THE JEWEL THAT IS JORDAN
14th – 26th October, 2004
Vintage
cars in the ruins of Um Qais
As a car rally it was quite different from anything we
had done before. During the twelve
days we were there we probably only drove about 1500 miles – the rest of the
time was spent ‘on holiday’ visiting all the places
we had heard
of and never expected to see
Camels in Wadi Rum><.Petra_view
><Petra
caves
We
enjoyed our Land Rover safari in the Wadi Rum with its red desert and
wonderful hills - we’d have liked to stay there longer and perhaps slept under
the stars in the amazing quiet of the desert.
Petra was incredible with its pink carved-sandstone Nabatean city
– certainly worth a visit even though I, not known for a love of walking, did
have to trek four miles through the Siq – a narrow gorge with sheer walls
rising to 100 metres – to reach the treasury known as Al-Khazneh. It was seriously impressive and well worth
the walk – I thought Richard was pretty mean to refuse to let me take a chariot
back though! A few girls took horses and galloped back, much to the consternation
of the horses’ owners who had expected to lead them and also didn’t think girls
could ride, particularly without stirrups!
We
dived in the Red Sea (fabulous), floated in the Dead Sea (weird!) which is
believed to be the site of Sodom and Gomorrah,
Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar, dodged some stone-throwing children, went to
the Crusader Castles, Mount Nebo, Um Qais, Jesus’ Baptismal site (Al-Maghtas),
various important churches and the tomb of King Hussein. Another of the highlights was a two-hour trip
on a ramshackley Ottoman steam train which was ‘attacked’ by Bedouins who
kidnapped most of the girls – all rather well done!
Hostage><Steam train><Alfa and
Jaguar
On the entertainment side we had some delicious Bedouin
lunches – sitting on the ground didn’t suit everyone – tea with our Ambassador,
an excellent dinner with dancing under palm trees with varnished trunks at a
terribly OTT but impressive farmer’s ‘house’ - the most stunningly spectacular
Gala dinner, complete with pageantry,
in the ruins of Jerash hosted by King Abdullah and Queen Rania who joined us on a number of occasions. They were very easy to talk to.
Jordan
was lovely although we could have done without four days at the
Intercontinental Hotel in Amman – if you think of going to explore, try the
Mövenpick hotel at the Dead Sea– you can go pretty well everywhere in the day
from there – and Jordan itself is only a five-hour flight from the UK. Amman
On
the mechanical side, one of the automatics, complete with its driver, set off
at high speed across a hotel car park, damaging cars with its open doors,
through a wall and crashed 6’ on to the pavement breaking its back and stopped
by T-boning a police car which was part of our ‘guard’. Kirk and Alannah Rylands took their XK 140
which went well except for a burst water pipe when it overheated as we both
zoomed up a particularly splendid hill climb, overtaking loads of modern
Rolls-Royces and Bentleys with their air-conditioning working at full chat.
Richard and Trisha Pilkington (me!) took the Alfa Romeo 1750 Zagato which also
behaved well except that it had been fitted for the event with a modern fuel
filter which clogged up completely after about 100 miles. The petrol we put in at Aqaba must have been
nearly as dirty as the filling station itself!
Later a distributor fault caused starting difficulties but was
eventually cured – Kirk ‘reluctantly’ deciding to help with this problem
instead of going shopping!
Usama
and Abir Tuqan (Silver Cloud) were the only Jordanians out of a total entry of
46 cars, the majority of which were ‘modern’.
Amongst the older cars were a Healey Abbott Drophead (Michael and
Shirley Valentine), 2 Bentley Speed Six (Chris and Rita Jonas, Roy and Margaret
Hatfield), 2 Bentley 4 ½ (Richard Farr and Leisa Freeman, Nigel and Gina
Batchelor), Ford A roadster (Guy Thin and Angela Goodhart), the ex-Shoosmith
Bentley 3-4 ½ (Robert and Jane Abrey), Lagonda M45 (Richard and Jo Mann), 1914
Silver Ghost (Edward Montagu and Wade Grimbly).
Patti
Hearst, Buzz Aldrin and Lord Montagu were invited to attract the Press and to
help promote tourism in the country—Prince Feisal was joint Patron of the rally
with Lord Montagu who was constantly needed for photo-shoots.
There is rumour of the event taking place again in 2005 – I think it would be difficult to beat what Jonathan Lyons (Bentley R Continental) arranged for us to do this time but if you haven’t been to Jordan you should consider the event – there might also be one in Lebanon if the warring factions on its borders can be pacified.
P.G.P.
Still having a
problem getting the pictures to show using XP and Office 2000 – if you know how
to solve my problem please email Trisha on Tops@topsclub.com. Thank you! (I can put them up using a hyperlink, as
above, but they don’t show unless you click on them – very irritating as they
were OK with Office 98!)