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Israel and Jordan 1998

Trip to Israel and Jordan for the Feast of Tabernacles 1998

Part 2

Tuesday 6 October, Jordan — It is now night time here at Taybet Zaman Hotel, near Petra in Jordan. We left Israel on Sunday on a long and interesting coach journey. After leaving the Crowne Plaza we headed north and stopped at Masada, an ancient hill fortress and palace of King Herod. A cable car took us up part of the way, and we had to walk the rest in the early morning heat. At least we had water, with free refills around the site. We toured the place, saw Herod’s palace (which he never used). The place was used by the Jews as their last stronghold against the Romans in AD73, but they committed suicide rather than be captured.

Driving on from there we headed further north along the western coast of the Dead Sea to Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Shortly after that we arrived at the border with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, where we had to leave our coaches and take everything through border controls to Jordanian coaches, then cross Allenby Bridge (known to the Jordanians as King Hussein Bridge) and through Jordanian customs. One thing I noticed here was plenty of pictures of their king, King Hussein, whom the people love, and most of the vehicles here are made by Mercedes, except the pickups which were donated by the Japanese.

Gala night in Jordan: Hey what's that up there! We headed south along the Desert Highway, and saw the sun set. By the time we arrived at our hotel in Taybet Zaman it was dark, but they greeeted us there with a lovely fruit drink which I have never had before or since. The hotel is styled like really old buildings but with modern facilities in the rooms, although the stone floors are cold. Finding my way around this hotel (the doors of rooms open out to the outdoors) is difficult, it is easy to get lost here.

On Monday, the first holy day of the Feast of Tabernacles (that’s the main reason why we are here), we had a lie-in, and after lunch the service. By this time I had met quite a few people (all Americans). Don my room mate did the songleading and Sharon played piano excellently. We had a sermonette on finding ways to please others rather than ourselves, and then a sermon by Scott Ashley (editor of the Good News magazine) about what will happen just before Christ returns. He mentioned the earth being hit by large meteors (which reminded me of two films I saw recently, Armageddon and Deep Impact, both about huge meteors/comets heading towards Earth threatening us with total destruction).

Heather and her mum Ellen In the evening we had a magnificent gala dinner. This was a very nice ocassion, lots of fine food, an Arab playing arabic music and singing, and some church members dressed up in arab-style clothes/headdresses.

Our Jordanian guides also dressed up, in their traditional clothes, and they then kidnapped two women to dress them up in arabic female costumes: Maria (tour organiser of MTM travel) and Heather.

That night we really had a party, with dancing and everyone enjoying themselves.

However, that night some people did not sleep so well, some getting only 2 hours of sleep. I was lucky and slept fairly okay.

Sharon and Heather get into the swing of things in Jordan... Jordanian guides dress Heather up in traditional costume and dance with her...