Picture taken from the roof of my hotel big church next to a big mosque
Heading
from Jerash to Amman
leads you through the Jordanian dessert which got some green patches here and
there producing loads of vegetables in some places. All in all the driving is
pretty in my opinion - but then again - I like the dessert.
I am not
staying long in Amman
only for the night - but my hotel is in the middle of town so I thought hey
this is gone be some easy sightseeing. Well I started by going to the roof of
my hotel - there in the centre of Jordan a giant mosque right next to a big
church. Once again an example of how the different religions actually have
managed to live together in the Middle East.
I walk out
of the hotel and realize I am in the government district of town.
The main mosque - the machinegun armed gourds were not too happy with my camera.
All the
building on one side of the road is some sort of official buildings. Back home
you would not mark this kind of building with anything except maybe a plaque -
not so around here. In front of all the building there are gourds armed with fully
automatic weapons and on the top of one building is a couple of machineguns
nests. Welcome to central Amman.
Naive as I
am I try to take a picture of the mosque from the street - my camera is clearly
pointing away from the official buildings - but the guards are not happy with
the sight of my camera and tells me in Arabic put the damn camera away - or at least
I think that is want he says. Well I convince him it will not be a matter of
national security if I take one picture of the mosque and he says ok - one
quick picture and camera away.
I try to
continue my walking tour around town but it seems I get to dead ends with guards
on all four corners not wanting me to go where they are - hence I give up go
back to my hotel and head out for dinner - on streets open to the public.
After
dinner it is time to make use of the roof of the hotel - it will make a perfect
bar. Unfortunately there is no service in the bar but you can bring your own
Syrian duty free stuff - so I do. At midnight there is fireworks in Amman - Petra
had been nominated as a modern wonder of the world and made the list - cool I
will go there in two days.
