Jordan

1 to 7 May 2025

General Observations

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a bustling and increasingly modern country, friendly and peaceable. There remains a genuine reverence for King Hussein, who ruled from 1953 until his death at 63 in 1999. He was a man of intense courage and intelligence, dealing with the fact his small country (pop. 11m, 90k sq.k) is trapped by geography – bordered with the Egyptian Sinai, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and of course, Israel. He experienced more flack from the PLO than the Israelis during his reign, truth be told, and other Arab countries might do well to adopt Jordan’s relaxed, if sometimes bemused, tolerance of the Jewish state.

Kissinger wrote of King Hussein: “Hussein sought with dignity and courage to reconcile the roles of Arab nationalist and America’s friend. A pro-Western monarch in the vortex of Arab radicalism, he maintained his independence as well as the respect of rulers in the region who were less than enchanted by the dynastic principle. Though substantially dependent on American aid he put up with our cumbersome and sometimes humiliating  procedures, never losing his composure or patience but also never descending to the role of supplicant. He was the first Arab leader prepared to talk of making peace with Israel, maintaining an intermittent if fruitless contact with Jerusalem.”*

“Hussein was a full-blooded Hashemite king. He was a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and the great-grandson of Hussein the Sharif of Mecca, the leader of the Arab struggle for independence during the First World War. But it was his grandfather Abdullah, the founder of the Emirate of Transjordan,^ who had the most profound influence on his political thinking. It was Abdullah who educated Hussein, who taught him what it meant to be a Hashemite, and who enjoined him to preserve and develop the kingdom that he had created…The Hashemite rulers of Jordan were dealt a weak hand. When Hussein ascended the throne he inherited a poor desert kingdom, with no oil and limited industrial capacity, surrounded by enemies who questioned its very right to exist. Hussein’s principle legacy was one of success in defying the obituarists and transcending the in-built limitations of his kingdom. He was able to give Jordan political weight in regional affairs and even at the global level that went a long way beyond its small population, limited economy and proud but modest army.”**

The Middle East is, of course, the Middle East. After The Varnished Culture had booked this trip, Hamas operatives crossed into Israel and chopped-up civilians like so much mincemeat. Our superb guide, Mohammad Ayasrah, thanked our tour group at the initial meeting for not cancelling – since the incursion from Gaza on 7 October, 2023, it has been calculated that tourism in Jordan – a key driver of its GDP – had declined by 87%.

Amman

The City of Stairs sits amid seven hills and walking the streets rarely felt brave. The Romans left abundant traces here, including the 6,000-seat Roman theatre (AD 2C), possibly built under Antonius Pius…

…and the Citadel, including the Temple of Hercules:

..the scale of which one can calculate according to the strongman’s fingers:

Not only Roman builders up here:

Then we visited the Jordan Museum on Citadel Hill, which drives home the venerability of this region:

King Mesha of Moab commissioned the Stele in Dhiban, c. 850 BC. A war record, it was destroyed by raiders but reconstructed and displayed in the Louvre (below first). The Jordan Museum has a fair copy (below, second). Jordan, and Egypt, among others, are living posers of the question, “Who Owns the Past?”

Little Rome: Jerash

A neolithic site, Jerash really got on the map under the lunatic general, Pompey, about 64BC. Hadrian holidayed here, and commissioned a gate in his honour. The site features the best intact and extant Roman ruins outside Rome.

Madaba and the Mosaic Map

This ancient market town is home away from home for lovers of the mosaic arts. Here we bought a mosaic of the famous Jordanian Tree of Life, based on the Tree of al-Buqayawiyya (The Blessed Tree), a 1500-year-old tree located in Safawi, about 150 k’s from Amman.

Madaba is the first notable stop on the ancient King’s Highway from Amman, a Byzantine-era place that thrived until earthquakes in the 740’s AD. Restoration of St George’s Greek Orthodox Church, in 1884, led to discovery of the Madaba map, an incomplete mosaic that is the oldest known map of the holy lands, c. AD 560.

Dana Biosphere

An eco-ghost town, Dana’s 19C towns lie empty, the valley now a haven for hikers and ecological students. Home to 180 bird species and 25 endangered mammal species, it can also serve as a tomb for unwary backpackers: the topography is challenging, and the wind whips-up from below such that you are almost lifted into the air.

Crusaders’ Redoubt: Shobak Castle (‘Montreal’)

The Crusaders called this fort ‘Montreal’ (Mount Royal), built in 1115, but after an 18 month siege by Saladin in 1189, it finally fell. He had taken captive Humphrey of Toron; his mother begged the garrison at Montreal and Karak to surrender and secure his release, but Saladin returned Humphrey before he took those castles by storm.***

Part of its success in holding out were the features that afforded a measure of self-sufficiency: there were millstones, pigeon-holes, gardens and underground waterways.

Petra 

The jewel of Jordan, not so much a rose-red as a red-spectrum City, created in narrow canyons shrouded by towering ancient rock, the home to a peoples now called Nabateans, made about 2,500 years ago. Its mystery, architectural mastery, and elemental role as an enigmatic time-capsule, has inspired many artists, writers and filmmakers (it famously features in Agatha Christie’s novel Appointment with Death (1937) and the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)).

We passed the obelisk tomb, wended through the chasm known as the Siq, had the Nabatean slimmed-down god-tributes explained by our guide, and approached the famous Treasury:

The colours of the rock change with the transit of the Sun.

We strode past an avenue of facades and peered at the Byzantine mosaics of a later age.

Romans built here as well, after Trajan moved the locals out.

The Romans gave us this the world’s oldest theatre carved into rock. A few years ago someone climbed up the top to take a photo, slipped, fell, and died.

Don’t head up to the Ad Deir Monastery if your heart is prone to attack you – but it is worth it…

“All these things will I give thee, if thou will fall down and worship me.”

Petra Museum

My savior (see “Some Tragic Footnotes” below). The Museum contains an impressive collection of Nabatean, Greek and Roman artefacts:

The next day, after the flood, we left Petra via its surrounding mountains, including Mt Aran, favourite of Moses (who also looked upon the promised land from a cliff above the Dead Sea, apparently).

Dine at Wadi Rum

Made famous by the film Lawrence of Arabia, Wadi Rum – the ‘Valley of the Moon’, is indeed a lunar landscape of water-tortured sandstone mountains and seas of Arabian sand. It was once completely under water. “Jeeps” – what the locals call beat-up utes – and camels are the main modes of transport – the old Ottoman railway, so prone to Lawrence’s dynamite in the First World War – is now little used.

Nabateans were here once, as well as at Petra (see above).

“Wadi Rumm…still gorgeous in sunset colour; the cliffs as red as the clouds in the west, like them in scale and in the level bar they raised against the sky. Again we felt how Rumm inhibited excitement by its serene beauty. Such whelming greatness dwarfed us, stripped off the cloak of laughter in which we had ridden over the jocund flats.”^^

T.E. Lawrence is venerated here, but some blame him, perhaps unfairly, for the Sykes-Picot agreement that carved up Ottoman-Arabia without so much as a ‘by your leave’ from the locals.

The site was UNESCO-listed in 2011, but that doesn’t mean that ‘Bedouin Whiskey’ means anything other than tea – Wadi Rum is “dry” in every sense.

We saw a local plant crushed and mixed with water to make an excellent lathering soap, applied powdered beauty rock granules to the skin, had a nice dinner including chicken and mutton cooked underground in a large pot, and also found out later who amongst our group couldn’t dance a lick.

We left the camp, and its camp dancing, and clambered over rock in the darkness (use your phone-torch!) where, away from the lights, you could almost touch the stars.

Foot of the World: The Dead Sea

It’s the lowest point on the earth’s surface: 422 m below sea level. You’d best stop at one of the resorts, rather than wandering down to water’s edge at random.

The salt content of this lake is so high, you need to keep it out of your eyes, and get out after about 15 minutes, as it starts to sting. No lie-low is required: you float easily on the water.

After emerging, you can shower or apply Dead Sea mud head to toe – it has restorative qualities, we’re assured.

Don’t try to swim the 12 kilometres to the other side: you may catch some metal rain from the West Bank.

Some Tragic Footnotes

We were heading along the Desert Highway to the Dead Sea when we saw a bad vehicle accident occur in traffic going the other way: two men had been thrown from a light flat bed truck, one appearing to be dead, the other badly injured and in great mental distress. People travelling behind stopped and tried to render assistance: an ambulance was dispatched with impressive speed.

After a wondrous day at Petra, P, rested and fortified by a meal, returned to more closely inspect the royal tombs, the one feature he had missed earlier in the day. Before entering the gateway path, a vendor suggested that P not proceed, and in fact, the sky was beginning to bruise in the most spectacular fashion. It looked like a sandstorm brewing but in fact it portended the only rain we experienced during our entire trip. P repaired to the Museum, but by the time this had been closely examined, the rain had turned biblical, and P was thoroughly drenched in the short trip back to the hotel. Two Belgian tourists (and their families and friends) were not so lucky – the two, a mother and son, were swept-away in the flash flood to their doom.

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[*Henry Kissinger, White House Years (1979), page 362.] [^ In 1921, same year as the GFC.] [** Avi Shlaim, Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace (2007), pages 609 and 610.] [*** Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades (vol.3) (1954), page 19.] [^^ T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926), pages 384 – 385.]

TRAVEL FOOTNOTES

1 dinar = $1.40 U.S.

Best times to visit weather-wise: April, May.

“Salaam alay coom” – Hello (‘Salaam‘ will do).

“Skukran” – Thank you.

“Yallah” – Lickety-split, or hurry-up (‘Yallah-yallah‘ – on the double).

“Khalas” – Enough. (You’ll need this more in Egypt than in Jordan).

A trip to Jordan is not in our experience, a culinary smorgasbord, more a buffet. Falafel, Kebabs, Shawarma, something called foul medames, the even more alarming mashed foul medames, or Khasawi (sheep’s balls). P missed Australian red wine and bacon, although the Jordanian wine is better than Egyptian wine. P was vaguely excited to see Lindeman’s Bin 65 on a couple of wine lists – alas, none ever seemed to be in stock.

When in the field, wear a hat, sensible walking or hiking shoes/boots, use sunscreen, take bottled water, and some local cash.

We took a tour through Inspiring Vacations, and can highly recommend them: https://www.inspiringvacations.com/au?&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=au_brand_search&utm_content=main_brand_group&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=1072878157&gbraid=0AAAAADCUccYQ6kgfe0mAk_PjrEIuAc8oh&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlYHBBhD9ARIsALRu09rG9Lymw3YNZrlzrvD3psvkfmzCBjDvhVxu1n5TVUjb9Cw_CyZM8M0aAiX9EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

There is obviously a certain tyranny of time and place on organised tours, and one takes chances with groups of co-travellers, but our experience was warm, friendly, challenging in a positive sense, and, dare we say, inspiring.  As usual, none of our reviews have been sponsored or solicited.

We never met a Jordanian we didn’t like.