Traveling from Dublin to Amman should theorectically be easy, problem is I had a 5 hour wait between flights. So the 9hr flight really took a full day to complete. I had decided to have a driver pick me up from Amman airport and drop me at the hostel rather than try to use public transport or find something at the airport.

I had read before hand that taxi drivers can sometimes try and take advantage of tourists on pricing, which is pretty much the same for all countries and not specific to Jordan. Given that I arrived 3:00am local time I think I made the right decision. After going through customs, obtaining a visa for which I didn’t need additional spare passport photos afterall and only cost 10JD I was tired and didn’t want to have to work out how to use public transport and or buses to find my way to the city center.

The staff at the hotel “palace hotel” in downtown Amman have been quite helpful and very friendly, the hotel was recommended in Lonely planet, although the rooms are a bit run down and the shower / bathroom is a bit ordinary. I guess this is budget travel though, so I’m not expecting a Hilton Hotel.

Given it was October and quite warm, I decided I didn’t need to sleep under the covers and bottled water is a good idea to prevent feeling too hydrated through the night. I woke up the noisy sound of Amman traffic and bright sun light. Ahh quite a change from cloudy Dublin.

Breakfast was ok, but nothing flash and I met a nice guy who has been livng in Damascus for the past year. He gave me some advice on what to see in Amman. After breakfast I headed to the Roman Theatre not far from the Hostel. It was warm but not over bearing like I thought it would be, I guess last time I was in the middle-east I was in Dubai at the peak of summer or the tail end of peak season and it was pretty unbearable.

After checking out the Roman Theatre and asking some American’s to take 1 or 2 pictures of me, I climbed quite a few stairs to get to top of the theatre for a good view of the whole thing. I must say its quite impressive given how old it is and well preserved. There are a couple of rooms either side of the theatre that has display of tradtional clothing and jewellery etc. Worth a quick 5 mins look through, but nothing spectacular.

Next I climbed some more stairs in the heat, yay! I went and saw the Citadel which was quite pretty looking, but I wasn’t sure of its current purpose. I saw a cool looking little lizard, but couldn’t get a photograph in time before it scurried off.

I also took a good look at the Temple of Hercules, which was interesting to look at and quite old 160 AD its been dated. I also took a look at the archelogical museum near the citadel which had some of the dead sea scrolls on display. Certainly interesting but I couldn’t read a word.

Filed under: Travel by Gavin Doolan