 day trip of it starting in the north and working my way down to the Aqaba crossing.
Crossing borders in the Middle East (or at least Israel) is a long and sometimes complicated procedure. Anyone who doesn't realize that Israel has security concerns should really not be visiting since they are probably suffering from a severe brain injury. The Sheikh Hussein Crossing consists of two different checkpoints and about a mile of no-man's land in between. You go through the Israeli side, get your passport stamped to certify you're exiting the country, pay the visa fee, and then you pay for a bus to go to the other side of the border. Once there the Jordanian authorities will ask you the same questions and charge for them to stamp your passport. They do issue visas on the spot, but the whole process takes about an hour and a half to two hours. Unfortunately for me that meant I missed one of the main attractions at my first stop, Jarash.
Jerash is an ancient Roman city that used to be called Gerasa. While the Jordanian guidebooks like to call it the "Pompeii of the desert" it is nothing like the real Pompeii. It has been abandoned for millenia but it hasn't been preserved by ash or mud leaving all of the non-stone buildings destroyed. The city is in ruins, no doubt about it, but it is still impressively preserved. The desert doesn't destroy buildings in the same way as the more Mediterranean climates do and if the city was inhabited afterwards then it shows very few signs of it. The most impressive thing about it is the scale. It is surrounded by a modern city but the ancient one stretches for at least a mile and a half. On that mile and a half there are no modern buildings except for one cafe and a few guardhouses here and there. At the beginning and the end of the city there are giant gates which means that you are walking through the entire city. And it's a big city.
Getting there from the border was quite easy though it is expensive if you aren't in a group. Jordan has a form of transport that is midway between a bus and a taxi, the servees. Basically they are like buses that only go when they get enough people and will drop you off where you want. They are easy to use if you can find them and don't mind waiting. Unfortunately, since I was traveling alone and often needed to get places fast I ended up having to take taxis. The only transport away from the Sheikh Hussein Crossing is by taxi unfortunately. I'm told there are servees operating from there but if you want to get somewhere other than Irbid you really need a taxi, and I was late enough as it was. The bus from Jerusalem and the border crossing took me until almost 1:00. The taxi service is right outside the border and there are set prices for all the local cities unlike anywhere else I went. Usually you're expected to haggle. I seem to recall Jarash costing me about 30 Jordanian dinars, which works out to around $50 or ₤30. The city itself is about an hour from the crossing.
The first impression that anyone will get upon entering Jordan is that it's poor and filthy. This is not a wealthy country and many people live in shacks that would never meet the building code back home. Kids are fighting in the street, there are stray animals wandering around, people sell their produce from carts, and everyone's clothes are worn and dirty. It had just rained so it looked even more miserable than it normally would. Sunbaked dirt and grime looks less filthy than mud.It is hard to imagine the country making a worse first impression. It might be a knee-jerk reaction but I felt like I was in danger and I immediately regretted coming. Long years of TV and living in Western nations have associated poverty and slums with violence. It really felt like walking into a video from the Iraq war. Did I mention Jordan borders Iraq? Anyways, I'm kinda embarrassed that I reacted so strongly to the place. My opinion changed over time as I got used to it and began to get a feel for the culture. By the time I got to some of the other places I had adapted to it but in Jarash I was still at the very beginning of my adjustment phase. Culture shock you might call it.
The first quintessentially Arabic thing that I saw was an Arab wedding. My cabbie didn't speak much English but he pointed to it and said "wedding." It was a big procession walking down the road with at least two families' worth of people present. It was an interesting sight.
The Jordanian countryside is a marvel. I have to admit that I fit what Prince Feisal said in Lawrence of Arabia, "The English have a great hunger for desolate places." I have always loved the look of the desert and Jordan is full of them. That film incidentally took place (mostly) in Jordan. They even filmed part of it in Wadi Rum in southern Jordan, an area that I deeply regret not seeing. You really do need a car for it though, or else rent a horse or a camel. Seeing it on foot is all but impossible. Anyway, I saw plenty more Jordanian countryside as I went on.
One thing that I will never understand about Hollywood is why they try to make everything look the same. All deserts look like the Sahara and they always film them in Tunisia or Morocco. Now a simple look at the map will show you that those countries are in North Africa, not the Middle East. The Sahara does not look like the Jordanian desert. There is no sand, there is just very dry soil with the occasional tree or bush. The entire color scheme is different. Instead of a golden brown color Jordan is just brown. Instead of the Sahara's flatness you get extremely numerous hills and valleys. Now this is all generalization of course because Jordan looks very different depending on where you go in it. In the north there is more agriculture and somewhat fewer hills while the south is mostly desert and extremely hilly. The worst example was Ridley Scott's Body of Lies which takes place in Jordan but was filmed entirely in Morocco. I understand that security is a serious issue when you have a production like that but Jordan is about as safe as you can get in the Middle East. They have a very good anti-terrorism force and religious fundamentalism is low, although they are very religious. Hell, Steven Speilberg even filmed the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade here (at Petra. More on that later) and he's Jewish. He donated money to help fund a filmmaking school in Amman as well so he can't have had too bad a time.
To get back to Jarash, the main draw of the city apart from its mostly intact nature is the chariot racing. The hippodrome in Jerash is one of the best preserved in the world and an international team wanting to recreate the chariot experience selected Jarash as their site. So every day (except Tuesday) they have two chariot races at 10 and 2. Due to missing the bus in Jerusalem and the overlong border crossing I missed both. I can't imagine that didn't help sour my initial reaction to Jordan. By the time I got there the only evidence of the chariot races was the horse shit filling the racetrack. Which just means I have to go back sometime. Isn't that a shame?
The hippodrome is right by the main entrance at the Arch of Hadrian. This arch marks where the wall used to be in Roman times so you are actually entering the same way the ancient Gerasians would. The reason that the arch is named after Hadrian is that it was put up especially for his visit in 129. I seem to be following Hadrian around because this is the second of four sites I've been to this year that are well known for Hadrian's visit. Actually, I'm taking about as long to do them as he would have although I think I'm doing them in reverse.
The site of Jarash is filled with local Arabs selling whatever they can. This is one of the more annoying aspects of the Middle East. Getting rid of those people is not easy. They will follow you around and bug you until you give in and buy something. When I was there they were hawking umbrellas, very impressive considering that it was the first time it had rained all year. The first one I met cornered me by the remains of a monastery near the entrance and eventually guilted me into buying a coin off him at about double its value. The Arabs are excellent barterers but I don't think they have a very keen idea of the worth of antiquities. They can use that perception to their advantage by convincing people to buy worthless junk thinking they're getting a good deal off an ignorant Arab, but there were several people who tried to sell me coins and artifacts at much more than their value who disbelieved me when I told them how much they were really worth. Also beware that most of the 'artifacts' and coins they're selling you are fake. Particularly the Bedouin, not that there are many of those in Jarash.
They don't really have gift shops in the Middle East and everything is done on a more ad hoc and personal basis. I don't know if they have to pay a fee to sell their goods in the city or if they need permission of any kind but at least half of the peddlers are kids. Probably because it's easier for them to guilt people into buying something off them. The adults are mostly the ones offering tours. Don't believe them if they say they're free. They'll expect you to pay something sooner or later. One of the more interesting tactics exclusive to Jarash was to claim that they can show you to the moving column. Everyone on the site will claim that only they know where the moving column is and you know what? They all gesture to a different part of the city when they say it. I'm not sure what they do once they hook you with that line. Probably they find a pillar at random and tell you it wasn't there yesterday. The best way to avoid these people is to look like you know where you're going. They latch onto uncertainty. If you seem to know where you're going and express total disinterest in what they're saying then they'll usually take the hint and move on to easier targets. There are after all a lot of tourists in Jarash.
On one of the hills overlooking the main intersection is a nice theatre. It is almost completely intact and offers a wonderful view of the city. Unfortunately due to the rain and clouds I couldn't get any good pictures that captured the whole scale of the city. When you first enter the city you can see this theatre in the distance. No doubt on a clear day you could see all the way to the other side from here as well. The theatre itself is worth seeing and a group of men playing bagpipes of all things come in every few minutes and perform for money. I'd have asked what that was about but they'd have probably charged me for it. It may sound like I'm being harsh but at any of the tourist sites everyone expects money for doing anything.
The main forum of Jarash is quite an impressive site. It's a giant circle surrounded by pillars with roads leading off in several directions. I can only hope that whoever designed it was working with roads and buildings already established because otherwise he was a terrible architect. The circle is more of a highly distorted oval and the roads
don't go off at predictable angles. Nonetheless, having an intact forum surrounded by a colonnade of pillars that are still standing is very impressive. The roads may go off at odd angles but they are extremely straight. I'd not be surprised if you could see the other end when the weather is better. This road is the main route through
Jarash. It hooks up with most of the more important buildings although the Christian monasteries and churches are further up on the hill. While the road may be straight you have to watch your step when walking it. 1,500 years of neglect have let the blocks used in the construction move quite a bit making the footing very uneven. They are also slippery when wet.
There were two large temples off the main road as you looked up the hill. These must have been impressive in their day but apart from the columns they're all in ruins now. Apparently they were dedicated to Zeus and Artemis. I can't really say more about them because I didn't want to pay someone to give me probably inaccurate answers and the office didn't give me a brochure. They may have had them if I'd asked for one but I didn't think to do so. Besides, time was not on my side this day. I had to get all the way down to Kerak by that night.
At the end of the road there is another arch signalling the end of the city. This section does not allow access although I saw a couple of kids sneaking through the fence anyway. Scattered all over the site are watchtowers allowing the tourist police to watch over what happens in the city. The tourist police are exactly what they sound like although not so sinister as the name might suggest. They're basically there to help people out and keep them from damaging the city. They have these organizations throughout the Middle East. They are usually very friendly and speak very good English. If you need help getting somewhere or finding something they're the men you go to.
The modern city of Jarash is located to the right as you go in. It's one of the bigger cities in Jordan and apparently one of the nicer ones. It didn't impress me at all, probably because I was still adapting to the Jordanian culture. The rain didn't help either. It actually turns out that one of my friends is from Jarash which was a big surprise since I didn't even know he was Arabic. He does English Civil War reenactments for God's sake. And despite living in Jordan for years he never went to Petra. Hah! Anyway, there is apparently a sizable Palestinian refugee population living there which is where he's from. They must have it nicer there than they would back in Palestine because the refugee camps I saw there were filthy, crowded places. Apparently the Jordanians are having problems with the Palestinians because they don't want more refugees coming in who'll take up jobs and create disorder. The whole situation's a mess and I'm quite glad I don't have to deal with it. There are never any easy answers in the Middle East.
Some of the most interesting buildings in Jarash are the ancient Christian churches. There are at least two of these plus a Byzantine one near the entrance that might have been built on the ruins of the city. These are some truly ancient Christian remains and have beautiful mosaics of saints and apostles and animals. Unfortunately you can't go into the main one as it's on a lower level. Still, the mosaics are more beautiful from above and you can see the pillars clearly.
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32°16'45.43"N, 35°53'30.20"E
Getting there wasn't as easy as I'd have liked. First of the there are three border crossings to Jordan. The Sheikh Hussein one is in the north below the Sea of Galilee and the Eilat/Aqaba one is at the far south border of both countries. The third one is the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge which is near Jericho just north of the Deas Sea and is a real oddity for several reasons. Firstly they don't issue visas which means that you have to get one from the Jordanian embassy in advance. Second, it's in occupied Palestine which means that there is a mass of legal loopholes concerning it. For example, as far as Jordan is concerned people using the bridge are going into Palestine and not Israel which is good for all those people who don't want an Israeli stamp on their passport (ie. if they're traveling into any other country in the area apart from Egypt. Those are the only states that recognize Israel as a nation). Israel doesn't see things that way but are content to let in the visitors using that loophole provided that they go through a typically rigorous security check. The other strange thing about the border is that you can't take your vehicle across. That wasn't a problem for me since I was taking buses, but it must be annoying for anyone else. Fortunately, I was aiming for the Sheikh Hussein crossing in the north. My plan was to make a 2-3 day trip of it starting in the north and working my way down to the Aqaba crossing.
Crossing borders in the Middle East (or at least Israel) is a long and sometimes complicated procedure. Anyone who doesn't realize that Israel has security concerns should really not be visiting since they are probably suffering from a severe brain injury. The Sheikh Hussein Crossing consists of two different checkpoints and about a mile of no-man's land in between. You go through the Israeli side, get your passport stamped to certify you're exiting the country, pay the visa fee, and then you pay for a bus to go to the other side of the border. Once there the Jordanian authorities will ask you the same questions and charge for them to stamp your passport. They do issue visas on the spot, but the whole process takes about an hour and a half to two hours. Unfortunately for me that meant I missed one of the main attractions at my first stop, Jarash.
Getting there from the border was quite easy though it is expensive if you aren't in a group. Jordan has a form of transport that is midway between a bus and a taxi, the servees. Basically they are like buses that only go when they get enough people and will drop you off where you want. They are easy to use if you can find them and don't mind waiting. Unfortunately, since I was traveling alone and often needed to get places fast I ended up having to take taxis. The only transport away from the Sheikh Hussein Crossing is by taxi unfortunately. I'm told there are servees operating from there but if you want to get somewhere other than Irbid you really need a taxi, and I was late enough as it was. The bus from Jerusalem and the border crossing took me until almost 1:00. The taxi service is right outside the border and there are set prices for all the local cities unlike anywhere else I went. Usually you're expected to haggle. I seem to recall Jarash costing me about 30 Jordanian dinars, which works out to around $50 or ₤30. The city itself is about an hour from the crossing.
The first impression that anyone will get upon entering Jordan is that it's poor and filthy. This is not a wealthy country and many people live in shacks that would never meet the building code back home. Kids are fighting in the street, there are stray animals wandering around, people sell their produce from carts, and everyone's clothes are worn and dirty. It had just rained so it looked even more miserable than it normally would. Sunbaked dirt and grime looks less filthy than mud.It is hard to imagine the country making a worse first impression. It might be a knee-jerk reaction but I felt like I was in danger and I immediately regretted coming. Long years of TV and living in Western nations have associated poverty and slums with violence. It really felt like walking into a video from the Iraq war. Did I mention Jordan borders Iraq? Anyways, I'm kinda embarrassed that I reacted so strongly to the place. My opinion changed over time as I got used to it and began to get a feel for the culture. By the time I got to some of the other places I had adapted to it but in Jarash I was still at the very beginning of my adjustment phase. Culture shock you might call it.
The Jordanian countryside is a marvel. I have to admit that I fit what Prince Feisal said in Lawrence of Arabia, "The English have a great hunger for desolate places." I have always loved the look of the desert and Jordan is full of them. That film incidentally took place (mostly) in Jordan. They even filmed part of it in Wadi Rum in southern Jordan, an area that I deeply regret not seeing. You really do need a car for it though, or else rent a horse or a camel. Seeing it on foot is all but impossible. Anyway, I saw plenty more Jordanian countryside as I went on.
One thing that I will never understand about Hollywood is why they try to make everything look the same. All deserts look like the Sahara and they always film them in Tunisia or Morocco. Now a simple look at the map will show you that those countries are in North Africa, not the Middle East. The Sahara does not look like the Jordanian desert. There is no sand, there is just very dry soil with the occasional tree or bush. The entire color scheme is different. Instead of a golden brown color Jordan is just brown. Instead of the Sahara's flatness you get extremely numerous hills and valleys. Now this is all generalization of course because Jordan looks very different depending on where you go in it. In the north there is more agriculture and somewhat fewer hills while the south is mostly desert and extremely hilly. The worst example was Ridley Scott's Body of Lies which takes place in Jordan but was filmed entirely in Morocco. I understand that security is a serious issue when you have a production like that but Jordan is about as safe as you can get in the Middle East. They have a very good anti-terrorism force and religious fundamentalism is low, although they are very religious. Hell, Steven Speilberg even filmed the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade here (at Petra. More on that later) and he's Jewish. He donated money to help fund a filmmaking school in Amman as well so he can't have had too bad a time.
They don't really have gift shops in the Middle East and everything is done on a more ad hoc and personal basis. I don't know if they have to pay a fee to sell their goods in the city or if they need permission of any kind but at least half of the peddlers are kids. Probably because it's easier for them to guilt people into buying something off them. The adults are mostly the ones offering tours. Don't believe them if they say they're free. They'll expect you to pay something sooner or later. One of the more interesting tactics exclusive to Jarash was to claim that they can show you to the moving column. Everyone on the site will claim that only they know where the moving column is and you know what? They all gesture to a different part of the city when they say it. I'm not sure what they do once they hook you with that line. Probably they find a pillar at random and tell you it wasn't there yesterday. The best way to avoid these people is to look like you know where you're going. They latch onto uncertainty. If you seem to know where you're going and express total disinterest in what they're saying then they'll usually take the hint and move on to easier targets. There are after all a lot of tourists in Jarash.
On one of the hills overlooking the main intersection is a nice theatre. It is almost completely intact and offers a wonderful view of the city. Unfortunately due to the rain and clouds I couldn't get any good pictures that captured the whole scale of the city. When you first enter the city you can see this theatre in the distance. No doubt on a clear day you could see all the way to the other side from here as well. The theatre itself is worth seeing and a group of men playing bagpipes of all things come in every few minutes and perform for money. I'd have asked what that was about but they'd have probably charged me for it. It may sound like I'm being harsh but at any of the tourist sites everyone expects money for doing anything.
The main forum of Jarash is quite an impressive site. It's a giant circle surrounded by pillars with roads leading off in several directions. I can only hope that whoever designed it was working with roads and buildings already established because otherwise he was a terrible architect. The circle is more of a highly distorted oval and the roads
don't go off at predictable angles. Nonetheless, having an intact forum surrounded by a colonnade of pillars that are still standing is very impressive. The roads may go off at odd angles but they are extremely straight. I'd not be surprised if you could see the other end when the weather is better. This road is the main route through
Jarash. It hooks up with most of the more important buildings although the Christian monasteries and churches are further up on the hill. While the road may be straight you have to watch your step when walking it. 1,500 years of neglect have let the blocks used in the construction move quite a bit making the footing very uneven. They are also slippery when wet.
Leaving Jarash turned out to be a lot easier than I'd imagined it would be. One of the tourist police directed me to where I could go to pick up a servee to Amman. Since outside of the tourist police very few people speak English (at least in Jarash) I was very worried I was going to the wrong place or asking for the wrong thing and that I was going to end up in the middle of the Jordanian desert with no idea how to get home. The servee turned out to be nothing but a regular car. When it had filled up with three of us it took us to Amman. One of the people was a woman, and while I've been told that when riding in a car Arabic women are supposed to sit in the back and let the men get up front this woman didn't. That's not a complaint btw, just an observation. Either I've been told wrong, the situation is different somehow, or she's being rude. I don't know enough to say.
Anyway, the guy let me off in Amman and hailed me a cab. Something that you absolutely must do if you're going to take public transportation in Jordan is plan ahead. I had copied out all the bus times before I left England so I knew where I had to be and when I had to be there by. In Amman there was a bit of a hiccup because the taxi driver didn't speak a word of English. He pulled over twice to ask someone else to translate. I was very impressed with the fact that both people he stopped took it in good grace even though it was pouring and they weren't dressed for it. That was when I kinda started to like the Jordanians. Anyone else would have at least looked annoyed but these guys were very friendly and helpful. It didn't help me much because none of them spoke very good English either. The bus station turned out to be quite a ways outside of town which had me really worried that he had misunderstood where I wanted to go. He even called up his wife and asked her to translate for me. I suppose bus isn't a word that they hear very often? I'd have thought it was more common a request than that but then maybe tourists go in tour groups. Certainly I didn't run across anyone else doing what I did. There were a lot of tour buses though and I imagine that it is far easier to get places in a tour group than it is by yourself.
Again my luck held out. I really was miraculously lucky on that day. We got to the bus station just as the bus was getting ready to leave. It wasn't what I was expecting for a bus at all. It was about the size of a big Volkswagen van with room for about a dozen people. It actually did remind me of a Volkswagen because it had beads on the ceiling and gave off kind of a hippie vibe. So yeah, same story. I couldn't speak Arabic and they couldn't speak English. Fortunately no one seemed interested in talking. The guy next to me did offer me some of his snack though. It was a kind of seed that was heavily salted and tasted like popcorn. If they don't understand English they understand gestures. Arabs have some very formal greeting motions so I found that bowing my head to indicate thanks worked. I actually kinda liked doing that and it took me a little while to break the habit. It seems so much more expressive than words.
Now that I was on the bus to Karak and had gotten further than I had thought I would (I'd expected to get stuck in Amman) I relaxed a bit. The only unpleasant bit came when the military stopped our bus. Or possibly the police. I can't tell the difference between their uniforms. Whichever they were they stopped the bus and selected two or three guys and then took them out of the bus. It was a rather harsh thing and I get the impression that they weren't too polite when they searched them. If this is normal for them then I understand why they have such success at keeping terrorists out of the country. That thought didn't make it any more pleasant. Fortunately they never even looked at me. If they'd started yelling at me in Arabic while holding guns I don't know what I'd have done. Anyways when that was done with we continued on until we reached Kerak where I got a hotel room and went straight to bed. And that was how I celebrated New Years Eve.
Anyway, the guy let me off in Amman and hailed me a cab. Something that you absolutely must do if you're going to take public transportation in Jordan is plan ahead. I had copied out all the bus times before I left England so I knew where I had to be and when I had to be there by. In Amman there was a bit of a hiccup because the taxi driver didn't speak a word of English. He pulled over twice to ask someone else to translate. I was very impressed with the fact that both people he stopped took it in good grace even though it was pouring and they weren't dressed for it. That was when I kinda started to like the Jordanians. Anyone else would have at least looked annoyed but these guys were very friendly and helpful. It didn't help me much because none of them spoke very good English either. The bus station turned out to be quite a ways outside of town which had me really worried that he had misunderstood where I wanted to go. He even called up his wife and asked her to translate for me. I suppose bus isn't a word that they hear very often? I'd have thought it was more common a request than that but then maybe tourists go in tour groups. Certainly I didn't run across anyone else doing what I did. There were a lot of tour buses though and I imagine that it is far easier to get places in a tour group than it is by yourself.
Again my luck held out. I really was miraculously lucky on that day. We got to the bus station just as the bus was getting ready to leave. It wasn't what I was expecting for a bus at all. It was about the size of a big Volkswagen van with room for about a dozen people. It actually did remind me of a Volkswagen because it had beads on the ceiling and gave off kind of a hippie vibe. So yeah, same story. I couldn't speak Arabic and they couldn't speak English. Fortunately no one seemed interested in talking. The guy next to me did offer me some of his snack though. It was a kind of seed that was heavily salted and tasted like popcorn. If they don't understand English they understand gestures. Arabs have some very formal greeting motions so I found that bowing my head to indicate thanks worked. I actually kinda liked doing that and it took me a little while to break the habit. It seems so much more expressive than words.
Now that I was on the bus to Karak and had gotten further than I had thought I would (I'd expected to get stuck in Amman) I relaxed a bit. The only unpleasant bit came when the military stopped our bus. Or possibly the police. I can't tell the difference between their uniforms. Whichever they were they stopped the bus and selected two or three guys and then took them out of the bus. It was a rather harsh thing and I get the impression that they weren't too polite when they searched them. If this is normal for them then I understand why they have such success at keeping terrorists out of the country. That thought didn't make it any more pleasant. Fortunately they never even looked at me. If they'd started yelling at me in Arabic while holding guns I don't know what I'd have done. Anyways when that was done with we continued on until we reached Kerak where I got a hotel room and went straight to bed. And that was how I celebrated New Years Eve.
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32°16'45.43"N, 35°53'30.20"E
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