Visiting Petra has always been on my list of must-see places but until we started planning the trip, I knew very little about Amman or other parts of Jordan. As I learned more and more, I became more and more excited about visiting Amman. I love experiencing cultures that are different from what I know. The more different a culture is from what I’m used to, the more appealing it is. Thankfully this is one of the many things Brett and I have in common and we were both really excited to start our Jordan trip in Amman.
Jordan is the only place on our travel list where we decided we should organize a private tour. We decided splurging was a good idea since we’ve never been to the Middle East before and we will be traveling very close to the Syria, Israel, and Iraqi borders (among others). There was just one problem – we went way overbudget in our first ~5 months in Europe. After working through our budget numbers, we were left with two options – either do Jordan on our own, or skip Jordan. We weren’t prepared to cancel Jordan altogether so we did it on our own. From that decision onwards, it was quite an adventure.
One thing I didn’t put much thought into before the day of our flight was our attire in Jordan. Up until this point, we had basically been wearing only shorts and t-shirts or tank tops for the last 4 months. I had read that women should cover their shoulders so I made sure to have a couple of t-shirts. As we were driving to the airport, I did some more thorough google research and learned that women should really cover their legs and their arms – t-shirts and walking shorts would not do! I also learned that men do not wear shorts either. I couldn’t find anything on what was appropriate for kids to wear. I was in panic mode and asked Brett to stop at a store on the way to the airport in Crete so I could at least buy one long-sleeved shirt. I couldn’t find anything in the quick visit to a couple of stores on the way to the airport. I would have to rely on wearing my one pair of pants along with a hoodie when arriving in Amman, then do some shopping there.
We arrived at Queen Alia airport in Amman at 2am with three very tired children. We were tired ourselves and were hoping that it would be simple to get a taxi to our Airbnb.
It was not simple. We walked out to a wall of taxi drivers. There was one man with a notepad asking us where we were going and then it seemed like the taxi drivers were all bidding on the fare. The man with the notepad handed us a piece of paper and told us to follow one of the men. As we got to his taxi, a second man was there to take our luggage and put it in the trunk. Then he asked us something in Arabic that we eventually understood to mean that he wanted a tip. We had just been to the ATM and only had 50 JD notes (~$70USD). It was awkward and uncomfortable. Eventually the taxi driver gave him some money to leave.
The taxi driver did not speak to us for the whole drive and seemed like he didn’t really understand us. We had trouble finding the apartment building we were looking for and when we did, there was no doorman. The check-in instructions we had said that there was a 24 hour doorman to give us the keys. Thankfully our quiet taxi driver stayed and tried to help us figure out what to do. I tried calling the Airbnb host and messaging him repeatedly. No answer. The whole situation was awful. It was 4am. At one point the twins and I were on the street, Brett was at the door of the building, and the taxi started moving away…with Ronan sleeping in the backseat (and our luggage in the trunk). He was just moving up the street to park but for about 2 seconds, my heart stopped.
We decided a hotel was our only option and our taxi driver took us around the corner to a pretty basic hotel that was more than perfect for us considering the situation we were in. The kids had a second wind once we checked in. I should have taken a picture of them eating Doritos in bed at 4:30am. All rules were out the window.
Driving in Amman is not for the faint of heart so we decided we would not rent a car for the 3 days we had planned on staying in Amman. I got a recommendation for a driver from a Facebook Group I joined for families traveling in the Middle East. His name was Ahmad and he was fantastic. Not only was he a great driver and fluent in English, he was a genuinely nice man who really wanted to teach us about his country. The first day we just had him drive us to a shopping mall to find some more modest clothing. The mall was a cultural experience in itself. In the heart of this very Muslim city, the mall was almost exactly like the malls we have in the US – it seemed to us like the mall sold every manner of clothing that you don’t see people wearing on the street. We picked up a few things and got out of there quickly. We didn’t come to Amman to visit the mall.
The following day, Ahmad drove us to Jerash, the well-preserved ruins of an ancient roman city about an hour north of Amman. There were so many roadside stalls on the way selling olives, peppers and eggplants (I think they were eggplants but they were very small). Ahmad pulled over to show us the olives and explain to us how they eat them. From what we gathered, they mix lemon with the peppers and olives, put it in water and leave it for a month. ‘Delicious’ Ahmed declared. They stuff the eggplant with nuts and then put it in oil for a month for another ‘delicious’ treat. The vendors gave each of the kids an eggplant (that they had no idea what to do with) and Ahmed had them all crush and rub an olive on their hands to moisturize.
Jerash was absolutely breathtaking. No explanation I give and no photos I show will do it justice. Keep in mind too that we had just spent a month in Greece visiting Greek and roman ruins….and yet we were completely overwhelmed at Jerash. It was an entire Roman city, once with a population of 20,000. A lot of it was very well preserved and there were no crowds at all. That was such a special day.
We were warned to be vigilant against pick-pockets and I also couldn’t help to be aware that we were within 25km of the Syrian border. There are also issues with poverty and refugees – the small nation of of approximately 9 million people is home to a staggering 2 million Palestinian refugees that live in refugee camps. There are a number of these camps close to Jerash. Despite the poverty and the proximity to some dangerous borders, we felt safe at Jerash. We only started to realize the danger about a week later when we saw on the news that a Palestinian refugee attacked tourists at Jerash, stabbing 8 people. That incident happened exactly where we had been a week before.
After we left Jerash, Ahmad took us into downtown Amman. First we stopped at a viewpoint to see the city, then he dropped us in the heart of downtown.
We loved downtown Amman!! It was so alive – people were yelling, cars honking, vendors and stores selling every kind of ware. The King Hussein mosque was in the heart of it all and prayers seemed to be happening continuously. Many of the stores had loudspeakers that were broadcasting from the mosque. We came to really love the sound of the chanting prayers from the Mosque. It was such a wonderful background sound to our travels around Jordan, especially Amman .
On our third day, we walked about an hour from our apartment to the Amman Citadel. It was a slow walk as we worked out way back through downtown. Iain had lost his tooth the night before and the tooth fairy had left him 5 Jordanian Dinar’s. He and Riley were intent on using the money to buy an LOL doll (a really silly little plastic doll that the kids love). Apparently they’d seen one at one of the toy stalls downtown the day before. We spent an entire hour wandering around trying to find LOL dolls. Everytime we saw some, Riley would pick it up, look at it, sometimes shake it, then inevitably declare that it was a fake. Riley is really smart when it comes to things she’s interested in – she hates schoolwork but she alone had come up with the idea to find videos on YouTube that explain how to spot fake LOL dolls. I tried to explain that they were all probably fake but they were intent on finding the only authentic LOL dolls in Amman. Eventually they found some that they weren’t sure if they were fake or not. They were only 1JD so I wasn’t surprised that they declared them fake once they got them open.
From there we finally started working our way up the hill to the Citadel. We didn’t know very much about the citadel, almost nothing. We only had an hour to explore before the sun went down and the site closed for the day. It was beautiful. And the views of the city were spectacular. We wandered around and tried to see as much as we could before the sunset. We watched the sunset while listening to the evening prayers. It was so beautiful and a moment I think we’ll all remember. After sunset, we had to wind our way back downtown through narrow neighborhood streets in the dark; a bit intimidating when we weren’t sure exactly where we were going or whether these were safe neighborhoods. We were thankful again for the kindness of strangers when one of the men that worked at the Citadel saw us walking and helped us navigate our way back down.
Overall Amman was amazing. Our stay started off rocky but except for that first tiring night, the rest of our stay was spectacular. We are left with a wonderful first impression of Amman and hope we get the opportunity to go back again someday.