Two days in Amman

Amman, Jordan

(notes from my journal)

December 30th, 2009

I woke up at 2:45 AM. After tossing and turning for the next three hours I decided I’ve had enough and got out of bed, made some coffee and decided to just start the day. Heena got up as well. As we sipped our coffee (nescafe instant coffee, but strong, Arabic style taste) we watched the sun rise over Amman.

View from our hotel in the morning

By 8 AM we were ready to take over Amman, albeit in our slightly drugged up and sick state. We hailed a cab and were on our way to visit the Citadel. It is located on the top of Jabal al-Qal’a. We were the first visitors for the day. The lonelyplanet guide said that we could easily find guides to see the citadel but unfortunately there were none – official or otherwise. I have a feeling it must be so because today was the first day of the Islamic year and people must have taken a day off. A few minutes later a busloads of tourists came, but none spoke English – we were hoping we could piggy back on their guide to get an understanding of the area. The site is not as well as well marked as it could be so we had to use whatever markings they had combined with the Lonely Planet guide to navigate the ruins.

The views of Amman from the citadel are gorgeous and you get a sense of how vast this city really is!

View of Amman from the Citadel ramparts

The citadel is a mix of different styles of architecture – Roman (temple of Hercules), Byzantine (church) and Umayyad (palace) all sitting right next to each other. This place was inhabited since the neolithic period (almost 1800 years ago!).

We walked around the citadel – first to the Umayyad-era residences and administrative buildings and then spent time around the temple of Hercules. This temple is really massive!

Me, at the temple of Hercules

There is also a small museum showcasing artifacts uncovered from ruins around Jordan.The museum had actual dead sea scrolls that were found near Qamran! We did not expect to see these at all and were a delightful surprise. We spent about 90 minutes there and then decided to find our way to the Roman Theater.

The citadel is up on a hill and the theater down below. To get down, we followed the road that led us to a series of steps going down. Most of Amman, like San Francisco, is on hills. Originally, Amman was built upon seven hills, but today there are nineteen hills covered by the city. The hills in downtown Amman have steps that can be used to as pathways instead of driving. We followed the steps down, in what seemed like an eternity, through small lanes dotted with homes, that led us to the entrance of the Roman Theater.

The place was cooler and more shaded. There are two museums on site: The folklore museum (housing more commonly found artifacts in the daily life of rural Jordanians) and the other was called the museum of popular tradition (housing artifacts found from around Jordan with some really beautiful mosaics from Madaba). We visited both. Then we clambered up the rows of the theater to get some fantastic views. Not for the faint of heart! The theater can seat up to 6000 people and has three levels. The first level at the bottom was for royalty so they could see the action closely. The second level, in the center, was for military folk. The last level from where you really would need a pair of binoculars was for the common folk (the common man is always screwed, isn’t he).

View from the top of the Roman theater. This is the view the common man must've had.

After visiting the theater, we were pretty hungry. We took a cab to Hashem restaurant. They serve only fuul, hummus and felafel. Bread (pita), onions and mint tea flow free. The food and service were both excellent. Damages: 2.5 JD for a huge bowl of hummus and fuul each, 3 large pitas, a plate full of felafel (2 types of felafel – the regular ones and some filled with onions) and endless cups of mint tea. Seating is on a side-street. The place was full of people of all types: workers, office goers, young couples, businessmen and, of course, tourists.

After lunch, we went to a place called Habiba to get some kanafa. Shredded wheat doused in a sweet syrup. The base of a kanafa is made of goat (or sheep?) cheese. This was most definitely the highlight of the day! They also had jalebi and that’s what its called in Arabic as well. Unfortunately, it was not hot and hence we did not enjoy it as much. But eating jalebi after so many days was awesome!

We walked around the “downtown” souks for a while. It absolutely reminded me of Mohammad Ali road in Bombay and we might as well just have been there. Some of the shops that were selling touristy stuff ( you know the kind: hand crafted boxes from Syria, Jordanian rugs, trinkets etc.). I have to mention that even the old part of Amman (like much of the city that we saw) was impeccably clean!

A lot of stores had key-chains, mugs, boxes and other knickknacks with photos of Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and the Palestenian flag. I admit I half-expected to see this stuff, but was surprised and slightly taken aback when I did actually see it. It just goes to show that everyone has their own framework of the mind with which they view the world.

We also passed by the King Hussein mosque, but could not get good photos since the sun was right in our face, which is a pity, since the mosque is beautiful. Next time we go to Amman, this place is a must visit to see from inside.

The citadel, Roman Theatre and the King Hussein mosque are all located within walking distance of each other and can easily be seen in half a day. The lonely planet guide has an excellent suggested walk that we sort of half-followed.

By 1:00 PM we were ready to head back. We still had jet lag and my throat was aggravated with the cold.

We slept for a few hours and woke up at 7 PM. Jetlag, along with sickness is a bad combination. We headed to the Wild Jordan. This place is run with the purpose of providing help to the rural folk by seeting up a cafe that serves organic food and a store that sells stuff handmade by rural folk from around the country. Since it had started raining, the views were not as grand as we thought they would be. Since it was almost 10 PM, we decided that it was high time we get some dinner. Guess what, all the places were closed! We headed back to the Shmeisani district and walked around till we found a place that was open. No vegetarian food. Dammit. Saw Pizza hut. It was 11 PM. Screw it. Another night of mediocre pizza.

December 31st, 2009

Initially, we had planned to visit Jerash and Madaba on our second day. In fact, we had changed our itinerary considerably just so we could add this one extra day. However, given our health, we decided it would be best if we just sat in the hotel and let our bodies recuperate. So the next day was spent entirely in the hotel, mostly sleeping. For dinner we went to Abu Ahmed Orient Restaurant. We had tabouleh, felafel, pita, hummus and batata for dinner. Yes, all these are appetizers, but trust me, it was more than we could handle. The place is set in a stone house, the service superb and the food delicious.

We retired to bed early hoping to catch the 6:30 AM bus the next day to the ancient Nabatean city of Petra!

This post is a part of the Israel and Jordan 2008-2009 itinerary