Day-1 The way to Madaba
Emirates Airlines landed in Queen alia Airport on Sunday 22-Feb-09 10:15 am. I have arranged the pick up service from Mariam Hotel which cost 14 JD (20 USD) per trip.
As Indonesian I have to arrange visa on arrival and paid 10 JD stamped in my passport. The process is quite easy and not complicated, only one part where the officer noticed that I don't have family name in my passport (classics problem of mine).
Queen Alia Airport is located in triangle between Amman and Madaba. Since we will beased the trip from Madaba and has booked the hotel there, therefore we skip Amman in this trip. The airport is small and divided into 2 main terminal. Terminal-1 specially for Royal Jodanian and other terminal for foreign aircraft. The airport looks messy from outside, guess because it's under on-going construction.
The trip to Madaba took around 20-min with a car. I was extremely happy, realizing that finally I have arrived in Jordan and start taking picture from outside the car window.The weather was a bit cloudy and drizzled. My first impression of Jordan is red! The soil is all red! Lots of pine-like trees beside the streets, some of them leans towards same direction, I guess it's because of the strong and continous wind blowing from the same side at all time.
The streets are quite hilly and lots of open flat lands along the way. Most of the lands are planted with olive trees. Houses are similar, squared like and decorated from outside with natural stones.
I can still remember the fresh air I breathed, it was so wonderful!
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Madaba - Untidy but Nice, little town
I decided to base the first few days of our Jordan trip from Madaba. The half first day we spent by wandering around the town, these are a few tourist attractions to see.
Madaba is a capital of Madaba Governate, one of 12 Governates in Jordan. It is located 40km southwest Amman (the capital of Jodan). It is closer fromthe International Airport - Queen Alia to go to Madaba instead to Amman. The trip will take around 20-min. Madaba is an old town dated back to 1300 BC. The name was mentioned in the bible as Medeba in Exodus. This town was changed hand frequently after that. It is wellknown as the Mosaic City. On 1896 the first MOsaic was found by a priest and several christian families who were settled in Madaba, the since then the excavation of other mosaics was started.
At the moment, Madaba is a small town, consist of ~60 000 people and busy as a link from Dead Sea/Jordan valley area or fromnorth of Jordan to south of Jordan. This town is a good base for teh travelling since it has several important tourist attarcationas Mount Nebo, Dead Sea, Jordan River, Mukawir.
We headed out from the hotel towards town center, the road is quite small and busy with cars passing by. Road and pavement condition is decent, some broken pavement and muddy road side. Several constructions works going on, especially a bit outside of town center caused the air to be a bit dusty, good that we came there during winter. Town center is marked with Mosaic Church and 2 streets full of souvenirs shops and road-side sellers.
For a tourist town, Madaba is very quiet, especially after sunset, the shops mostly closed and the only one opens are restaurants around the town center. But it feels safe to walk around the town,even after dark.
As this town has quite significant population if Christians, there are plenty of liquor shop (normally signed with big Amstel sign above the door). Although the alcohol price is not cheap, but Jordanian wine and local beer are worth to try!.
The food is typical arabic food with a selectionof mezze (starters) such as hummous, tabbouled, fattoush and halloumi (arabic cottage cheese), eaten with arabic flat bread or some roadside shawarma and falafel.
I enjoyed very much the first afternoon and evening in the town, walking here and there aimlessly. We saw the activity of the people, in one corner of the street they put fresh green vegetables on the pavement and lots of fresh tomatoes, eggplants, cabbages in a small market. Small bakery located adjacent to cloth or shoes shop. narrow and hilly road was busy with cars, either parked or passing by. The public ATM in several banks are full of people. In southern part of the town it is quite quiet as more resident houses here, but walking even more to teh south we reach something like the border of the town, with bigger road and shops selling building materials and live chickens!
I should have selected a few pictures only, but I couldn't choose which one I should delete, as I would want to preserve every view I remember about the town
Jordan's hospitality
One thing I am impressed about Jordan is the people, they are friendly and sincere. When we walked around the town, kids are trying to chat with us, even if it's just say "hi" and after that they don't find anything else to say in english.. or the people in the hotel or shop who will ask us from which country we're from, and none of them got it right when guessing !
The first day when we wandered around Madaba town, it was quite freezing and the sky was cloudy. After a few hours, we started to get hungry, but didn't really want to waste some time to eat. Therefore when we passed a small bakery, smelling fresh bread from outside, I decide to go inside to buy some fresh bread. I told the guy we want to buy the bread, he asked how many? I said 2..and he just stared at me with confused look. I guess because normally people buy bread in a large quantity like 10 or 20..so he couldn't really believe what I was saying. Then he just gave me 2 bread and say, khalas (means finish) when I put the money on the table and refuse to take it.
Now I am the one who was speechless.
We say thank and took his pictures and went out. Continue walking and eating the fresh warm bread and still fascinated of what had happened!
Writing this journal is the only thing I can do to appreciate his improptu generosity.
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It was a freezing night, good that they have good heaters here and there, even tucked in one room, there is a fireplace with real fire.
This restaurant is decorated traditionally with Bedouin and arabic ornaments such as woven materials, old cutlery and mozaics. It also has a souvenir shop inside.
We ordered:
- hummous (chickpea paste) - the best hummous I've ever tasted!
- grilled halloumi (halloumi is a arabic cottage cheese)
- mixed barbeque, consist of grilled kofta (minced lamb with some spices), chcken skewer and lamb.
- very yummy bread (complimentary)
- Jordanian red wine - Mount Nebo
The dinner costs us 29 JD (~35 USD) not cheap, but worth trying!
The service is great and I still remember the fluffy warm taste of the bread!
The map was discovered accidentally when the church was built in 1894.
The interior of the church was very colorful with pictures and mosaic-like picture all over the walls. Inside, it's quite simple: square room with the altar at the end ofthe room.
Roght side of the altar there is a small stair downwards and it's a small cellar, several old drawers are located there with original pictures and accesories.
This church is still operational and used for normal mass.
The entrance fee is 1 JD (1.5 USD) per person.
We went inside and looks like they have a lunch buffet for a group of poeple who look like a group of tourists.
I scanned the buffet quickly before we made up our mind that it doesn't look very interesting since we just need a quick bite.
So, we sat beside the bar and order wine and beer.
The wine is Jordanian white wine and Amstel beer (which I read in an article that Amstel beer is brewed in Jordan, which we didn't find that).
I wouldn't make another trip here quickly in the near future.
One highlight I found in this restaurant - a small bottle of ketchup looks very familiar. It is an authentic indonesian foodstuff. Sweet ketchup made of soy beans, is not commonly used in other countries, even the neighbouring South East Asian countries. Thus I was a bit surprised that we can find it here in Madaba, Jordan!
This church is located on top of the hill. It's said to be visible from afar and one of Madaba's landmark. Which we didn't really feel that way as it was quite difficult to find out the church and just find it by chance (or probably we're just too disoriented)...
The other museum, is called Archeological Museum and has some old mosaic authentic from Madaba, laying outside and inside. There is a original old traditional Madaba houses with some cellar-like inside with some old mosaic and broken tiles.
The highlight of this place is the back yard. They have an elevated patio with some plants and flat wall, from where we can get an extensive view to the town. It was a great view and I was just wondering probably it will be even more beautiful at night when the city lights are on.
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The room has similar interior as the hotel rooms, with warm terracota paint and some ornaments hanging on the wall.In the middle there is a square bars with a waiter/barman. The choice of breakfast buffet is not so much it'[s a cold breakfast consist of pancake or arabic flat bread, 3 different kind of jams, hummous, olives, slices of tomatoes and cucumbers or cheese and boil eggs also fruit compote.
The room is quite spacious but I don't like the big bulky dark heavy table and hard chair with heavy decorative motive.
We tried one time to sit down there and had a bottle of wine, but didn't really enjoy the seat and I was frozen. so the next night we moved to teh lobby with comfy couch instead.
The room are quite spacious with private bathroom - cleanliness is ok. Not so luxurious.
One thing I like from the room is that there are plenty of power plug. Very useful, so you can just charge mobile phone, camera-1, camera-2, laptop, at one go and leave them.
They have a dining room located nearby the pool (I guess in the summer time, it will be nice sitting beside the pool, but when we came with average temp of 15degC during the day, I guess everybody's happy with indoor restaurant).
The service is fast and friendly.
One good point from Mariam Hotel is the taxi which serves in excursions package. Even they have a drop off service to Petra. Every morning, after breakfast time, Issa, the coordinator of the taxi will appear in the living room,and whoever wants to go anywhere in the list, just need to tell them and he makes some call and deal's sealed!
Low season rate for this hotel (dounle room) is 50USD or 35 JD, which quite average for hotel rates in Jordan
