MOVING DAY
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2008
1
140
320
Trip End
Sep 02, 2009
Where I stayed
Amman, Jordan
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Up extra early and breakfast. We had made arrangements to take the resort bus to the border and asked for a lunch. We were ready to leave at 8, now I know we are getting old, the bus doesn't leave until 9:15 so we went and sat in the sun by the pool, said good-bye to the staff, got our big bag lunch from the front desk and were off at 9:15. We had also packed some sandwiches and took the 3 oranges we had accumulated over the last few days. We had one passenger who works at the border. The hotel also had engineers who worked at the airport and I think some flight crew every now and then. (We met one of the engineers, who is from Jordan, he invited us to his room for a pepsi, I am sure he just wanted to know who we were and where we were from.)
Once at the border we went through security and then got our cards stamped and exited Egypt. (There is a Hilton Hotel built right along the border security, no man's land, chain and barb wire fence on one side and the sea on the other. Looked like a very nice hotel, but I don't know about the location.)
Then into Israel, security, questions, and the question, please don't stamp our passports and the explanation. We had to go through their check point one at a time. Then out side to catch the bus. Made a deal with a taxi driver to take us right to the Jordan border so off we went.
At the exit we met up with a British couple from Cypress. So they followed us and paid the exit fee, got the papers stamped, and through exit security. We were ahead of them and went to do the Jordan Security. It is a long walk across no-man's land here.
Well, the guard there wouldn't let us into the building with our food so we had to give up our lunches. We put our bags through the x-ray and he went through Len's little day pack. At first we thought he wanted to see the computer, we thought he might have thought it to be a gun cartridge as they had going into Egypt, but no, he saw the sandwiches and oranges and took them. He put them by his desk, so we know that was his lunch for today.
By this time the couple had caught up to us and we then did the visa papers and stamps and were soon on our way. We shared a taxi into Aqaba to the bus station. They went off into the old town area while we check out the buses to Amman. There was a hoard of taxi drivers all wanting to drive us to Amman. One even tried to tell Len he would be cheaper than the bus!!! He was only 80 JD's more than the 11 JD's on the bus. We had about an hour to spare so we went to McD's and had lunch and checked the internet.
The bus station (by the Movenpick Hotel) was bus, but the bus left right on time with people getting on as we were driving out. We had gotten seats 3 and 4 right at the front and someone tried to tell us we were behind the driver. I looked at the numbers in Arabic and said no we are on the other side and asked the man to move.
The ride was 4 hours and went by quite fast. It got cool as we moved higher up in the mountains. Not much to see along the way, the road a 3 lane highway goes through all the towns. There are speed bumps in the towns and the bus almost stops to go over them. More dessert and hills along the road. I was just thinking I hadn't seen any road kill, what would there be out here to hit, then I saw a camel in the meridian. When we stopped for a break I said about it to Len and he said he had seen a donkey way back. No bugs on the window.
We finally pulled into the bus station. Of course as soon as Len and I got off we had 2 taxi drivers in our faces. I stopped and asked a young man what part of the city we were in and he and an older man talked to me. I asked about hotels in this area, but there were only expensive ones. So I asked about the Palace Hotel, the name the Mom and son from Calgary had given us. The elderly man said it was downtown so we did take a taxi. These are metered. Off we went. The driver asked about a couple of ???? Palace hotels as we went along and we said no. He took us to the Farna Palace Hotel and I showed the clerk what I had written about the Palace hotel and if this was the place. He said no. The driver took us next door to a fancier hotel, same name as the cheap one. I asked the clerk if this was the Palace Hotel and he said no. He spoke to the driver about where we wanted to go. We said to the clerk we should contact the police as the driver is taking us all over and not to where we want to go. The clerk told the driver to take us to the Palace hotel and not charge us any more.
We did end up at the right place, not without frustration and a splitting headache. I guess this is something we should expect to happen, but I think we keep believing it can't happen again to us.
We are happy with the hotel and went out for dinner. Spoke with a man at the restaurant about going to Syria. He was quite informative and helpful with lots of information on getting there and what to see.
Back to the hotel and we spent the evening talking with a couple from Toronto and a woman from Arizona. We were exchanging information on traveling around Jordan.
Great ending to the moving day.
