Suffered from terrible insomnia and hence woke up earlier than usual at approximately 0300 on Tuesday morning and went into the main hall, switched on the light, television and began
"penning" my diary, a common routine on all my tours, beginning since my
"shipping days voyages" as a Marine Engineer.Thanks to the internet and blogging have now transferred my diary writings of my
"solo tours" and now my first group tour into a mass media for the benefit of other tourists and travelers. Stephen was asleep in the bedroom and as i explained earlier, this hotels accommodation was the equivalent of a
"1 bedroom/hall flat", except the external design of the hotel which seems to have been recently renovated, resembling a
"Mumbai Chawl type housing entrance"! Penned down in brief the excerpts of my tour as this was our last day and we would be departing to Mumbai tomorrow. Ironically,Raj Kapoors classic but commercial flop
"Mera Naam Joker",also one of my all time best hindi movies was playing on the
"Zee T.V", the only Indian channel on this hotels
"T.V. Network", rest were all Arabic and local Jordanian news in English.
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| Ancient map of the "Holy Land" in Madaba. |
Went to sleep again and later woke up at 0600 hrs and after a brief shower went for my usual early morning walk along the main road outside the hotel and found a lot of people busy walking to their various destinations, unlike in Tiberias(Israel) where spotting a human at early morning hours was a rarity. Amman is a clean city with broad spacious roads and a high cost of living and having visited the port of Aqaba twice in my shipping career was used to the Jordanian lifestyle and currency purchasing value.Jordan has recently become famous as a International tourist destination besides being on the "Holy Land Tour" itinerary after the cave sites of
"Petra" was declared as one of the "New Seven Wonders of the World" in 2007. A tour to Petra was not on our tour itinerary and a few of us requested
"Mosaic Holidays" tour guide Nicola to conduct a tour of "Petra" instead of Madaba as we could also visit these sites the next day on our way to the airport. Unfortunately, majority of the pilgrims were not willing to a change of plans to visit Petra and Nicola agreed to arrange a separate tour for pilgrims wanting to go to Petra instead of the normal tour itinerary, but at a extra charge. A single couple , Dr Placidius.A. Mascarenhas and his wife Mrs Pamela.Mascarenhas agreed for the
"Petra private tour" ,the charges being
U.S$'s 220 extra since there were no other tourists and hence beyond my
"Financial Budget" already, having lost lakhs in
"Paper assets" on the
"Indian Stock exchange meltdown". Ultimately , Dr P.Fernandes and his wife were the only shrewd people who went to Petra in a private minibus, a real luxury which i couldn't afford at that stage of my life and repent for missing the chance of seeing one of the modern day wonders of the World having visited its country of origin.Its akin to a tourist coming to India and departing without visiting the Taj Mahal at Agra! Thats life,you have to lose some to win some,at least, i completed the entire
"Holy Land tour " itinerary, including the torturous climb to Mount Sinai.
After a sumptuous breakfast , barring Dr P.Mascarenhas and his wife we all boarded the bus with the Jordanian tour guide
Mr Hiyari.Kamal who with his driver Khalid took us to Mount Nebo, the biblical mount. Mount Nebo offers an excellent view of the entire Jordan valley and from there we next visited
"Madaba", the city of Mosaics.We were shown a demonstration of the manufacture of hand crafted
"Mosaic Designs" at a Madaba tourist shop. I purchased a
"Tree of life" fabricated from mosaic, my usual passion of collecting curio's and handicrafts from various country's of visit. Lunch was at a local restaurant in Madaba and after lunch we visited the
Citadel of Jordan, an archeological ruin of an ancient city situated in down-town Amman.This citadel is situated on a hillock and gives an excellent view of the entire city including the ancient colosseum which in the present day is used to hold cultural events and concerts.On our return trip to the hotel a few of us requested to be dropped in the souk at Amman, one of the biggest shopping bazaars in jordan. Pilgrim tourist couples Mr&Mrs D.Pereira and Mr& Mrs J.Martis joined Stephen and myself in alighting the bus in the main
"Amman Souk" and we all proceeded on our shopping excursions or window shopping. As usual, i split from the crowd , being a bachelor,and did a solo tour of the
"Souk" surprised to observe the rapid decline of the purchasing power of the "Indian rupee" since i last visited the souks of Aqaba in 1986 and again sometime in the 1990's, realising that India is still one of the World's cheapest Country's.Viewed the historical
"Al-Husseini Mosque" situated in the main souk locality and also inquired the price of gold in the numerous "
gold shops" as also the price of
"Dry Fruits", a craze for purchase by Indian tourist seafarers in the 1980's and 1990's. Wild-Life conservation seems to have a negligible effect in Jordan and many endangered animal species and their by-products were freely available in some shops.The common Indian ring parakeet was available at 30US$'s(Rs 1500 approx) and exotic coloured parrots at 300US's(Rs 15,000), besides
,"stuffed foxes" and
"Kestrels" were also on sale. As mentioned earlier, considering the
"Currency Exchange rates", Mumbai seemed to be a much cheaper place for
"Dry-Fruits" in 2008! Purchased a few shirts and reported at our meeting place near a currency exchange shop for departure to the hotel by taxis. Three of us shared a taxi at 6U.S's/taxi and made our way to
Hotel Amaken Plaza, the end of our hectic, busy and educative tour of the entire "Holy Land" and other World tourist sites. Dinner was at the hotel and after a brief relaxation crashed off to sleep.
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| Our tour bus . |
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