The Playground of Lawrence of Arabia - and Mat Damon
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| Jordan |
After K had dropped our cases at the hotel on Friday he had gone home to Amman. He was returning this morning to pick us up at 10.30.
The Petra Museum
After a couple of hard(ish) days, we might have had a lie-in but the Petra museum was only a short stroll from our hotel and we wanted to see it before we left.
We arrived before 9, early enough to be almost the only visitors. Opened by Crown Prince Hussein in April 2019, the Japanese financed museum is purpose built to show off the magnificent collection. Everything is well presented and labelled but for me, it was all too sanitised. It is a modern, big city museum and would be perfect in Tokyo or New York where the artefacts were already out of context, but does not feel quite right when their hot, dusty origins are just outside. Maybe I am criticising the museum for being too professional – there is no pleasing some people.
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| The Petra Museum, Wadi Musa |
We were relaxing in the hotel’s outdoor coffee shop when K arrived to drive us south to Wadi Rum.
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| From Wadi Musa (Petra) south to Wadi Rum |
Wadi Musa to Wadi Rum
We climbed out of Wadi Musa...
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| Leaving Wadi Musa |
…hitting a patch of dense mist, which ended as suddenly as it started.
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| A small but dense patch of mist in the desert |
Beyond all was clear, but the higher we went the windier it became. When we stopped at a resthouse the wind whipped the car door from my hands; fortunately, there was nothing for it to hit.
K wanted his breakfast, and as it was now 11 o'clock our breakfast had been some hours ago, so we joined in. This was not a tourist place, dishes of jam, honey, ful, falafel and other goodies covered with cling film were set out on a communal table and for a set price you peeled it back, picked your flatbread from a basket and dipped in. We enjoyed it and as we would have no lunch – not that we knew that at the time – it would be needed.
Outside the wind had moderated a little and we were able to appreciate the desert view behind the rest house without being blown away.
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| View behind the resthouse on the Desert Highway |
As we continued south K told us about his trip home. His wife, he said had been unwell, but was feeling better. They have four children, their oldest daughter is away at university, the younger three are at school. Although now Jordanian, K is by birth Palestinian. I do not know if that limited his educational opportunities, but he is ensuring the next generation make the most of their chances. Women are more visible in Jordan than elsewhere in the region, but even so I was pleased that he is keen to educate the girls as well as the boys. He and his brothers are also helping their recently widowed sister, K has taken special responsibility for her youngest and he was keen to show us pictures of the little boy.
The Desert Highway runs for 350km from Amman to the Saudi border, and apart from our detour via Shobak and Petra, we had followed it all the way. Some 40km short of Aqaba and the Red Sea we turned off towards Wadi Rum.
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| Towards Wadi Rum |
Into Wadi Rum
We checked in at the visitor centre. Every person, every vehicle, every domesticated animal that enters the Wadi Rum Protected Area is logged and the appropriate fee paid.
Once this was done, we headed into the desert. Wadi Rum, the largest wadi in Jordan, is a valley cut by water through sandstone and granite hills. There is still water here, the many wells and springs have supported a local population since prehistoric times.
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| Into Wadi Rum |
Lawrence of Arabia (the 1962 film, not the man) put Wadi Rum firmly on the tourist map, but it is not just a film location, much of the real action also took place here. The Protected Area is tightly controlled to provide revenue for the Jordanian government, to maintain the area for future exploitation, and to protect its unique environment. There is, of course, tension between these goals and there is no significance in the order of my list. We passed several desert camps while driving to our own, and over a dozen more are secreted in rocky corners elsewhere. Maybe there are too many.
Wadi Rum is also known as Wadi al-Qamar (Valley of the Moon) and there is a space theme among the various tourist camps. Ours was actuallly called ‘Space Camp’ though the accommodation was in cabins decked out to vaguely resemble Bedouin tents…
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| Space Camp, Wadi Rum |
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| Inside our 'tent' Wadi Rum |
We had a look round and settled in. Tea and coffee were available in reception – a big tent at the end - but there was no sign of lunch. Fortunately, we had enjoyed a second breakfast, so that was all right - and they were promising a special dinner in the evening.
Touring Wadi Rum
It was not long before a young man turned up in a pick-up truck with our name on it – figuratively, I am not really Mr Toyota - you think I would be bouncing round in the back of one of those if I was?
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| In our pick-up truck, Wadi Rum |
We set off into the red, sandy emptiness of Wadi Rum. Of the three possible derivations of the name the least likely is that it was the site of Iram of the Pillars, a legendary lost city that receives a fleeting mention in the Quran. The ruins at Shisr, a village on the edge of the Empty Quarter in Oman have also been touted by some (particularly the local tourist authorities) as Iram of the Pillars. We visited last year and I am sceptical about that, too. Possibly ‘Rum’ derives from an Arabic word for ‘wind-blown sand’, but my favourite is that it refers to the Romans – ‘Rum’ and ‘Rumi’ often do in the Arabic and Indian worlds. They were certainly here, and commented on the vineyards – those seem to have disappeared!
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| Wadi Rum |
The Martian
I would have been happy just to drive around the valley, but we were in the hands of the tourist industry, and they have to show you ‘sights’, it is in the job description. For the first ‘sight’ we climbed onto a smallish outcrop. It was, undoubtedly, a magnificent view. The guide seemed to expect more, ‘Martian..’ he prompted. I agreed it resembled Mars, reddish and with the tracks of the Mars Rover all over it. ‘The film…’ he went on. ‘What film?’ ‘The Martian, with Matt Damon.’ I am not totally ignorant; I have heard of a film called ‘The Martian’ and of an actor called Matt Damon but I have never seen either. ‘It was filmed here,’ he said. Perhaps I should have looked more impressed.
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| A view of Mars, Wadi Rum |
We continued making tracks in the sand. From a distance we saw a couple crossing the desert the hard way. Not being a film fan makes you out of touch, not old-fashioned, but is it old fashioned to feel uncomfortable seeing a lightly laden young man marching along with his girlfriend/partner/travelling companion struggling behind with a full pack? Maybe there was a reason, I should not judge.
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| Following a gentleman across the desert, Wadi Rum |
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
A rock formation known as ‘Jabal al-Mazmar’ (Mountain of the Plague) was renamed The Seven Pillars of Wisdom in the 1980s, after Lawrence of Arabia’s book. The renaming was for touristic purposes, Lawrence had no known association with these rocks, but if I was the rocks I would happily forego the ‘plague’ tag. I cannot see seven (maybe from another angle, though this is the side always photographed) and ‘pillars’ is not the first object to come to mind, but they are quite a sight. The 500 million-year-old ‘pillars’ of Palaeozoic quartz sandstone perch on a 4.6 billion-year-old pre-Cambrian granitoid base.
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| The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Wadi Rum |
Lawrence’s book has appeared in several versions, edited down by himself or others from the original unreadable 400,000 word manuscript. American Academic Charles Hill called it "a novel traveling under the cover of autobiography," Winston Churchill wrote "It ranks with the greatest books ever written in the English language. As a narrative of war and adventure it is unsurpassable." It remains in print (there is a Kindle edition at £0.49) but I am not sure it is much read.
Not Climbing a Dune
Continuing down the valley we pulled up beside several other trucks below what looked like a dune with a view. The passengers from the other trucks were begining their descent, so we set off towards them.
The lower part was steep. In the photograph below it can be seen to drop sharply away just beyond me, and the vehicles are some distance below.
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| Climbing a rocky outcrop, Wadi Rum. There is a great big clue staring me in the face. |
That did not matter; we have climbed dunes before and know that it is best done in bare feet. The sand was firm which made the steep section easy and we progressed to the top without difficulty. Only when we reached the summit did we realise we had not been climbing a dune – there ae no dunes round here – but a rocky outcrop. On sand, bare feet work well, on a dome of hard rock with sharp ridges and a scattering of stones it is a painfully different story.
The views, though, were as good as we had expected. Wishing she had carried her shoes with her, Lynne gingerly worked her way over to a spot for a photograph….
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| Lynne on the top of the outcrop, Wadi Rum |
….and then we put the camera on a rock for a different view, partly obscured by both of us. …
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| Obscuring the view. Wadi Rum. Hopping across that stretch of rock before the little light on the camera went off was a challenge |
…and then one down the valley. In none of these pictures is there a single dune. Why had we not noticed before setting off?
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| Looking down Wadi Rum from the top of the outcrop |
Nabataean Petroglyphs
A ten-minute drive…
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| Through Wadi Rum |
….through stunning scenery…
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| Through Wadi Rum |
…brought us to a rock face scratched with the images of camels and hunting scenes. Hitherto, apart from the two trucks at the outcrop, we had been on our own, here we encountered the crowds. There are selfish people who climb onto a boulder and painstakingly photograph minute areas of rock in great close up, thus depriving everyone else of a view. Most, though are more reasonable and we eventually had a good look at both areas of drawings at this site. There are said to be 25,000 petroglyphs in Wadi Rum, but counting scratches on a rock face leaves much to interpretation. I think these are Nabataean, they were responsible for most glyphs in the wadi, though some are later, the work of Bedouins.
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| Nabataean Petroglyphs, Wadi Rum |
There is clearly some writing on one area in what is known as Thamudic – a catch-all name for a variety of so far undeciphered scripts found throughout the Arabian region. Elsewhere there are inscription in Kufic, an early Arabic script.
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| Nabataean petroglyphs with Thamudic inscriptions, Wadi Rum |
Barrah Siq and TE Lawrence
Another short journey took us towards Barrah Siq. The sight of two Bedouins leading camels through the desert still manages to be exciting, even when you know they are going to give rides to tourists.
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| Bedouin leading camels through Wadi Rum |
The entrance to the narrow siq is another place where tourists congregate. Allegedly this is where TE Lawrence first met Prince Abdullah, the son of Hussein the Sharif of Mecca. Both appear in rock carvings. Neither are of high quality though Prince Abdullah might have looked something like this...
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| Prince Abdullah |
... while photographs of Lawrence show that he was no Peter O’Toole, but neither was he a moon-faced schoolboy.
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| TE Lawrence, Barrah Siq, Wadi Rum |
The real purpose of the effigies is to drag in the tourists and their money, because behind them are the souvenir sellers and coffee stalls.
The Ottoman Empire entered the First World War on the side of the Central Powers in October 1914. To prevent moves against the Persian oil fields and the Suez Canal, the British and French plotted to turn Arab unrest in the Ottoman south into open revolt. In a series of letters between July 1915 and March 1916 the British and Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca agreed that Hussein would lead a revolt, bankrolled by Britain and France and aided by the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force. Once it was successful the allies would support the creation of an independent Arab state stretching from Damascus to Yemen.
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| TE Lawrence, near Jeddah 1917 (photo in Public Domain) |
Dozens of British and French officers, including TE Lawrence, were dispatched to liaise with the Arab forces. They fought successfully alongside Hussein’s sons Ali, Abdullah and Faizal.
British history books, at least up to the mid-60s (i.e. the ones I read as I child) presented Lawrence as single-handedly leading the Arab revolt, the subtext being that any group of people can achieve anything provided they are led by an Oxford educated, fair-skinned English gentleman (even if Lawrence’s background was not quite as conventional as we were allowed to assume).
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| Abdullah when King of Jordan Photo by Cecil Beaton (in Public domain) |
The ludicrous hype of the Lawrence story has obscured the reality of his achievements. He was an academic archaeologist who knew the area well before the war, spoke good Arabic and developed an excellent working relationship with Prince Faizal, Hussain’s eldest son. He was a remarkably effective officer, but not the only one - and he was not superman.
Unfortunately for Lawrence’s reputation among the Arabs, the British and French double-crossed them. The 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement had already carved the region into a series of British and French protectorates, there would be no pan-Arab state.
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| King Abdulla II of Jordan Photo from Wikipedia |
Hussein’s sons at first did well from the post war arrangements, but none of them prospered for long. Ali succeeded his father as Sharif of Mecca in 1925, but was deposed after 3 months by Ibn Saud who was busy creating Saudi Arabia. Faisal become King of Iraq but died ostensibly of a ‘heart attack’ in 1933. He was succeeded by his son, who died in a mysterious road ‘accident’, and then his grandson who was murdered in the 1958 military coup. Abdullah did best, becoming King of Jordan, but he was assassinated in 1951. He was succeeded briefly by his son Talal who abdicated, grandson Hussein and then great-grandson who has been King Abdullah II since 1999.
Sunset in Wadi Rum
All such tours must end with the sun setting into the desert. Of course, there are chosen places for this and we lined up with the rest. Too often we have watched the sun subside into a low band of cloud, but not this time.
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| Sunset, Wadi Rum |
Having lost my bearings in the desert, I was surprised to find we were watching the sunset from the ridge beside our camp.
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| Space Camp, Wadi Rum |
When we got back it rained, not hard and not for long…
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| Rain in the desert, Wadi Rum |
… but a definite shower. I was shocked, but have since discovered that rain in November is not as rare here as I thought.
Dinner in Wadi Rum
The rain had gone by the time we went to watch our dinner being disinterred.
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| Disinterring our dinner, Wadi Rum |
A traditional Bedouin zarb is cooked in an underground oven called a taboon.
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| Extracting the zarb from the taboon, Wadi Rum |
The heavily bearded and well-fed master of ceremonies explained that the vegetables had been cooked above the meat, so vegetarians could be confident they had not been contaminated.
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| Zarb dinner, Wadi Rum |
All was arranged as a buffet and the camp residents were invited to eat. I would like to say how good it was, but sadly it wasn’t. None of the vegetables were peeled - picking baked onion from its brown, papery outer layer is not a pleasure – and they had all taken on a woolly texture. The meat was bland, too. It would have been better if the meat had been above the veg and the juices allowed to drip through (and maybe this is the traditional way), but vegetarians would then go hungry. This problem has no obvious solution.
Part 3: Shobak Castle and the Back Trail to Petra
Part 4: Petra
Part 5: Wadi Rum
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