Week Sixty-Five

Intense examination of our Bosra guidebook yesterday reveals that we actually missed very little, by zig-zagging in a professional-explorers fashion across the old town. There are two large, open cisterns (one just walls), a few mosques, and some buildings which we'll revisit since we now have more information about them (and know what to look for/at). We get up late (around 09.00), have breakfast and pack our rucksacks, and head out at 10.45, leaving our bags at the castle gate.

We strike south-east through a little parky area and within a few hundred metres hit the main cistern - it's just a square, stone-lined hole in the ground but it's very old (Nabatean) and although quite silted up it still has water in it (local farmers apparently still use it for sheep). There's a little madrasa at one corner which we look inside (it seems to be in use as some sort of public hall now), an dthen we head up to Bosra's most religiously significant mosque - the Mabraq an-Naqa. Actually three sections (mosque, shrine and madrasa), the oldest parts date back to the early Islamic/late Byzantine period and have Roman and early Christian influencecs. It was an early pilgrimage site either because Mohammed pitched his tent here (presumably around the time he met that monk) or because this was the spot where the camel carrying the first Qu'ran north knelt down and refused to move further (not surprising if it started way down in Mecca or Medina). An old guy unlocks the doors for us in exchange for a little baksheesh.

We wrap up our Bosra experience by cutting back south past the Nabatean (east) gate - there was an old Nabatean column there which we walked past, and then further south to the "Palace", which we missed entirely. Our guide book claims that access is virtually impossible because of people still living there - it seems that at least one family's been moved out since then. The main courtyard and two-floor complex to the south of it (all in black basalt, like the rest of Bosra) are totally clamberable over, and must have been fairly imposing when complete. Finally we check out what the guidebook calls the nymphaeum - we're pretty sure we found the/a nymphaeum yesterday, and are sceptical about this tall line of columns opposite the baths - it seems to have had large doors, and we can't see any remains of water pipes. Hey-ho. At least we learned that the "Byzantine Castle" which our guide pointed out yesterday is actually a khan-type market, which is much more convincing.

Bosra gets 5/10 - the baths and theatre are excellent (the best-preserved theatre that we've seen); the cathedral and underground "portico", and the citadel/qala'at are good; there's a host of bits and pieces every way you turn; and the way the modernish stuff is built around the Byzantine city is very scenic.

After collecting our bags we get on a minibus to Dera - we debate a little over whether to continue all the way to Dera or to get off earlier at the Damascus-Amman highway and try to flag down a passing bus. Gonig into Dera wins, as we have to get rid of our Syrian pounds and we have no idea if we'll be able to change them in Jordan: we get dropped at a barren outlying bus station where it rapidly becomes obvious that there's little there to spend our money on, and that we'll have to take a service taxi - there are no buses from here to Jordan. I set off into town (which turns out to be 2-3km away) to spend our money on cigarettes since the service taxi drivers there can't give us a straight answer on the money-changing issue. What can I say about Dera - it's a dump: it's where Lawrence was suppose to have had his run in with that Turkish officer; and the only picture they could find to put in the local tourist leaflet was a photo of the local Tourist Information building. When I get back with 19 packs of cigarettes, Milla's been evicted from the waiting room where I left her, and a taxi driver's very impatient (even though we never actually said we'd go with him): he's been suggesting that I've been away so long that I've abandoned her.

Anyway, off we go - through Dera with a stop to fill up the taxi with green beans and cigarettes and out the other side: the border turns out to be only a short distance outside town. Checking out of Syria is painless - in fact, we were stamped out quicker than the two locals in the same taxi: it's a pretty quiet border crossing, as most of the traffic crosses on the main highway slightly to the east of Dera. The Syrian official even jokes and laughs with us as he processes our passports and forms (even though he sends us to get the registration number of the taxi, to complete the paperwork). Jordan's a bit more official and bureaucracy-heavy, but at least the official there can type at speed, so it's also very quick. Again, there are no problems and we leave with a new entry stamp (including an injunction to register with the police within 15 days). It's our strictest customs check for a while, though, but they're much more interested in the taxi than in our bags - they inspect his beans (seriously), and also examine the underside of the vehicle in detail before letting us into the country. Jordan, country 25, has posters of the Kings on the way in (Hussein was so much more photogenic than his son), and a flag which is confusingly similar to that of Palestine.
Our taxi driver drops first his other fares, and then his beans and finally us in the little border town of Ar-Ramtha (about the first "th" we've seen in Arabic): he leaves us conveniently at a little bus stop with a bus ready to leave for nearby Irbid, Jordan's second-largest city. We've already got currency at the border (where it turned out that I could have changed my Syrian pounds): dinars, each of which is worth 10% less than a pound (which it has been since I can remember - very stable, and none of that hundreds/thousands/millions nonsense of Syria/Lebanon/Turkey) and which are confusingly divided into 1,000 fils or 100 piastres (singular, one qirsh). ?1? . The trip is in the rain (it's been raining intermittently since we left Bosra) and drops us at a fairly large bus station - we dodge the taxis and find a microbus into the centre. Unfortunately not only is it still raining, but we're in a new country and a new city and we don't have a map: great.

We do have a hotel in mind, thanks to Lonely Planet, and enquiries of locals end up with a small crowd of them escorting us to the hotel: none of them speaks more than a few words of English, they escort us inside, and sit down for a cup of tea with the large and ageing manager. We look at a couple of rooms, select a fairly grotty one for £6/$9 (we're not going out again in this weather, and we could easily get lost: all the streets in Irbid seems very much the same). For a while we're held hostage by our escorts, who stay in the lobby: they keep/kept offering us tea/food/drinks/etc. and one was particularly interested in Milla, despite us mentioning that we were married (which seemed to dissuade all the Syrian men we met) - he even wandered into the room while I was out pissing!
In the evening we scrounge a bit of food from other guests (Arab speakers), and go to sleep - thunderstorms continue outside and it's the coldest we've been since Goreme in Cappadocia. Definitely below 10 degrees. The hotel's lavatorial facilities also prove less than ideal - I've presumably mentioned that you can't put toilet paper in most toilets here because it blocks them (in Lebanon they have special toilet paper which dissolves in water/liquid - another interesting concept, if you think about it): the local method is to wash with the left hand and water, and then just pull your trousers up wet - it's why you have to eat with your right hand in public. Well here, not only is the toilet pretty much blocked with shit, but there's not even a bin to put used toilet paper in.
Incidentally, all the women we saw this evening in Irbid were wearing headscarves.

We're up early and out early, ready for action. Unfortunately the weather seems to be against us - as well as hosting rain all through the night, Irbid is also wet in the morning: great. Not to worry - we have two targets for today: the two Decapolis cities of Gadara (now Umm Qais) and Pella. The decapolis was a stabilising commercial league set up by Pompey as a buffer on the new southern border (with the Jewish and Nabatean kingdoms) and a stomping ground for Jesus - he did the pigs thing at Gadara.
First, though, we have the more tedious tasks of finding a shwarma place (not too tricky - we also spot the post office and an internet place) and the bus station: we have the name of the southern bus station written down (courtesy of the old guy at the hotel), but we really struggle finding a local microbus going there. As the rain falls, and our efforts fail (despite asking a helpful policenman - Jordan's very British in some ways, including sporadic use of UK-style earthed plugs/sockets, and they have "Autobanks" as well as the American "ATMs"), and the time ticks on we eventually give up and take a taxi. Actually, taking a taxi is difficult in Jordan after Lebanon: the taxis drive past you here unless you hail them! The taxi driver helpfully drops us right at the bus, but the bus has a little wait as it fills up: still, at least it's not raining inside . . .

We climb up into the hills in the north and west of Jordan, along some pretty steep and twisting roads - the trip takes a little over half an hour until the driver ejects us at what seems to be the only road junction in the small village of Umm Qais. There's a promising-looking armed man in a hut by a road barrier, but he just directs us round the corner to a large but virtually empty car-parkl. Two guys try to persuade us to stop for tea or coffee at their shops en route, but we deflect them and reach the ticket office: there seems to be a 50% discount on all foreigner prices at site in Jordan (presumably to encourage tourism in these paranoid anti-islamic times), and that coupled with a 50% student discount means we both get in for very little.
A little noticeboard tells us the city was founded by the Ptolemies, was taken by the Seleucids, and then had the usual Roman-Byzantine-Arab pattern before being abandoned after the 749 earthquakes (they must have been really bad, since they feature in all the local histories through Syria and Lebanon as well). The site was eventually resettled in late Ottoman times: naturally, as we enter the place, all we see are the remnants of the recent Ottoman houses - the population seems to have been moved out for reasons of archaeology and/or tourism.

Gadara is an easy-to-see site, mainly because such a small percentage has actually been excavated - there's a long lateral colonnaded steet, with one other street crossing it: little remains of the outer walls, but they were extended several times, so there are the remains (foundations) of various gates as the city expanded gradually west along the slope from the original hill-top settlement. We enter this almost-entirely black basalt city along the shorter street, pass the afore-mentioned Ottoman square houses (useful toilet stop, since the site toilet charges) and hit the first of Gadara's two theatres. It's reasonably intact, though small and our wander around it is perfunctory after Bosra - made entirely from black basalt, it's elegant and rather sweet, if you can describe a Roman theatre as "sweet". Next up, also on the right, is an early 3rd century church - we leave that for later and strike left along the cardo (central colonnaded street) instead.

The road itself is pretty impressive - white marble columns flanking the black basalt paving slabs - but the buildings flanking it are mostly either derelict or unexcavated (in which case they're often covered in olive trees - much of the site is still being farmed). At the junction, the "Byzantine Baths" are little more than piles of rubble: there are unidentified and unidentifiable traces leading away down the hill. Far more interesting,a s we head west, is the landscape beyond the city: Umm Qais/Gadara is sited on a spur overlooking the confluence of two rivers and both of these are international borders. The Jordan Valley lies before us to the west, looking pretty identical to the Bekaa Valley further north: a great, flat trench amid the hills, it's also an extension of the Rift Valley. Beyond the Jordan is Israel, and we look across to the Sea of Galilee and the white city of blocks on its shore which is modern Galilee/Tiberias. To the north is the Nahr al-Yarmouk, a deep river gorge beyond which are the hills of the Golan Heights - technically Syria, they've been occupied by Israel for the last 30-35 years.

I'd heard that the Syrians and Israelis occasionally fire at each other across the Golan Heights, and I'd kinda assumed that "occasionally" meant every few days - it turns out to mean every ten or twenty minutes. Yes, our visit to Umm Qais has the surreal backdrop of modern artillery and machine-gun fire wafting across from the hills to the north. It's therefore no surprise that the whole hill is riddled with concrete Jordanian military emplacements: they all look disused - presumably the imperative of tourism has forced the army to relocate to another(possibly a less-strategically positioned) hill.

Undeterred, we carry on westwards and reach the only significant structure on this stretch of road - a Byzantine Church, built exactly on top of an impressive underground Roman maussoleum, and later converted to a mosque. The largely intact maussoleum, with its apse and columns and steps leading down is much more interesting than the church - we've not brought our torches today, but the way in is locked behind a metal gate anyway. Apart from that, there are some remnants of Roman gates, city walls and a necropolis, apparently - but most of that's still underground.

We backtrack east, possibly finding the remains of the Roman baths (difficult to tell - it's presumably in comparison with these that the vestigal Byzantine baths are described as "particularly well preserved". Next up is the "Podium Monument", which was clearly some kind of monument on top of a podium: most of the podium survives. Adjacent to this ex-monument are the remains of the nymphaeum, which is pretty wide and must have been impressive - only the bottom row of empty niches survives today. The road then continues past where we cam in, and past the former acropolis (now covered in modern buildings) to the northern theatre, of which little is left except a depression in the hillside. Even less remains of the temple over the street - a flat space with some holes in it is a pretty accurate description.

We've saved what we hope is the best until last - the 5th century church and courtyard which lies between the western theatre and the nymphaeum, and stands at the junction of the main road and the street along which we entered the site. Since Gadara was something of a pilgrimage site (because of the pigs?), the church ought to be good - and it is, even though there's not much more than columns left now. There's an outer courtyard, colonnaded, and then the main building which is square, with a circle of columns (presumably originally supporting a cupola) inside - in fact, pretty much the same unusual design as we saw in Bosra (both the Cathedral and the temple/shrine): definitely a regional style, then. Beyond that main building is a smaller, presumably later, more traditional chapel. The courtyard, church and chapel form a south-north line, and the church and chapel both face east into the slopes of the acropolis.

It was an okay site, we muse. Two churches worth seeing, a nice theatre and some interesting stuff (I re-learnt that the changing room in Roman baths was an "apodyterium"), including some old plaster on one of the columns with Greek letters on it: does this mean that columns were routinely plastered? Who can tell? I certainly can't, but I give Gadara a meagre 2/10, mainly because less than 10% has been excavated.

There's another site we wanted to see in this approximate area - the decapolis city of Pella, further down the Jordan Valley: we have a vague intention of reaching Dahab in Egypt for Christmas, but we'll have to speed up to do it, hence our concept of seeing two sites in one day. Today, however, doesn't look like our day for it: apart from us running a tad late, there doesn't seem to be any kind of regular bus service between the two and a private lift costs an exorbitant amount. Walking is also not an option, due to military checkpoint just down the hill (the area's littered with them), and the distance. We hang around in a little gift shop drinking tea for a while (that was a mistake - buses may pass his door, as he said, but they can't see us waiting inside) - then we give up and catch a bus back to Irbid.

Getting back to the hotel turns into a bit of an adventure - there isn't a bus right to the centre from the bus station; our first local conduct misdirects us badly (she interprets Milla's use of "wast", which means "centre", as "west" and we find ourseles on a bus heading back the way we just came in). We eventually find a bus which drops us a few hundred metres from the centre, just as the light drizzle (which stopped perfectly for our tour of Umm Qais) turns into a total downpour: even worse, all the streets in the centre of Irbid look pretty much identical (and it's a grid plan). It takes a little time getting back to the hotel, therefore, and once there the old guy moves us upstairs to his "family" floor - he wasn't happy with us (particularly Milla) on the main, men's floor. He convinces us to move by charging the same price - oddly, he normally seems to charge more for the upstairs rooms, even though they're identical to the ones downstairs. Identical, that is, except for the fact we have a guy playing loud music two doors along.
After a supermarket trip (a good, real, supermarket) we hit an internet place later in the evening (the only other guy there looks like the only other foreigner staying at the hotel), obviously waking Mr. Music when we return at 01.00 since he petulantly puts his music on again for a bit - not to worry. We drift off a little after 02.00.

We get up later today (08.15) - after all, we're only trying to see one site today. We pack, have a coffee, say goodbye to the odd pillows (just cuboid blocks of hard foam - which makes them sounds much more comfortable than they were) and set off at about 10.30. The first stop's the Post Office, where we get charged a fortune to mail a package, and then (after yesterday's bus fiasco) we try to find a taxi. After prolonged discussion, which drags in several people (it's the Arab way - to involve more people if there's any confusion: it normally results in simply more confusion), we learn that the bus station we want is nearby and doesn't require a taxi ride. We follow diretions, but end up at no bus station - a man at a shop nearby explains that some buses to Amman leave from here: the bus station we want is a kilometre to the west.
We walk, in the drizzle and cold (goddamn - why is Irbid cold? We're not carrying clothes for cold), find the little bus station just back from Irbid's main street and are on a minibus by 11.15 - after waiting for more passengers, it eventually sets off at 11.45. Apart from damp seats (the window doesn't quite close properly), the ride's very pleasant - the minibus is old, but much more spacious than all these microbuses and converted vans; and the first leg of the journey is along a nice new road leading west from Irbid. In fact, it's so surprisingly civilised after Lebanon and Syria that when we stop at a traffic light, Milla looks round worried - "Why have we stopped?".
En route there's a military checkpoint and all our passports are inspected - a reminder that we're virtually on the border with Israel here: despite this, there's ahell of a lot less military personnel in evidence than in either Lebanon or Syria (where at least 15% of the entire male population seems to be in the forces). We turn south at North Shuneh and follow the east bank of the Jordan (past a border crossing with Israel, one of very few) down to the village of Al-Masharya where the bus drops us at the turn-off for the site. After stocking up from a little supermarket there, we start the climb up into the hills. A school minibus stops and gives us a lift - at the top, the driver tries to charge us a dinar: we pay him 100fils each, the same as we saw the kids paying. He leaves without rancour, so I guess that was okay.

We're at a modern sandstone building - the man and two women inside explain that we're welcome to stop for a tea or coffee, but this isn't a ticket office - entry to the site is apparently free. They point us downhill towards a torn hole in the metal fence around the site - that's the way in, apparently, so we set off (unsure whether entrance really is free. The old Roman city here was based around a spring (or springs) located in a basin/confluence among three hills - we start on the eastern hill (Jebel Abu al-Khas) with the remains of a church. It's a traditional aisle/apse/narthex orthodox affair most impressive for its dramatic setting on the hillside - it has the unusual feature of a number of steps leading up the middle of the back of the apse.
A shower starts and we shelter in a Bronze Age tomb on the opposite hill (this site dates back 7,000 years!) until it passes. We're quite disappointed with Pella - apart from a number of scattered buildings, the site seems mostly hillside and rubble, with a couple of columns visible (ie. not excavated). After the rain stops we cross the valley/springs again (there are large water pumps operating here, so it's clearly still used as a water source) to the main cluster of buildings. There's a nymphaeum (a couple of bits of wall), an odeon (a bit of a mess, with only a dozen scattered seats remaining in situ) and the much more impressive "Civic Complex Church". Much larger than the first church, this has a courtyard of columns and some good decoration, and a somewhat lopsided set of processional steps - it also exhibits the short flight of steps at the back of the apse. We wander there for a bit before setting off up the third hill along the sole remaining/visible (20 metre) stretch of Roman-Byzantine street.

The trail takes us up to a whole stretch of excavations of houses and shops (worth a scramble around) at the top of the principal settled hill and up there we also find the excavation house with adjacent football pitch, more uninteresting excavated holes in the ground, and an old and deserted mosque with attached graveyard. This is a significant site for Arabs, sine the battle of Fahel here in 635 was one of two battles (with Yarmouk in 636 - we looked over the Yarmouk valley from Umm Qais yesterday) which saw them comprehensively defeat the Byzantines: there's a little plaque to that effect. As the area starts filling with kids (school must be out), we head back down the hill and (when the rain starts again) take refuge in a modern concrete pumping station in the valley: there are a couple of guys inside (one from the water authority, one from the site) also sheltering. They tell us that water from here is used as part of Irbid's water supply - so I guess there's still quite a lot.

When the rain stops we set off up the last hill (the one with the tombs lower down), which has nothing really of interest except (apparently) a Byzantine fort at the top. There's no obvious road or path up, so we climb fairly treacherously and manage not to break our necks, even though the ground is wet, slippery and very steep. At the top, apart from three kids who irritatingly follow us around, there are walls which are extensive enough to imply a fairly large "fort" - again, though, only parts have been excavated, so it's most guesswork as to what was where. Better, up here, is the view - there are excellent views down to the rest of the site (though the little temple/odeon/nymphaeum complex is the only bit of the site worth looking at), and across to the Jordan Valley again, and to the hills around. As an aside, I've heard it argued that Jesus couldn't have been born in December because of the whole shepherds/sheep thing: lemme set it straight - there's definitely enough grazing for sheep at this time of year, and the hills are full of them.

Down we go, scrambling since there's no obvious path from the top either, emerging on the road through somebody's field of banana trees. There's a further Byzantine church here, with three aisles and children playing inside - we barely get in before we're mobbed by little local brats at first trying out their English (there's a nice slightly older girl, with a blue-eyed younger sister, with whom we almost manage a whole conversation) but soon simply demanding money or pens. They follow/surround us as we leave the site (about fifteen of them) and as we push on out of their wandering range, they resort to throwing stones at us - lovely. It's that Arab thing again - stupid men, rude women and obnoxious children. With school out for the day, we pass other groups of kids on the 1.5km walk back to the highway - about half of them end up (or start by) throwing stones. This is apparently a common phenomenon in Jordan, and puts a whole new perspective on all that footage you see of Palestinian kids throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.
We reach the road unscathed and, with help from a local guy, get on the right bus for Irbid - we arrive in the rain, which so far is normal rather than torrential, and trek back across to where we were told some buses leave for Amman (to arrange times/prices/tickets). Naturally there's no sign of anything bus-like, and locals tell us we have to use the southern bus station after all. Fair enough - we return to the hotel, get the key from Reception, and the old guy demands 6JD from us on the basis we've occupied the room (with our bags) for the day. Bollocks to that, we say, on the basis he said we could leave our bags there. At one point he actually tries to lock us (and our rucksacks) in the room! But he's a fat old guy and we're young and fit (comparatively): he almost cries as we leave. Ah well.

Outside it's still raining, so instead of farting about with local buses we just take a taxi, en route agreeing that if there are no buses and we have to stay in Irbid, then we should use another hotel. No need to worry - there's a steady stream of buses and the next one's in twenty minutes. It's an okay bus, about halfway along the Syrian long-distance scale (ie. not as good as Turkey), and gets us to Amman in an hour and a quarter or so. We disembark, in the continuing rain, get our bearings and head for a pre-selected hotel. It's our 7-month anniversary today, and we've opted for a room with a double-bed, TV and en-suite bathroom, which we seem to be able to do for £11 or so.
The hotel reception is nice and they give us a nice cup of coffee, but the room we eventually pick is something of a disaster (it turns out). We've walked forever (it seemed) in the dark and the rain, so we're not going to change but the radiator isn't radiating (it's cold in Amman: better than Irbid, but still cold); there's bugger all pressure with the cold water (so no flushing toilet); the hot water rapidly becomes merely warm; the only English-language channel we have is CNN (the American news); and my left trainer's been letting in water. I know this last is technically nothing to do with the hotel, but it adds to our sense of bleh. A last straw is when we try to use our element to boil some water, and it flashes and dies - at least it doesn't knock out the entire hotel's electrics.
Despite the water I have a shower and wash my hair and we retire early. Pella gets 1/10, on account of being rubbish and mostly hillside; Irbid gets 3/10 - it's a well-provisioned and cheap city, but has nothing to see and is in no way scenic (the crap weather doesn't help its score).

The morning redeems the night somewhat: it's much warmer, so we pretty much stay in bed and eventually check out after 12.00 - they don't seem to mind, and the woman at Reception lets us leave our bags there. A woman at Reception? Yes - that's pretty much a first on this trip so far, and Amman later turns out to have quite a few women working in shops (though mostly in pharmacies).
Today's a shopping day, and we also need to find a cheaper hotel to stay in. Our first stop is a real pisser - a hotel just over the road with much better rooms at the same price as last night: we should have carried on looking, it turns out, despite the cold and the rain. Ah well. We're quite near the centre ("Downtown") and it turns to be packed with budget hotels where you pretty much get what you pay for. 5JD gets a bare room with two beds (sometimes a radiator); 6JD gets a room with a radiator (sometimes a TV); 8-12JD gets a room with an en-suite shower/toilet and normally a TV; places catering for foreigners add an extra dinar. Milla favours the "Cliff Hotel", a backpacker-type place where we re-meet Jan-Willem from Beirut: I prefer Lords Hotel, a quieter more Arab place with the excellent offer of an en-suite room with a radiator for 6JD.
While we debate which of these to go for, we also pick up some postcards/Christmas cards, a replacement element, more multi-vitamins, and so on. Disappointments include the photo department (nowhere in Downtown does index prints), and also shwarmas which are pretty minimalist all across Ammon - barely enough for a snack, never mind a meal. And internet is from 1JD to 1.500JD per hour (0.500 in Irbid). And we haven't seen a supermarket except Safeway out in the suburbs.

We end up going for Milla's choice of hotel, and negotiate the price down to a much more reasonable multi-day rate of 5JD with one free shower a day. In the evening, of course, the quiet little place fills up and becomes way too noisy to do anything in - the lounge is full of Japanese, Troy's here (he was floating on the Dead Sea today and is about to head off). Oh, and since the place is in the centre, there's a constant din from outside. Super.
We both agree it was probably the wrong choice, but we get in alcohol, play some backgammon (when one of the two boards becomes available), and retire musing on how quickly we can get out of Amman.
An incidental note - there's a Jordanian "Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities", an interesting mix which shows how they think of their antiquities. Related to this, we saw a guy on a bus today with an English course book (for learning advanced English) called "Petra - Recent Excavations and Finds", which also shows how they think of English and its likely utilitarian value.

Action day - if we're going to get out wintry Amman quickly then we have half a dozen things to see in the immediate area: so today we'll try two targets again. One is Jerash, Roman city and apparently best ruined site in Jordan after Petra - the other is the Arab castle of Ajlun: this latter is a new one which wasn't previously on our list, but we've seen lots of signs to it and a couple of locals have mentioned it. Ajlun is further out, so we'll try to do it first. With this bold plan in mind we get up at 07.15, are out by 08.20 (must be close to a record), get to the nearby Abdali bus station by 08.45. Things grind to a near halt - we get on a bus which eventually turns up at 09.05, but it unfortunately then doesn't leave until 09.30. The fact that it leaves at 09.30 pretty much on the dot makes us wonder if it's a scheduled service rather than a fill-and-go (ie. whether we missed one at 08.30).
The bus retraces our route down from Irbid, goes through Jerash (we make a note of where we have to get off on the return leg), and climbs up into the hills which border the Jordan valley. After an hour or so we can see the white castle on a distant hill - it doesn't look that impressive, but it does look like a fair walk from the nearest obvious town. The bus makes a number of stops as we approach, gradually getting closer to the castle: at the Ajlun bus station, where everyone else gets off, the driver waves us to sit down. He then drives us up through the outskirts of town, right up to the castle car park - excellent. An argument ensues as he demands a dinar for bringing us the extra distance as a taxi, and us arguing that he didn't let us know that the bus station was the end of the bus route. We get off, Milla takes a note of the registration number, we have a cigarette, get our tickets (the guy only wants to give student discounts if we're studying in Jordan, but as with elsewhere there's a 50% foreigner discount in place at the moment anyway) and enter the castle

It's a four-towered keep type of castle, later extended to include a curtain wall and a couple of extra towers flanking the entrance. It's also pretty derelict (there are half a dozen other visitors) and pretty small, with only tiny stretches of other buildings between the towers. As for the towers themselves, there's something left of each of them although in most cases that "something" is just the ground floor and some walls. We get past the outer towers and are caught up by our bus driver and a member of the Tourist Police: apparently he's been getting paranoid about the number-taking (possibly, as in Morocco, there's really steep penalties for getting in trouble with tourists). We explain what happened and it seems our driver isn't pursuing us for money, but just to make sure we're happy to drop the whole matter.

We finish our exploration, including a couple of darker below-ground chambers (damn - no torches today), some bits of mosaic, a couple of inscriptions on the walls and some more views across to the Jordan valley from the higher roofs. We finish off by wandering around the bits marked "Closed for Restoration", where they're rebuilding some of the walls, repairing some of the collapsed roofs and presumably making some of the vertical drops between floors a little safer. After that we're pretty much done, in about an hour or so, and start off down the road back to the town of Ajlun (downhill is always easier). The castle behind us gets 1/10: it's okay, but small and with little to either see or explore - and the design isn't particularly attractive or striking. Ah well - it was worth checking out: it could have turned out to be superb.

Actually, it was only worth checking out if it doesn't impact our ability to see Jerash, and there turns out to be a question over that. We left Ajlun Castle at 11.45 and get to the bus station at 12.10: it's Friday today, and the concensus of opinion is that there are no Ajlun-Jerash buses running. There is the Ajlun-Amman bus, which will let us off at Jerash but we'll have to pay the full fixed fare (despite protests from both us and an older Arab woman with excellent English). The bus (ironically driven by this morning's driver) finally sets off at 13.00 and gets us to Jerash at 13.20: the etiquette for indicating you want to get off is to tap on the window with a coin. This is far superior to Syria and Lebanon where you have to say "I want to get off here" - a considerably more advanced sentence than our limited Arabic will allow.

After a brief stop of biscuits/water/flavoured milk supplies, we walk the 100m from the Amman junction up to the little tourist village where they sell the tickets: normally 10JD/£9/$15 each, our entrance is halved because of their promotion and then halved again because they like our student cards. Good. Excellent, even. At some speed we head past the massive Hadrian's arch (under scaffolding and being renovated or rebuilt - we can't tell how much of which they're doing) and along the side of the hippodrome. It's quite well-preserved for a hippodrome (there's still almost nothing left), but we're unimpressed after Tyre: they're doing quite a bit of building here too presumably in preparation for next season, for which they're advertising "Roman Chariot Racing". Yep - apparently they're going to race teams of chariots again! If it's successful, perhaps they'll bring back some of the Circus Games as well - Christians vs Lions, for example (here's hoping).

We detour by the Visitors' Centre which has excellent displays and information and which dispenses a number of leaflets in various languages: did you know that in French there's apparently a word décapole for Decapolis, and that the Latin name for this city was Gérasa - yes, with an "é" - I don't think so. Fucking French - what is it with them and their damned language? All their stupid campaigns (like "ordinateur" for computer) do nothing except increase the chances for confusion in an already confused world? Sorry . . . rant over.

We show our tickets to the security guy and then enter the site proper through the old South Gate, well-preserved but not in the same league as the earlier triumphal arch. A short walk (through an old market place) takes us to one of Jerash's most distinctive features - the oval forum. It's entirely colonnaded (and oval), as is the cardo which stretches away from it across the city, though the lintels have a surprisingly modern and concrete look - our suspicions are confirmed by the fact that there are lintels lying on the ground, but no gaps above. The forum still has the original stone paving, though, pretty much perfect except where carts have worn it down crossing directly across the middle.

Overlooking the forum at a jaunty angle (the shrine predates most of the city, so isn't aligned to it) is the Temple of Zeus: we clamber up to the wide esplanade (hardly any fences in Jerash), which has a raised area/shrine at the north-east end. From there, crumbled steps (we take a path round the side) lead up to the temple proper. It's the traditional high-walled space within a single row of columns, much as we saw at Baalbek and Palmyra (did all Greco-Roman temples look like this, and the inner sections just haven't survived anywhere else?), though it's smaller than our current favourite, the Little Temple at Baalbek. The views of the site from here are excellent, as they also are from the almost adjacent South Theatre. The theatre's looking pretty good, though is much-renovated and is used here every year for the Jerash Festival (an arts thing): as well as Greek inscriptions on the seats indicating seat numbers, the access passages also boast the modern equivalents ("exit" signs, etc.).

Well-impressed with Jerash so far, we descend back down to the forum and set off along the main street. A short way in we hit the obviously elegant and upmarket "macellum", a mall of some sort: it's octagonal, with a colonnaded walkway, and was presumably mostly (if not fully) enclosed. Next up is the first main road junction, marked by a tetrapylon of the Palmyra/Aanjar type (four sets of four columns, presumably with statues in each), though not brilliantly preserved (mind you, there were a lot of new bits in the one at Palmyra). By this point the wonderful Roman street (which has already sabotaged me with a deep puddle due to subsidence of one stone) has cart ruts visible most of the way along, and from time to time there are round stone manhole covers for access to the sewage and/or water supply.

We detour left to to see the remains of some Umayyad buildings, just residential and with fairly small rooms: there's not much more surviving than the earlier Roman walls (again, three-quarters of this site has still to be excavated). Cutting further left, and uphill, takes s to three abutting churches (really a single building) dating to 530, 531 and 553. Jerash, incidentally, went into decline in the late 200s, was hit by the Persians in 614 and the Muslims in 636, badly damaged by the 747/749 earthquakes (there's some debate - possibly there were two sets), and was uninhabited by the time the Crusaders passed through. The population seems to have remained largely Christian, despite the muslim takeover, since a number of the churches continued in use and there's only one mosque found so far. This was quite sad for the southern (St. George) of the three since its floor mosaics were damaged during the Iconoclastic controversy (ie. by the Christians, not the Muslims). Its mosaics are still pretty good, though those of St. John (in the middle) and Ss. Cosmos and Damianus (to the north) are better. In fact Cosmos and Damianus (no idea who these saints were, and neither does Milla) is about the only place in Jerash which is walled/fenced off to protect the mosaics.

We detour by another church further from the main street before cutting back east: there are yet another two churches lying line-astern back from the road, one higher than the other, with a good courtyard and fantastically-preserved fountain between them. Both are particularly stylish, and the larger ("cathedral", built over an old temple to Dionysus) has both an impressive monumental entrance and steps up from the street and a shrine to St. Mary (with intact, painted dedication!). Just along from the cathedral on the main road is the nymphaeum which, though it has no nymphs left and the marble facing's all gone, still has some ornate decoration.

On the other side of the nymphaeum is the entrance to the huge temple of Artemis: in fact the propylaeum and processional entrance are still impressive today (though the extension on the opposite side of the street was later turned into a church). We climb up the stupid number of steps and eventually emerge in a 160mx120m courtyard with columns all around and the remains of the raised temple building at the centre. It's well-preserved and has the walls, as well as just columns, despite also hosting the remains of later houses built inside and a pottery works just outside the door, though inside is just a bare shell. From the rough stonework and tell-tale holes, it was obviously faced entirely in long-departed marble.

As the light fades we visit a little church behind the temple, then the sweet little orthodox-style Church of Bishop Isaiah, before coming to the North Theatre. Originally an odeon or buleuterion it was later expanded, but is still pretty small: it's unusual in that it has an entrance courtyard outside, opening onto the street (for hanging around chatting before performances). There's a little group visiting at the same time as us, and one of them is enthusing wildly (and loudly) that he's never seen a theatre as well-preserved as this (actually there's quite a lot of new stuff) - clearly he's never been to Bosra. We hit the main street again at a second tetrapylon of the solid four-supports-and-roof type (again, much restored), and head out of the site past the okay Western Baths which we don't have a closer look at. It's about 16.20 and we want to make sure we catch a bus back - the site is meanwhile getting busier and busier with locals (couples, individuals, family groups): presumably it's a good place to catch sunset from.

A helpful man at the visitor centre tells us that the last bus has left, and offers us a "lift" back to Amman for a "good" price: we don't believe him and go to check for ourselves. The modern town of Jerash occupies most of the eastern half of the Roman city (co-incidentally where most of the population lived in Classical times - "co-incidentally" since the site hasn't been continuously inhabited), and is pretty small - we find the place where Lonely Planet indicates the bus station is (next to the Eastern Baths, outside the site), but it's all being dug up. We see a number of buses zipping around but, as often happens, asking locals where Amman buses leave from merely results in a pointless wander (including an interesting Roman stepped road which is still in use and still has the little ramps for carts).
A Dutch couple eventually direct us to a point on the main road: there's a bus going elsewhere (possibly a local service) and, after our enquiries, it drops us at the Amman junction. It seems they also reckon our bst chance is to catch something passing, rather than to take something direct from Jerash (and we trust them to know better, since they're also a bus). There's a pickup truck waiting at the junction and, with another guy from the bus, we make up five passengers: the driver seems to be heading to Amman, and is covering his costs this way. Our enquiries as to the price elicit "the same as the bus". Jerash, behind us in the dark, gets a solid 6/10 on the ruins scale, on account of being exceptional and well-preserved and scenic: it's as good as any other site we've seen since Romania, except Palmyra.

The little truck, meanwhile, may have cost the same as the bus, but it's a damned sight quicker: unfortunately it drops us right on the outskirts (and that's pretty far out - Amman's very lateral, rather than vertical). A combination of various sympathetic locals get us on a local bus for Abdali bus station (at least 6km or 7km away), and eventually we get back to the hotel (after a brief stop at our original hotel looking for my hairbrush, which I seem to have lost).
A long walk in the evening searching for food (Amman's not so good for street food) leads us finally to the Roman Theatre (Amman has a Roman Theatre, apparently - we must visit Tourist Information): we find a place with more reasonably priced pastry as well, about the same as in Irbid (after negotiation). Then we retire to an evening of sweet pastry, backgammon and the inevitable "Petra" beer - it's 8% proof and is actually okay.

Exhausted (or at least tired) by yesterday's double visit, we don't get up until about 09.00. Once we've had breakfast and sorted ourselves out we reckon we're too late to try visiting another site or two today - tomorrow, then. Instead, we give a bag of laundry to the hotel to wash (all mine - Milla still swears by the benefits of hand-washing) and drift outside with a vague intention of looking around Amman, more specifically with the intention of finding a McDonalds - we believe we know where one is.

Amman (Roman Philadelphia, member of the Decapolis) dates to at least the Bronze Age but has been pretty continuously a major settlement - so most of what survies is Roman. All the earlier stuff from when it was Rabbath Ammon, capital of the Ammonite kingdom, then Babylonian, then refounded by the Ptolemies just doesn't seem to be around. An unimportant town under the Muslims, there are no significant Islamic historical buildings either: the modern city also lacks any significant architectural landmarks, and the most memorable feature of the place appears to be its hills (jebels) of which there were originally seven (yeah, yeah) and now are lots. The "Downtown" (Medina) area is pretty flat and T-shaped, and has most of the shops and cheap hotels: Basman and King Faisal Streets run parallel NW-SE, from where you can turn left (NE) to the theatre and Raghadan Bus Station. West of Downtown, in almost a straight line (but up a hill) are the numbered "Circles" (roundabouts) along which are most of the government buildings, embassies, upmarket hotels and so on.
We head eastish, past hundreds more little shops (where are the damned supermarkets?) and reach the theatre in daylight: it's in a little park - a Syrian-style "park", ie. almost all concrete - which also includes a corner of the old forum (with some resurrected columns) and the closed odeon (it's entirely walled in). We don't investigate overly, but press north looking for McDonalds which, it transpires, has either closed down or been closed: we spot a very McDonalds-esque building which is now host to a pastry shop. In vain we try further, up to and around the Raghadan bus station (we'll have to come back here for buses to Madaba, we think), where we eventually give up and resort to a local shwarma and felafel. Like others in Jordan so far they're pretty substandard compared with those we've had in Lebanon and Syria. Thinking, perhaps, that there's some local fast food which we've missed, we stop and try two local hot pastries each (there are lots of stalls selling them). They're all pretty revolting, too - no improvement on the shwarmas/felafel: the pastry itself (like all the local bread we've bought) seems virtually devoid of salt, and the meat and cheese fillings are bordering on the horrible. Hey-ho: at least the guy at the counter (an Egyptian) was pleasant enough.

Giving up on decent food, we try Tourist Information - it also seems to have closed, or at least relocated: the former Tourist Information office is now part of the public library, and a guy there gives us incomprehensible directions to where it is now. We're not having that successful a day, it seems, so we return to the hotel to recharge briefly before setting out again in early evening (early evening here starts at 17.00).
After three hours of pure shopping later, we finally find a pair of shoes for Milla - despite spending the last two months claiming she only needs sandals, it seems she now wants a warmer pair since it's cold (interesting, there are dozens of second-hand shoe shops in Amman, which seems a fairly strange concept to me). Other more basic supplies of coffee and film are also picked up, though there's a whole bunch of stuff still eluding us. This includes essentials like a supermarket, or somewhere which'll do index prints off my films, or a reasonably-priced internet place: are we asking too much?
A late-night discussion and planning session reveals that we have little chance of making Petra for my birthday (Thursday), or therefore Dahab for Christmas, or Cairo for New Year. Ah well: in that case we'll not kill ourselves trying to do everything quickly (two-a-day stuff), but just see where we are when those days come.

I wake up at 08.30 or so, flushed with both energy and frustration at our recent lack of progress: we haven't even wandered up towards the Circles yet, and they're an integral part of Amman. Out I go, early and without breakfast and leaving Milla in bed, and have two hours of reasonable success:
a.) I post a bunch of stuff,
b.) I find an English-language bookshop,
c.) I find a photo place doing 1-hour developing and index print,
d.) I find a small but adequate supermarket about 10/15 minutes' walk from the hotel.
I also find the "Iraqi Trade Centre" which seems to sell mainly household electrical goods and paintings of Saddam Hussein - this doesn't really count as a success since they don't have Iraqi chocolate.

After detouring back by the hotel to collect my other films (I only put one in to be processed, in case they fucked it up), I even find an internet place at less than 1JD per hour. By lunchtime (13.00) I've put in some time there, and got all the films developed: Milla's been writing. We spend the afternoon looking through the index prints, reminiscing (all our Lebanon pictures are there, and Bosra) and deciding what prints to get done.

In the evening we go out again, posting some stuff of Milla's and then splash out on a little restaurant meal (just chicken and accompanying bits) which is 100% more expensive than the street-chicken meals we've been having intermittently but which is really nicely done and well worth the money. Talking of money, we've almost run out and it's Milla's turn to take some out. Disaster strikes - we try six autobanks, but none of them wants to dispense any cash on her card: even more alarming, two of them inform us that she has an available balance of 0.00. Worst of all, we have no way of telling whether this is a problem with the Visa/Electron network in Jordan or some issue with Milla's accounts because we still haven't been able to get her internet banking facilities to work. We hit the internet place again for an hour (Milla sends an email to the bank) and mosy on back to the hotel.
There's a weird woman staying - Erga - who is American, born in pre-Israel Palestine, currently living in Wadi Rum (interesting mix), and I spend an hour or so chatting with her. She's a bit arty/activist/ex-hippy and is something of a conspiracy theorist, but at least is better informed than most travellers. And she may, of course, turn out to be really useful if we're heading down later to Wadi Rum (that would be Wadi Rum, in the middle of the desert). Other discoveries today are that "bikkam" ("how much?" in Syria and Lebanon) means "how many?" in Jordan, which has been very confusing in shops - so much for Arabic being one language (like three - "talata" in Syria, "tlety" in Lebanon). Like the Chinese dialects, though, they're all written the same.
Somewhat disappointingly for a day I was planning to at least spend writing, I started the day 16 days behind in the notebook and end the day 17 days behind: ah well, I'll try again tomorrow.