Hi Jan – great to have you back – appreciate the comments – thanks!

A leisurely start this morning took us east of Amman. Ibrahim took us firstly to Qasr Al-Kharrana  

N&K at Qasr Al-Kharannah

– which is not really a true castle but an interesting structure built in the middle of nowhere. The castle is impressive to look at and quite imposing. Approaching from the car park, which isn’t visible from the road, you walk up to the castle – viewing the main entrance as you walk towards it. We met with a guide who took us around the 61 rooms of the castle. He showed us the things that you would have otherwise missed (which proves you should take up the opportunity of a guide when you can). In particular, he let us past an area that had a sign blocking off access to the roof. When we came down, there was another tourist who was looking curiously – our guide told us off and we responded in kind. He later thanked us for playing the game! We enjoyed this castle – the slanted “air conditioning” windows, the old toilet and the general well kept and preserved nature of the place.

As we drove along the highway (which was a long boring drive) we were reading about the Asraq wetlands that are referred to as a “total ecological disaster” – strong words for an area that has been almost completely decimated in about a 40 year period. We went to the Azraq nature reserve – which was practically destroyed by fire about 3 months ago. Needless to say, they can’t really charge visitors to view charred wetland remains – so we paid a donation. The information in the visitors centre was quite informative – and also depressing (347,000 migratory birds in 1967 and only 1200 in the year 2000). There has been (essentially) a double tragedy in this area – and it moved us to think about what might have been.

The door at Al Azraq

Next stop was the Azraq castle (Qasr Al-Azraq) – where Lawrence of Arabia holed up in 1917-1918.  [They dine out on this all over Jordan!!!] We tried to bypass the busloads of tourists – somewhat successfully, and wandered all over the castle. There are a couple of rooms that would have been as Lawrence of Arabia found them – they were great to see. The main feature of the place (from our perspective) was the impressive stone doors to the place (see the photo on the left). The doors were three tonne hinged basalt doors, installed in Roman times – and still operational.

S&K with a creepy uniformed guy

From there we went to Qasr Amra – which is a World Heritage Site. This is a must see on any visit to Jordan – with amazing frescoes within the small palace (built in 711AD). Although it is completely isolated now, it was probably once part of a great complex of buildings that served as a type of country club for the caliphs of the time. The frescoes are particularly risqué, as Islam prohibits any illustrations of living beings. They depict images of musicians, naked dancers, cherubs, baskets of fruit etc. There is also a well outside

Neil pretending to be a donkey

that goes down about 25 meters and comes replete with a local guy in uniform who seemed slightly over-friendly with the ladies.

After a lunch that was about 3 times bigger than we needed, we moved onto the new city tour. The tour took in embassies and houses of the well to do.

We are chilling tonight – the first opportunity we’ve had to have some decent time to ourselves and to relax in our own way. We’re enjoying it!!!!