A global ramble - RTW 2017

[RooFlyer]

Also, up front, my experience of Jordan was sublimely peaceful; the people are warm and friendly, harassment by touts is limited and ceases if you say no. Just an all-round fabulous place!

I'd second that 100%. Anyone who worries about 'security' in Jordan should also avoid Paris, London, Germany and half the world.

 

[Bindibuys]

I'd second that 100%. Anyone who worries about 'security' in Jordan should also avoid Paris, London, Germany and half the world.

I will Ditto that remark. We were there 6 months ago. Fabulous place. Absolutely no security worries.

 

[JohnM]

And off to the Dead Sea - around 400 m below sea level, looking across to Israel and having the obligatory float.



Hung around until sunset over Israel and then headed back to AMM for dinner. I grew very fond of the commonly-offered freshly-squeezed lemon juice and mint while in Jordan. Farewell coffee in the restaurant lobby.



Along the King’s Highway south from AMM towards Petra. First stop Madaba (the ‘city of mosaics’) and nearby Mt Nebo with its Moses Memorial Church – reputedly the site where Moses saw the Promised Land. Certainly the views – albeit smoggy - are sweeping across towards Israel and Palestine. A stylised cross-cough-serpent that ‘Moses lifted up’ in the desert - also somewhat like a Rod of Asclepius medical symbol.



The interior of the church is mainly an archaeological site with some beautiful mosaics.



St George’s Greek Orthodox church in Madaba is famous for its mosaic map in the floor, dating from 560 CE and representing the oldest map of Palestine in existence and providing historical insights into the region.

 

[JohnM]

Refreshing freshly-squeezed pomegranate juice – yum! Bakers working like one-armed bricklayers in Baghdad making scrumptious fresh flatbread at lunchtime – and people lining up for it. School kids being, well, like kids the world over showing off their English lesson material (what happens when we get older…?). Hospitality and friendliness is incredibly deeply embedded in Jordanian culture. Fun and pleasantness everywhere – just a wonderful culture. Makes Australia look positively grumpy…



Loaded up on bread and provisions for a picnic lunch outside Madaba, overlooking some deep valleys. The thing that really struck me about the landscape is just how much it is composed of limestone.

Then it was on to Karak (or Kerak), famed for its ancient Crusader hilltop fortified castle, built in the mid-1100s.





Next: fabulous Petra!

 

[JohnM]

The town of Wadi Musa is the accommodation and jump-off point for Petra and the Wadi (valley) Musa itself is the main thoroughfare deep into the World Heritage-listed archaeological park. Petra extends over a very large area of hills and wadis but there is only the one entry point. From there, it’s about a 2.5 km walk to the iconic Treasury that features in most publicity shots.

The thing that most characterises Petra is that all the buildings are carved out of the sandstone. It’s about 2000 years old and was the capital of the Nabataean empire. While many of the classic sights are in and along the valley, there are many ‘high places’ that require a fairly steep hike (on good paths and steps) to get to. I rate the hikes level 2 on the JohnM 1-5 scale. These places are a real highlight and it is the time required to hike around the overall site that makes a minimum two-day visit essential IMO. I logged about 24 km and 31 km on day 1 and 2, respectively. Day 2 was predominantly in the high places.

Visitor numbers were well down (about 40% of peak IIRC) – good for me but not so good for the locals. It’s a great time to go to Petra!

A sequence of pics on the walk in, before the Siq – the narrow, tall-sided chasm that ends spectacularly facing the Treasury.



In the Siq.



And then - phwooaar!



All carved out of the sandstone.



Moving beyond the Treasury through the Street of Facades to the Theatre and the Royal Tombs.

 

[love_the_life]

Absolutely spectacular JohnM. The colours are fantastic with the red of the buildings against the blue sky.
The QM2 voyage I was on last month had a port stop where there was an excursion to Petra (sadly after I had disembarked). I was stunned that one couple on our table for dining, had no plans to go there as 'they don't do any excursions' and just take the ship's shuttle in each port (which only goes to the nearest shopping centre!). Considering they boarded in Hong Kong and were going through to Southampton, they were missing out on an awful lot of experiences IMO.

 

[Bindibuys]

And even less tourists when we were there. Sad, but as JohnM says - good for us, but not the locals.

 

[JohnM]

Petra along Wadi Musa cont.



At various points there are clusters of souvenir and drinks/snacks stalls. One particularly interesting stall, selling better-quality silver handcrafts, was owned by a former New Zealand lady by the name of Marguerite van Geldermalsen. In the late 1970s and before Petra was declared a World Heritage area and the Bedouin resettled in a nearby purpose-built town, she married a Bedouin and they set up camp in a high place opposite the Royal Tombs. She and her son run the stall (her husband is deceased).

She has written a book about her experiences. She happened to be there on my first day and I chatted with her and bought the book. An interesting person and a good read.



Further into Wadi Musa, caves throughout the hills and mosaics in the small museum. Then a stop for lunch at one of the two restaurants at the head of the wadi before an afternoon walk up about 900 steps (interspersed with flat sections) to the Monastery.



The trailhead to the Monastery - which is spectacular. There’s a lovely café set up facing it where you can chill with a drink and take it in (and it has very fast wifi! – maybe courtesy of Israel below to the west). Walk further on and there are viewpoints with sweeping vistas.



Then back to the Monastery and a stop at the café for a refreshing pomegranate juice before the walk back to the hotel and the end of a great day.

 

[JohnM]

Day 2 in Petra and a second mesmerising view of the Treasury through the Siq to begin the day – but then it was straight on to near the Theatre before heading uphill to the High Place of Sacrifice and beyond. A long day of walking to come – but stunning vistas and intriguing sights and information lie ahead. Let’s go…



The sacrificial altar. Ready for the chop... (the sacrifices were not humans). The view ahead. The view back.



On we go. Sights pepper the landscape. The intricate irrigation channels running down the sides of hills are too refined to adequately capture in a pic.



The sandstone can have amazing patterns.



Caves and temples everywhere – many with soot-covered ceilings from millennia of domestic occupation.

 

[JohnM]

Morning nearly done and back down for lunch – but the high places over the other side of the wadi await for the afternoon stroll...

Let’s go…



There were some cheats who took a donkey ride…



And the prize comes into view – looking down on the Treasury. It might look close – but it's a long way down and across the wadi. Not for those who suffer vertigo… Just as well the shutter speed was fast enough to avoid catching the blur of my trembling…



That night, a drink in the Cave Bar before Petra By Night. Lantern-lit path into, and myriad lanterns in front of, the Treasury. The finale lit up the monument in spectacular fashion. A fitting end to two fascinating days.

 

[JohnM]

Next morning it was a brief stop at Little Petra, a few km from Petra en route to Wadi Rum. Little Petra is a colloquial name for Siq al-Barid (Cold Canyon) that is thought to have been a trading area or outpost. Essentially, it is a small canyon with some temples and caves that formed hospitality areas for travellers and merchants. Interesting enough to warrant a short visit.



Some frescoe remnants are a rare example of Nabataean painting but many of the cave roofs are soot-covered from many years of Bedouin occupation.



On to Wadi Rum and its stark scenery. Piled into the back of a 4WD ute to the Bedouin camp to drop gear. Then a burn around the area until sunset.



Rocks, sand and camels. Larry was here…

 

[JohnM]

Wadi Rum towards sunset and the sunset pics didn’t really turn out to be as spectacular as hoped for. But moonrise was good. Then back to camp where the zarb* had been cooking.

(*Unashamedly pinched from the web:

Preparing the Zarb is a tradition of its own. Zarb is the Bedouin way of cooking meat, rice and chicken. In a prepared hole, a fire is lit until red hot. After that, a multistory large metallic tray is prepared with all the food to cook. The marmite of rice is posed at the bottom to collect all the fat from the meat and chicken. The meat goes on the second level and the chicken with vegetables is posed on the third. Sent below ground, the hermetically closed hole is left to cook for three long hours.

What is Zarb? As ancient and traditional cooking practices go, the zarb is perhaps the most dramatic. It consists of lamb or chicken, sometimes herbs and vegetables, which have been buried in an oven with hot coals beneath the desert sands. When it’s time for the meat to resurface, the sand is brushed away, the lid comes off, and the glorious slow-roasted fragrances billow into the air. For centuries the bedouin have been cooking like this throughout the Arabian peninsula. When tribesmen roamed across the desert in search of water and pasture for their animals, they kept their cooking equipment to the bare minimum. An earth oven could be dug quickly, and hot embers and stones from the campfire could be placed inside. The meat would be wrapped in palm leaves, and a mound of sand would seal in the heat. Eat zarb with the bedouin in Wadi Rum today, and you’ll see that only a few things have changed. The meat is still cooked underground, but often in an iron pot with a heavy lid that gets covered with sand. The meat may be wrapped in foil rather than palm leaves, but the lamb falls off the bone just as would have hundreds of years ago. And the glittering jewel-box of stars above shines just as brightly as ever.)





Next stop Aqaba on the Red Sea. The duty-free holiday town of Jordan. Time for a boat ride to go snorkelling or scuba-diving if appropriately qualified.

That’s Israel in the left background of the bottom left pic and private hotel beaches along the Jordanian shore south of Aqaba.



Sunset over the Sinai, Egypt. Chilling in downtown Aqaba. Bustling shopping; nuts galore in this shop.



Next day it was back to Amman by the most direct route on the Desert Highway and a bit of exploring the capital.

The spectacular Roman Theatre, then the higher-placed Citadel.

 

[JohnM]

Next stop Doha for three days. Air absolutely foul – a mixture of smog and dust. My original plan was to get out into the desert for a day trip but that was thwarted when I enquired hoping to fill a vacant spot on a tour, it seemed very clear that such is not the done thing. Book your own tour, solo or group, but don’t hope to fill in on someone else’s. Ah well, a peril of being a solo traveller. Considered renting a car but with the visibility so low I figured it wasn’t worth it.

I came away thinking that there’s nothing redeeming about Doha, but glad I went (briefly) to make up my own mind (the beauty of a RTW ticket...). Filthy air, a massive construction site of stuff seemingly for nobody. It felt almost dystopian.

The Corniche goes for kms around Doha Bay. The Museum of Islamic Art is quite spectacular and interesting enough.



The famed Souq Waqif (albeit a modern construction confected to look ancient) with the usual array of spice, cloth, gold and clothing shops. The animal and bird market behind the Wholesale Market was a bit different.



Plaza full of restaurants in the Souq. Nice enough but ersatz. The Falcon Souq over the way was interesting but lacked vibrancy when I was there early in the week. The air did begin to clear by the end on day three.



Next morning it was onto the QR A380 for my first ride on the QR take on this bird to LHR, which I transited to DEL. Spent a bit of time in the J bar…

Then it was a BA B787 in rear-facing 7A for the trundle down to DEL. India next.

 

[JohnM]

The India excursion was brief. A little over a week in the north. Fly into DEL, travel by road to Jaipur, then on to Ranthambore in the hope of seeing a tiger in the NP, on by road to Agra for the mandatory gawk at the Taj Mahal, then by overnight train to Varanasi, the Hindu holy city on the Ganges, then overnight train back to Delhi.

Traffic was horrendous getting out of Delhi and the drive to Jaipur seemed to take forever along the chaotic (but interesting) inter-city road. Roads may look like a mess but they works – albeit slowly. The result was a substantially later arrival into Jaipur than planned.

Jaipur is known as the Pink City – because it is mandated by tradition since the 1876 visit of the Prince of Wales that all buildings be painted in the same shade of pink (more of an ochre than candy pink, so nicer than it sounds).

Coming into Jaipur, overtaking an elephant. Hawa Mahal (Palace of the Winds) by night and by day.



Jantar Mantar, the World Heritage-listed observatory, begun by Jai Singh and with its enormous sundials and star-measuring instruments is fascinating.



The ornate City Palace is adjacent.





Yummy street food lunch after the palace visit. (I did not experience any gastro for the whole time). Then it was outside town to the Amber (pronounced Amer) Fort.

 

[JohnM]

Amber Fort continued. Impressive place. Shades of the Great Wall of China on the nearby hills.





More detail in the palace. Final pic in this set is Jal Mahal (Water Palace) between Amber and Jaipur.



Street scenes in Jaipur. It’s really not shambolic… Note the ‘pink’ is really ochre. You wimps in Australia only text and drive with one phone…?

 

[JohnM]

Then it was out into rural areas on the way to Ranthambore NP. Wheat harvest was in full swing – and they grow a lot of it in N India. I saw no combine (reap, thresh, winnow) harvesters as we have in Australia.

Reaping is done by hand (by women), the stems gathered into sheaves which are later collected to points in the generally small fields before a mobile threshing and winnowing machine is brought in. These were everywhere buzzing up and down the roads or being serviced in a village – a good little business to have by the look of it. Very poor shot on the move of a thresher/winnower kicking up a bit of dust in a field.

The grain is obviously collected, but considerable effort is also made to collect the resultant piles of chaff which is used as fuel. Yields were clearly high. Some of the crops were irrigated, leading to variable ripening times within the same area.



Hauling chaff is big business. Note the ‘Horn Please’ or ‘Blow Horn’ on the back of trucks. It is extremely common and it is expected that any driver coming from behind will blow their horn. It’s a constant cacophony.



The home-made vehicles were interesting.



A few roadway scenes in Rajasthan. Column of camels. Toll-point DYKWIAS listed. Typical village communal well pump. Member of the Digambara, the (male) naked sect of Jainism.



Cattle roam freely – out in the countryside and in big cities like Varanasi on the Ganges.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Another great TR John.

As it happens I am in the early stages of planning our next 280k Award trip and South America and India are now at the top of the bucket list; so following with even greater interest than usual.

JV

 

[JohnM]

Next stop was Ranthambore NP (1300 sq km). Reputedly the best place to see tigers in Rajasthan. There are around 30-40 tigers in the park. It was late wet season/early dry season when I was there so, while the weather was pleasantly mild, there was still quite a lot of water around. That always means difficulty in spotting any wildlife as they are much freer to disperse. The guides put our chances of seeing a tiger at c. 40% - compared with c. 80% when everything has dried back to a few water points.

A late afternoon drive and a morning drive the following day failed to locate any tigers. Not unexpected.

Some rugged scenery – easy for tigers to hide, game viewing ‘canter’, as they call them, a lot of deer, peacocks galore.



A very common sight along the rural roads was piles of what seemed like cow pats but were in fact similar-looking objects made from cattle dung, water and cereal chaff. These were dried and then stacked for fuel. Often the stacks were plastered with the same mixture into igloo-shapes, clearly to keep the pats dry in the monsoon season. The igloo was broken open on one side and the pats extracted as required.



Brick factories are pervasive in some areas, characterised by a tall, square-section chimney usually belching black smoke. Closer inspection revealed an interesting arrangement of pits surrounding the chimney which was at the centre of a radiating horizontal flue that could ventilate the pits as required for firing.

The fuel was chaff that was packed between the bricks which were stacked to allow ventilation. Once the pit was full with bricks and fuel ready to fire, it was covered and in due course set fire. The whole arrangement meant that one chimney and flue structure serviced several pits in a sequential, continuous production system. Chaff was stockpiled ready to be packed into a new load. Loading for a firing was occurring on one side while on the other the fired bricks were being removed by wheelbarrow and stacked ready for sale. Mud pits out the back kept up the supply of bricks for firing.

 

[JohnM]

The final part of the drive into Agra was a late-afternoon visit to Fatehpur Sikri, a World Heritage-listed fortified ancient Mughal city and mosque.

Imposing entry and extensive courtyard within.



Mosque and marble tomb dating from 1581.



Then it was into Agra and getting ready for an early start the following morning to visit the Taj Mahal. Near the head of the queue a little after 0600h, gates opened at 0630h and inside by 0640h.

Hmmm, what lies behind the imposing structure in the bottom right pic…?





The air was dirty (described as an ‘average’ day by a guide), so the early arrival with the sun still low in the sky did not really give the hoped-for glistening white of a first view. The brightness improved as the sun got higher and the best viewing was around 0830h. In retrospect, the very early start was not necessary.

 

[JohnM]

After the Taj Mahal, the next stop was the Red Fort of Akbar. Initially built as a fort, it was later made into a palace by the same ruler who built the Taj Mahal (only to be later imprisoned here by his son). Even today, a large part is used by the military and is off-limits to the public.



The Taj Mahal is visible in the distance.