Ruined

I'm pretty sure I've already used this title at some point, but who pays attention to these things anyway?  In any case, it's a good one and deserves repeating.

I'd like to take a quick moment to give my Happy Halloween shout out - belatedly, as is my style.  I hope everyone had a good Halloween weekend.  Matt and I had a good weekend despite the fact that it wasn't very festive.  We went to play paintball (again.  I know, my life is so rough), and then we watched a movie in the Res. Lounge, per usual, only this time, we dressed up!  Well, kind of.  Of course we didn't have costumes (no place to wear them even if we did), but we improvised and dressed up in my matching couples t-shirts I got in Thailand.  These are huge in Asia... surely I've mentioned them before?  Anyway, we were supposed to be Chinese tourists, but as neither of us are even remotely Asian looking, it didn't really work.

 

Yup, kind of lame.  But kind of cute, too?

 

Here's where we get really Asian:  socks and flip flops.  

Anyway, as many of you may know, Halloween is my favorite holiday, so it was kind of a bummer to be so lame about it, but what can you do?  This is Baroda.  We're legally and contractually obligated to not have fun.  Ever.  Also, as this is only the first of many holidays we'll be spending here (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's, St. Patrick's Day, Easter.... Thanksgiving 2011...), it's probably important to set the tone of a boring holiday season.  

Now we can get back to business.  When last I posted, I believe I was in the process of describing the highlights of the Best Vacation Ever.   Our second day we spent in Bangkok and went to Chinatown (not my idea, nor was it my idea of a good time, but it was interesting... pretty much same same as China) and then toured the Jim Thompson House.  Old J.T. is something of a celebrity in Thailand due to his helping build up the silk trade, as well as his mysterious disappearing act in Malaysia in the '60s. 

The next day we hired a car and drove about an hour outside of BKK to the ancient city of Ayutthaya to tour around its ruined temples from the 15th and 16th centuries.  They were really (you guessed it) amazing and beautiful.  

 

Line of Buddha statues at Wat Yai Chai Mongkol, Ayutthaya.  

We spent the entire day traipsing around these different temples, learning little about the history, but loving it anyway.  I know I should probably make more of an effort to learn about these places before (or during, or after) I go, but I just don't have it in me.  Instead, I will give you some pictures to look at, and if you're interested, you can go to Thailand and learn about the history yourself!  Is that mean?  I don't mean for it to be, but you take it however you like.  

 

Buddha head at Wat Mahathat.  Danielle overheard one guide say something about how a guy was trying to steal the head but then dropped it so nature reclaimed it with her far-reaching tree roots.  See I did learn something after all.  So what if the facts are fuzzy... or false. 

 

Apparently this is beyond offensive, but in our defense, we didn't know it at the time (yes, I did it too, but Mary's picture is better).  

Shortly after we took these offensive pictures, we headed to another temple where I played this game where you shake a can full of numbered sticks until one falls out, then you take the stick up to a lady and she gives you a horoscope which corresponds to your stick number (still with me?).  I believe it was directly due to the above photos that my horoscope read as follows:  

You are in trouble and unhappy.  You face obstacles and interruption.  You might have to take the fall for other people's mistakes.  No luck, you have to be patient and seek it with wisdom.  

Are you kidding me?  What kind of horoscope is that?  I was depressed for the rest of the day... or at least the next five minutes.  I guess I had it coming, but still.  Come on.  

 

Wat Chai Wattanaram.

 

Oh how I love these shiny gold leaf-encrusted Buddha heads. 

I guess that about wraps it up for this installment of the Best Vacation Ever .  I am probably not doing this trip justice, but really, you just had to be there (don't you hate it when people say that?  I do, but I'm saying it anyway.  India makes me bitter and mean).    

Ruined

I guess I've kept you in suspense about our trip to Petra long enough.  We were really worried about how to get there because it's about 4 hours away, and we didn't want to spend ridiculous amounts of money.  Luckily, Matt was able to sweet talk some engineers at the refinery into getting us fixed up with a driver... for freeee!  I'm not sure how that worked, actually, but it was awesome.  Probably saved us $100 or so.  Thanks, buddy.

So, some history (courtesy of Wikipedia... to be taken with a grain of salt, of course): Petra is an ancient city established around the 6th century BC as the capital city of the Nabataean people, but evidence shows that the area has been inhabited for more than 10,000 years. Ooold.  It was a major city with people coming from all over to trade in frankincense, myrrh and spices - just like the wise men!  The buildings and tombs left standing are all cut into the huge red rocks, which helped to preserve them.   It was eventually taken over by the Romans  sometime in the 2nd century, and started to decline pretty swiftly from there.  The world outside the Middle East knew nothing of Petra until 1812 when a Swiss explorer bribed some guides to disguise him as an Arab and take him in.  His notes and sketches caused it to blow up as a tourist destination.  Now known as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, it's also Jordan's most famous attraction.  And it's ridiculously expensive to get in.  It costs 33 JD ($46) per person for non-Jordanian visitors.  And that's only if you are staying in Amman.  If you come from Israel or a cruise ship for the day to visit, it's 55 JD.   Oh, but don't worry... included in your ticket price is a "free" horse ride to the start point, which is 2 km from the ticket booth.  I say free, but of course you have to tip.

Me on the horse.  This is the best picture Matt got.  No one said he was a good photographer. 

As amazing as this place is, no historical site is worth $50 for one day.  That's just gouging.  They're raising the prices in a couple months though, so I guess we were lucky to go when we did. 

  

Walk through the Siq

Anyway, after the horse ride, you start out walking through the Siq, (a long gorge) sometimes on the original stone road. Along the way are lots of carvings of deities and such in the red sandstone cliffs, and two rock-carved irrigation channels run on both sides.  There's even a camel caravan carving meant to represent all the people coming from afar to visit... although you have to use your imagination and get pretty creative to see it.  

The lead camel herder's feet are still visible. 

     Deity wearing a cape flanked by lions.

The walk through the Siq culminates in a view of the Treasury, probably the most impressive sight in the whole place.  It's topped with a funerary urn, the legendary hiding place of a pharaoh's treasure.  The Treasury's original function is a mystery, but it's believed to be the mausoleum of the Nabataean king Aretas IV.  Or so says my brochure.  

  

First view of the Treasury through the rock walls.  

       

The Treasury.  It's surrounded by rock cliffs, which must be why it looks so good.

From the Treasury, you walk out in the open to see tons of ancient tombs, from the ones for royalty to ones for regular folks like you and me.  They are all pretty impressive.  There is also a "shopping street" that would have been lined with columns, but most were destroyed in an earthquake in the 4th century.  

 

                                     Tombs 

  

Me in front of the Queen's tomb.

 

The Palace Monument and the Corinthian tomb.  Two of the Royal tombs.

 

Camels and the Royal tombs in the background.  You could pay for camels or donkeys to take you around, or even horse drawn carriages.  We decided not to spend any more money as we were still in sticker shock over the price of the tickets.  

There were a bunch of other things to see as well, but I feel I should leave some things for you all to discover when you visit Petra.  I don't want to spoil everything.  All in all, it took us about 5 hours to see it, and we even skipped some of the farther sights.  Combined with our 8 hour round trip from Amman, it made for a pretty long day.  It was pretty amazing, though.  

Anyway, I think I spoke too soon when I posted that we weren't going to Finland.  Let me clear this up: we ARE in fact, going to Finland.  We'll be leaving from here... sometime... and getting to Helsinki for Matt to start the startup... sometime.  One of his co-workers already did the loading, so it shouldn't take too long. Mary, (another roadwife... surely you've heard of her.  Who hasn't?) has been to Helsinki before when her husband did a job there almost exactly 2 years ago.  Funny how these jobs keep popping back up.  Anyway, she said it's a nice city and there is plenty of shopping and lots of sights to keep me busy.  So now I'm excited, which probably means they'll cancel it and we won't go.  See, I'm learning to play the game.  

The Land of Milk and Honey

Matt finally got a day off yesterday, so we got to go see some sights!  Hiring a car from the hotel to take us everywhere was way too expensive, but we were not to be daunted in our quest.  So desperate were we to go check out the sights outside the city, that we decided to go a little random and take a shuttle from the hotel to the Dead Sea, and from there we thought we could just flag a taxi to take us to our other interests.  Not so.  First of all, the Dead Sea, while it has resorts galore, has no city to speak of around it, thus no public taxis zooming around like we thought.  We ended up having the front desk at the Dead Sea public beach call a cab for us, much to the dismay of our shuttle driver.  I guess he thought we were using him for the ride...

View of the Promised Land from Mt. Nebo             

Anyway, from there we went first to Mt. Nebo, where Moses led his people and looked out over the Promised Land.  Poor guy didn't make it, though.  He got to see it, but then he died.  Matt said something about how God had told him he wasn't going to get to go, but he'd get to look upon it.  I am not current on my Bible stories, so I have no recollection of this.  Anyway, the mountain was pretty cool, but not a lot to see up there... which was good because we were in a time crunch trying to get back to the Dead Sea and swim before our shuttle left.                                                                        

Staff on Mt. Nebo

After Mt. Nebo, we drove about 45 minutes away to Bethany-on-the-Jordan, the place where John the Baptist baptized Jesus.  I know, it sounds like we were on a religious pilgrimage or something, right?  Not so.  Just a historical one, I guess.  The baptism place was really pretty cool... not because of the sights really, but just from a spiritual and historical standpoint.  Our guide was non-intentionally hilarious as he repeated everything he said at least three times, I guess to make sure everyone understood him.  He'd point to a map and say, "This is the river Jordan.  The Jordan River.  The Jordan River.  The Jordan River!"  We got it, dude.      We walked along that important river through the trees until we came to the place where "John was baptized Jesus Christ.  Where John was baptized Jesus Christ..." You get it.  It's really just a small pool with old stone structures from a church that was once there.  They said they found an iron cross in the bottom of that pool from the time of Jesus.  Either that or they've placed a new water pipeline... I didn't get too much from the guide, as you can see.  

The place where John the Baptist was baptized Jesus Christ

Anyway, then we walked to a place on the Jordan River (!) where you can touch the water and feel holy.  Matt and I both dipped in quickly without thinking much of it, but it was really cool to watch these old men with us who washed their rosaries off and said prayers in the water.  You'd think all these Christian holy places would be lost on someone like me who doesn't have a very religious background, but in any case, it was amazing to watch other people getting so much out of it.  And, of course, from a historical standpoint, it was incredible just to be in the place where such a huge historical figure had been.  Also, as Matt said, it was hard to get a spiritual feeling from the place when you had all these random workers walking around kicking rocks and smoking cigarettes.  They kind of ruined the heavenly feel.  Thanks, guys. 

Matt getting his Jordan River water

 Meanwhile, back at the river, they were having a service... in Chinese!  I kid you not, all these Chinese people were circled around a Chinese monk and priest who was reading from the bible.  It was incredible!  I couldn't get over the fact that we were in Jordan, a traditionally Muslim country, at a holy Christian site, with people from all over the world, and they were having church service in Chinese next to the Jordan River.  Tell me that's not cool.  

After that, we went to John the Baptist's new church (there were these two people making out next to it... like really going at it.  I think they were on their honeymoon... but really, making out where Jesus was baptized?  Get a room.) and then we headed back to the Dead Sea.  We only had a little more than an hour, but we made it worth it.  The Dead Sea is incredibly salty, and I guess that does something to the buoyancy because you can float like crazy!  It's actually hard not to float.  Matt, who has never floated in his life was bobbing around like a buoy and doing all these different poses.  It was really cool.

Us floating in the Dead Sea.

The salt does have its drawbacks, however.  It burns your skin like crazy, and it's very hard not to get it in your eyes or mouth.  There are also pots of "mineral mud" you can put on your body for the purifying benefits... but you have to pay, of course.  It was incredibly thick and slimy, and reminded me so much of the pictures of Aura from South America where she walked around covered in black mud for weeks.  Gross.  This probably wasn't the same stuff though, because as ours dried, it started flaking off.  After rinsing the mud off in the Dead Sea, and then rinsing and re-rinsing (and getting walked in on while I was naked in the shower by not one but two different women) we headed back to Amman in our shuttle.  All in all, a pretty great, if impossibly expensive, day.  Good thing Matt got per diem then.  We used it all plus some.

Don't we look good in mud?

So that was our first big Jordanian adventure.  We just went to Petra yesterday, but I don't have the time or energy to post about that yet.  Suffice it to say it was incredible... also incredibly expensive, but I'll save that story for later.  We are currently stuck in Jordan for the time being.  That volcano in Iceland has really put a damper on world travel, so we'll be here at least until Friday night/early Saturday morning.  We had planned to leave Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, but there just weren't any flights.  Matt got some weird e-mails from UOP yesterday saying he was going to Finland, but he never got clarification, and there was only one ticket (meaning I couldn't go and would be stuck here alone), so I think they scrapped that idea.  I hope.  Like I said, we're not really sure what's going on.  Anyway, that's the newest (sort of) news.  I'll try to post about Petra tomorrow or the next day.

A mosaic of His Majesty the King of Jordan.  They looove him.