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...