Off to Syria and Jordan- Part Two... Three existential questions

A visit to Syria and Jordan….raises lot of questions, bordering existential… first, what to see and what to leave… second, is traveling done for the purpose of reaching a destination or traveling per se is a destination… thirdly shall we travel with a plan or the road ahead is itself a plan…. all of these questions are inter-related, in a way.

The first question rises due to the fact that I am trying to combine two disparate streams… one of seeing more and more of Syria and Jordan in a very small time frame… and the other of traveling shoestring… I have realized over the years that traveling shoestring, even though the most wonderful way of traveling, is time consuming… to an extent that it cross-subsidizes lack of money with abundance of time… so a shoestring traveler must have more number of days for vacation.

I would like to travel Aleppo, Saint Simeon, Deir-Ez-Zur, Dura Europos, Palmyra, Damascus, Hamah, Apamea, Krac De Chevaliers and Bosra in Syria and Jerash, Ajloun, Madaba, Mount Nebo, Dead Sea, Karak, Petra, Wadi Moujib, Dana and Amman in Jordan. This is 21 places in 11 days… and this is not all, people tell me that to fully appreciate Aleppo, Damascus and Petra…one needs at least two days (in case of Damascus, even 4-5 days don't suffice). 11 days and 21 places is an impossibility… so I need to curtail the list… People tell me that if such is my predicament… its best to curtail non essential sites… and they are Deir-Ez-Zur, Dura Europos, Apamea, Bosra, Ajloun, Mount Nebo, Karak, Wadi Moujib and Dana. Some even tell me that I can skip Saint Simeon and Madaba if need be. Each of these places has their own importance… Deir-Ez-Zur is a town on river Euphrates… imagine coming to Syria and not seeing the Euphrates… that harbored the most ancient civilization. Dura Europos is the birth place of Selecus Nicator… the man who ruled parts of Western India (now Pakistan), after Alexander… till he was defeated by the might of Chandragupta Maurya and the shrewd of Chanakya… Selecus married his daughter to Chandragupta Maurya, which for starters make Syria seem like a long lost brother (or brother in law). Likewise in Jordan… Dana is a valley (in fact a part of same rift valley system that starts from Horn of Africa and goes on to the Dead Sea, where Bedouins preserve their age-old life style. I am not even talking about Wadi Rum, which by far is the most beautiful place in Jordan…but this is not the right time to do it due to summers. I intend to come back to Jordan for canyoning and desert trekking.

Second question is again, quite a bit related to the first… Is traveling done for arriving or traveling itself is an activity… to relish. I have mixed opinion about it. Many a times, I have enjoyed the mere activity of traveling. The best example is the Konkan journey I undertook, six years ago. There was nothing, to be double-quoted as a destination, and yet when told to recall the best part of my life… I readily recall those two weeks of wandering. Sometimes, however, destinations are enticing… they often lure us into undertaking some journeys… that we would like to forget.

Regarding Syria and Jordan, I have two options… one is to map the entire length and breadth of the two countries… see towns and cities… meet people… and as if it was incidental, see the monuments, scattered all over… The other is to stay back in major tourist destinations and mull over them… absorb them… People tell me that the journey from Aleppo to Deir-Ez-Zur is beautiful… meandering alongside the river Euphrates… punctuated by small towns and villages… and yet there is absolutely nothing to be seen in Deir-Ez-Zur. Should I go there? I really wish that I should!! And yet I fear that if I do, I may have to cut some magnificent places out of my list… most probably Jerash or Madaba.

Third question rises out of my indecisiveness… if I am unable to decide what to visit and what not to visit… and am unable to decide whether to travel or just to arrive… then isn’t it better to not to make any plans at all… It has two advantages… one it keeps my mind away from the clutter of information… and two it gives me a lot of flexibility to redesign my programme… as per the advice of the locals, depending on the situation. Yet it has two disadvantages… a lack of plan may kill a lot of my time… it is always better to arrive at a place with everything taken care of – hotels, place to see, travel connections etc. than arriving at a place and struggling to find a hotel, plan of action etc.

Anyway why to bother you with my musing… good news… I have succeeded in acquiring the visas of Jordan and Syria… Jordan was welcoming enough to give me a multiple entry visa for 6 months… but Syria gave me single entry visa… this means that if I want to go to Jordan again… then it is easy… Jordan can be a wonderful place to do some offbeat activities… In the Jordan River rift valley… there is an adventure sport called canyoning… then off course the Wadi Rum desert trek… so I can plan to come back to Jordan again… traveling to Jordan is not all that difficult… especially if you don’t want to avoid Israel…. There is a 16 hour bus ride from Cairo to Amman… also from Nuweiba Port (if one wants to avoid Israel), there is a daily ferry going to Aqaba… so the most important thing needed to go to Jordan is intent… and I have it.

Now for the final tally of the places, I am planning to go… Aleppo, Hamah and Krac, Palmyra, Damascus, Jerash, Madaba and Dead Sea, Dana, Petra. I will spend more than one day in Aleppo, Damascus and Petra… however there are riders… this is a tentative plan… if the road ahead seems to be a better plan… I will conveniently ditch them all.

For the last few nights, I have not been able to sleep very well… the names of these places have been knocking my dreams again and again… I eagerly await the moment, when I would be able to actually embark on the long awaited journey.

This is my last write up on the prelude to the journey and now when I write about the two places… it would be a first hand account of a traveler and not the pondering of a dreamer.