Another Kind of Arab Spring

Jordan is a desert land windswept with whispers of religious and historical grandeur more than of rebellion and political grandstanding

The Hashemite kingdom of Jordan is a country without a tagline. The name is long enough, and few have the imagination to describe a country where the desert meets the sea, God descends to meet messiahs and progeny alike, where the desert city of Petra makes an ideal location for Hollywood blockbusters like Transformers 2, and Bollywood duds like Himesh Reshamiyya’s Kajra Re.

Despite the so-called Arab Spring, Jordan is a safe option for tourists. In fact, tourism accounts for about three-quarters of Jordan’s GDP. During the Great Recession of 2009, the country began luring Indian visitors by offering visas upon arrival. It was a risky decision for Amman, given the Indian talent for illegal immigration, but it paid off. In 2010, Jordan recorded a 71 per cent jump in tourist arrivals from India.

There are many reasons to visit Jordan this May, as the peak season peters out. The first reason has nothing to do with May, though. It’s the cuisine. What is served in tourist places isn’t authentic Jordanian cuisine, but closer to what we consider Lebanese food, generic to the Levant region. No matter: it displays a healthy mix of herbivorous salads and carnivorous, heart-attack-inducing kebabs wrapped in paper-thin rotis. Complimenting the food are good local wines, mint coolers and subtly spiced teas like Bedouin Tea.

Like Egypt and Turkey, Jordan is a stopover enroute to Europe but also a travel destination in itself. Unlike Egypt and Turkey, there is no grand struggle in evidence either on the streets or campuses. Although Amman experienced a brief bout of non-violent protests in March, they were aimed at political reform and not against King Abdullah II, whose reign ensures a degree of stability. Sensing the pulse of his young kingdom (the average Jordanian is 27), the king has introduced political reforms and replaced the prime minister since the March protests. The international community seems satisfied, and since Jordan has no oil, no intervention is likely in its internal affairs.

If you don’t like long car journeys, get bored visiting historical sites, and your idea of a vacation is nightclubs and shopping avenues, then Jordan is not the country for you. Among the unforgettables—every bit as worthy as tourist sites—are the changing landscapes outside your car window. In the north of the country, hidden between the lush farm-rolled hills of Jerash, lies one of the world’s best preserved Roman towns, complete with a hippodrome, colonnaded streets and ornate Roman luxuries.

When you leave Jerash for the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea region, the lush green is replaced with brown, low-lying hills. Mount Nebo is one such. By legend, it is where God pointed out the Promised Land to Moses. There is a signboard at the peak showing the exact location of important places in the Promised Land—Jerusalem, Ramallah and Jericho. Jericho, in close-by Palestine, is reputed to be where Jesus Christ encountered God. This region seems to have enjoyed divine favour as the perfect place to descend and speak to a chosen few. Perhaps the extra oxygen has something to do with it.

The Dead Sea is the world’s lowest point on dry land, more than 400 m below sea level. So, it has 20 per cent more oxygen than any other part of the world. A guarantee of baby skin is included in the ticket price: all you need is a pail to collect clay for a mudpack, and then go for a swim in the mineral-rich sea.

Jordan Valley also has ‘Bethany beyond the Jordan’, the site where Christ was baptised. It is where John the Baptist lived. Unesco states ‘the area is also associated with the biblical account of how the Prophet Elijah ascended to heaven in a whirlwind on a chariot of fire, after having parted the waters of the Jordan River and walked across it with his successor, the Prophet Elisha’.

In current times, though, there is no river here left to part. The river Jordan is a stream that exists only in parts. It is mostly a dry riverbed. Neighbouring Israel, which at one point is across the river (a naala, rather, a few hops from one side to the other), has actually dammed it.

Given Jordan’s youth, the sunburnt senior citizens you see strolling around Petra offer something of a contrast. Among the world’s ‘seven wonders’, Petra is an ancient city carved out of rock faces with aesthetic ingenuity by Nabateans. Hidden in the rocky terrain of the desert, Petra’s Khazaneh reveals itself after you go through a deep gorge (seen in the last scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). The city was inhabited around 2,000 years ago and served as a protected haven along the Silk Route, a hub of trade between China, India, Arabia, Egypt, Rome, Greece and Syria. It is said that outsiders’ horses weren’t ever allowed into the city, considered a sacred space. Its glory died a gradual death, and Petra fell off the world map, only to be rediscovered by a Swiss adventurer 200 years ago, some of its ancient sculptures hewn off by iconoclasts.

Since then, many female tourists have discovered love in the exotic locales of Petra, settling down with local Bedouins in the neighbouring village. One of them has even written a book, Married to a Bedouin, that she personally sells at her stall here. Overzealous men, meanwhile, continue to visit the nearby Wadi Rum, a desert outpost where TE Lawrence led his Arab revolts from during World War I. Leaving the hordes of tourists and touts behind, it is here, when you encounter the sprawling desert with its sandstone and granite mountains, that the allure of the arid landscape becomes clear. The desert is alive.

About The Author

Shubhangi Swarup