Reminiscence from the Levant: Part Sixteen – On the Royal highway.
There are two ways of going to Petra… one the Desert Highway, a new and modern road that snakes towards Petra through the deserts of Jordan. This route takes 4 hours and is frequented by a lot of public transport. Most of the tourists prefer this way to go to Petra. The other way, however is more picturesque and interesting… through the King's Highway. This route meanders through the dramatic canyons of Jordan… and sluggishly reaches Petra. It takes almost 7-8 hours to reach Petra from this route. Add a few more hours if one wants to have magnificent sights of Wadi Mujib, Kerak Castle and Wadi Kerak. Little transport plies on this road and most of the tourists, therefore, give it a miss.
The Bus that is organized by Hotel Mariam, runs only if there are three passengers- we had more than three… a Canadian guy, 2 German brothers, a New Zealand couple and I, an Indian. The driver was Jordanian and his assistant, Syrian. 6 nationalities.
The Canadian was on the road for last two months… having started his journey from Germany- visiting Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon on the way to Jordan… he planned to visit Israel after Jordan and then go to Egypt before flying back to Canada. While sharing his experiences, he told me that Turkey is perhaps the best place he has visited in the entire world… He had a tattoo in his shoulder- of the Tibetan chant "OM MANI PADME HUM"…. I was able to recognize it instantly… and that set us talking. He got this tattoo done, not in India or Nepal, but in Laos. He had never visited India.
The two German brothers had a severe language constraint… they hardly spoke to anybody else… yet they were so alike in appearance that one could make out that they were brothers.
The New Zealand couple was very friendly… especially the lady… they were perpetual backpackers… this was their 38th country of visit. They had visited India twice… in 2002 and 2006. And had very sweet memories of Munnar, a Kerala hill station.
The moment you have driven an hour, you realize that you are amidst a very special place… the Canyons are very dramatic, very beautiful…. And enticing. The bus stopped at a place… for us to have a look of the Canyon…. Far away we could see a few hamlets here and there… beckoning us… these were Bedouin hamlets… Over the years Canyoning has become a famous adventure sport in Jordan.
Wadi Mujib is called so because a water stream names Mujib, flows through it. It is not exactly a river… but a rift valley system. This stream empties itself in Dead Sea (So contrary to the popular perception…. Dead Sea does have two source of fresh water)… A few years ago, a Dam was built to regulate the flow of water through Wadi Mujib… and utilize its water. This had turned Wadi Mujib into a trickle. Canyoning is all about treading along this dry water stream bed (it is not so dry… at point it retains water where the stream is deep, so the person canyoning needs to wade through this stretch or sometimes even swim… these contrasting terrains, therefore, make Canyoning a very challenging sport). Later, ahead on the road one comes across the dam that has been built on the Mujib water stream.
Further down stream the dam one may see some indigenous efforts to conserve water… long ago Bedouins had constructed a series of small check dams to conserve water… now made redundant due to this mega dam. It reopened, within me, the debate between the utility of mega dams and small check dams. The debate goes beyond the utility or non-utility of dams… it touches upon the role of government and whether self governing communities are possible. Scrape a little; it boils down to the philosophy about human nature… was Hobbes right! Or was Rousseau right!! (Hobbes propounded the theory that an individual who is naturally competitive and violent… where as Rousseau propounded the theory that an individual loves to live in harmony… now according to the first theory, human needs a super-structure around himself to limit his selfishness… that is government and according to the other theory… humans should be left free… and that will ensure them as productive best.)
The next stop was Kerak Castle…. A Crusader castle… The Canadian guy with me told me that all Crusader Castle in this region were built in a similar fashion… Crusader Castles were generally dim-lit, stone vaulted and were so made that the distances between two castles could be covered within a night by horsemen. This ensured a steady stream of communication in midst of a hostile territory… most of these castles were constructed on raised grounds… and employed a beacon at the top of the castle, this beacon when lit meant that the castle was safe… and this beacon was observable from the surrounding castle and also Jerusalem. It made me wonder at the genius of Crusaders.
Kerak comes no where when compared to Krac… and yet it is an interesting castle… has a informative museum, that not only tells about the castle in particular but also a lot of aspects about the Castle making, Sieges, Castle warfare and armory and historical anecdotes related to it. In 1180, Saladin laid a impregnable seize upon the castle… that lasted 3 years… upon the surrender of the castle… and yet when in midst of seize, daughter of the castle chieftain was getting married, Saladin gave safe passage to the residents of the castle and the guests. Even wars have a code of ethics… and the most chivalrous stands them.
The Kerak town is pre-dominantly a Christian town. It occurred to me that even in Jordan; Christians tend to live in the highlands or the more challenging terrain, when compared to their Muslim counterpart. Beyond the Kerak town, one comes across another picturesque canyon, called Wadi Kerak… followed by Dana Valley…. Dana is a nature reserve… where Bedouins are living the same way they used to live more than 500 years ago, with minimal of development having touched their lifestyle. It can be a great sociological experience… I said. The views of Dana valley from the cliffs of the King's Highway were spectacular… In fact wherever we stopped during this 7 hour long journey… I couldn’t help gasping at the nature's beauty all around. It was worth every effort to see this spectacular royal road.
Further ahead, the road conditions improved dramatically…. Heralding the advent of Petra town.
Petra…. The place for which this entire journey was planned at the first place…
The Bus that is organized by Hotel Mariam, runs only if there are three passengers- we had more than three… a Canadian guy, 2 German brothers, a New Zealand couple and I, an Indian. The driver was Jordanian and his assistant, Syrian. 6 nationalities.
The Canadian was on the road for last two months… having started his journey from Germany- visiting Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon on the way to Jordan… he planned to visit Israel after Jordan and then go to Egypt before flying back to Canada. While sharing his experiences, he told me that Turkey is perhaps the best place he has visited in the entire world… He had a tattoo in his shoulder- of the Tibetan chant "OM MANI PADME HUM"…. I was able to recognize it instantly… and that set us talking. He got this tattoo done, not in India or Nepal, but in Laos. He had never visited India.
The two German brothers had a severe language constraint… they hardly spoke to anybody else… yet they were so alike in appearance that one could make out that they were brothers.
The New Zealand couple was very friendly… especially the lady… they were perpetual backpackers… this was their 38th country of visit. They had visited India twice… in 2002 and 2006. And had very sweet memories of Munnar, a Kerala hill station.
The moment you have driven an hour, you realize that you are amidst a very special place… the Canyons are very dramatic, very beautiful…. And enticing. The bus stopped at a place… for us to have a look of the Canyon…. Far away we could see a few hamlets here and there… beckoning us… these were Bedouin hamlets… Over the years Canyoning has become a famous adventure sport in Jordan.
Wadi Mujib is called so because a water stream names Mujib, flows through it. It is not exactly a river… but a rift valley system. This stream empties itself in Dead Sea (So contrary to the popular perception…. Dead Sea does have two source of fresh water)… A few years ago, a Dam was built to regulate the flow of water through Wadi Mujib… and utilize its water. This had turned Wadi Mujib into a trickle. Canyoning is all about treading along this dry water stream bed (it is not so dry… at point it retains water where the stream is deep, so the person canyoning needs to wade through this stretch or sometimes even swim… these contrasting terrains, therefore, make Canyoning a very challenging sport). Later, ahead on the road one comes across the dam that has been built on the Mujib water stream.
Further down stream the dam one may see some indigenous efforts to conserve water… long ago Bedouins had constructed a series of small check dams to conserve water… now made redundant due to this mega dam. It reopened, within me, the debate between the utility of mega dams and small check dams. The debate goes beyond the utility or non-utility of dams… it touches upon the role of government and whether self governing communities are possible. Scrape a little; it boils down to the philosophy about human nature… was Hobbes right! Or was Rousseau right!! (Hobbes propounded the theory that an individual who is naturally competitive and violent… where as Rousseau propounded the theory that an individual loves to live in harmony… now according to the first theory, human needs a super-structure around himself to limit his selfishness… that is government and according to the other theory… humans should be left free… and that will ensure them as productive best.)
The next stop was Kerak Castle…. A Crusader castle… The Canadian guy with me told me that all Crusader Castle in this region were built in a similar fashion… Crusader Castles were generally dim-lit, stone vaulted and were so made that the distances between two castles could be covered within a night by horsemen. This ensured a steady stream of communication in midst of a hostile territory… most of these castles were constructed on raised grounds… and employed a beacon at the top of the castle, this beacon when lit meant that the castle was safe… and this beacon was observable from the surrounding castle and also Jerusalem. It made me wonder at the genius of Crusaders.
Kerak comes no where when compared to Krac… and yet it is an interesting castle… has a informative museum, that not only tells about the castle in particular but also a lot of aspects about the Castle making, Sieges, Castle warfare and armory and historical anecdotes related to it. In 1180, Saladin laid a impregnable seize upon the castle… that lasted 3 years… upon the surrender of the castle… and yet when in midst of seize, daughter of the castle chieftain was getting married, Saladin gave safe passage to the residents of the castle and the guests. Even wars have a code of ethics… and the most chivalrous stands them.
The Kerak town is pre-dominantly a Christian town. It occurred to me that even in Jordan; Christians tend to live in the highlands or the more challenging terrain, when compared to their Muslim counterpart. Beyond the Kerak town, one comes across another picturesque canyon, called Wadi Kerak… followed by Dana Valley…. Dana is a nature reserve… where Bedouins are living the same way they used to live more than 500 years ago, with minimal of development having touched their lifestyle. It can be a great sociological experience… I said. The views of Dana valley from the cliffs of the King's Highway were spectacular… In fact wherever we stopped during this 7 hour long journey… I couldn’t help gasping at the nature's beauty all around. It was worth every effort to see this spectacular royal road.
Further ahead, the road conditions improved dramatically…. Heralding the advent of Petra town.
Petra…. The place for which this entire journey was planned at the first place…
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