We had booked our hotel because it professed to have a swimming pool. When we arrived though we discovered that the pool was actually an indoor lap pool and there were separate swimming hours for men and women. So much for pool time so we set out to explore Amman.
Amman itself is a strange city. It's spread out over seven hills and as we soon realised is a nightmare to get around on foot. Luckily though the taxis were dirt cheap (just under 1 pound sterling per trip) and so they became our mode of transport. There weren't many “sights” in the traditional sense in Amman which was probably just as well as we were getting a little monument/ruin weary but there were some great jewellery shops (in which I indulged) and also some nice western-style restaurants which we had been hanging out for. We found this great little cafe which sold organic food and conveniently for me was also attached to a jewellery shop where I bought a cool silver butterfly necklace. We also ate at a trendy bar/restaurant called Blue Fig where I had my first glass of wine in about a month and also at an English-style pub called...wait for it... “The Rovers Return”. The Rovers was a bizarre and smoky little dungeon of a pub that had pictures of Coronation Street stars all over the walls. It sold recognisable beers though and great fish and chips so we weren't complaining!
On our last day in Amman we wandered down to the shared or service taxi stands to try and organise a transfer to Damascus. We had been told that this was the cheapest and most convenient way to get there. The taxi company owners were on us as soon as we showed up and so it wasn't long before we had booked and paid for our transfer which we had arranged would collect us from our hotel the next morning. Feeling quite chuffed with ourselves for having got such a good deal we went back to our hotel.
The next morning however our ride did not show. Another taxi driver who was loitering outside the hotel whilst we were waiting berated us for having already paid the guys and informed us that they were now bound not to show up. As the taxi stands were not that far away though we decided that I would wait with the bags and Tom would head back down to try and sort it all out. Although we had a receipt the guys at the taxi office seemed oblivious to our booking and tried to charge Tom again (and this time more) to arrange another transfer. Tom was understandably unimpressed but eventually managed to get one taxi driver to agree to come by the hotel to collect and take us. So he returned to wait with me and we waited and waited and waited. The taxi driver however never showed and probably never had any intention of doing so – he had just wanted Tom off his back. By this time Tom was irate and stormed back down to the taxi ranks again. Finally Tom managed to secure a shared taxi with another Jordanian couple and to avoid a no show got into the taxi and refused to get out until made the driver agreed to drive up to our hotel to collect me and the bags.
Finally we were on the road to Damascus! The car itself was okay although the driver and the Jordanian guy chained smoked with the windows up for the entire trip – making it pretty unbearable. The Jordanian lady sitting beside us did give us chocolate bars though! It wasn't long before we arrived at the border and we trotted inside to get our visas confident in the knowledge that as we had gone out of our way to ensure that we had no Israeli stamps in our passport – we would have no issue gaining entry into Syria. If you are found to have an Israeli stamp in your passport then you are denied entry outright. There was one very small thing however that we had overlooked. When we had crossed the border into and out of Israel big security and luggage search stickers had been stuck to the backs of our passports. As these stickers were in Hebrew and made it obvious where we had been we peeled them off the back of our passports that morning. All that remained was a slightly gummy residue which we didn't give a second thought. It was this gummy residue however which nearly cost us our Syrian visas. After having thumbed painstakingly through every single page of our passports looking for stamps the immigration officer turned them both over and scrutinised the sticker marks. It was clear that he had seen these marks before and knew exactly what they were so we started to get the third degree on exactly where we had been travelling. We nervously explained that we have been to Egypt and Jordan. The officer then barked “and Falasteen?!” (the Arabic word for Palestine). We looked him straight in the eye and denied having been at which he gave us a big scowl and sighed. He stamped our passports though and we were instructed to pay $125 AUD – significantly higher than normal and clearly a “liar's tax”. We tried to pay the visa fee in Syrian Pounds but they wouldn't accept them (of course not this is Syria after all!). “Don't you have Australian dollars?” he barked at us. We tried to explain that we were from New Zealand and not Australia and therefore didn't. In the end he said we could pay in US dollars which meant we had to exchange the bulk of Syrian pounds we had just exchanged back into US dollars – very costly and frustrating. Anyway we were relieved that we had made it past the first hurdle. However we still had to endure a bag search which I was terrified about as I was sure I had ticket stubs from Israel as well as the odd shekel floating about in my bag – not to mention all the underlinings we had made in the Israel section of the Lonely Planet. Luckily for me however, my lacy knickers which were in the top of my bag seemed to embarrass the modest Syrian bag searcher and so he only did a quick flick finding nothing. Then after yet another passport check where we again had to endure questions about the sticker residue on our passports we were finally allowed through. We were hugely relieved but pretty lucky to have made it through. As soon as we arrived at our hotel in Damascus we scrubbed our passports clean and went through our bags and gathered together all of the evidence we had of our trip into Israel. We then burnt it all (not an easy think to do whilst avoiding the smoke detector) and flushed the charred remains down the toilet. We also re-saved all of our Israel photos in the folder on our laptop labelled Jordan. Finally from then on whilst in Syria we vowed to refer to Israel only by the code name we had granted it “Invercargill!”. Talk about covert operations!
We were so glad we did make it into Damascus however as we loved it. The people were super friendly and polite to us – always calling out “Welcome to Syria” and trying out their English skills on us. We spent quite a lot of our two days in Damascus in the Old City. The Old City was made up of two distinct parts, the Muslim and Christian quarters. The Muslim quarter was an extremely lively, colourful and bustling place with a great covered souk.
The roof over the souk was a welcome break from the extreme heat of the sun – it was around 39 – 40 degrees – and the only light it let in was from bullet holes which had been made by French machine guns during the war of independence.
The covered souk sold just about everything you could imagine including the “major brands” in all their fake forms. For example here they are selling shavers under the following names ”Phelps”, "Pihillippss" and "Brawn":
One of our particular favourites was this children's paddling pool. The once bikini-clad American Mom in the photo had been heavily photo shopped and now donned a demure burqa whilst enjoying her swim!
The Muslim quarter also contained two mosques. The first and most famous was the Umayyad mosque which we visited. I had to wear a full burqa with hood to enter the mosque – Tom said I looked like a grey Ewok. It was alright for him as he was allowed in in shorts and t-shirt.
The mosque was beautiful though and full of very devout Iranian pilgrims (all in black burqas and fully veiled) who flocked to visit the shrine of Hussein (grandson of Muhammad) Inside the main prayer hall we also saw the shrine in which John the Baptist's head is rumoured to be kept – one of many rumoured places we might add. There are at least two others in Syria alone.
We also visited the Sayyidah Ruqayya Mosque – another “must see” on the Iranian pilgrams' list. This mosque however clearly had more resonance for the Iranian Pilgrims, most of whom were reduced to tears and were sobbing all around us. The prayer hall was full of devout Muslim men and women wailing and crying – a pretty eerie and uncomfortable sight at least for me but one that I won't forget in a hurry. This time I donned a fetching black hooded cloak!
The Muslim quarter also had some nice restaurants and we enjoyed a meal on the roof top of one of the big old houses. There was a lovely view from the roof top and it was surreal to sit up there as each of the surrounding mosques kicked off with their calls to prayer. The food was pretty good at the restaurant as well and they even whispered to Tom that they served beer even though it was not on the menu (they were too close to the mosque to officially serve booze).
In contrast to the lively Muslim quarter the Christian quarter of the Old City was more conservative but had some lovely old Damascan style houses and shops selling everything from jewellery and silk to giant brass teapots and nargileh (shisha) paraphernalia.
Whilst in Damascus we also went to watch the Germany v England world cup match at a local coffee house. They had a big screen and were charging 100 Syrian pounds (just over 1 pound sterling) to watch the match with a fruit juice or tea in each halve – very civilised! I was however the only female there amongst about 50 or 60 men. They found it very amusing that I was watching football. Unfortunately everyone seemed to support Germany, and turned around and stared at us to see our reaction every time England ballsed it up – which they did big time!
In Damascus we also spent one evening in the more trendy upmarket district – the name of which we can't remember. There were no veiled women here and in fact the women were fairly scantily clad by Middle Eastern standards. The cafes were pretty good here as well and we found a place that served some great fruit smoothies and paninis. At a stretch it could almost have been New Zealand!
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