At The Marriott, Amman, Jordan

We started the morning with another good breakfast at the hotel (the “Adamar”) and checked with the desk clerk about our car back to the airport; good thing we did as he knew nothing about it.  Since it was early, and we did not need to leave until 11:30 a.m., or so, it was not a problem.  He calculated our discount for having been referred by the Rick Steves book(10%) and for paying in cash (8%).  On our way down past the Hagia Sofia, I got the cash out of an ATM so we had enough to pay him on check-out and get all of the discounts.

Our tour of the morning was the Topkapi Palace, the center of the rule of the Ottoman Empire for about 400 years, until the late 1800’s when the Dolmabache Palace was built over near where we will be staying when we get back, North of the Golden Horn.  The Topkapi is really a complex that was initially just an administrative center but later had the Sultan’s palace built within the grounds.  It is a large walled area that sits atop a hill on the North and West side of the peninsula, with commanding views over the Golden Horn and the Bosporus straight.  The walls also enclose the first Christian church that was used by Constantinople and was the center of the Christian church before it was split between “Eastern” and “Roman.”  It still stands some 1500+ years, even though the soil has built up around it so that the foundations are now in a trench that is 20 foot deep.

The Topkapi Palace is also the home to a large collection of Muslim relics (Mohamed’s broken tooth, pieces of and various keys to the Kabala in Mecca, etc.) and the last bits and pieces of the crown jewels of the Ottoman Empire, including a 78 caret diamond and other such bobbles.  The kitchen and its massive china collection was closed and we were disappointed not to see it.  We got there right at opening and missed most of the tour groups, having the place largely to ourselves until the hoards started coming in as we were leaving.

We got back to the hotel about 11:00 a.m., and checked out.  Our driver showed up at 11:30 and got us to the airport for our 2:35 flight at 12:20.  Our flight was not assigned a check-in counter so we got to enjoy sitting in the Istanbul airport and soaking up the ambiance (how the hell can Libya still have an airline?) (Who knew that Iraq had one; flight to Basra leaving at 1:45 p.m.)  We finally got a check-in counter, got our boarding passes and had lunch at a Burger King (right next to Popeye’s Chicken).

Our flight was delayed for a half an hour for no apparent reason (they only do one flight a day so it did not seem urgent).  Our Royal Jordanian aircraft was an Embraer 75, a small regional jet that was fine.  The served a decent dinner aboard with wine or whisky.  We landed after dark about 6:00 p.m., losing an hour more off of California time.  It is a small airport and would only take Jordanian Dinar at the visa counter, but luckily an ATM machine was close and I got some Jordanian Dinar, not having a clue what the exchange rate was.

We quickly made it through visa, passport and got our bags and then customs, which was a cursory x-ray of the bags.  The “Hertz” counter was a six foot wide affair.  The guy had to fill out the forms by hand and had to use an old impression machine for the credit card.  We talked about a GPS, but he said it was worthless outside of Amman and we did not need it for Petra.  He drew us a handwritten map to get us to the Marriott and made it sound simple.

Driving in Jordan is a lot like Mexico, complete with the speed bumps on the highways.  It was easy until we got to the outskirts of Amman and traffic got tight, drivers aggressive and the roads, which features double level round-abouts, difficult.  With only one wrong turn, we found the turn off at the Four Seasons and the Sheraton, and our little map showed the Marriott right behind the Four Seasons.  Then life got difficult.  Our little, beat-up Mitsubishi sedan got a workout as we followed one road after another, got directions at a tea shop (where the guy said we were going to get lost again), from a lady at a bank ATM machine, and finally from a guy getting out of a Land Rover being valet parked at a nice restaurant.  He drew us another hand drawn map and that finally got us here.  (Good thing English is widely spoken here!!)

The Marriott is beautiful and has high security, with our car having the under-carriage inspected with a mirror for bombs and the trunk searched before we were allowed on the property.  After two hours (45 minutes from the airport and an hour and fifteen minutes wandering around) we were really glad to get to the hotel.  It has a nice, big western style room, fast internet (both wired and wireless) and a nice view that we will appreciate in the morning.

More pictures to come, but I will post this update first.