Jordan: Welcome to Amman

So begins what Cliff has been referring to as "Cam's Crusades".

My track record of dodgy taxi rides in foreign countries has probably come to a screeching halt here. I had - ahead of time - organised to get picked up by a driver from the hostel I'm staying at. On arrival he was not there and after contacting the hostel via Jordan's very helpful tourist desk, I was informed that he had most likely crashed and that I should get an ordinary taxi instead.

I am genuinely unsure of what to make of this, but I got to my hostel without incident (well, there was a car going the wrong way down an offramp endeavouring to get back onto the highway but I am pretty used to that now, having once been that guy) and at a price that wasn't exorbitant.

I'd mentally handed this day over to just plodding around and nursing a night of no sleep and so it came as a small surprise that I've been reasonably active in my meandering due to a welcomed absence of jet lag. Amman - today at least - is a little bizarre. I've been informed that Friday is a holiday (they mean to say weekend, I think) and that is why it is so quiet and lots of places are shut. That said, vendors are still about and there are certainly people around.

Those people are mostly men.

Actually, on the street you really have to look hard to find women. The ones you do find are either very conservatively dressed or tourists. There seems to be a small disconnect here; the vendors sell a lot of very intricate, colourful and straight up beautiful women's garments... But no one seems to be wearing it.

Oh well.

In my meanderings I stumbled upon the King Hussein Mosque in downtown Amman. A crowd was gathering in front of it. That crowd grew and overflowed onto the roads around it. Police blocked off the roads, diverting traffic. The crowd lined up, threw down mats and then began praying, repeating words coming from speakers and megaphones in front of the mosque and on the corners of the streets. The throng move and pray as one, ages five to prehistoric. It runs perfectly and for fifteen minutes or so. Then, everything goes back to how it was before.

It's surreal.

In cafes, Turkish coffee and shisha are standard fare. The middle eastern soundtrack playing in these venues only becomes conspicuous when it makes way to prayers and hymns coming from the megaphones on the street. This time, the cafe goers and pedestrians take it in the stride.

The cafe music is slow to restart, giving bubbling shisha water and foreign chatter an opportunity to occupy the soundscape in the interim.

This is curiously pleasant.