Jordan #1

More of my recent holiday snaps ... this time from Jordan.





This taken in the Crusader castle of Kerak, base of the truly vile Reynald de Chatillon. I just think it's a nice picture.



This is a valley that goes down to the Dead Sea.



It's a markedly different country to Syria. For a start, until the 1940s barely anyone lived there: the current population is an astounding 80% immigrants from conflict areas in the Middle East - Palestine, Kuwait, Iraq. Secondly, having no oil (and very little water) but a stable and cordial relationship with the West, this Muslim country is desperately hawking itself to American/Christian tourists as part of the Holy Land tourist trail (which, not being a Christian, made my skin crawl a bit). These two factors mean that it is comparatively expensive (it's the only place I've ever been where you can't buy a single postcard, only batches, and you never receive small change) and somewhat lacking in a sense of place: it does have the air of being a load of tourist traps slung together in a patch of desert.



On the mitigating side, the tourist traps are right at the top of any "see before you die" list.



I'm leaving Petra until my last post ... but these two photos were taken during our Jeep Safari into the Wadi Rum, an astonishingly beautiful place.

A couple of artifacts from Amman museum. For me the museums were some of the highlights of this holiday, but Amman was the only one in which were were allowed to take photos, sadly. This is one of the Jericho Skulls (Neolithic) - I got very excited about that.

I also get excited about obscure goddess statues. This is Al-Uzza ("the Mightiest One"), worshipped by the Nabateans among others. Oddly enough, I've seen this same distinctive non-anthropomorphic representation of a deity used in a modern shrine to Kali, in India. In fact here it is:

No idea if there's any connection!

Next: Petra. However amazing you think it is, it's better ...