SOUKS AND MOSQUES

A lazy start to the day, with minor chores that took much of the morning, and then we were off exploring Damascus again. We passed through the Souk to reach the great Umayyad mosque about lunchtime. The Traveller was required to rent a monkish habit, all enveloping with a grey hood, and we had to leave our shoes at the front entrance, but we were welcomed everywhere.
This is a view across the courtyard in front of the mosque. If it looks a bit like a cathedral, that’s because it was. First, it was the site of an Aramean Temple of Hadad, 9th century BC. Then about the 1st century BC it became the Roman Temple of Jupiter. In the 4th century AD it was converted into a cathedral. And having been a cathedral for 400 years, it was sold to the Muslims in the 8th century AD. 2 800 years of the worship of four different deities. Richard Dawkins, your people have need of you!The northern basilica, clearly Christian in origin, is decorated by marvellous mosaics with visions of heaven. In the courtyard, a wonderful fountain allows the worshippers to wash before entering the mosque. The Koran teaches that one should only wash in, or drink from, running water, which helps to explain the prevalence of fountains, and also, perhaps, the absence of bath plugs! (We later searched the Souk, and finally found a street devoted to plumbing works, and in a back room, after a long search, the owner found a plug that we carried off with happiness).Within the mosque, there is a shrine to John the Baptist, sacred to Islam as well as to the followers of Christ. He is reputed to be buried within, one of three such tombs in the Middle East. When we entered the mosque, we were welcomed by someone who seemed to be just an ordinary worshipper. He insisted I follow him, and that The Traveller go through the women's section with a female guide whom he found, so that he could show us the sacred shrine. I wondered what might happen if a couple of Muslims strolled into a cathedral at the height of the Christmas season (it was Ramadaan in Damascus).Back in the entrance courtyard, we admired the extraordinary mosaic work on the walls of the Treasury, a strange structure on six legs with no visible means of entrance. Nearby, above the colonnaded walkway, there was a huge mosaic with a paradise of palaces by the side of a flowing river, shaded by tall trees, dating from the 9th century AD.The walkway led on round the courtyard, offering some escape from the burning heat, and back into the Souk. One of the many alleyways we explored was devoted to fabrics. Normally they would have bored me, but these were definitely different. The hand-embroidered beadwork turned the display into an art gallery!In the southern end of the Souk was the Street Called Straight, famous since biblical times but very boring(!). Off to one side was another narrow entrance, inside of which was the Khan As’ad Pasha, now housing a museum celebrating the spread of Islam in South America. Then exploration was over for the day, and we tottered back to our hotel and coolth. The streets were full of vendors, and we stopped and bought a kilo of nuts, mainly pistachios, to keep us going till dinner. The nuts were fresh and crisp, and very cheap by any normal standard.

DAMASCUS HERE WE COME!

It was an early arising in Amman to make certain we caught the Damascus bus. Fortunately the bus station was not far from our hotel, and soon we were bowling along a broad, double-carriageway highway linking Jordan and Syria.

Crossing into Syria was ‘interesting.’ First, there was the sheer familiarity of it all - it was just like entering the old USSR, with suspicious looking military characters at every turn, huge pictures of local heroes everywhere, and a sense of decay. Abandoned cars stood around, thick with dust - but under the dust you could see recent model Mercedes, Porsches, Ferraris. I never did find out what they were doing there. Then there was a two hour delay while the immigration authorities sorted out a Palestinian girl whose papers didn’t seem quite in order. Finally we were off and rolling towards Damascus. Lush green fields, all irrigated, and lorries laden with fresh produce heading for town.

Arriving in Damascus was a shock. Perhaps it was the bus station, a sort of used car lot in the south of the town. The street was lined with grimy, single storey buildings, many with a load of scrap iron and old tyres on their roofs, and a sense of deep decay everywhere. The taxi to our hotel was old and battered, and the traffic was horrendous. Particularly ‘impressive’ were the 150cc motor bikes of Indian or Chinese manufacture, which seemed to be the wheels of choice for most of the population. They were driven with absolute abandon. The drivers were often seen chatting via mobile phones as they swerved in and out of the traffic, hooting incessantly. One or more passengers seemed obligatory. Crash helmets were conspicuously absent.

We went for a walk after settling in to our hotel. I got lost - my map was 90 degrees out of kilter. Some kindly souls from the Department of Tourism put us straight, and we found our way to Damascus’ pride, the Souk or covered market. The holes in the roof were bullet holes - from the 1927 revolution against the French, we were proudly told!

There were tiny open shops with an amazing range of goods. Whole streets were devoted to gold and silver. Narrow alleyways led in every direction, and often opened out into courtyards or even mosques.
A typical shop sold herbs, spices, turtle shells, medicines, crocodiles, snakeskins, and sticky sweets. The women generally wore headscarves and all-covering robes (remember, it was hot when this picture was taken!) But the Syrians were quite relaxed about the Traveller’s flowing locks.


Down one little alley we came across a doorway where the guardian invited us in. Nervously we followed him, and found ourselves in the gracious courtyard of the ‘Azem Palace.
After the bustle of the Souk, it was a haven of peace and tranquillity. Cool archways held divans on which you could sprawl and listen to the tinkling of water in the fountains. The iwan, or formal reception area, was beautifully decorated, complete with its own fountain set into the marbled floor:
We wandered through the gardens and in and out of the buildings, until the guardian warned us of closing time. Sadly, we left the fountains and returned to the press of the Souk and Damascus' streets.

DEAD SEA TO AMMAN

We drove back to Amman via a dramatic new road climbing the side of the rift valley, with the Dead Sea and its coastal road far below. The road has only been opened for a few months, and there was very little traffic on it. It wound its way round little wadis at quite a gentle slope, often crossing bridges with a heart-quickening drop to one side. Down below was the blue, blue Sea, across which Israel could be made out through the haze.

At the top of the pass there is a newly opened museum. It is well worth a visit. It is a beautiful building, in the soft, golden local sandstone. The displays of Jordanian history are well worth study. And the views are superb. The entrance gives some idea of the feel of the place:

Then across the plains, through Madaba where there are supposed to be some marvellous mosaics, but we couldn’t find them. As we were short of time, we headed for Mt Nebo, where Moses saw the Promised Land and where he is buried. It is sacred to Jew, Christian and Muslim.

There was a fine old church with some very good mosaics. Were they as good as those in Marsala? We will never know, but they struck us as being perfectly adequate!

Outside the church was an open viewpoint, where on a clear day you could indeed see the Promised Land, but this was not one of those days! A heavy haze allowed a glimpse of the valley of the Dead Sea far below, but after that, the pall of invisibility hid every detail. A great modern statue had been erected to honour Pope John-Paul. Suitably impressed, we fled to hack our way through the traffic, and make certain we were in time to meet the person from the rental agency.

Petra to the Dead Sea

We left Petra the next morning, and drove along the ancient mountain road, dropping down long passes to cross wadis every 10km or so. Some of the wadis had wonderful geology exposed on the flanks of the valleys, and you could see with dramatic clarity where ancient volcanoes had poked their way through the earth's crust. The bottom of each crossing was usually green and lush, then the road climbed back up, and was soon a desert moonscape again.

At lunch we reached the town of Kerak, dominated by a crusader castle. We found our way up through narrow streets, then crossed a deep moat to get into the castle.

The stone-clad glacis was a formidable defense. The idea of climbing this while being bathed in hot oil was not attractive. Within the castle, there were buildings that had suffered the ravages of time and battle - this church still stood, some 800 years since it was last used:
which was amazing when one thought of the earthquakes to which this region is prone. When you went deeper into the castle, you found even more remarkable structures. Under the church, for instance, was a mosque, built by the muslim conquerors:

Deeper still, there were wide, dark passageways leading to rooms lit by narrow slit windows that looked down, down down into the valley far below:
There was even a kitchen, with ovens and millstones and washing places, dusty but proably still functional if cleaned up. They used to feed over 2000 when under siege, as the Crusaders occasionally were. Leaving the castle, we threaded our way through a maze of one-way streets in the town, and finally dropped into the valley leading to the shores of the Dead Sea. A wonderful road led along the eastern margin, carved into the cliffs in places. At one point, Mrs Lot, all of 30m tall, towered above us:On the brim of the Dead Sea, a rime of white salt several meters high showed how the level was dropping:
Jordan, Palestine and Israel are tapping the fresh-water streams that feed into the Sea, and it is slowly becoming saltier and saltier.


Further up the coast we came to Sulimeyeh, a resort on the edge of the Dead Sea. We stayed in a fantasy hotel, with an "Arab village" theme of walkways and small courtyards, many with cooling fountains tinkling in their midst:Down at the edge of the sea was a picture-postcard pool, with a view over the Sea to the Israeli shores on the West Bank:
We felt we deserved a night of luxury after the donkeys of Petra!