Back when we were deciding whether or not we should move to Abu Dhabi, we came for a visit and various people showed us various things which were variously convincing or not. One evening, we sat around a table with some of the mister’s colleagues and they showed us the photos of their recent trip to Jordan.
I was utterly captivated by their photos and declared that the Dead Sea would be a wonderful place to spend my 40th birthday. There were other things that clinched the deal, but that moment was one of the defining moments in our decision-making.
We didn’t quite get to Jordan for my 40th, but have just returned from a 6 day trip, and it was bloody brilliant.
Here’s a picture of the lads running to catch up with us at Jerash. They are running, not sitting around moaning about the heat and the long walk and so on, because I have just called down to them that I’ve found us a shortcut (‘you’re good’, the mister said with awe in his voice as we watched the lads jump up and begin to run).
Here are some bagpipers in the amphitheatre of the Roman ruins at Jerash. No, I cannot explain the bagpipes. I’m good, but I’m not that good.
Here’s me and the lads at Petra. How the mister managed to get this photo without anyone between the camera and us I will never know. It is high season in Jordan at the moment, and there was possibly a gazillion of us modern day humans at Petra that day.
And here is a photo of me floating in the Dead Sea. How do you know it is the Dead Sea and not just some other random sea? Because I am in it. Have you ever heard of me being in the sea? Case, I rest it. I stayed in until I could feel my nipples stinging which was a little less time than you might imagine.
The lads, they hated being in the Dead Sea and lasted about ten seconds. It is, I think, pretty much a been there, done that kind of experience, in that the weirdness of it was rather brilliant but not something I will ever feel the urge to repeat.
I have a friend who says of things, ‘It is to be seen’ and that Jordan is. I mean Petra was absolutely one of the most stunning places I have ever been. But what I really loved was being immersed in an Arabic and Islamic culture. The difference between there and here is that in Jordan we were surrounded by Arabic speakers – in the shops and the hotels and the cafes and on the street. Here, there are of course many, many Arabic speakers but so many of the casual interactions in a day are in English. I think this is probably because in Jordan, there is much less reliance on imported labour. While a lot of people have moved to Jordan from other countries (65% of the population are Palestinian-Jordanian and there’s also a lot of refugees from Iraq), it is not like here where around 80% of the population is expat labour. Many expats are from Arabic-speaking countries such as Egypt and Lebanon and Jordan, but there’s also a substantial number of ‘western expats’ and expats from countries such as the Philippines. Our common language is English and for someone like me, English dominates our interactions.
One of the real pities about living here is that we are not learning more Arabic. I have had a few lessons, but haven’t even really got my head around the alphabet and while I’m full of good intentions, I think realistically, I’m unlikely to leave with anything more substantial than the most basic of greetings. The thing is that it would be so much easier to learn in a place like Jordan where any language skills would get much more of a workout. In my job, I would have had much more of an opportunity, because the 4 other members of my team were all native Arabic speakers, but now I’m not there I barely come into contact with the Arabic language from one day to the next. This is sort of my own fault and sort of something over which I don’t have much control.
Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be a post about what’s wrong with living here. It’s supposed to be about what an excellent time we had in Jordan. Which we did. And you know, on a clear day when you’re bobbing up and down in the Dead Sea, you can see clear across to Jerusalem. Makes you think, that does.
Here is a photo from Mt Nebo which is one of the places where Moses stood. In the distance you can’t see the Dead Sea or the Promised Land, but Moses could because it wasn’t so dusty when he was standing there and because he was looking at the real thing and not some hastily taken photo.
adelaide from adelaide 
Oh beautiful post. We haven’t been to Jordan but it is on my list. After reading your post I may just now do something about it.
I loved that bit about Moses.
Actually I loved the whole post…one of the best things about blogging has been the travel adventures I have had through the eyes of my blogging friends.
Wow. I’ve wanted to go to Petra for years, after reading an article about it somewhere. And then of course it popped up later in that Indiana Jones film and I leapt out of my chair with the thrill of it.
Maybe Moses couldn’t see it either, and felt very sorry for dragging his children after him all that way with no shortcut.
There’s a Mt Nebo outside Brisbane, and I never knew it was named after another Mt Nebo because I clearly didn’t go to Sunday School enough.
LOVE the bagpipe players…. one of life’s mysteries and surely they weren’t there when Moses walked by (or schlepped by what with those heavy stone tablets and all).
Fabulous. I too have always wanted to go to Petra. And the Dead Sea. So glad you made it and had an excellent time.
Thank you for taking me to Jordan as chances are that is the closest I’ll ever get to it. Why did the boysies not like the Dead Sea?
It was just a bit tricky for them to navigate the whole experience – it’s a bit hard to get into in the first place, because it doesn’t really have a beach and the edge is all these fairly sharp rocks, so even getting in is tricky when you are fairly short and don’t get much shallow, and then the water is very, very stingy, so if you’ve got any scratches (which these boysies always have a few), the water makes them very itchy very quickly. Also, although the buoyancy means you can’t sink, it also makes it hard to keep your balance and you sort of topple around a lot while you get used to it. Which is made all the harder by needing to keep your face out of the water, so you don’t get stingy water in your eyes. Plus, the afternoon was on the hot side of comfortable and there wasn’t much shade. Also, they had seen the swimming pool with the slide up at the hotel and they were desperate to get in it.
I don’t think that I would ever have gone to Jordan if we weren’t living here, so I’m feeling lucky and grateful for the experience that’s for sure.
So cool! Thanks for this post. And there’s an excellent Arabic lang school in Jordan, we’ve heard, and I so get thinking that living in another country is going to immerse you in another language, only to get there and find that you end up mostly using English. This was true for us even in Mauritania, which has very few English speakers, because we apparently knew all the Eng speakers! Just kidding, but we worked in/ran an English center.
Mm, I can see my boys would have felt ezzackly the same about that. Once you’ve tried sinking yourself, it’s all over red rover.
No duck diving with the eyes open, either, I’d imagine.
Also, I thought this would be about that revolting woman whose name is not actually Jordan, so greatly relieved to see it’s about lovely crumbling ruins and the Dead Sea instead.