Wadi Mujib and some Castle and the Dana nature reserve

Friday, December 14th.

... The hotelier, the German speaking loon, has lost the plot. He has come back into our room for the fourth time to have the same conversation as to why we are not taking his minibus. Aside from the fact he wants a minimum of four people - and there are three of us - Marcus has already made alternative arrangements. He is unable to comprehend this. He keeps on trying to ask me why. I barely have the energy to stand up; let alone explain. Merryl has patiently told him, each time, we have arranged through someone else. He goes downstairs to find the other taxi-triver waiting. A fierce argument breaks out. The screaming and shouting can be heard from our room. Marcus has taken charge of the situation by hiding in the corridor - I don't blame him to be honest. However I have to go down and pay. I put my rucksack on and try to ignore the waves of nausea and descend the stairs into the chaos...

We checked out of the hotel today and tried to organise a taxi. The women was unable to locate the driver so Marcus headed out to arrange something with a local cab driver. I was still really weak and disorientated. So putting my clothes on was a bit of an effort. Marcus arranged a cab but in the meantime, whilst he was gone, the mad hotelier turned up and tried to arrange a cab with us. Merryl tried to explain we were making alternative plans but he was having none of it. He kept leaving the room returning to start the same conversation. He physically reminded me of Peter Jackson's Gollum from Tolkien's Middle Earth books - he was a shrivelled old soul, with a liver-spotted palate, and with a soulful, miserable, eyes that looked like poached eggs. I really was in no position to argue with him. When Marcus returned he came upstairs and argument ensued. The hotelier then went down to find the other cab driver and all hell broke loose. Marcus refused to go downstairs and Merryl was telling him to stop hiding behind his mother's apron. Had I been well enough I would have found this all very amusing. But I was too busy trying to get my rucksack downstairs and not throw up.

We finally got into the taxi just in time to have the hotelier on the phone to the police. Our cab driver did not seem to bothered by this lunacy so I figured it was normal here. I desperately wanted to see how the police dealt with the heinous crime of 'booking a cab' but alas we were never to find out. Oh. We were also told we were no longer welcome in Madaba. Something we all had to try very hard to get over.

I don't remember much of the day but the sun was shining warmly. We had to scupper our original plan of visiting bethany-beyond-the-Jordan and Herod's castle as I was too ill. Instead we drove down to the village of Dana through Wadi Mujib. This is effectively a mini-Grand Canyon and it is very beatiful. We stopped and took some pics and I had a good old lie down. We also stopped at the dam in the valley which was pretty damn manky and polluted. After this we stopped at a Crusader Castle and spent a couple of hours exploring it. The castle was at a place called Al Karak. It is a pretty impressive fortress. It was known in crusader times as Crac des Moabites, and is often confused with Krak des Chaveliers. I was pretty impressed with it. In fact I'd give it a 7 out of 10. The views were superb from the north ramparts down into the promised land and toward the dead sea. We spent a lovely couple of hours looking around it. I was particularly impressed with the sheer drop on the North-East side, to the glacis below, where history notes that Raynald of Chatillon used to expel unwanted visitors and prisoners. There was also some great underground passages, and churches.



From here we then drove directly to Dana. Our driver stopped at a location just South-West, and above, the village, and we stood and watched the sun go down over the beautiful valley we were to be hiking in the next day.

We got to the village just before sunset. The hotel was quiet and peaceful. Here we had our first experience of tea infused with sage. It is served, as most tea in the Middle East, black and sweet. But the sage made it taste pretty amazing. We had dinner after sunset and met a Belguim girl, who lived in Kabul, Afghanistan. She was on holiday exploring Jordan. We were to bump into her a few of times during our trip, and had already seen her in Madaba. Well all got very excited about the prospect of visiting Kabul! however I was still recovering and soon had to go to bed. Leaving the others to play cards and drink vodka.

Mount Nebo, the Dead Sea, Hammamat Ma’in, and Sunset at the Panorama

Thursday, December 13th

Today was to be a fun-packed day.

We arose early and hired a cab, through the hotel, to visit a number of sights around the Dead Sea and the King’s Highway. There are a plethora of places you can visit from Madaba, so we decided to split them over a period of two days before heading to the Dana Nature reserve to some hiking. Luckily our driver for the day did not appear to be mentally unhinged: bonus! We told him the places we would like to visit and he suggested for the first day – Mount Nebo (the mountain from which Moses was purported to have first looked down on to the promised land), the Dead Sea (the lowest ‘sea’ in the world, and a place with the highest saline concentration), Hammamat Ma’in (a swimming pool complex, built on top of a natural thermal springs and cataracts,) an the Dead Sea Panorama (a bar and restaurant with an amazing view over the Dead Sea) – in this order. This all sounded a bit good.

… We are watching, and fervently photographing, the last vestiges of the setting sun over the serene valley in which Madaba sits. We are all standing on piles of rubbish. The smell is overpowering. Behind us lies the dead rat we clambered over, as we slipped and slid down the bank through the trees, to a place with a view over the town, in order to catch the sunset. If I try not to breathe through my nose I can appreciate, at length, this gorgeous evening. Every now and then, though, I catch a whiff. Merryl is standing beside me. “You really know how to show a girl a good time, don’t you?” I return her smile: “Wait until I take you to a Mars-bar party” …

We reached Mount Nebo pretty quickly. It is only Nine kilometres south of Madaba. This, as I have mentioned already, is reputedly where Moses was to have seen the Promised Land for the first time, as he led his people out of the slavery of their Egyptian oppressors. I really have to check my atlas, but it seems he took a rather roundabout route (Moses, not the taxi-driver) as Israel lies west of the mountain, and beyond that Egypt. I know they came south via the Red-Sea, but he led them on a bit of a scenic route. Atop of the mountain is a fantastic memorial dedicated to John Paul II’s visit to Jordan in 2005. Further up from this is the Memorial Church of Moses. It has actually been around since the 6th Century AD. It fell into disrepair for many centuries but has recently been rebuilt and is very beautiful. What is most impressive is the huge mosaic on the church floor; I think think one of the largest, if not the largest, mosaics found in situ in the western world. The imagery within it is amazing. In depicts all sorts of colourful people and creaturs interacting with the local fauna, and even has a strange looking creature that appears to be half giraffe, half zebra. From outside of the church, you can stand on the perimeters of the church and take in the spectacular panoramic view of the holy land. I could see why Moses got so excited about the whole thing, you can see all the way to the Dead Sea, the spires of Jerusalem, even clear down to Wadi-Rum. There was a steady stream of tourists here – such a contrast to Syria – so we had to vie for a spot for photos with a bunch of Japanese people.

… Merryl, Marcus, and I are being covered from head to foot in mud. We are standing on the shore of the Dead Sea. We are starting to look like characters from a Mad Max movie. The mud is thick and cool and is remarkably odourless. The attendant covering me is very thorough. He is taking huge handfuls of the stuff from a barrel by his beach hut and dolloping it on me. I keep laughing and messing up my face-pack. Marcus and Merryl are beginning to look like they are victims of an oil-tanker disaster. We waddle down to our deckchairs and stand around, flapping like penguins. We are in the a Dead Sea resort beach. Above us is a concreted area with a cobalt-blue, fresh water swimming pool. In front of us is the Dead Sea. It falls away westward from us all the way across to Israel. It is very clear. No fish, seaweed, or algae swim in the water. Nothing lives here. The salinity of the water is 30% (8 times higher than in the rest of the world's oceans) and it starts to do strange things to exposed tissue areas - like your nasal passages - after a short period of time. We have been laughing at our attempts to swim in this strange body of water. As you are unable to sink it makes swimming very difficult; being in the water feels like you are trying to swim on your living-room carpet. The LP warns against having open cuts when you enter the sea. It even advises against shaving. Marcus and I have both already got water in our eyes and have been blinded for several minutes. The mud is rapidly drying in the warm sunshine. Our skin has taken on a wizened, and leathery look, and everytime we smile our face-packs start to flake off…

From here we headed on to the Dead Sea (in Arabic Al-Bahr al-Mayyit). I must say I had been excited about this experience ever since I got to Jordan, if not much before. It lies upon what is known as the Dead Sea Valley, or rift, along a great fissure in the Earth's surface. It was once fed by waters directly from the Red Sea. Due to climate change, though, it settled down into a lake. It has gone through dramatic fluctuations over the last 16,000 years. It has currently shrunk again in the last 20 years. There are several theories as to why, but they are centred around tectonic activity. TheI have always wanted to visit this place; as much as I wanted to see Petra. So being in Jordan is a dream come true for me. The Dead Sea earns its name from, among other things, the extremely high concentration of minerals and salts in its waters, in the form of vastly increased levels of calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, potassium chloride, and sodium chloride. It also has a bromide ion concentration higher than anywhere else on earth. These cornucopia of salts are all reputed to be very beneficial for one’s health – although I wouldn’t recommend skulling a mouthful of them. The lake, fed by the river Jordan, lies 400 metres below normal sea-level. It is a melting pot of geo-physical chemical reactions, and reads like a perpetual scientific experiment. It is known to burp up large chunks of Asphalt, especially after earthquakes, the Nabateans harvested bitumen from it for the Egyptians to use in their mummification processes. It is considered, in Islamic tradition, the place created by Allah for sinners, the Dead-Sea Scrolls were found here, at Qunram, in an extensive ancient Hebrew library. It also boasts the World's lowest highway. Highway 90 (323 metres below sea level).

We spent a pleasant morning here. We swam in the sea and got covered in salt. The bouyancy is unbelievable. It is like trying to submerge yourself in your living room carpet. After a while you just give up and float. I would love to go water-skiing here - boats are banned, apparently. Once you have got over the novelty of not being able to drown, you then get sloppy and let water get in your eyes. Well. Yes. Not something I would advise. Both Marcus and I did it. It was not a pretty sight. Once we had had enough of the floating, we got ourselves covered in dead-sea mud. I lost the pictures unfortunately, but I do have one of Marcus with just his face-pack left. We washed them off in the water but we didn't want any to get in our eyes.

After this, we headed off to Hammamat Ma'in. This is a collection of thermal springs that have been channelled into a series of pools and baths. It is an amazing place - although the manky sandwiches we got given on arrival as part of the entrance fee left much to be desired. Herod himself was believed to have bathed under the waterfalls, and John the Baptist was supposed to have been beheaded here (yes here too). The road down is a little precarious, but well worth the trip. We spent the rest of the afternoon here, luxuriating under a 30 metre cascade of thermally heated water, complete with its own sauna bubbling up from within the mountain. Our driver even stuck on a pair of Bobby Charlton shorts and joined us.

... I am standing under the waterfall. A torrent of water is cascading onto me. The sheer noise of it blocks my hearing, the volume of it blocks my sight, and places such force on my shoulders that I can barely stand upright. It feels amazing. I have my hands outstretched, absorbing the tunnel of water and warmth falling down from high up above. I finally, if not somewhat reluctantly, step out of the wall of water. There are people all around me. Sitting in pools of steaming water. The sun shines into the valley and is warm on my skin. A hundred metres to my right, away from the concrete mezzanine leading to this enclosure, another waterfall tumbles down, mist rising from it and quickly condensing. I wade over to Merryl and Marcus, and sit in the water beside them. They are both looking very amused. I follow their gazes to the object of their attention. Lying underneath the waterfall - in what can only be described as a Ricky Gervais signed photo position - is our taxi driver. He is decked in a pair of white, knee-length, shorts, and striking a pose that Da Vinci would have wept over. He tosses us a wave, and we all wave back...

We finished up at the baths just as the sun was going down. We had one more place to visit: The Dead Sea Panorama. This complex was only recently finished and boasts a museum-cum-educational facility and a very overpriced restaurant. It also affords the most amazing views over the Dead Sea. Especially at sunset. We got there in time for a brief look around the Museum. We were very soon booted out though, and then we wandered over to the restaurant and got ourselves a something very alcoholic and sat, and sipped, and watched one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. I can't even begin to describe it. I have included a picture, although it doesn't do it much justice. It was a memorable experience though. It was only spoiled by the arrival of a group of Japanese and Americans who shouted a lot. We took it as our cue to leave.

... I stumble into the room and slam the door. I drop the key. I can't stop my hands from shaking. I am trying to recall any medical symptoms I can for how I am feeling. For some reason, I get viral meningitis in my head. I started looking for red-dots to press a cold glass onto. I can't find any on my arms. I vividly remember seeing a couple on my thigh today so I tear my pants down and grab a glass off the shelf - and drop it: I am still shaking violently. I pick it up and press it on red mark on my leg. Nothing happens. It suddenly hits me that I am acting like a complete twat as I have no idea of what I am doing. I start laughing and nearly bite my tongue off. I stumble over to the wrought-iron, manky, bed and start a emergency procedure. I take off the two fleeces I am wearing and put on both my long-sleeved tops. I put on both fleeces and take an extra blanket from the wardrobe and climb into bed. I am freezing, shaking, and my teeth will not stop chattering...

We drove back in twilight to Madaba. It was a lovely end to a perfect day. We decided to eat in the same restaurant complex as the night before because a) it was nice and b) there wasn't much else available. We got there at the same time as a single European woman. The waiter thought we were all together and tried to seat us as a table of four. On the way home, I had started to feel very odd. As I got to the restaurant it was becoming worse. I was coming with something and it was pretty heavy. We ordered food and I had just water. By the time the food came I was shaking uncontrollably. I ended up wearing mine and Merryl's fleeces, and being wrapped in Marcus's coat. It got so bad I had to leave early and go straight to bed. I was up all night with a raging temperature. I was also unable to sweat so the fever wouldn't break. It was only thanks to Merryl covering me in wet, damp, towels, that it finally did at 6am. Although we were both pretending it was fine, we were really worried. I was particularly worried as I was the one dying. Luckily, whatever it was, passed.

Madaba and the mad hotelier

Wednesday, December 12th

Today we headed south for Madaba. The town of Madaba is about 60k south of Amman. In hindsight we could have used Amman as a base. Had we done that, however, we would have never have ended up in a hotel with an absolute nutjob presiding over its management. So it was a worthwhile endeavour in the end.

… Merryl and I are in our room, in El-Haramein, in Damascus. We are trying to tidy up and things are rapidly deteriorating into mayhem. Merryl is doing the tidying and I am getting ready to shower. She is adhering to her organised nature, whereas I am trying to extract my toiletries from the mess that has exploded from my backpack. “Where is my toothbrush?” I posit my question to the general aether, feigning exasperation.
“It’s on the shelf, by the wardrobe.”
“Uh, ok.” Silence ensues for two minutes, during which I rifle through the clothes she has just folded: “Have you seen my towel?”
“It’s hanging on the end of the bed.” She is now exasperated.
“have you seen the toothpaste?”
“It’s where you f*cking left it!” She is cracking, but she is also getting the joke. She is trying to be angry and not to laugh at the same time. It’s not easy. Her face is torn, the lower half a smile, the upper part, knotted eye-brows. I suddenly realise I have no idea where my flip-flops are…

We grabbed a quick breakfast and checked out of the hotel. We decided to walk to the station, rucksacks, backpacks, and all. It turned out to be a little further than expected, but at least we managed to see the roman amphitheatre as we had to walk passed it. We had planned to get a servise mini-bus. It transpired that public transport worked slightly differently in Jordan; it isn’t very good, basically. Servise taxis do operate however, and they are slightly cheaper if you are travelling in a group. So a taxi it was.

…The taxi driver pulls over on the main road. “Madaba.” He announces. I am looking at the map dubiously. It is Madaba alright, but it doesn’t look like where we want to be.
“Can you drop us at the hotel?” I ask.
“Madaba!” he says once again.
“Yes but can you drop us in the centre?” Marcus asks him. There is no point showing him the map. It doesn’t make any sense to us, and we can read English.
“Yes, yes, yes!! Centre”. He points to the ground. It’s not though and we all know it. We exchange glances and eye-brows are raised. Our driver however is suddenly keen to get rid of us. He is already out of the cab and is dragging our rucksacks onto the roadside in the hot, sunshine. It will take us nearly forty-five minutes to figure out where we are and find the hotel we plan to stay at. In the meantime our driver finishes unceremoniously dumping our baggage in the gutter and leaps into his car and drives off. My large backpack, which was leaning against the boot, remains upright for a moment, teetering precariously, and then topples over. We sling our gear on our backs and start to walk. “Welcome to Jordan!” a dismembered voice shouts from the shade…

We got dropped off on the outskirts of town then located, and checked into, the cheap hotel recommended in the LP. It was a little pikey looking, especially the showers, but it was cheap. We have switched the way we do things now. Marcus takes single(which is usually more expensive) and Merryl and I take a double, and we split the costs three ways - as much as I miss the early morning farting competitions that Marcus and I have, I don’t think Merryl would appreciate them in quite the same way - so the arrangement works out nicely. The lady who owned the hotel did not look like she was the full shilling either. This, too, is not uncommon. However she had a kind face. Her cousin who also helped run the hotel, now he was a different story: He was a fine-fettered fruit-cake. We had barrels of fun with him. We dumped our stuff off in our rooms and chilled out for a little while. By then it was time for lunch, and a late one and that. We took the good book with us and went to discuss our plans for the next couple of days.

… “I have a big car. It is leaving tonight at midnight.” The hotelier-cum-taxi-driver-cum-german-expat-cum-more-than-slightly-touched-old-man is trying to get us to go on a tour. I thought I’d successfully dumped him with Marcus, but Marcus has refused to talk to him anymore, after he asked him, after seeing him arrive in a taxi – and pitching the same midnight tour at him -, if he had a bicycle with him. He is now giving me his full attention. I explain to him I don’t want to go on a tour tonight. We are walking across the road, through town, up toward the L’Eglise de Saint George. There is a restaurant we want to check out. Ever since we have left the hotel the man has followed us. He never stops talking and I am beginning to realise he doesn’t understand English nearly quite as well as he speaks it – or at least he chooses not to. I have told him several times we don’t want to go to the restaurant he is trying to bring us to. He is now trying to take me up the stairs to it. I look back at the others and pull a face. “Shall we just go with it?” They don’t really mind, they are happy to do whatever. But then they don’t have to talk to him. We are shepherded up to the restaurant. The old man is now asking me when I want to go to the airport…

Lunch turned out to be pretty good. It was shawarmas all round. Across the road, in the L’Eglise de Saint George, a funeral was taking place. A huge crowd of people were in attendance. A hearse sat in the car-park with a siren and lights on its roof. I believe it doubled as an ambulance and a police-car. We decided that today was too late to head off anywhere in a taxi, and besides we had the walking tour to do! It started in a restaurant up the road [for some reason the walking tours in the LP always start – as well as end – with somewhere that sells food; Ye know us well! It also seems to provide completely inaccurate estimates of time taken to cover distances. I think it is aimed at people over the age of forty, with limps]. The walking tour also included three museums, any of in which you could purchase a single ticket for all. We took in the walking tour, starting with the Hippolytus Hall. This is an ancient villa that has been transformed into a museum. It has an amazing set of mosaics on display [Madaba is famed for its mosaics and, along with the museum, it has a school dedicated to their creation – how cool is that learning the art of mosaic creation]. From here we walked down through this quiet, compact town. The sun was slowly setting and everywhere was lit up – in what we later came to recognise as being uniquely Jordanian – in a crimson and scarlet splash of wine-coloured sunshine. We walked along passed old Ottoman style houses and passed the Church of the Virgin Lady, where frescos, depicting Pope John Paul II’s visit in 2005, adorn the walls of the church . Shortly afterward we deviated from the tour route to see the most amazing sunset; although we did end up in a rubbish tip. Back on the road we then headed past the Madaba museum and convinced the curator to let us to quickly look around it in the fading daylight. It was pretty impressive, but it was undertaken with brevity and alacrity. Back on the road we headed further south, this time in the darkness until we reached the Church of the Apostles – the terminus of the tour. Again this basilica had a huge, and predominately restored, mosaic. It was very peaceful and very serene. We then headed home. One thing that struck me for such a small town was the amount of off-licenses. Every other shop was stacked with booze. It appears all over the world Christians remain huge piss-heads.

… I have just arrived in Oxford station with my friend, Jon. I rarely get to see him these days, as he and his wife, Sarah, are currently breeding a clan of Bowmers. He has travelled up from Bournemouth; I am coming home from where I am contracting at Egham. I jumped on the train 8:12pm at Reading: the train he was also on. It runs from Bournemouth all the way through to Edinburgh: the Edinburgh Flyer. I took the liberty of procuring two cans of lager. We greeted each other with a furore. It has been a long time, and we have much to talk about. Oxford feels crisp in the October evening. There is a clear sky above us, and Cassiopeia is shining brightly as we exit the station into the cool, fresh, night air. I shall be leaving the country in one week’s time. Marcus is to meet us here, first picking up Jon and I, and then Merryl, then home to my parents house to meet my mum, who has kindly cooked for us all. I am arguing with John as we travel negotiate the mayhem that is the Cowley Rd: it is fresher’s week, and it is anarchy. We are discussing religion. I am currently reading The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. It is a very interesting book and has set some powerful wheels in motion in my mind. Jon and I have often discussed the fundamental problem with marriage between Religion and Science, and I am drawing and highlighting some points from the book to him. He is accusing me of chunking down my argument into a local minima; because I have been brought up a Catholic - Jon is a NLP master practitioner, and a very persuasive human being. The skills he has learnt through NLP would, even one hundred years ago, be considered a dark art. They are pretty formidable –and his point is valid so I am not pushing it with him; although I am also not letting him get away with talking nonsense (we love to haranguing each other). I can’t possibly realise at this time, but these wheels, and this argument, in four month’s from now will help me find the answer to the question that has intrigued us for so long - walking along the Corniche, on a January night, in West Beirut, with Natalie and her friend Mohammed. For now though, we have a wild night ahead of us and Jon and I have our fond farewells to say…

I didn’t realise it but I was coming down with the start of something bad that night. I felt pretty minging walking home. We had a drink in the hotel and then headed out to the recommended place in the LP for dinner: Haret Jdoudna. It turned out to be quite nice food, and a convivial atmosphere. The live band were especially cheesy, however the best part was when an entire group of Jordanians did a Karaoke set. Watching them have at it was an interesting way of spending an evening.

Jerash and the Qala’at Ar-Rabad

een December 11th

…I am in the middle of a set of exercises. I am lying on one side, propped up on my elbow. My legs are outstretched and my other arm is raised above me pointing upwards. My lower torso forms an L-shape. I am holding the position for as long as possible. It is excruciatingly painful. I grit my teeth. Each exercise I do is designed to work the core muscles of the abdominals and the spinae-erector muscles in the back. The routine usually takes an hour, the frequency is three times a week. In return my spine will do me the courtesy of remaining in a relatively straight position, and not be twisted by the scoliosis that affects it; which will, in turn, then prevent it from intermittently putting pressure on the transversal processes in my lumbar region. The overall affect is one that allows me to lead a normal lifestyle, physically (the last time my back went, I was on codeine and prozac for a week. This was the only way the doctor could force my muscles to stop twisting my torso 90 degrees to protect itself). It is time consuming though. I finish this set and lie on my back. Three sets of 30 leg raises, from the lower abdomen. How much fun?…

Today we got up late, probably a mixture of too much food, alcohol, and a good massage. We planned to visit , wait for it - the city of Jaresh with its reputedly superb Roman ruins. We met a taxi driver the night we arrived and he quoted a price for hiring his taxi for the day far cheaper than what the hotel had - so we rang him. He arrived at the hotel about 10mins later and gave us a extortionate quote for his services for the day. Little did he know he was dealing with some bad-ass hagglers from downtown Damascus. By the time we left we had shaved 1/3 off of the recommended price. It was touch and go for a moment as he nearly walked out on us. It is all part of the great game though, so 10am found us heading north, avec a very sulky driver, first bound for the city of Jerash.

…We are sitting in the taxi. I am listening to Merryl’s i-pod nano. Mine broke in Turkey which absolutely gutted me. I love music. It recharges my batteries and refuels me emotionally. If poetry is food for the soul, music is food for the mojo. I never asked Marcus to borrow his as some things between us I would consider rude. Merryl is asleep on my lap and was happy to lend it to me. I am listening to Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah. David did indeed play a secret chord - I wonder very much if it pleased the Lord though. The sun is warm on the car, and I am watching the road roll by abstractly, listening to the lyrics “it’s not a cry that you hear at night, it’s not somebody who has seen the light, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah”. It is evoking a memory from a long time ago, of a crippled and miserable soul who lived and breathed those words. I find myself staring inward; that strange phenomenon that occurs when you switch between your sensory input and your internal world, when your eyes glass over and you look under the looking-glass. Time and space are indeed relative, inside your mind the universe is recreated in your image. Inside is out, and everything that can be imagined is possible; especially the nightmares. Once you are free to explore this world, you are in the realms of your mind’s genius: the subconscious. However not right now. Merryl stirs and we pull into the carpark…

I was surprised to find myself surprised by Jerash. I have seen so many ruins from Arabia Romana I am pretty fed up with them as a rule, but this really piqued my interest. They were so complete and well preserved. Very much like Palmyra or Ephesus. The exploration of the ruins themselves took over three hours. But the real joy of this experience was the chariot racing, gladiator fighting, and Roman Legion military manoeuvres that are performed three times a day. This involves sitting in a group of tourists on the elevated stands in the ancient hippodrome. In its heyday these stands would have seated 15,000 spectators. On the day we attended, I think there were circa forty of us. Our compere was a young Jordanian guy, decked out in the uniform of a centurion. His English was impeccable. He must have studied the military accent of an English drill-sergeant to the letter. It was slightly out of place amidst the VI Legion Ferrata of the Roman Empire, but I appreciated the effort he put in. He was an excellent orator and the show was pretty cool. The legionnaires were actually members of the Jordanian army – but they made a great effort and were decked out in full, polished, armour. God I didn’t envy them for the coming summer months. They also performed all their drills in Latin, which they must have learned by rote. The charioteers were a bit lame though. The gladiators I think they rounded up from the the local gym. They were all beef-cakes with too much lard in their diets, however they put up a good fight.

The journey round the ruins afterward was fantastic. It was a warm day, and Merryl got her first experience of a cardo maximus leading on to the decumanus; the north-south east-west crossroads, with a tetrapylon situated in its centre. The road was amazing. It still had the original chariot tracks scored into the stone. The road was deliberately laid in an uneven fashion to draw attention from the haphazard foundations of the buildings on either side. One interesting fact our Centurian commander imparted to us was the use of the races, games, and events to manage the mood of the people. Just as with today’s modern media, the games were held three times a day, seven days a week. The motivation was very simple: if you keep the masses distracted on a semi-permanent basis, you will suppress civil unrest. We also discovered another; actually one of two, extensive amphitheatres. The main one being home to a band of Jordanian bagpipe players. Surreal did not suffice as a description. We negotiated a reduced buffet meal in a restaurant outside of the complex and then headed north to Qala’at Ar-Rabad.

… The Centurian is standing before us. His composure is one of supreme self-confidence; he is an actor. He speaks slowly and clearly; a skill which only professional orators can muster. He is a very good looking young man. His English is clipped, like he has studied with the Lawrence Olivier school of timing. He knows his audience well and he loves his crowd loving him – and so he should. He is very professional. The legionnaires amassed behind him are executing the orders he barks in Latin, with military precision. He explains each manoeuvre as it takes place. They are currently performing the tortoise shell [The Roman army had studied the art of war without exception. They could apply military strategy to any foe, on any terrain, in any circumstance. Most of their warfare was psychological; in short, they were unbeatable, the essence of this lay within the fact that if they were bested once, they would learn not to lose this way again – in order to succeed we must fail; this is why viruses are so effective]. The Charioteers come on next. Merryl and Marcus are not as impressed with their equestrian skills as I am. They have grown up with horses. My experience with them, however, does not befit the etymology of my name.

We got to the castle very late in the afternoon. By now we had become experts in the exploration and reconnaissance of desert fortresses. This one was reasonable in terms of structure, form, building, and strategic viewpoint. We spent two hours exploring it; until night fell basically. What makes this castle is unique in that it was constructed by the Arabs as a defensive position against the crusaders; rather than the converse. Much of the north-east section of the castle is in ruins, an therefore inaccessible. In the spirit of true Middle Eastern archaeological sites however, everywhere else you can reach with a torch and a little courage. Some of the views from the turrets are unbelievable. You can see all the way to Syria, the Mediterranean, Israel, and even the dead sea, winking at you in the south. Merryl and I sat, and took in the evening sunshine, in a stone armchair we found, high in the battlements. Marcus explored the outer wall and took pictures.

… I am standing on what is, as far as I can make out, the apex of the castle’s construction. Everywhere I look the world drops away, into valleys of glistening green, with rivers like diamond veins. The sun, low in the western sky, lends a flair of the dramatic to everything: even we look impressive in this light. I think, maybe for the millionth time, how lucky I am to have experienced this…

[ I have often lain in bed at night, alone, and wonder how I am going to make it through tomorrow. I doubt myself constantly, and even as an incidental tourist, I frequently find myself lost and cast adrift. Yet I persevere: my keywords, are, and has always been, hope; and courage. Courage is actually a variable; there are two other constants, but I won’t deal with them just yet. Courage is a much misunderstood term. If you can do something no-one else can, with apparent ease and with no difficulty, it does not warrant courage, even if someone views it as courageous. Courage is to face your fears, in what ever form they take. We each of us as human beings experience the same feelings of hope, fear, love, greed, compassion, lust, envy, hatred, anger – the spectrum of emotion is endless. We all are subject to exactly the same daemons, throughout various points in our lives. What defines us as human beings is how we interpret these emotions, and the choices we make. I have immeasurable respect for a person who faces their fears. I don’t mean, by this, someone who can race a motorcycle at 180mph around a track for over two hours, or for a person who can mount a stage and sing a song in front of a 20,000 people - This isn’t to say I don’t respect the people who can do this – what I am trying to say is that this does not necessarily encapsulate the awe-inspiring capacity for human valour. Sometimes courage is not a roar that cannot be quenched; instead it is the quiet voice in our minds that says ‘I will try again tomorrow.’ For an agoraphobic, being able to leave your front door in the morning is an act of selfless bravery. For some people, amassing the daring to ask the object of their affections for a date is submitting themselves to a hell of their own making; for others it is a breeze. Or perhaps, to give up your job, your culture, and your identity, to go and live in a place unbeknownst to you, where everyday will be a struggle, to bring some joy, however perceivedly meagre, into someone’s lives, at the expense of your own is a selfless and noble act. For a parent; who’s very soul is their child’s future – who must watch them grow up, knowing any single action, however small, that fills them with unexplainable pride, also takes the very thing they live for a step away from them, each and every day. To know and accept this takes courage. For a victim of abuse, sexual, mental, physical, facing their tormentors is worse then inflicting the pain on themselves with their own hands, can you even imagine? I know someone whom I love very much who had to face a sexual tormentor from their childhood, riddled with arthritis, in a court-room. The bravery they drew upon to see that task through, has never, and will never, ceased to amaze me. That, I believe, is courage: to summon strength where there is none – to face your daemons and to remain a human being in spite of them. We can all achieve this. We must; for if we don’t aspire to this, how can expect anyone else to try?

… I feel a little sad for writing this way; wading through these feelings. But then I recall the memory that prompted me. ‘God loves you!’ a voice says in my memory. I remember a conversation some time ago, with a very good friend in Camden, and I smile. Perhaps there is hope for us yet: Even myself...

'Not yet is the spirit of that pristine valour
extinct in you, when girt with steel and lofty flames,
once we fought against the empire of heaven.
We were -- that I will not deny -- vanquished in that conflict:
yet the great intention was not lacking in nobility
Something or other gave Him victory: to us remained
the glory of a dauntless daring.
And even if my troop fell thence vanquished,
yet to have attempted a lofty enterprise is still a trophy.
Yet to have attempted such a lofty enterprise is still a trophy.’

La Strage degli Innocenti
Giambattista Marino (1569-1625)

Again we had a quiet night, although I repeatedly harassed the owner of the hotel for a nargile to drink with my whiskey; at least it wasn't cherry flavoured.

Amman, the Al-Pashra hamman and the magical bookshop

Monday, December 10th,

…”Let’s get a taxi then.” I say, not for the first time. We have just retraced our steps from the decrepit shopping mall I confidently led us into; back along the rows of rubbish strewn shops with broken windows; back down the broken escalator, past the man throwing cardboard boxes down it onto the floor below; back through the building works with the labourer pushing a wheel-barrow up the same escalator; back out into the street where we were standing 15 minutes before. We are trying to locate the Al Pashra Turkish Hammam. It is Jebel Amman but on a higher circle and we are having all the fun trying to identify the steps that supposedly lead us up to it.
“No I am sure we can walk it.” Marcus is adamant we can reach it by foot. Merryl is being diplomatically neutral although by the look on her face suggests she is beginning to seriously doubt we have the capability to locate our own arses at the moment. Later she will learn to love those long hours of fruitless, and aimless wandering, that Marcus and I take so much pleasure from. This reassuring and deeply hedonistic pleasure can only be understood, and appreciated, when you truly know you have nothing – absolutely and completely and utterly – whatsoever better to do with your day. At the present time though, she is getting tired and a little annoyed. I am tempted to suggest we try and explore the back of the baklava shop we are now in front of, but resist the urge realising it may not be taken with good humour. Instead we decided to back-track to the road above our hotel. It turns out to have a very long and steep set of steps...

Again we decided to have a very chilled morning. We got up late, phaffed around, and then went out for dinner and did the Lonely Planet walking tour. These tours are, in the main, amazingly crap, but they help pass the time. We had already taken lunch in an Arabic restaurant, and vastly overate. The tour suggested beginning by eating in a sweet shop. But I think I would have had a hernia if we’d have taken that advice. We walked around and took in the recommended souq – which turned out to be a series of shops. Evening came around quickly and we decided to head up to the Turkish Hamaam above downtown Amman. We strolled down through the Mosque and into the Souq proper and then spent a good half an hour trying to figure out how to get to the Hamman; the Lonely Planet maps does not account too well for elevation. We finally got there after much wrangling and booked ourselves in for a session. In the week they accept mixed couples so Merryl could join Marcus and myself; in Syria and also in Turkey women go in the day, men in the evening.

The Hammam was excellent. The steam room was absolutely piping hot, if not verging on the unbearable. The Jacuzzi was invigorating and the massage was superb. During both of these we were given ice-cold pomegranate juice to sip. The whole Hammam was inside a very pleasant, grotto-like room. The first part, which involved scrubbing with the Keffe glove, was pretty intense and vigorous. The masseur who oversaw the next part was an expert and did some serious spine-stretching manoeuvres on me. He also spent a lot of time working on my lymph-nodes which I think I sorely needed. We then all got dead-sea mud packs and sat on a huge marble slab to chill out. Finally we were all wrapped up in strange, bee-hive style towels, with Lawrence of Arabia style throws on our bodies and we sat and watched a fish-tank and chilled out for 20mins. It was the best Hammam I have had yet.

… “Owwwww..” I yell out-loud once more. I am sitting in a cave-like steam room. Lights are winking on and off and soft music is playing in the back-ground. Merryl is beside me and Marcus is sitting opposite. The roof tapers upwards to where the steam gathers, condenses, and then drips down; seemingly onto just me, in the form of red-hot droplets. The others don’t seem to feel a thing. Everytime it happens I sit bolt-upright. The temperature is so hot that above three or four feet from the ground your ears begin to burn due to the heat of the air. I am not having much fun. I sit back down and put my head on my knees. Marcus cracks and leaves the room to go to the second, somewhat cooler, chamber. I move over to his empty place and the dripping ceases. An older American couple come inside and join us. We begin chatting and they tell us they are visiting their daughter who is studying Arabic in Amman. They tell us this heat we are experiencing is nothing compared to the Eskimo saunas in Alaska. A girl comes in with ice-cold drinks on a tray. Another red-hot drip falls on me, this time on my thigh…

After the massage we wondered down the hill back toward downtown Amman. We stopped for a beer in a nice little bar and debated on where to have dinner. We decided instead to check out a bookshop up the road that also doubled as a café. It was a very well-stocked shop and we spent a while perusing through the literature. Then we nipped up the café and discovered, to our surprise, a huge bar – the size of a night-club – with wireless access and nargile and some seriously impressive pizzas; which, of course, Marcus and I ate. Merryl had some pasta. Marcus – the uber fatboy – then also had a chocolate fudge brownie and ice-cream!!

… Books@cafe is kicking. The speakers are thumping, albeit with bad eighties vibes. We are greeted by a camp concierge, who looks for the world like Dustin Hoffman’s Captain Hook (sans wig) in the Disney movie. We are given a seat at the bar. It is a quadrangular layout. The bar-staff serve from the inside. We are glowing from our mud-packs and feeling very healthy and relaxed. We are all keen to undo all this good work - and get gently toasted, Merryl and I on red wine, Marcus on beer. We are sharing a cherry nargile, that the bar-man tells Merryl is for ladies, not men. Expatriates are everywhere, draped over the stools and tables, chatting in low voices. Local barflies are sitting around the immediate bar, eager looks in their eyes; on the prowl for non-muslim western women. Our food turns up; the pizzas turn out to be enormous. “You are a fat b*stad!” I inform Marcus.
“Eat some poo.” He retorts with our standard spoken dialogue used before the commencing of dining. I set to. Much later, after we have finished eating the pizzas (I can’t actually believe I managed it), he orders a chocolate fudge brownie with ice-cream. I call him a fat-b*stad again. This time with a hint of reverence in my voice. Merryl and I watch in awe as he eats it. I take a picture for prosperity.
“I cannot believe you actually ate that.” Merryl tells him as we pay and stand to leave. From the look on Marcus’s face, I think he is finding it hard to comprehend himself. His pained expression suddenly turns to one of horror as one of the guys sitting behind him informs him he is standing against our nargile and his pants are on fire...

Amman, the citadel, and not much else

December 9th

We ate out in the Blue Fig Café last night. It was very sophisticated and a stark contrast to Syria. Not that Syria doesn’t have amazing restaurants, but this one was… sexy, and smooth - even the music was. It was uber cool and funky. Something we haven’t experienced for some time.

We awoke this morning to find Merryl had succumbed to a cold and was not in an adventurous mood. I was up quite early, trying to sort out a replacement camera. I met Marcus in the hotel foyer and we decided to go exploring around the citadel. It was well within walking distance. It basically lies above the downtown area of Amman, on Jebel Al-Qala’a, and is accessible by a short, uphill walk; uphill being the key word here. In keeping with my tenet of never passing a food joint with Arabic written on it, I got a falafel. We struck up through backstreets, across planks, and up broken-down stairwells before reaching the apex of the hill, where the citadel lay. We paid our entrance fee - although this really wasn’t necessary as you could walk down five hundred metres and hop over a wall - and in we went.

… We are walking through the ruins of the old citadel. There is a low cloudbase and Amman looks claustrophobic. Marcus and I are doing our usual exploration routine. We are entering every nook and cranny we can see. We do this unconsciously with military precision. We have a unspoken repatoire of gestures, eyebrow movememts, lipcurls, and gesticualations: each one is an indication of the area we have just explored. I have just back-tracked through a series of foundations outside of the Ottoman Mosque dominating the citadel. To its left is a vast underground cistern. I can't bring myself to explore another one. We enter the palace mosque and flank either side, taking pictures as we go. We emerge into daylight squinting in surprise at a sudden shaft of sunlight breaking through the clouds. We come across a fantastic view of the city. A couple, that I immediately take to be French, are also exploring the same area. We congregate at the South wall and exchange cameras to snap the moment. I can't get over the fact the woman is wearing leather jeans; I have been in Syria too long. They turn out to be Lebanese...

Amman is both a very old and very new city. Records pertaining to its existence go back as far as 3500BC. The Bible makes many reference to Rabbath Ammon around 1200BC as the capital of the powerful Ammorites. It fell under the sway of Rome in 30BC and was part of the Decapolis; the decumvirate of cities in Romanae Arabia. Later, much later under Byzantine rule, its name was changed to Phila Delphia. (yes, the Americans stole that too). During the Sassanian (Persian) rule, and later under the Muslims, its importance was diminished somewhat, so, although it did become a thriving carvan trading post, it never regained its importance as a city. In fact in 1900 it claimed to have a population of 2000 citizens. When, in 1920, Transjordan came into existence however, it found itself rapidly shaping up. Today it has stepped up a little to a population of over 2 million denizens. There must be a lot of frisky bunnies here.

... I am winding my way down into the Temple of Hercules. The sun has broken throught the clouds. It falls across downtown Amman like a lover's caress: bringing beauty to its lugubrious skyline. As I make my way down into the perimeter of the temple's foundations I notice a number of children walking down toward me. All dressed in silken blue clothes. Walking with them is a camera man and an older woman. She looks like a school-teacher. They are lining up along the ruins. I take a seat next to a European looking woman on a stone rock and watch the strange proceedings unfurl. I don't know her yet, however we will meet again in Damascus at Christmas three weeks from now: on Christmas eve. Then on Christmas day she, along with many others, will accompany me to Christmas mass in a village where Aramaic is still spoken and where snow falls on the surrounding hills...

The citadel boasts a number of ruins including a Byzantine basilica, the Roman temple of Hercules and a magnificant palace that has been reconstructed over the last 20 years. This reconstruction and renovation has also included the addition of a roof, in a style that is believed to be consistant with the orginal. It is an interesting place to explore, and we spent a couple of hours mooching around. From the palace you can also see the Jordanian flag flying in the distance. It is supposed to be the second largest flag-pole in the world. Surpassed only by the efforts of the North Koreans. It was quite impressive. Because of its size, the flag looked like it was moving in slow motion. It is a somewhat surreal sight.

We finished up by wandering into the Temple of Hercules. It is mainly lying in ruins. But there were some impressive pillars still standing. Just as we were looking around, we chanced on a bunch of school-kids making a pop video. We took some pictures and applauded their efforts. They took it very seriously and I imagine that they all have dreams of being on the Jordanian Top of The Tops. The best of luck to them.

The rest of the day was spent looking around Jebel Amman. The downtown area in which we were staying. I procured Merryl a fresh orange juice and she then got up; as she was feeling a little better. That evening we discovered the rain had followed us from Damascus so we didn't do very much. We grabbed a shawarma type take-away and stayed in the hotel.

Jordan - Amman. The first night

December 8th

We travelled from Damascus on a luxury bus. We had grandiose plans of arising early and visiting the Aramaic village of Maalula in the morning. Unfortunately the Oh-God of hangovers had claimed us. For anyone unfamiliar with this deity, please refer to Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather. He is the God of hangovers (due to the nature of his existence however, it is necessary to add the Oh.. whenever referring to him). So our plans of being up and about at 8am were sorely scuppered. Instead we managed to pack and check out at midday. By the time we had got to San Maria, it was around 2pm. We got a bus at 3pm and crossed the border around 5ish. The crossing was relatively painless. Apart from exiting Syria: unfortunately, as we were leaving the country so were three – yes count them – three busloads of Azerbaijanis were also trying to cross the border. The Syrian immigration department did not know what had hit them. We knew what had hit them - somewhere in the region of 120 passports, that’s what. At one point we thought we really were going to be in immigration all night, however our bus driver invoked that fantastic Middle Eastern principle: I am going to push in front of you, habibi, and waggle my passport in front of this officer’s face, ha ha ha ha. On the Jordanian side, we had our visas approved immediately. Then, after a quick nip into the duty-free shop, and our bags unloaded - and not checked - we were winging our way to Amman.

…I am cold. We are standing outside our bus in no-man’s land between Syria and Jordan. We have all been ordered off the vehicle and our bags are laid out beside us, as if our guilty secrets have been dragged out of our closets, bones-n-all, and are on show for the world to see. Marcus, Merryl and I are tickling each other. We are all munching chocolates from a bumper bag we bought from the duty-free shop and the glucose has given us a sudden burst of energy. I am feeling sick from my gluttonous behaviour. So sick I eat another one. People are sitting around the bus under the garish lights. Luggage is strewn everywhere. The smell of diesel and oil hangs in the air. A mother and her daughter are sitting watching us. The child’s face is expressionless but her mother’s visage is one of bemusement. The guards responsible for our delay are poking our bags half-heartedly. They do not open a single one of them. The inside of my head is throbbing with a dull ache, my brainstem feels as though it needs a lie down - all by itself. I am silently praying the Azerbaijanis don’t turn up…

We got into Amman fairly late. Around 7pm. We checked into a hotel in the downtown area. Amman is a very strange city, geographically speaking. It has been a while since we have been anywhere… mountainous – Syria is a very flat country; Jordan isn’t. The whole city is built on concentric circles, each on different levels and elevations. Where we are staying is relatively low. We are in the valleys, so to speak. As with every new country, a different currency - Jordanian dinars are where it is at here - They are roughly equivalent to the Euro. Syria was fantastic as the Syrian Pound is currently 100:1 GPB. Apart from that though, Arabic is still the first language. We noticed immediately though, English is understood better here. This was good and bad. Jordan is much more geared toward tourism. We felt a little bit westernised once more. But again, whether or not this was good or bad was still undecided.

… It is our first night in Amman and we are sitting in the Blue Fig Café. It is recommended in the Lonely Planet as one of the funkiest places to eat in Amman. It is. We have spent a month in a very Arabic country. Now we are sitting in an eatery with art for sale on its walls. Everyone in the café is dressed in western clothes. They are all preened and manicured. The women are bareheaded, bare shouldered, and are equivalent to London socialite; however I am salivating over the menu choices. The prices are extortionate. To boot, we are dressed like pikeys, and we are all hungover and tired. But we don’t let this dissuade us. Merryl does not know it yet but she has come down with another virus and will be in bed all day tomorrow. We gorge on a mixture of oriental, Italian, and south American dishes. We drink red wine and a cornucopia of cocktails that the waiters, who speak impeccable English, keep serving us. We are recalling the cab-journey to here and laughing: Our cab driver had one-eye and had not the first idea of, as we understood, what city he had been deposited in. He had never heard of the place we were trying to get to and spoke as much English as we did Arabic. He finally pulled over and seconded a French concierge to relay our destination to him. Halfway through the explanation our driver suddenly became extremely excited and drove off – tyres squealing – leaving the concierge still bent over with his arm extended, trying to explain the Café’s location. We shake our heads in amusement. The waiter returns and it is time for another cocktail…

The Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan

Jordan is a country of dualities and has been thus, ever since the state of Transjordan was created by the League of Nations. It is constantly striving for a balancing act with its neighbours: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Syria all share a border with it. It manages a balancing act with a flourish of political and cultural representations within its national psyche. Many of Jordan’s young population are embracing western culture, whilst there elders are still firmly entrenched in ancient cultural traditions. The Bedouin nomads, the Orthodox Christians, and the Muslim Arabs, all co-habit in this kingdom. For a traveller visiting this country, however, the same warm, and welcoming, hospitality is offered by all Jordanian people. Their good humour and acceptance of visitors makes this place such a delight to visit;

…and visit you should. For such a small country, Jordan boasts some of the singularly amazing experiences in the world: The cities of Amman, Jerash, and Umm Qais are part of the ancient Roman Decapolis. The city of Jerash itself is a breathtakingly beautiful window into the majesty of the Roman Empire; not too mention still host to the 6th Roman Legion. The nature reserves of Dana, Wadi Mujib, and Wadi Rum are areas of unparalleled natural beauty with hiking trails that expose you to a myriad of flora and fauna. For areas of Biblical interest, you can visit Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan where Jesus was baptised, Herod’s castle, Mount Nebo where Moses first saw the promised land, and the Dead Sea, where the scrolls unlocking an ancient world were found at Qumran. You can also trek into the desert, by camel, and sleep under the stars with the Bedouin, or scuba and swim in the Red Sea at Aqabar. If all of this is not enough to excite your imagination, then imagine Petra - the Nabatean City of Rose. One of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World; hewn out of a kaleidoscope of coloured sandstone by stone-masons two millennia ago, and drawing on inspiration from architectural designs ranging from the Egyptians to the Palmyrenes. These mystical and majestic metropolis that have been hidden for years deep in the desert, lie within twisted and clandestine pathways, rent out of the fury of an earthquakes: inside the mountains themselves.

Around Damascus the last few days, Bosra, and Christmas Shopping

December 3rd-6th

We decided to get out of Damascus and go and see some ruins. After all, we had not seen any for, ooh, at least a week, and Merryl hadn't seen any period. Not even an amphitheatre! And you simply can't come to Syria and not see at least one of those bad boys.

Bosra lies south Damascus, about 120km. Not far from the Jordanian border. We got a bus from San Maria, the main bus station for all south and west of Damascus. It was a pleasant enough trip to the town. We met a nice guy on the bus who worked for Syrian immigration on the Jordanian border. He, like so many Syrian people you meet here, wanted to invite us to his house for tea. An act of such basic human decency I am always moved by it. We politely declined as we were on a bit of a tight schedule and we had to get a bus back to Damascus that afternoon. But we enjoyed pleasantly passing the time on our journey chatting with him. We arrived pretty hungry but luckily there was a fantastic cafe with my name on it. Literally. So I convinced the others to eat there. We forgot the golden rule of asking before hand so we ended up paying over the odds.

...We are sitting in a cafe in the main town square in Bosra. It is eponymously named after me. I am enjoying sitting in my joint, telling Marcus and Merryl they can't eat my food. The sun is quite hot and is shining warmly down on the square. We are seated under a tree and a slight breeze is playing with the branches, shadows are falling in patterns across our table. The place is a shite-hole and Marcus keeps on telling me so. He is perfectly right, however I am not about to admit this. The food is passable, but we forgot to negotiate a price beforehand. I am kicking myself even before I have to ask for the bill. "Adayash, min-fadlek?" The price is ridiculous. In my cafe!! I start arguing with the owner. To our right, the great amphitheatre awaits us with a beckon...

We found the ruins pretty impressive. Bosra was originally a Nabatean city. Records show it existing around the 2nd century BC. It was converted into a Roman colony named Nova Trajana Bostra. It flourished as a juncture for several trade routes and was an important point along the Roman road to the Red Sea. Today, it still has some great sites, but the most important feature is its superb amphitheatre.

We spent a lovely morning exploring this theatre. We sat and took in the sunshine and took plenty of pictures. Afterward we explored the ruins of the old city The same architectural formula is applied to what remains of most Roman cities. The temples, the cardo maximus running north to south, bisected by the decamanus. The tetrapylons. The Nymphaeum and the Agora. The later addition of a basilica and a mosque. It was a pleasant enough afternoon.

... Merryl and I are sitting with our backs against the wall in the amphitheatre. Marcus has walked to the top of the upper tiers and is working his way around to the other side, his figure is a silhouette against the sun. Merryl is trying to photograph him. I am squinting across at the sectors trying to calculate roughly how many people this could seat. "mmm. twelve people per row, eight rows in each sector with two people added for each row so eight times eight plus fourteen extra for each row. That's one hundred and ten for each sector on the bottom. Times that by seven. Merryl is looking at me with mock incredulity as if I have no idea as to what I am going on about. I don't care. She is just jealous because she can't get past her nine times table. I tell her so. She sticks her tongue out at me...

We headed back to Damascus in the late afternoon and got into San Maria at sunset. Our taxi was on the meter for a change but the driver wanted to add extra. When we enquired as to the reason why he told us it was for fire reasons. That was a pretty good one. The driver the day before had wanted money for bends in the roads. Needless to say neither of them got it.


The last day we spent in Damascus was to do some Christmas shopping. So we headed down to souq by the Museum Marcus had found last week in order to try and get some presents to send back home. We found a shop with some brilliant fantastic Pashmina scarves. We negotiated a good price for them and picked up some other trinkets. It was a freezing day and Marcus headed off to chill out for an hour. Merryl and I decided to head down to the Christian quarter and do some more shopping. Here we picked up some very nice Kaffiyre head-scarves and soap, and some amazing chocolates. We then found a nice little bar in the Christian quarter and stopped for a sit down and a drink.

...The music is playing Glenn Madieras's 'Nothing's gonna change my love for you'. It has been on three times now. As has: "It must have been love"; "total eclipse of the heart"; and "My Heart Will Go On". We are sit in an quiet little bar off of Straight Street. It is resplendently reminiscent in my mind of an Indian restaurant I was in, in Oxford, some three months ago. It seems like an eternity. Bags of shopping are strewn all around us. Two empty glasses adorn the table. As does a bottle of half-full Lebanese wine. We are talking about Christmas, and how we plan to spend it. I am still unsure even to what country I will be in. Merryl will be heading home. Her two week stay is looking more like a month now. We are not even packed for Jordan. Celine Dion comes on again and Merryl groans in sincere agony. The bar-staff are hanging around uncertainly, they are unsure as to what on earth we plan to do about eating. I am swilling my glass in my hand and staring absentmindedly into the sanguine liquid, just enjoying the moment, the wine, and basking in the glow of feeling Christmassy -without the two month build up to it the UK usually affords me. I do not know this yet but, much later, Rachel and Marcus arrive and we will dine here, and the red wine will flow even more. Whereupon Marcus and I will drunkenly agree to cook for Rachel at Christmas. We will then say our fond farewells to her, and then we will not see each other until Christmas Eve. For now though, Merryl and I are savouring this time we spend together. I look up from my reverie, momentarily lost in thought, and into mesmerisingly blue-green eyes. I open my mouth to speak...

One drink turned out to be several. So we rang Marcus and asked him if he wanted to contact Rachel and join us. Which they did. We had a great evening, getting merry and spending time with Rachel as it was our last night in Damascus together until perhaps Christmas. We made plans to see each other over the Christmas period. Then Merryl and I decided to head home whilst Marcus and Rachel went on to do meet some friends and some dancing.

This concludes our month long journey around Syria. I have found this country bewitching and beautiful. I have loved every minute of the time I have spent here. The people are so genuine and friendly. I has utterly changed my outlook on how I will now act toward visitors to my country; wherever this may end up being. The sights to behold here and the experiences to savour I have probably done no justice in my poor attempt to record them in my journal But I hope I have done this wonderful country at least a compliment and offered my gratitude.

Tomorrow we are going to head south: to Jordan and, among others, a place I have wanted to visit ever since I can remember.

Damascus - an evening of dance - the panorama and the Golan heights

December 1st - December 3rd

... We are walking through the town of Quneitra. It is freezing cold and it is raining. Our guide is showing us around the ravaged and decrepit husks that were once houses, shops, and flats. He speaks very good English. We picked him up at the army checkpoint at the beginning of the village. It was not by choice. We amble along a road past a mosque riddled with bullet-holes and fractured by shell-fire. The houses on either side of it are not looking much better. Plaster is rent in huge chunks from what looks like a wide barrelled automatic weapon. I try not to imagine the effect it would have on soft, human tissue. I try very hard. Our guide takes us north past a police check-point. He asks us to put our cameras away whilst we pass the guard. I am carrying Merryl's as mine was stolen this morning. I never get to file a police report for it in Syria; although I will try several times. Both Merryl and I have a flu-like virus. We have both taken some heavy cold and flu tablets but are still shivering nonetheless; I am not sure if it is entirely due to the cold. We are beginning to realise our guide is not with us for education purposes: his role appears to be one of a custodian. "Please, do not walk this way," he says to us and gestures toward a road on our right. "Up here, toward the hospital." There is no birdsong here. Everything is deathly quiet; enhanced even more by the mist hanging everywhere. Danse macabre seems to seep from the out of the fog. The houses are like mausoleums. There is no glass in the windows. We are all reduced to reverent silence. A UN building looms up ahead, wreathed in barbwire and complimented by a watch-tower on the north-side. As we approach the hospital our guide inclines his head: "they used it for target practice." There does not appear to be much of it left...

Evening 1st December

We met Rachel and her friends for dinner in the Beautiful Elissa restaurant in Bab-Touma again. We really didn't mind an excuse to eat there as the food is great. We got a bit lost going through the old city. But we made it eventually. After the meal we headed up to the other end of Straight Street with her and her friends to watch a contemporary dance performance by two of Natalie's Iraqii friends. It was in a Theatre just outside of the Citadel. The performance was called Sins of the Mother. It was, as far as I could perceive, a lament for the war in Iraq. The pain the people had been through, and an cathartic expression for the betrayal and hopelessness many Iraqiis felt. I have been to some dubious modern dance performances before, so I was a tiny bit skeptical. This blew me away. It was amazingly done, and the message and structure of the performance was expressed very well through the medium of dance, music, and lighting. They performers are planning on taking the show to Holland. Maybe they'll reach further. If you hear of them I recommend you check it out. Afterwards. We walked another of Rachel's friends, Barbara, home. She kept getting lost in the old city. I don't blame her. I did several times myself.

The next morning we got up and decided to head to the village of Quneitra. This was the focal point between the 1967 war between Israel and Syria. The area surrounding the town is the Golan Heights. It has been over 30 years since a shot has been fired, but the place remains a ghost-town. We had to obtain passes to reach the place which we had obtained the day before. I got up to discover that I had come down with some dodgy viral infection. However I didn't want to miss this so I grabbed some flu tablets and wolfed them down. Merryl came down with the same virus that day. I also had my camera stolen. So I was in a fine mood! Before we went to Quneitra we decided to take Natalie's advice and go to the War Panorama. This is one amazing piece of Syrian propaganda located just outside of central Damascus. It is worth seeing just for the quality of innacurate information if nothing else. We rocked up to this massive edifice gleaming brightly like a Chesire cats' grin. The car park is full of decommissioned military equipment. Fully working, gleaming, Syrian/Russian planes, tanks, and amoured cars on one side; gnarled, melted, and twisted American/Israeli paraphernalia on the other.

...The theatre is packed. The music comes from all around of us. It is a complete discord. A wailing, intrusive sound that pierces my ear-drums. I feel invaded like I want to shut it out. It rises and falls in an non-uniform way; a clanking, wailing, wave. I want to reach out and try and fix it. On the stage, there are two males dancers sitting adjacent to each other under bright red, almost erotic, lights. The atmosphere is not erotic though, it is ugly and painful. Their movements hitherto have been painful and sore in expression. They sit facing the audience, at random intervals they turn to look at each other: one dancer is a mask of happiness, the other a sneer of malevolence. Neither one gets to see each other's face...

The inside of the building is even more... interesting. It was built in collaboration with North Korea. They also supplied artists to paint the magnificent works that adorn the walls inside. The levels are split into different sections. The first section is full of paintings depicting periods of peace, that the Syrians helped achieve through the ages, with different civilizations. Pictures showing peace treaties with the Egyptians; to the Palymyrenes; to the Romans; to the Crusaders. There is a clear message on these walls. We don't start wars, we finish them. We were then taken upstairs to watch a.. mmmm.. video. We had to sit with a bunch of 8 year-old kids and take in a wonderful bit of subjective footage of the six day war. I can't believe they were feeding this stuff to their kids. It was basically a bunch of spliced film reels showing Syria as spanking the Israeli's arses and staunching the threat of Zionism - as they put it - into Syria. They forgot to mention they didn't exactly win. From this great bit of fiction we were lead up to the panorama itself. This a rotundum in the roof of the building with a 360 degree painting. You can sit on a fully rotating platform and take in every bit of this amazing, if slightly subjective, vista. The main beef I had with this is the same one I did with commando novels as a kid. It always irked me that the enemy was shown as a slightly feral human being: a snarling look, weasily eyes and a swarthy face (hang-on am I describing myself here?); and in every scene these wascawwy Isrealis are seen to be deserting their posts, getting shot, and generally running away. Aren't they just rawscawwy, kids? It was all good cheesy, propaganda, and it was interesting to glean how the masses are being educated here.

... Ammar and I are chatting outside of the Eastern Temple gate, beside the Ummayad Mosque. Marcus, Merryl, and Per, are walking behind me. It is early evening and the city is bustling. "In Baghdad now, it is not good to be a Sunni," He tells me. I ask him why not. "Saddam was a Sunni, now Shiite militia are in control. They kept coming to me everyday, asking if I was a Sunni. It is not safe to live in my area now." He goes on to tell me he saw people looting in Baghdad and corpses in the streets. He tells me the police caught a gang of men in a car in southern Iraq. They were shooting people randomly in the streets. The men arrested turned out to be disguised American soldiers: this did not make the news.

"Was the invasion a good thing for Iraq," I ask.
"No." He replies,
"Will things get better do you think?" I further enquire, "maybe in five years?" We walk down to Restaurant Ummayad where we are to eat our meal and to watch the Sufi dancers this evening.
"I do not think so," he says. Throughout our conversation he is glancing around furtively"I am glad I am able to talk to you with this." I look at him carefully. He has been stuck away, alone, along time with dark thoughts heavy on his shoulders. I realise I have no idea how to even begin to comprehend how he feels.
"Me too." I reply...

It took quite while to get to Quneitra and by the time we had got there, I had realised a) our camera had gone, and b) I was really, really ill. The tablets had started to kick in though and I could at least walk around. We got a service to a village about 10km outside of the town and then negotiated a taxi there and back. The whole town is a leftover from the six day war between Syria and Israel for ownership of the Golan Heights. It is now a museum. A reminder of what used to be here - and was lost.

We reach a checkpoint, just before Quneitra, and we were assigned a guide. He was more of guard; although he showed us around, he did not ask for money at the end. He took us around the war-torn remains of this town. Still virtually untouched since the Israelis withdrew in 1973. A lonely UN building stood in the middle of the town. Barbwire and fences surrounding it. We walked up to the remains of the hospital, which was decimated by shell-fire and then, subsequently used for target practice afterwards. The inside was pulped.

...Merryl and I are Christmas shopping in Straight Street. It is getting late and night is falling. We are tired and our arms are laden with bags full of shopping, however we are enjoying ourselves tremendously. We have been haggling and bartering and have some great presents. People are climbing up and down makeshift ramps, in and out of alleys, and shops. Some of the ramps are doors from the shops themselves. We strike off the street and clamber up a mud verge toward a back-street, we are looking for some Kaffiyres. A woman is trying to lower her pram down the mud verge. People are spilling past her. A young teen-age boy helps Merryl up the slope. She turns to thank him "Shukran." She says. He tells her he loves her. I start to laugh: A Casanova in the making...

He wasn't the most talkative of people. To be honest there wasn't much to talk about. Silence hung in the air, like something sacrosanct; none of us felt like speaking much. We walked down past a house with washing hanging outside on the upstairs' balcony. We asked him to whom it belonged. He told us there is a restaurant here.
'How many people are living in this town?' we enquired.
'five.' He replied.
Our taxi dropped us off back in the nearby town and we got a service into Damascus. I tried to report my camera in the police station but is was pretty much impossible to get a police report. I think I'll wait until I get to Jordan. We headed back to the El-Haremain hotel, and the virus claimed us.

Damascus the next week

November the 29th December 3rd

...Marcus and I are sitting outside a cafe, smoking a nargile and trying to decide what to eat.

It is late afternoon. Merryl is at the hotel, taking a nap. She is still adjusting to a total change in lifestyle and her parasympathetic nervous system is having a romp. We are smoking a nargile. The cafe is situated in a quiet backstreet, but still it is busy. We opt for a fatteh, which is baked chick-peas, hummous, olive oil, and bread. We ask for a chicken fatteh, but the waiter tells us there is no meat. We were planning on heading down to see the Ummayad Mosque; we have been planning to since yesterday. We just seem to be unable to muster the energy to do anything but eat, sleep, smoke, and drink the Baileys and Vodka Merryl has brought with her. We are discussing bowel movements. It is a topic of much fascination between us. During our trip through Syria we have both been very ill with traveller's diarrhoea. We are both commenting on how things are pretty stable for the first-time in over a week. The waiter brings our fatteh, with pickles and bread. I tuck in ravenously, scooping the hommous into the bread from within a huge bowl, drizzled in olive-oil. A guy approaches us both and smiles and asks us if we are European. We nod and say we are English. He looks at us with a cheeky grin and tells us we are drawing attention to ourselves by eating fatteh with bread. It is apparently not the done thing. I look up to see several smirking faces, and I try and suppress a laugh, my cheeks bulging with fettah...

Over the next week we decided take it easy during our stay in Damascus. Taking it easy basically meant doing very little. Getting up late, drinking fresh juice and eating falafel. Wondering down to the old city each morning, and exploring a new area. We took a walking tour around the city. Along Shia Al-Qaimarriya to Bab-Touma, through the Christian Quarter and back through the city to the wonderful coffee house An-Nafura where, each evening the raconteur, Abu Shady, recounts one of the stories from One Thousand and One Tales; he is a Hakawati - a professional story-teller. He sits each night with on a throne in the middle of the coffee house and speaks for an hour. We went in to watch him not one night, but two in a row. Although the stories are spoken in Arabic, just sitting watching and listening to him is mesmerising.

We also bumped into Per out of the blue, sitting by the side of the road, on Shia Al-Qaimarriya. We arranged to meet him that night for a meal, in the swanky Elissar restaurant in Bab-Touma. The restaurant was amazing. The food was delicious, the service exemplary, and the price next to nothing. We actually ate in there twice. The first time with Per and the second with Rachel, and some of her friends. The next night we met up with Per and took him to An-Nafura to watch the story-teller. He brought with him a friend staying at his hotel on Straight Street, named Ammar. Ammar was a lawyer in Baghdad. But had to leave his home because of the civil unrest in Iraq. He is a Sunni muslim, as Saddam was. Much of Baghdad is under Shia control now and for some time he was under constant threat of violence. He has been in Syria nearly a year now. He is hoping to return home around Christmas time.

... The Hakawati is in full swing. The cafe is jammed with people and smoke hangs thick in the air. He sits on a rich, ornate, chair with a high back, set on a podium high on the rear wall of the cafe. He has a huge book in one hand, and is brandishing a sword in the other. His voice is booming, deep, and compelling. He has a fierce and piercing look, his eyes take in the entire room in a single sweep. Each time you get a thrill of excitement as if they may land on you and single you out. Waiters rush around serving chai and coffee. They sometimes shout in reply to questions he throws into the audience. I have no idea of what he is saying, but his eyes spark with fire. He suddenly slams his sword down onto the chair. Two young children with eyes like saucers, sitting in front of us, leap off there seats in surprise. Their mother starts to laugh as she catches the look on their faces. I do the same. A collection plate comes around for the Abu Shady. We had already put money in the night-before. It is the same procedure, but we are happy to pay. Per is asking me how much he should put. I try to explain to him in a whisper under my breath. Merryl squeezes my hand that she is holding. I suddenly realise the room has gone quiet and the Hakawati is staring at me over his horn-rimmed glasses. He is less than amused...

We got a chance to explore the amazing Ummayad mosque. Although we elected to do this on a Friday - the holy day in the Muslim calendar. We spent a lovely couple of hours walking around this beautiful building. Merryl had to change into a robe that covered her whole body and her head. You pick these up from the special "putting on special clothes room" outside of the Mosque. Once she was dressed up like a munchkin we headed inside. The mosque is huge. There have been temples at this site going back to 3000BC (as I mentioned before dedicated to the God, Hadad) When the Romans occupied Damascus they transformed it into the temple of Jupiter and expanded it massively. It was then converted to a basillica with the advent of Christianity and is thought - and why not, everywhere also does - to have the head of John the Baptist buried here in a casket. Indeed there is a shrine dedicated to him [he is known as the prophet Yehia in Islam]. When the Muslims arrived in 636AD most of it was converted into a mosque. I say most of it, because the Christians were still allowed to worship in the west part of the temple. I find this harmony in the tolerance of the two religions heart-warming, but that is Syria all over. It didn't last however the Christians were ousted by the Caliph 70 years later. For over the next thousand years it was a mosque, and by historical accounts, every niche, nook, and mihrab, was decorated in shimmering gold. The mosque was lit by 600 lamps, and must have shone with unparalleled grandeur in the warm sunshine. The open courtyard is adorned with mosaics especially on the west-side. In the centre of the courtyard stands the ablutions fountain, with the dome of the treasury, and dome of the clocks on either side. Three minarets tower over the courtyard: The minaret of the Bride, Al-Gharbiyya minaret to the south-west, and the minaret of Jesus to the South-East, where local tradition states that the Lord with appear to shephard the chosen few into heaven on Judgement day. As it was a holy day we could not enter the prayer halls during prayer so we were restricted to the courtyard. We did get to visit the shrine of Hussein in east of the Mosque. This is where the bones of the grandson of the prophet are interred in a beautifully decorated glass, and jewelled, sarcophagus. It is very popular amongst the Shiite Muslims as his father, Ali, was the founder of Shiism.

...I am marvelling at the sheer size of the mosque. We have been walking around and watching the Damescenes go about their holy day rituals, from the minarets we can hear the dulcet tones of the Mouezzin, sending the message of Ezan. drifting across the spires of the old city. Entwining with antiquated weather vanes and satellite dishes. Marcus and I have just been into Hussein's shrine. I spy Merryl as we emerge into the courtyard. I wave her over to ask her if she wants to see it. She is dressed from head to foot in a oversized tunic in order to cover her body and head. We enter the shrine. Kids are playing inside. Running amok and laughing and rolling on the floor. People are sitting chatting randomly around the inner area. An Imam is talking to a Shiite woman who is covered in soft, black, clothes, from head to foot. Only her dark eyes, with their long lashes, are visible from beneath her Burkha. We follow the flow of the crowd into the shrine itself. An incredibly ornate glass dome stands in the corner. People are approaching it on there knees. Kissing the glass and mouthing low and rhythmic prayers...

We caught up with Rachel far longer after than we arrived than we hoped. She had been very ill with the flu, but she dragged herself out to see us for lunch one afternoon. She did not look like she had much strength but it was very nice of her to come and meet us. We had a fantastic lunch in a restaurant in the Muslim area of town called Abu Roumana. It also meant Merryl got to meet Rachel. As per usual, Marcus and I ordered and ate far too much. No wonder we are always ill. As time went on, she got better though. It turned out Souq Saroujah was one of her favourite hang-outs. So we'd often meet there for a tea and nargile.

We managed to get up to the Jebel Qassioun and catch the panoramic view of Damascus. I never really appreciated just how big the city was until we stepped out of the taxi. It is vast. My friend Omar tells me that in the summer people take picnics up on to the hill above the city and watch the sunset. I used to do the same thing on Primrose hill in Camden. I would say the view would be amazing here as the sun went down. Unfortunately it is a little too chilly here in the evenings at present.

We hung out in Souq Saroujah a fair bit. Marcus spent a night there with some people studying Arabic at Damascus University. We managed to go to a restaurant with Per and Ammar and watch a Sufi perform a ritual Whirling Dervish act. It is quite amazing to see. Sufism ascribes to, among other things, the use of dance in order to, not only worship, but to connect to the universe by surrendering to the emptiness; a trance-like meditative state achieved through dance. It is quite something to see.

...The restaurant is quiet. For Damascenes, this is pretty early. We are sitting, eating a buffet service meal. There is a Sufi dancer performing with his son. Merryl is talking to Ammar about Iraq. Ammar is a very charming and integral man. His positivity amazes me. He is exiled from his home in a country where he is less than welcome. He cannot get a job here, even though he has trained as a lawyer. He lives in a hotel with no heating. Per and Ammar must leave the hotel separately as he cannot be seen to be spending time with European tourists - We do not know this at this time, but in five days time he will come to our hotel to say good-bye before we leave for Jordan. Our hotel owner will tell him we are asleep and tell him he cannot stay in the hotel as he is an Iraqii. He then will forget to tell us he called until we are about to leave - For now though, he talks with us about his home. He is elegant and graceful in repose, however every once in a while you see beneath his social mask and nothing but pain is there. He and Merryl are talking about having children. Ammar says he loves kids, but will not plan to have any himself. Merryl enquires as to why - his response is he does not want to bring children into a world such as this. Behind him the Sufi performers are spinning faster and faster, father and sun in tandem. Their skirts are perfect upturned domes pulled and held aloft by the centrifugal force of their dhikr. one palm pointing outwards, the other to sky to receive the energy of the universe...