Amman | Living the Travel Channel

Posts Tagged ‘Amman’

Jordan, Day Two – Citadel, Amphitheatre, Wadi Rum

April 7, 2013

Posted by Kanga.

Wow, this was an eventful and amazing day. I took 341 pictures – click here to see them.

We started with the Citadel, the top of a hill in the heart of Amman which has a wealth of archaeological sites dating from all periods – early bronze age, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, etc.

From here we went to the Roman amphitheatre at the base of this hill.

There is also a small museum there. While looking at this dress, a young woman standing next to me asked “Do you like it?” I said, “Yes, it’s beautiful.” She said “Not so much.” I’m guessing, but there seemed to be a group of students so she may have been a Jordanian university student. Too bad she doesn’t appreciate her own past. Since I’ve made clothing and done embroidery, I have a better appreciation for what kind of work went into creating this beautiful dress.

Next we were on the road to Wadi Rum. This took about three hours.

Wadi Rum is a large area of limestone formations. We rode in the back of a jeep pickup driven by a bedouin who lives in the valley. It was an amazing time.

We stopped a couple of times to see petroglyphs.

We stayed for sunset, then it was back to our tour driver so we could head to our hotel in Wadi Musa. Tomorrow we explore Petra.

We are having an amazing time.

Posted in Jordan, travel adventures | Tagged Amman, Jordan, travel, vacation | 1 Comment »

Dinner Adventure

April 6, 2013

Posted by Kanga.

It began with a walk in the neighborhood of our hotel looking for a restaurant. We soon discovered there was little to choose from. DaddyBird flagged down a taxi and asked if he could take us to Al Quds Restaurant (purported to be the best place to get Mansaf – the national dish). The taxi driver wasn’t sure, but it was agreed that he would take us downtown. This led to a fairly long drive. The meter said 27 at the beginning of our ride. We are used to cheap taxi rides where petrol is cheap, so I began to worry as I saw the meter going up and up. I only had 140 dinars because we haven’t changed all of our cash, yet. When the meter hit 130 I was envisioning us being stranded downtown with no money to get back to the hotel. We arrived downtown and found the Al Quds Restaurant very easily. The restaurant appears to have two names – Al Quds and Jerusalem Restaurant.

The meter showed 190 which turned out to be 1.90 much to my relief. So our ride only cost 2 dinar ($2.68).

This was the restaurant we were hoping to find. No fancy ambiance.

English menu:

We ordered mansaf, motabal, mango juice, and lemon juice. This meal cost 13.30 dinar ($9.30).

Here is a close up of the mansaf. It was quite tasty.

After walking around a little bit in the downtown area where most of the businesses were closed for the evening, we flagged down a taxi. We are staying in a small, little known hotel, so the driver didn’t know where it was. DaddyBird only had a general idea where it was. So, the driver called someone to ask for directions. Those directions led to a completely different hotel. We drove around the general area for a bit. The driver stopped at a grocery store to ask the locals if they knew where it was. They did not. We knew we were close because we were seeing familiar things. I had taken the photo below soon after leaving the hotel, so I showed it to the driver. It did not help him. We stopped again on a backstreet and the driver asked some locals about the hotel and then about the street in the photo. It turns out that the street is known by another name. They told him where the street was. As soon as we reached it, we recognized where we were and found the hotel. This time the taxi ride cost 3.33 dinar ($4.70).

It was a pleasant evening with good food and a bit of drama for excitement.

Posted in Jordan, travel adventures | Tagged Amman, Jordan, mansaf, tourist, travel, vacation | Leave a Comment »

Amman, Jordan – Day One

April 5, 2013

Posted by Kanga.

We have arrived safely in Amman, Jordan.

Maybe someday we will travel somewhere that we don’t say “We could live here,” but it is not today. It is beautiful here. We are enjoying the cool weather.