Saturday, August 18, 2012

Day 107: Welcome to the “Yellow City”


(Her: Joanna)

You can literally feel you are in Jordan.  The dryness of Jordan felt like all of the moisture in my skin was being suck out of me.  Jordan is very different from all the cities we had been to so far.  Like how the picture depicted in my child bible, it is yellow and with buildings with 1 -2 stories high covering the endless number of hills that make up the city of Amman.



Jordan is the first country that I have been to who you will definitely feel 100% welcome.  No matter where you go, a local will say “Welcome” to you.  I think “welcome” may be the first or only English word they know.  It is such a pleasant feeling to be greeted and welcomed when you visit a foreign country.  

While you think that everyone in Jordan is nice and friendly, little did you know that when a female is walking on the street alone, the local might be commenting that you are a whore in Arabic while you think they are saying "Welcome" in Arabic - true story from a friend we’ve met who strolled on the street with her friend who knows Arabic.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Day 106: What a Small World

(Her: Joanna)

Guess what?  We bumped into the family from German who we did the jeep tour with at Wadi Rum at the resort across where we were staying.  We ended up moving into their resort and spent a day of amazing time with their kids.  This couple let their kids to freely explore and try things.  It was great to see parents who give so much freedom to their kids.  It is difficult for parents to do as I saw from the mom’s facial expression and eyes that she was afraid the kids to get hurt or fall but this freedom to explore is critical to develop the self confident and independence of the kids.  Miran and Marsha are 2 active and energetic kids with very cute face. 

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Day 105: Unexpected Gem For Beach Bumps in Jordan


(Her: Joanna)

Surprise!  Boy, that’s why I love backpacking.  You just never know where you will end up going and staying.  Because visiting Petra and Wadi Rum took less time than what we expected, we have 2 days to chill somewhere.  It had been non-stop go-go-go the last couple of weeks.  We were dying to just have a do-nothing day.

Since Linda, an Aussie girl we’ve met at Amman who we travelled with since then, planned to go to Aqaba to chill at the Red Sea, we decided to tag along instead of going back to Amman.  

What a great, pleasant surprise!  Aqaba is GORGEOUS here.  The sea is so blue here (if the sand is a bit more fine, it would be just perfect) and the town Aqaba, unlike other towns we’ve been to in Jordan, looks like a total sea side resort town.  

What’s better?  I get to scuba dive in the Red Sea for an affordable price and for only $12 CAD, you get a private room with AC and ensuite bathroom plus a pool and a roof top terrace.  Resort, chilling mode was definitely on.  It was like a day dream to be in the desert then sun tanning in a beach all within a day.  

I thought there was no way I could enjoy beaches in the Middle East because of the conservative culture here in the Middle East.  Another surprised that we found a very touristy area in the South Beach 12 KM south of the city center where the traditional conservative culture is loosen up a bit for foreigners.  

Putting icing on a cake, the sandy (not super great sand) beaches with straw beach umbrella was almost empty and free of charge and there are no beach vendors harassing you to buy stuff so we can truly enjoy the beach!!!!  


Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Day 104: Endless Sea of Stars

(Her: Joanna)

After so many days seeing ruins and touristic sites in cities, Wadi Rum was my perfect nature fix.  Despite the heat and dryness in this desert reserve, I had a ton of fun here.  The scenery here reminded me of the Grand Canyon.  Everywhere is cover with yellowish and reddish sand and rocks.  The size of the mountain in the desert was magnificent.  And the different type of composition and shape of the rocks are just impressive.  I definitely regretted not to bring my climbing shoes with me with so many great bouldering surrounded me.  We joined a 5 hours jeep tour with this camp and saw sand dunes, canyon, and dozens of weirdly shaped rocks.  What makes this tour even more fun was the kids (Miran and Marsha) of a German family who were on the tour with us.  We were climbing up a steep hill and stone bridge to see a panoramic view of the desert, climbing and running down the sand dune and rock climbing up walls in the desert. 




What’s better than the sky in the desert to see sun set and stars?  The sky seems endless in the desert.  It looks like there are millions of stars in the sky in the desert.  Shooting star seems to be less shy to make their appearance in the sky of a desert.  The stars are so much brighter and twinkle more actively.  With the sound of wind or perhaps the sound of the desert, it is the most soothing feeling.  It is a memorable day that I will not forget.



Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Day 103: Petra by Day


(Her: Joanna)

To minimize the time being in the heat and sun, and massive flock of tourists, we entered Petra before 8 AM.  It was perfect.  We got to the Siq and the Treasury with just a few people.  And the number of donkey/horse/camel owners, and souvenir sellers to urge you to buy or use their service were less. 

We met a kid, Oman, who spoke better English than most adult Jordanian we have encountered, persistently trying to sell us his donkey service.  I’m truly impressed with his skill in offering us different price for different routes to lure us into hiring him.  If he had a camel instead, I would have definitely taken his offer.  Eight hours later, we bumped into Oman again.  Seeing so many tourists, Oman recognized me and attempted for the last time to get me to take his donkey - impressive kid.



It was hard to imagine that Petra used be a place with rivers and trees.  It is all dry land right now.  I can imagine that this city must be a beautiful place with magnificent buildings caved out of rocks.  The details of the decorative craving on the building exterior wall are already decayed but the few preserved in the museum showed that the building used to have really impressive craving.  I found Petra impressive but required some imagination to make it magical.


Monday, August 13, 2012

Day 102: Petra by Night

(Her: Joanna)

Petra was one of the stop that I have been waiting for since the start of the trip to visit.  It was an amazing experience to visit at night and listen to traditional Beoduin (Jordanian who live in the desert) music in front of the Treasury filled with candles.  You can hear the silence of Petra and feel the loneliness of the musician when there’s no tourist talking or people flashing their camera.   I cannot wait to see Petra in the day time.


Sunday, August 12, 2012

Day 101: Wearing Too Much Is Wearing Too Little Amman


(Her: Joanna)

The Lonely Planet guidebook already gave me heads-up that the Middle East is more conservatively dressed than Western society.  In high thirty degree Celsius temperature, I have worn my light cotton T-shirt that covers my shoulder and long airy pants thinking that this is so covered up for this kind of temperature. 

Boy, was I wrong!  When I was walking through the market in Amman, firstly, there are proportionally less women in the market buying groceries than Asia or North America; secondly, 95% of the women are fully covered up with headscarf, long sleeves shirt/dress and full length pants/dress; thirdly, people were giving me so much attention either because I’m a foreigner or I have worn “too little”.  I instantly felt that I should probably wear long sleeves too.  I was a bit uncomfortable walking through the market and was clanging onto Charlie.  Everyone we’ve met was really friendly and welcoming us on the street but I was experiencing some kind of cultural shock and being a foreigner, I have no concept of what the socially acceptable standard is and being uncomfortable to be caught in between being respectful to a culture and not knowing. 

Being lived in the “Western” society, I was exposed to bikinis, tanks, g-strings, and short shorts.  I was a bit culture shock by seeing most of the ladies in Amman all covered up.  I completely forgot that I used to be part of a mildly conservative society in HK: you wouldn’t see too many short shorts on the street even in the summer, t-shirt covering the shoulder is more common than tanks, and even when girls wear tanks, they would wear something to cover their cleavage.  I guess when you grew up in that culture, you don’t even put second thought to the option of wearing less even when the weather is unbearably hot.