It was our first day in Jordan and one day before our tour with Cox and Kings began. To pass the extra day before our tour, we hired a car to take us out to the so-called "Desert Castles". Our driver was a friendly Jordanian of Palestinan descent who spoke English very well. So the drive from Amman to the Desert Castles and back passed pleasantly, as our driver told us about his family that lived in the US and his two American nieces who visited Jordan. He also told us about the difficulties of being a Palestinian in Jordan. It appears you can't work for the government unless you are a native Jordanian. Nor can he ever manage to obtain a visa from the Israeli authorities to visit his ancestral village across the border. According to the embassy officials, he will need to become "older" before he will be granted a visa - probably the same age as his father, the driver reckoned. Still he said he was content. He could provide his family with a good living and was able to pay for his boys' private school education (which would allow them to have greater opportunities than he ever did).
The first castle we visited was "Qasr Harraneh". It sits in the middle of an arid plain, seemingly in the middle of nowhere The squat, rectangular buildings looks very much like a fort from a distance, with what looks like slits in its walls from which arrows can be shot. But in reality, nobody quite knows what the building's purpose was. It appears the fort's towers cannot be manned and that the "arrow slits" are too deep for anyone to actually shoot arrows out of them. So, the theory goes, the building may have been a meeting hall where the Umayyad caliphs could stay and meet local bedouin leaders. Alternatively, the building could have been where the local bedouins met. In any case, the building dates from at least 710 (they know this because there is a small bit of graffiti on one of the walls of the fort).
It was fun climbing up and down the two floors of the Qasr. The place is still very atmospheric and appears to have been pretty much untouched for centuries. There are some rooms that have carved ceilings, but most of the rooms are plain and functional. Some of the rooms on the first floor are barely lit and were likely used as stables. We spent a good amount of time looking for the barely legible 1,300 year-old graffiti (it's really small and stuck up in a corner of one of the rooms, up near the ceiling).
Qusayr Amra
A short drive away from the Qasr Harraneh is Qusayr Amra - a small bathhouse built by the Ummayad caliphs probably around the year 710. The Ummayad princes would escape to this place when they grew weary of urban life in their capital Damascus and yearned for a lifestyle that more closely approximated their nomadic past. The bathhouse was built next to a little valley with a river winding though it bordered by pistachio trees. Outwardly, it's an unassuming structure and one would never guess why it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. However, upon entering the building, the reasons become immediately clear. The Ummayads decorated the ceilings and walls of their country getaway with the most astounding frescoes of nude bathers, animals, the stars and fishing scenes. The sight is all the more surprising because it is so rare to see the human form (not to mention the naked human form) represented in Islamic art. Most such images were destroyed as blasphemous in the years following the construction of Qusayr Amra.
Though some of the frescoes remain vivid, the past 1,300 years have taken their toll. Matters weren't helped by the fact that bedouin tribes used to lodge in the bathhouse and the smoke from their fires blackened the frescoes. Nevertheless, the frescoes remain beautiful and the Qusayr is definitely worth a visit!
Qasr Azraq
Finally, we drove to the town of Azraq. There we visited Qasr Azraq, a very large and unadorned structure, made from a dark-coloured stone of some sort. It first served as a Roman fort, but was subsequently rebuilt by the Arabs. It eventually fell into disuse until T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia) lodged here during his campaigns in the desert during WWI. Sadly earthquakes, notably the one that occurred in 1923 but also others before that, have damaged the fort considerably, but it's still possible to imagine how large and formidable a structure it must have been in Roman times.
Shortly after we entered the castle, we were met by a friendly man offering to be our guide. It turns out he belongs to a Druze family who have lived in Azraq for generations. In fact, he told us proudly that his grandfather assisted Lawrence during his stay at Azraq and that the family has taken care of the fort ever since. He led us through the castle, showing us the room where Lawrence slept. Most touching of all, he led us to one side of the castle and asked us to look over the wall. All we could see is an ugly highway, a few forlorn houses and arid landscape. He told us that when he was small, there used to be a lush oasis right across from the fort, filled with fish and surrounded by vegetation. His voice seemed to catch slightly, as he said that it was in his lifetime that he watched the water drain away, little by little, drop by drop, to quench the thirst of the ever-expanding population in Amman. It's very hard to believe now. But, oh what a wondrous sight this castle must have been then!
Amman
Amman is a city of striking contrasts. On the one hand, while driving to our hotel from the airport, we were struck by the rows upon rows of dazzling, white houses. All the houses were white. The taxi driver explained to us that the government had passed a law that required all houses to either be painted white or be constructed with limestone facades. And as the city is built on several hills, it is beautiful to see the rows of white houses, one above the other, shimmering in the sun. Well... At least, it's beautiful to see the rows of beautiful houses in the wealthy neighbourhoods of town.
Downtown Amman on the other hand is quite different from the rich suburbs. This is the older heart of the city and here, the pollution and sand have dirtied the white walls. There's a lot of people out on the streets jostling one another to bargain in the many markets. The hustle, bustle and noise on the streets reminded us of a typical Indian city. Not pleasant. But a mass of humanity, pressed into a dense agglomeration of buildings and vehicles.
We headed to the Golden Souk when we arrived back in Amman. A souk is a market and this one houses numerous jewelers' shops, with rows and rows of bangles in their shop windows. Historically, these bracelets have served as good investments and guarantees against inflation as well as the vagaries of the currency trading markets. Nowadays, the Souk is not all that interesting. We spent a few minutes there. Then we walked past a mosque, and the main market before climbing up the hill to the wealthier (and cleaner) Rainbow Street.
Rainbow Street is a pleasant, tidy road, bordered by embassies, cafes and craft shops. It could have been plucked from any Western city - except for the mosque at one end. We browsed through a ceramics shop set up by the grandson of an Armenian who had worked to decorate the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. We then went to the River Jordan Foundation - a group of shops that sell various traditional handicrafts. The wares at the Foundation are not cheap, but they are of good quality. Additionally, since the foundation is supported by the Jordanian royals, you can be sure your tourist dollars will reach the rural women who made the various woolens and textiles with natural dyes. We eventually settled on purchasing some camel hair scarves, which were highly unusual! Finally, after we had a juice on a rooftop cafe while listening to the haunting notes of the muezzin's cry calling for the evening prayer, we headed back to the hotel.
