We had breakfast in the hotel in Amman and then at 7.50am set off with our driver Waleed in his Toyota Camry. The charge for the ride was 30JD and we drove through the city then over the mountains in the Al Adessia region, from where you can see the Israeli side of the Jordan River. Amman is at 2000m elevation and by the time you get to the bottom of the hills where the river is you are below sea level.
At 8.35am we turned north toward what was labelled on the road signs as the “Baptism Site” but I didn’t ask Waleed about this. The King Hussein Bridge is in the same direction and we drove through irrigated countryside where, Waleed told us, they grow bananas, oranges and lemons. “Lots of farms here,” Waleed said. He has a green card to work in the US and visits there regularly.
We arrived at the terminus where a solider carrying an automatic weapon stood guard. As soon as we got out of the car an old man with a very weathered, very tanned face came up to us with a strange-looking metal trolley and we put our bags on it. We then went through the open portal and left around the back of the building that stood next to it. We came to a door where there is an access point for luggage, and here put all our bags on a conveyor belt. On the other side no-one was watching the video display and I wondered if a scanner had even been installed.
We went into a room where many people were seated. We were directed to a counter where I gave my passport to an official. He told me to go to another counter, which was manned by a soldier in purple fatigues and tan boots. I gave him the requisite 10JD and then took the token he gave me to a third counter. They kept our passports and we sat down to wait.
After what seemed like a long time they told us to go to the bus that would take us across the border. The internal luggage storage area in the bus was full however and we couldn’t take our suitcases onto the bus where the passengers sit so they told the two of us to wait for another bus, which turned up promptly. I put our suitcases into the luggage bay in this new, smaller bus and we got on at 9.25am to wait some more. A man got on a bit later and asked for a fee for the luggage, which came to 17JD for both of us, which I paid using some of the remaining dinars I had in my wallet. After a while, at around 10.05am, a uniformed official came on-board. He gave us back our passports with the requisite document included, and we sat back again to wait.
We set off not long after this. In the bus with us was a large American from San Diego who had a perfectly bald skull. He was with his Philippino wife. There was also a black woman aged in her twenties who I guessed to be American.
The minivan went along a road after the terminus that took us through a barren landscape until we came to a boom gate and stopped. We waited awhile and when the gate swung up we set off again, crossing the Jordan River on a bridge before we arrived at the West Bank. We stopped at a building with a boom gate where a man in civilian clothes carrying an automatic weapon stood guard. We were told to get off the bus and leave our belongings onboard. We all went to a mirrored counter that had a pass-through installed in it. We put our passports in the chute so that they could be viewed. My passport came back as soon as I put it down and I stepped back to wait for the other passengers to have their documentation looked at by whoever was behind the opaque glass.
We got back on the bus and proceeded along a series of short stretches of road until we arrived at the arrivals building. After getting off the bus we took our luggage and put it on one of the trolleys that are provided to help tourists, and proceeded into the building.
The first counter I got to was staffed by a young blonde woman who took her time looking at my passport photo, and at my face, to make sure the document was really mine. Then the suitcases and hand luggage went onto a conveyor belt leading to a scanner, and bus passengers had to walk through a metal detector. When I walked through the alarm sounded so the man in front of me who was seated at the counter told me to take off my glasses, which I did. I put them down on a table next to the gate. After going through the gate a second time I was clear. I picked up my glasses and put them back on and walked forward.
You have to pick up your bags after this and go to the immigration counter. The man there asked me a number of questions, including what my profession was, where I would be staying in Israel, and how long I would be staying in the country. I went past him, faced up to another counter, where my passport was checked again, and then went to the currency exchange counter to change some US dollars and Jordanian dinars into shekels. US$110 converted to 364 shekels and 41JD converted to 170 shekels.
Once outside we asked for directions and went around the side of the building to where there is a counter for new arrivals to use to order a taxi. I told the clerk sitting there where we wanted to go and he said that it would cost 350ILS (new Israeli shekels). I gave him some bills and he filled out a form which was passed to another man. A driver was waiting there and he took the form and went off to get his car, which turned out to be a white Mercedes B200d that was quite new. By 10.40am we had loaded all the luggage into the car and had set off south on our 45km drive to Jerusalem.
At 10.53am we turned right to head west onto Route 1 to Jerusalem and at 11.10am we went through a checkpoint in a built-up area where there was a guard carrying an automatic weapon. The car radio was playing quietly as we drove but the first thing you notice in the country is that Israeli drivers stick to their lanes, a far cry from how drivers go about their business in Jordan. The roads are also better-maintained and -signposted. Don McLean’s ‘Starry, starry night’ was faintly audible on the car stereo as we entered the city. The traffic at this point was light because it was the Sabbath. We passed the Jaffa Gate in west Jerusalem at 11.16am and saw a group of orthodox Jews standing in front of a synagogue. Some young men crossing the road had the taglit, a kind of cape, hanging from their shoulders and down their backs.
We arrived at the hotel after about 45 minutes’ driving. I never got the driver’s name and I suspect he speaks little English. He hadn’t said anything in reply when he had been asked to slow down, but this was perhaps because of the phraseology used; on the highway he was often going over 120km per hour. As we got into town he slowed down and spoke a few sentences. Overall he was businesslike and at least indicated when changing lanes at speed, which was a relief and was in stark contrast to how drivers behave in Jordan.
At 11.25am we left our luggage at the reception desk because it was too early to check in, and went to the restaurant in the hotel to have something to drink. I had a Taybeh beer and with a diet Coke the tab came to 41ILS (about A$17). The beer had a sweet, smoky taste. We sat in the lobby for a while after this and then went to eat some lunch in the same establishment we had just used. I had mediocre maklouba with chicken (a dish that mainly features a type of savoury rice) and my travelling companion had spaghetti all’olio. My meal was nowhere near as good as what you can get in Jordan for less money. With two more beers and a cafe mocha the tab came to 199ILS (about A$80) which is a more than what a comparable restaurant would charge for similar food in Sydney.
We later took some dirty laundry down to the front desk but the woman there said that the service available the following day would be cheaper because it would be charged per bag rather than per piece. So we kept our laundry bags with us for the moment and had a look at the gym and swimming pool under the hotel before returning to our rooms in the tiny elevator (there is only one) with its miniscule rate of progress. The hotel was built in the early 20th century out of local limestone and has a spectacular vaulted ceiling in the lobby. When we arrived with our luggage I could only fit myself and my suitcase and rucksack in the lift. I dropped them off at our floor and went back down to collect my friend. If only they would fix the floor access the place would be perfect.
Our rooms faced roughly east, and toward the old city centre. Outside the windows I could see cypress trees and white limestone buildings, both of which reminded me of Amman. This fact is unsurprising when you consider that you can see Jerusalem from the hills surrounding Amman. The two cities also lie just either side of the same river.
I plugged in my computer and phone, using the same plug adapter that worked in Jordan, and sat in my room alone watching the election results come in from Australia on the SMH website, as well as the reactions of people on Twitter and Facebook.
At about 5.15pm I went out to find some cash and asked for directions at the front desk. The woman there told me to go across the street to a petrol station where they have an ATM. I walked across the thoroughfare, which is not busy, and past an art gallery displaying some shiny, modern-looking works possibly inspired by Jeff Koons, and entered the shop that services the petrol pumps. I asked the sales clerk if I could use my credit card with the machine outside his shop and he said it would be fine. I also asked if it would be in English and he said, “Yes.” It wasn’t though, but the machine did function as planned and gave me what I had asked for, which was just in case we came across a restaurant that refuses credit cards. I had asked the guy at the YMCA restaurant if he accepted US dollars but he said he didn’t, so I guessed that most stores in the city would have similar policies regarding legal tender.
Back at the hotel I noticed a security guard sitting on a stool near the front door, just next to the lift. He hadn’t been there when we had checked in. He wore a black sports shirt and held a bottle of water cradled in his left arm. Later, at about 6.20pm, I heard a carillon sound nearby from my room where I was sitting at my desk. Outside the old-fashioned iron windows with their rectangular panes, each about a foot high and 10 inches wide, a decorative sandstone cloister had been constructed when the place was built, so you look out through arches and past columns to the cream-coloured buildings on the opposite side of the road.
Later we went out looking for restaurants in order to have dinner. We asked directions a couple of times to get to Hillel Street but not much was open and after wandering around for 15 minutes we went back to a place we had at first entered and had left. It was called Focaccia Bar and it was noisy with customers. We stood around for about 10 minutes before getting a table and then we ordered some seafood marinara, a salad with baby tomatoes, bocconcini and anchovies, and a plate of chicken with a mushroom sauce. The seafood came with bread. Even at 9pm people were still ordering food. What we ordered was too much for the two of us and with the two Leffe Blonde beers and a red grapefruit juice the tab came to 277ILS. Then we headed back to the hotel. On our way through a park we passed a group of about 30 14-year-olds who were walking on the pavement with some adults. Some of them were talking in English.
At 8.35am we turned north toward what was labelled on the road signs as the “Baptism Site” but I didn’t ask Waleed about this. The King Hussein Bridge is in the same direction and we drove through irrigated countryside where, Waleed told us, they grow bananas, oranges and lemons. “Lots of farms here,” Waleed said. He has a green card to work in the US and visits there regularly.
We arrived at the terminus where a solider carrying an automatic weapon stood guard. As soon as we got out of the car an old man with a very weathered, very tanned face came up to us with a strange-looking metal trolley and we put our bags on it. We then went through the open portal and left around the back of the building that stood next to it. We came to a door where there is an access point for luggage, and here put all our bags on a conveyor belt. On the other side no-one was watching the video display and I wondered if a scanner had even been installed.
We went into a room where many people were seated. We were directed to a counter where I gave my passport to an official. He told me to go to another counter, which was manned by a soldier in purple fatigues and tan boots. I gave him the requisite 10JD and then took the token he gave me to a third counter. They kept our passports and we sat down to wait.
After what seemed like a long time they told us to go to the bus that would take us across the border. The internal luggage storage area in the bus was full however and we couldn’t take our suitcases onto the bus where the passengers sit so they told the two of us to wait for another bus, which turned up promptly. I put our suitcases into the luggage bay in this new, smaller bus and we got on at 9.25am to wait some more. A man got on a bit later and asked for a fee for the luggage, which came to 17JD for both of us, which I paid using some of the remaining dinars I had in my wallet. After a while, at around 10.05am, a uniformed official came on-board. He gave us back our passports with the requisite document included, and we sat back again to wait.
We set off not long after this. In the bus with us was a large American from San Diego who had a perfectly bald skull. He was with his Philippino wife. There was also a black woman aged in her twenties who I guessed to be American.
The minivan went along a road after the terminus that took us through a barren landscape until we came to a boom gate and stopped. We waited awhile and when the gate swung up we set off again, crossing the Jordan River on a bridge before we arrived at the West Bank. We stopped at a building with a boom gate where a man in civilian clothes carrying an automatic weapon stood guard. We were told to get off the bus and leave our belongings onboard. We all went to a mirrored counter that had a pass-through installed in it. We put our passports in the chute so that they could be viewed. My passport came back as soon as I put it down and I stepped back to wait for the other passengers to have their documentation looked at by whoever was behind the opaque glass.
We got back on the bus and proceeded along a series of short stretches of road until we arrived at the arrivals building. After getting off the bus we took our luggage and put it on one of the trolleys that are provided to help tourists, and proceeded into the building.
The first counter I got to was staffed by a young blonde woman who took her time looking at my passport photo, and at my face, to make sure the document was really mine. Then the suitcases and hand luggage went onto a conveyor belt leading to a scanner, and bus passengers had to walk through a metal detector. When I walked through the alarm sounded so the man in front of me who was seated at the counter told me to take off my glasses, which I did. I put them down on a table next to the gate. After going through the gate a second time I was clear. I picked up my glasses and put them back on and walked forward.
You have to pick up your bags after this and go to the immigration counter. The man there asked me a number of questions, including what my profession was, where I would be staying in Israel, and how long I would be staying in the country. I went past him, faced up to another counter, where my passport was checked again, and then went to the currency exchange counter to change some US dollars and Jordanian dinars into shekels. US$110 converted to 364 shekels and 41JD converted to 170 shekels.
Once outside we asked for directions and went around the side of the building to where there is a counter for new arrivals to use to order a taxi. I told the clerk sitting there where we wanted to go and he said that it would cost 350ILS (new Israeli shekels). I gave him some bills and he filled out a form which was passed to another man. A driver was waiting there and he took the form and went off to get his car, which turned out to be a white Mercedes B200d that was quite new. By 10.40am we had loaded all the luggage into the car and had set off south on our 45km drive to Jerusalem.
At 10.53am we turned right to head west onto Route 1 to Jerusalem and at 11.10am we went through a checkpoint in a built-up area where there was a guard carrying an automatic weapon. The car radio was playing quietly as we drove but the first thing you notice in the country is that Israeli drivers stick to their lanes, a far cry from how drivers go about their business in Jordan. The roads are also better-maintained and -signposted. Don McLean’s ‘Starry, starry night’ was faintly audible on the car stereo as we entered the city. The traffic at this point was light because it was the Sabbath. We passed the Jaffa Gate in west Jerusalem at 11.16am and saw a group of orthodox Jews standing in front of a synagogue. Some young men crossing the road had the taglit, a kind of cape, hanging from their shoulders and down their backs.
We arrived at the hotel after about 45 minutes’ driving. I never got the driver’s name and I suspect he speaks little English. He hadn’t said anything in reply when he had been asked to slow down, but this was perhaps because of the phraseology used; on the highway he was often going over 120km per hour. As we got into town he slowed down and spoke a few sentences. Overall he was businesslike and at least indicated when changing lanes at speed, which was a relief and was in stark contrast to how drivers behave in Jordan.
At 11.25am we left our luggage at the reception desk because it was too early to check in, and went to the restaurant in the hotel to have something to drink. I had a Taybeh beer and with a diet Coke the tab came to 41ILS (about A$17). The beer had a sweet, smoky taste. We sat in the lobby for a while after this and then went to eat some lunch in the same establishment we had just used. I had mediocre maklouba with chicken (a dish that mainly features a type of savoury rice) and my travelling companion had spaghetti all’olio. My meal was nowhere near as good as what you can get in Jordan for less money. With two more beers and a cafe mocha the tab came to 199ILS (about A$80) which is a more than what a comparable restaurant would charge for similar food in Sydney.
We later took some dirty laundry down to the front desk but the woman there said that the service available the following day would be cheaper because it would be charged per bag rather than per piece. So we kept our laundry bags with us for the moment and had a look at the gym and swimming pool under the hotel before returning to our rooms in the tiny elevator (there is only one) with its miniscule rate of progress. The hotel was built in the early 20th century out of local limestone and has a spectacular vaulted ceiling in the lobby. When we arrived with our luggage I could only fit myself and my suitcase and rucksack in the lift. I dropped them off at our floor and went back down to collect my friend. If only they would fix the floor access the place would be perfect.
Our rooms faced roughly east, and toward the old city centre. Outside the windows I could see cypress trees and white limestone buildings, both of which reminded me of Amman. This fact is unsurprising when you consider that you can see Jerusalem from the hills surrounding Amman. The two cities also lie just either side of the same river.
I plugged in my computer and phone, using the same plug adapter that worked in Jordan, and sat in my room alone watching the election results come in from Australia on the SMH website, as well as the reactions of people on Twitter and Facebook.
At about 5.15pm I went out to find some cash and asked for directions at the front desk. The woman there told me to go across the street to a petrol station where they have an ATM. I walked across the thoroughfare, which is not busy, and past an art gallery displaying some shiny, modern-looking works possibly inspired by Jeff Koons, and entered the shop that services the petrol pumps. I asked the sales clerk if I could use my credit card with the machine outside his shop and he said it would be fine. I also asked if it would be in English and he said, “Yes.” It wasn’t though, but the machine did function as planned and gave me what I had asked for, which was just in case we came across a restaurant that refuses credit cards. I had asked the guy at the YMCA restaurant if he accepted US dollars but he said he didn’t, so I guessed that most stores in the city would have similar policies regarding legal tender.
Back at the hotel I noticed a security guard sitting on a stool near the front door, just next to the lift. He hadn’t been there when we had checked in. He wore a black sports shirt and held a bottle of water cradled in his left arm. Later, at about 6.20pm, I heard a carillon sound nearby from my room where I was sitting at my desk. Outside the old-fashioned iron windows with their rectangular panes, each about a foot high and 10 inches wide, a decorative sandstone cloister had been constructed when the place was built, so you look out through arches and past columns to the cream-coloured buildings on the opposite side of the road.
Later we went out looking for restaurants in order to have dinner. We asked directions a couple of times to get to Hillel Street but not much was open and after wandering around for 15 minutes we went back to a place we had at first entered and had left. It was called Focaccia Bar and it was noisy with customers. We stood around for about 10 minutes before getting a table and then we ordered some seafood marinara, a salad with baby tomatoes, bocconcini and anchovies, and a plate of chicken with a mushroom sauce. The seafood came with bread. Even at 9pm people were still ordering food. What we ordered was too much for the two of us and with the two Leffe Blonde beers and a red grapefruit juice the tab came to 277ILS. Then we headed back to the hotel. On our way through a park we passed a group of about 30 14-year-olds who were walking on the pavement with some adults. Some of them were talking in English.
Above: Some graffiti in Amman.
Above: Jerusalem seen from across the river in Al Adessia.
Above: The marker showing sea level. To get to the border you have to go down below this level.
Above: Jordan seen from the West Bank.
Above: The YMCA Three Arches Hotel.
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