day 34 - petra to amman - nov 5

day 34 - petra to amman - nov 5

i woke up and it was raining, the cab driver told me it was the 1st rain this year. the cloud cover was very low (on the ground), so our drive to amman was going to be very long, he took some back road that got us out of the fog and then headed north on a pretty good highway.

once we arrived in amman we got stuck in a bit of traffic, he dropped me at this hotel where the travel agent, who had booked our petra trip was located. the plans was to leave my bag there and then wander around a bit. the weather didn't make that all that appealing, so i stayed in the lobby and writing some emails and making some hotel arrangements for my arrival in delhi.

the jordanians were much more attentive servers than the israelis. in the hotel lobby i looked up and this waiter saw me and immediately walked up to me, so i ordered a beer and asked about some food, but his english wasn't so good. he misinformed me that they took amex, then when i tried to pay the bill he came back saying they didn't take it. so now i had to dig into my cash reserves, which are dwindling, i can't seem to exchange the travelers cheques as easily as cash. i expected to really only use the cash in cambodia, but i've had to use it everywhere, egypt, israel, jordan and now in india. i should have brought more. the travel agent came down about 17:30 and drove me out to the airport personally then he walked me through the check in, i was actually surprised that with that kind of service the airline didn't bump me up. so, royal jordanian doesn't live up to the standard the name implies, maybe because the route was india they may use their older equipment. the crew that were working the economy class were more attentive to other passengers and really didn't give me much in the way of friendly pleasantries. the aircraft was older. i wasn't able to sleep in part because they never lowered the lights and the woman behind me kept fidgeting and her husband had his reading light on which with my seat reclined shined right into my face. so i rigged up a light shield using the head protectors from the headrest and the safety card.