Trip Report: Jordan – Country #130

Trip report: Jordan

Visited in March 2022

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Trips don’t always start the way you want them to. The journey from Switzerland to Jordan is such an example. The journey took about twelve hours and I arrived at my hotel at 5 o’clock in the morning. It was an exhausting trip and now I could finally go to bed. Well, almost. Because the door of my hotel was locked and no one responded to when I rang the bell. Fuck. I was dead tired, it was freezing cold and all I wanted to do was go to bed. A situation like this was about the last thing I needed at that moment.

Also a second, third and tenth time ringing remained unanswered. The door was only opened when I rang the bell without interruption for about two minutes and was on the verge of looking for a new hotel. A man, about mid 40s, came to meet me. At that moment, I would have expected an apology for having to wait so long. Instead, the guy scolded me and asked why the hell I hadn’t let him know I was showing up so late at night.

When I replied that Booking.com indicates that the hotel has a 24-hour reception and that there was no limited check-in time, the guy just barked at me, asking if I expected him to wait all night with his arms folded until I finally arrived. Besides, all the hotel guests must be awake now because of me. To prevent the situation from escalating, I then admitted that it was my mistake and that I was sorry. In my mind, however, I already imagined the 1/10 rating that would follow immediately after check-out.

This thought then solidified when I saw my room. It was a tiny room, in which not really much else fit except a bed. To make things worse, the bed was covered with greasy stains. It was disgusting. Even a homeless man in Siberia would not have been impressed. However, at that moment I didn’t really care anymore. I just wanted to sleep, which happened shortly after…

…at least for about thirty minutes. Then the morning prayer of the muezzin from a mosque in the immediate vicinity woke me up. Well, I had not really been asleep at this point. I was dozing at most. Those hotel guests who were awakened by my ringing, then fell asleep again and shortly thereafter awakened again by the muezzin will certainly have had less joy.

The night remained nevertheless short, because at 9.30 my inner clock found that it would be time to wake up. That was not too bad, because now I had practically the whole day at my disposal. I met shortly after Monir, a traveler from the United Kingdom, who also wants to see every country in the world. Jordan was his country 87, and the next days we were to travel through Jordan together.

The first day, however, was reserved for the capital city Amman. Since the day started quite early, there was more than enough time to see the city’s highlights. Here are some remarks about Amman.

• First of all, Amman is not a pretty city. The city has almost no green spaces and looks colorless, as pretty much all the buildings are in light brown or beige tones. On top of that, the city looks pretty run down.
• Not only Amman, but all of Jordan is quite conservative, which may be surprising due to the many tourists in the country. Alcohol is allowed, but it seems to be handled rather discreetly. We were informed in two restaurants with a whisper that alcohol is also sold. It seems that the one or the other restaurant owner is not quite comfortable with this. Anyway, whoever expects Amman to be similar to Beirut or Dubai is very much mistaken.
• Amman is a walkable city. The few attractions are in downtown, where our hotel was. This is definitely the best area for accommodation, also because there are many restaurants and cafes here.
• If you still need a cab or an Uber, the ride costs practically nothing. For 10 minutes you pay about 1.5 JOD, which is about 2 dollars. More expensive are the rides from or to the airport. They cost 20-30 JOD.
• You should definitely buy the Jordan Pass before you visit Jordan. The Jordan Pass costs 70 JOD (just under 100 dollars), but includes the visa-on-arrival (single price = 40 JOD), the entrance ticket for Petra (50 JOD), Jerash (10 JOD), Wadi Rum (5 JOD) and other attractions. Only a madman or clueless thus waives this offer. You can buy this pass online in advance. However, the condition is that you stay at least three nights in Jordan. In Amman, you can also use the Jordan Pass two enter the two main sights.

Other than that, Amman is still okay for the first day. The two sights, the Amman Citadel and the Roman Theater are both cool and exceeded my expectations.

Unfortunately, the weather was just awful on this first day in Jordan. At night it was 4°C and during the day it was also chilly and rained every now and then. The Jordanians told us over the next few days that March 2022 was the coldest March ever. Normally, the spring travel season is from mid-March to mid-May each year. This year, March didn’t really seem to be the season yet.

Climate change? Maybe, but I guess not the real reason. The real reason for this shitty weather was that this happens when you travel with a Brit! He brought all the clouds and the rain from London to Amman, although he insisted that it was sunny in London before he left and with 12°C already hot as fuck. He also insisted several times that the British weather is better than its reputation. Bollocks, if you ask me.

The next three days we had a driver for the route Amman – Jerash – Petra (Wadi Musa) – Wadi Rum – Amman. We agreed on a price of 230 JOD (325 USD). In addition, the drive to the airport on the fourth day was also included. I asked for other offers online and this one was by far the cheapest I got. Of course, it would have been even cheaper to rent a car ourselves or to travel by bus.

A rental car with all the related expenses would have been about $50 less per person. However, this surcharge seemed perfectly okay for the fact that we didn’t have to take care of anything and could rest in the car. Traveling by bus would have been the cheapest option. But we would have been much less flexible and would have hardly managed to do this tour in four days. So if you are looking for a good driver, you can contact Anwar (Whatsapp: +962796436588).

Here are a few words and details about the sights we saw in the next days:

The Roman ruins of Jerash

The city of Jerash is located about 45 minutes north of Amman and has one of the main attractions of Jordan, the Roman ruins of Jerash. These remnants of the Roman Empire cover quite a large area, so it’s more of a half-day trip than seeing the attraction (as we first suspected) in half an hour.

In Jerash, I also realized once again how big the Roman Empire must have been. I mean, look at where in the world you find remnants of that empire. All over Europe, in Turkey, in almost all of North Africa as well as in the Middle East. Incredible, isn’t it?

Jerash is definitely worth a trip. The ruins are breathtaking and above all also quite varied. Besides a Roman theater there are arches, columns, plazas, and much more. The ruins are by the way also quite well-preserved.

Although Jerash also attracts many visitors, it is much less crowded than say Petra. This is certainly also due to the fact that many travelers in Jordan only visit Petra and Wadi Rum and skip Jerash. A mistake, if you ask me.

Petra, one of the 7 Wonders of the World

Obviously, Petra is Jordan’s main attraction. It is one of the so-called 7 Wonders of the World. Even if the way these 7 Wonders of the World were determined or “chosen” are rather a bad joke (but that’s another story), they are still the Holy Grail of travel for many travelers. Many, for whom visiting every country in the world is too big of a challenge, want to have seen at least the 7 Wonders of the World. Therefore, it is not uncommon that you often see a count on Instagram bios of how many of these wonders the user has already visited.

Needless to say, Petra is a world-class sight just like almost all of the 7 Wonders. Petra also covers a gigantic area and a whole day is not enough to see every corner of it. Some tourists stay there for three days, while for us it was one morning. However, that suited well for us and we didn’t need to see every inch of the complex. The most important thing is the Treasury anyway, which you will see first when you walk through the gorge from the entrance for about 30 minutes.

In addition, you have the possibility to get the money shot of Petra by climbing up the opposite rock. Apparently, you cannot go there by your own but need a Bedouin to accompany you. Of course the Bedouins want a pay for this and demanded 7 JOD from us, which we negotiated down to 5 JOD. However, I would say that no Petra visit was worth it without seeing the Treasury from above.

Furthermore, there are a lot of other caves and hiking trails. We still made it about halfway to the monastery. Since I’ve often heard from other travelers that the whole hike isn’t worth it, we decided not to go all the way.

Petra is for many the ultimate highlight in Jordan and I absolutely understand why. It is an incredible sight that everyone should have seen once in their life.

Wadi Rum, the desert from outer space

While Petra is Jordan’s main attraction, another place was what I was most looking forward to in Jordan: the Wadi Rum Desert. Many times I have seen pictures of this surreal desert which really made me want to go there. After all, Wadi Rum is not just a normal sand desert (to put it disrespectfully), where dune after dune line up, but looks like from another planet. It is therefore no coincidence that Wadi Rum has been used as a film location for movies such as ‘The Martian’, ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Red Planet’.

You can choose between many accommodations in the desert. Some are quite basic, others are luxury camps. Since it can be quite cold at night in the desert, it was just important for us not to have a simple tent, but a real room. This worked out well because it was relatively warm inside. We were also not really far in the protected area but only a few minutes away from the village Disah. Although some advise against it, I found our location more than perfect to explore the desert.

To explore the desert, you usually have a choice of tours that last two, three or four hours. Our camp owner advised us against a three-hour tour, as this tour has only one more stop than the two-hour tour. We ended up choosing the four-hour one and were more than happy with it. If you choose the two-hour one, for example, this one famous arch is not there. In my opinion one of the main attractions.

In the end, we had a fantastic time in Wadi Rum and loved every minute we spent there. The desert is simply breath-taking and for me at least as good as Petra. All the stone formations of the desert are just incredible and I can really only advise everyone not to skip this place.

Is Jordan worth a trip?

Jordan was my eleventh country in the Middle East and without a doubt one of the best in that region. While I’m struggling right now to determine my #1 in the Middle East, I would easily rank Jordan in the top 3. As a result, the answer to the question of whether Jordan is worth a trip is a clear yes.

What’s so good about Jordan? First of all, of course, the sights. Not only Petra and Wadi Rum were amazing. Everything we saw was worthwhile, even the attractions of Amman. However, visiting the sights in the order we did was also perfect. Had we seen the Roman Theatre and the Amman Citadel after Petra, they probably would have both been pretty underwhelming.

But Jordan offers more than just sightseeing. For example, I think the locals are worth mentioning. I am not one to call people in every country “the nicest people in the world” as many other travelers do on their YouTube channels. However, I can definitely say that the Jordanians were incredibly warm and hospitable. Especially compared to Saudi Arabia, which I visited three months before Jordan, there are gigantic differences when you consider the friendliness of the locals.

What is the food like in Jordan? For me it was typical Middle East food. Actually, practically the same as Lebanese. A Jordanian would probably strongly protest against this statement, but I found the food more or less the same as in Lebanon. That is, dishes like hummus, falafel, or baba ganoush are everywhere. Amman, by the way, has a great selection of international restaurants. In the other places there was rather less of that.

Price-wise, I found Jordan not dirt-cheap, but not particularly expensive either. For a main course in a decent restaurant you usually pay 10 JOD (14 USD). Good hotels can be found for around $30-50 per night. My first hotel is definitely not in that category. Apart from that, I already mentioned the prices of the cabs, the private driver and the Jordan Pass, which includes the visa on arrival and the entrance fees for the sights.

Otherwise, it can be said that Jordan is certainly not an off-the-beaten-path destination, or in other words, the country is touristy. This means that it is definitely worth going to the attractions as early as possible to avoid the big crowds. We entered Petra shortly after it opened at 7:30am and it was totally worth it. Late in the morning there were already many more people outside the Treasury than when we arrived. I am not sure if a picture without any people on it would have been possible then.

What is also good about Jordan is that you can see the highlights of the country in a relatively short time. Four days were enough for us to see Amman, Jerash, Petra and Wadi Rum. This is because Jordan is not a huge country and you can get from one place to another quickly by car. There are other sights in Jordan that I did not see. For example, I skipped the Dead Sea, as it did not really interest me. Nevertheless, I felt that the time spent at each place was enough. But who likes it more comfortable, certainly does nothing wrong, if she or he stays 2-3 more days in the country.

Jordan will remain in my memory as a cool trip. It was a trip where nights were often short, accommodation sometimes quite uncomfortable, but I saw and experienced a lot. This is also a consolation for the bad weather. Now Qatar, Syria and Yemen are the last three countries in the Middle East. One of them I will most likely visit in the next few months and I can’t wait to be back in this region.

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