Enjoying the Capital

Amman, Jordan

18th November 2009

Today I took a taxi from Wadi Mousa up to Amman. It was pretty easy haggling for this. I reckon the average taxi driver could make about 30-35 pounds a day. I agreed a price of 55 pounds. Minus 25 pounds for gas leaves them a good day's pay for 5-6 hours of work.

Along the way I looked out at a vast dessert of nothingness. The roads initially were empty and my driver was driving on both sides of the road in attempt to straighten out the bends.

My driver asked as we drove along if he could pick up other people, I absolutely refused this as I thought what I was paying was more than enough for a solo journey. I hate public transport of all kinds and made a point to avoid it at all costs while on holiday.

Half way between Wadi Mousa and Amman the police stopped us in a road block. I was worried but I knew Arabs would get the stick while I'd just be given a quick once over. We had been tailgating a bus to maintain the speed limit but the police said we were doing 30KM over the limit. Despite the arguments they fined my driver 50 quid. He was really upset and spent ages trying to argue with them. All in all, he could loose 20 quid despite a whole day's worth of work. We found another police road block 45 minutes later and my driver tried to get the fine reduced there but they weren't having any of it.

It was interesting seeing signs to turn off for the Dead Sea, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Jordan has some interesting Neighbours.

When we reached Amman, my driver didn't know where my hotel was. He wanted to drop me off at the bus station and send me on with a friend he had waiting there. I knew this would cost me more so I protested and he ended up just asking other drivers at red lights for directions.

Amman is pretty big and isn't a very walkable city. A car really is the way to see everything. When I got to my hotel I locked my stuff up in my suitcase to avoid any TV 'repair men' messing with my laptop or other electronics and I paid a cab driver to drive me around for 2 hours.

I saw the Citadel, the Roman Amphitheatre, all the new buildings they are constructing and, with a very strong recommendation for a Canadian friend of mine, got some McDonalds food. I have to agree with her, it's the tastiest I've ever eaten in all 27 countries I've been to.

At the end of the two hours the driver asked me if I could help him out with some duty free shopping. There is a shop where you can buy anything without tax if you have a foreign passport. Arabs from other countries were there buying booze, cigarettes, shesha stuff, candy and electronics. The prices were pretty good. A package of cigarettes cost about 1 pound and you can buy bricks and bricks of the stuff. The customs people stamped my passport showing that I had been authorised to buy stuff in the shop. This put me at a bit of unease but when I exited Jordan a few days later, they said nothing about the purchases.

I asked my driver about being Muslim and still smoking, drinking, chasing Russian women and generally enjoying life. He said they like to do these things but don't get anti-social about it like people in America and Europe might. A lot goes on discreetly behind closed doors.

He also said that I could buy more wives in Jordan if I wanted. They cost about 25,000 pounds each and come with a house. The breakdown was: 10,000 for the house, 5,000 for gold that they wear, 5,000 for the wedding and parties and 5,000 for incidentals. The woman then lives in the house that you buy for her (usually her Dad was the previous owner). He said it was rare for the wives to live in the same house as other wives and men generally stayed in a different house every night. So if you had 100,000 pounds to spare you could buy four wives and a Jordanian property portfolio.

The down side of this is that there are fewer single women than men around and men chase after them like mad. Some malls won't let men sit near women unless they are with a female relative. If you bought food in the food court, saw there was no room in the men's section and sat in the family section, you'd be kicked out. The women I saw who weren't covered up went all out with makeup and looking as nice as possible but they looked like they weren't interested in any socialising and would punch anyone who approached them.

In the evening I ate in a upscale restaurant near my hotel. It had a south pacific theme, a live (but not overly loud) salsa band and glasses which matched the drinks they contained (a coconut drink comes in a coconut, etc...) and were covered in decoration.

The food had an amazing presentation and salads prepared at your table. I ordered a caesar salad and a cart came out with all the raw ingredients. I was given a veto over any ingredients I wasn't interested in and then it was prepared right before my very eyes. In London, Milan, Dubai, etc... this sort of eating experience could cost dearly but I paid 30 pounds in total for my meal and drinks.

The only weird thing was they had airport-style security checks to get in and my passport details and hotel I was staying in were documented by the hostess. At the end of the day, some places have seen an incredible amount of terrorism both recently and over the past few decades so, from my perspective, it's all understandable.

When I got back to my hotel my laptop crashed for the first time in three years. Applications I use everyday like textmate, photoshop and iPhoto were unstable. I was becoming paranoid that it had been compromised and began probing processes, internals and hunting for any differences in configuration. In the end a macosx update set it straight.

The reason for my concern was because I watched the directors commentary of 'body of lies' with Leonardo DiCaprio before coming out here. In it a reporter said that if you stay in any hotel in the Middle East, anything you leave in your room is fair game for the local intelligence services. He said that once he stayed in a hotel room in Syria and when coming back in the evening there were several men trying to fix a TV in his room which wasn't broken. Watching pre-holiday movies like this seems to do more harm than good.

Friday in Amman was interesting. The malls didn't open until 2pm and at 11am I had to hunt for nearly 45 minutes to find a restaurant that was open. I found one on Wakalat street, a traffic-free shopping street in west Amman. The cafe only had myself, two Japanese men and a Korean woman for customers.

At the airport in the evening I was told to put my bags through the x-ray for the women's security queue. Some American women freaked out like I was walking into a Women's toilet with my wang hanging out. After putting my bag through the x-ray I went back to the male security queue, jumped the line and then collected my bags. A Chinese man, who was under the same instructions as I was, looked really nervous about the whole situation. After two weeks in the Middle East, I was sick of the sexual segregation and could care less about social norms and rules.

I was worried that traveling would be really crowded with the Hajj pilgrims making their way to Mecca via Jordan but they weren't as numerous as I expected. It was strange seeing men walking around the airport in white towels and sandals when it was 13C outside.

My flight was to Luxor via Cairo. During my stay in Wadi Mousa I befriended an American who recommended at hotel in Luxor. I read the hotel's website. It was written by the Irish owner. She had a lengthy travel tips section where she explained that there are travellers who are independent and travellers who are independent and very cost conscious. Egypt was a bad place for the latter.

The idea is that the independent and cost conscious stay away from anyone trying to sell them anything as the cheapest places can't afford much advertising and cheap prices just need to be hunted out. Also, you avoid tours as they don't allow you to do exactly what you want. She went on to say that you should book one of her tours as she takes these concerns into account. She also explained the various hassles of Egyptian travel.

By the time I finished reading her website I was thinking that going back to Egypt was a bad idea and that seeing more statues of Ramesses and sales people was a waste of my time. With foresight, I should have gone to Turkey or Greece as they would have been new destinations for me and provided more variety than Egypt alone could have. If you see the Pyramids, Memphis, Cairo and Sharm El Sheikh, everything else isn't different enough to warrant visiting given the costs and hassles of getting around. My journey to Luxor is one I'd live to regret. I'll cover more about that in my next posting.