Crossing (into) Jordan

What a contrast to Egypt! Cleaner, with a better infrastructure and less-aggressive touts, and people here seem genuinely proud of their country and their (relative) stability, and are happy to have tourists come visit. It seems that Jordan had been a popular destination (and very busy for our taxi driver) throughout most of the 90s, but the past year or so they have suffered from tourism slowdown. Jordanians seem unsure about the reasons why (the Iraq war has already been going on for a while now, and the Middle East in general has been dicey since...well...a long time. There was a well coordinated terrorist attack on several hotels last year--some 60+ people were killed—-though several people we spoke to insisted things had slowed down prior to that). We assured our driver that with the naming of Petra as one of the "New Seven Wonders of the World", business was sure to pick up.

Jordan has been a whirlwind of car travel. With less than a week in the country, and lots of ground to cover in order to see the major sights, we have spent a lot of time in a taxi. The good news is that Jordan is a small county: it only takes about 6-7 hours or so to go from the northern border to the southern one. There's not much in the way of buses, but taxis are popular, affordable, and they travel nationwide. We got into Amman in the afternoon and took a taxi to the hotel (You can hire a taxi for the day, and cross the country for about 80 Dinars. The Jordanian Dinar is worth about 1.4 USD, similar to the Euro, so things weren’t necessarily cheap. Many people in the country are very poor.)

We’ve been madly accumulating Starwood points (from our Amex card) the past five months in anticipation of our trip. We have been trying to minimize our hotel expenses by cashing in our points, or by using a clever combination of cash and points (usually 2000-3000 points plus $45 USD for nice hotels). This scheme really delivered in Amman, where we scored a huge suite at Le Meridien for $45. Our first afternoon was spent napping, doing some minor laundry, cleaning up, checking email and bills online, and repacking (we planned to leave some luggage in Amman so we could travel light while camping in Wadi Rum). That first night in Amman we ate at Benihana—weird, yes, but after weeks of disappointing Egyptian food, we had a craving for something Asian. The meal was the best we’d had in a while. It was an interesting experience, eating at an American chain restaurant staffed entirely by Filipinos pretending to be Japanese for the sake of their Arab clientèle.