highlights from the hashemite kingdom

a week is much too short to experience the many sides of jordan. but here are some of the highlights from the trip: fascinating areas ripe with ancient histories & natural wonders spanning centuries, putting my place in this world into perspective.

jerash
cobbled streets with wearmarks of carriages of the roman days, towering pillars & collonnades which whisper of the power that must have dwellt in these ancient cities.

a gateway of the temple of zeus, built AD 162


the 800m long cardo maximus, or collonaded street, was first built in 1st century AD & consisted of 500 columns!!




the agora, where main markets & public meetings were held


the cathedral, covering the remains of an earlier temple


remnants with the modern jerash in the background




dead sea
we spent on luxurious day bobbing & rolling like corkscrews on the surface of the dead sea. alternating floating on the thick oillike mineralrich water with coatings of black salty mud, it was a great & fun experience, not to mention reviving & revitalising. wish i had a dead sea closer to home...

jordanian coast, with a hazy israel on the other side:






warm black luxurious mud!




petra
finally, petra. what to say, this place blows me away, i don't know which pictures to chose to convey some fraction of the feeling of this aweinspiring place.... narrow passageways of towering rock, sandstone of shifting reds yellows browns, the most amazing stonecarvings which unfold around every corner, highly developed architectural & engineering feats from an intriguing ancient civilisation... several days of jumping around on the cliffs would have been needed to explore the 800 registered sites in petra - & it is estimated that only about 5% of petra has been excavated... next time i am bringing my climbing & hiking gear...!

djinn (spirit) blocks, built by nabataeans in the 1st century AD


the siq, a narrow 1.2km passageway with sandstone walls towering skywards up to 200m


remnants of a stonecarving, with a man leading a camel that is still discernible in the rockface


the siq ends dramatically with the al-khazneh (treasury), remarkable well-preserved with it's fantastic carvings.


the name stems from a local legend of hidden treasure, but it was actually a tomb for a nabataean king. it dates from somewhere between 100 BC to 200 AD.




the area is full of tombs, with facades carved out of the rock


the roman soldier's tomb


the monestary was built in 3rd century BC as a nabataean tomb, but is thought to have been used as a church in byzantine times, hence the name


view of the kings tombs




rock detail

istalif

(these pictures were actually taken this past spring, but better late than never...)

istalif is a picturesque village about one hour north of kabul, lying at the base of the hills looking out over the shomali plain. it has a long tradition & history of making pottery. much was destroyed during the taliban, but families who have passed on the skills from generation to generation are now rebuilding & trying to make a living off brightly coloured bowls & vases. sisterester worked with the istalifi potters for almost a year, to improve the quality of the production.

ruins


view over shomali plain


resource centre


from dust....






...to finished bowls

those were the days

making our way back into town along the infamous jalalabad road, accompanied by an afghan music channel, the famous ahmed zahir starts singing a dari rendition of those were the days.

the slightly twangy wavery afghan lyrics combined with the so-familiar tune sounds a little odd; but as i listen the impact of the words in this context sink in... those were the days, when this country was not so infested with external interests, when the powerplays & wargames of presidents & rulers of the world did not yet dictate the present reality of the millions of little people trying to make it from one day to the next in this odd hodgepodge of interests called afghanistan.

it's been going on for so long, it's now as much a part of reality here as the dust we breathe...

when were the days when there wasn't an external interest pulling the strings?
will there ever be a day when the afghans can "sing & dance" to their own tunes, when they will "fight & never lose " and ultimately "live the life they choose"?

“you can tell a happy cyclist by the flies on his teeth”

(quote: a great postcard i have on my fridge.)

our dear world is ripe with overuse underuse abuse, the imbalance of resources overproduced underproduced, & the wastage, oh wastage galore! it's easy to get depressed thinking about the consequences of our present ways of life.

biking fits in very nicely into the equation that seems so completely impossible to solve: trying to turn the trend of wear & tear on Mother Earth. the reasons for increasing levels of biking abound, & i will hereby endeavour to explore some of them.



ONE
biking does not cause pollution
the issue of pollution is one that is all too easy to simply sweep under the rug as we once again ease into the leatherupholstered seat of our glossy car & cruise away. I won’t go into the statistics of the number of cars that infest this earth, but we all know the general picture. it’s enough to look at any street in any city to assess the damage. here we can mention the tragic example of china, where bikes used to be the main mode of transport, but the rise to modernism has brought the Individually Owned Vehicle to the masses. considering the population of china, this is scary indeed.

TWO
bikes do not cause congestion (well, tour de france is perhaps the exception….)
overcrowding of vehicles is a major problem in many big cities. not enough p places, & woe you if you are out in rush hour! kabul is a prime example of this. this city was definitely not built for the huge influx of exhuastpuffing engines infesting every spare inch of street. & not any old cars at that, a large percentage happen to be big oversized landrovers & landcruisers (which, mind you, do come in handy during the muddymuddy winters…). not to mention the warmachines, & the ramshackle busses that have so graciously been handed down from various european countries where their aged services are no longer required.

THREE
biking gives you free exercise
it is a concerning fact that obesity is now a serious nutritional problem, a bizarre contrast to the starvation & poverty that is a stark reality for so many millions. too much sitting still, too much standing still, too much eating - & ‘bad’ eating at that. it is suggested that a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise is necessary to maintain health. by biking to work, to the grocery store, or just for the sheer lovely pleasure of feeling the wind in your face, these 30 minutes would be spent with no effort!! (granted: this does not work in afghanistan at present. although many people do bike, these people are exclusively men. i have been told by a couple afghans that afghan ladies certainly used to bike. but at present….? this is indeed a very sad thing.)
furthermore, biking does not put much strain on your lower limbs & joints, & can be very useful for an array of different pains & aches.

FOUR
biking makes you happy
it is generally believed that endorphines are released when muscles are in action. endorphine is a biochemical compound released after strenuous exercise which acts as a natural painkiller & gives you a sense of well-being, even exhilaration. biking is a prime endorphine-releaser!
furthermore, the pleasure of being engulfed by sights & sounds & smells as you cruise through fields & forests, the satisfaction of gaining the crest of an impossible hill that you thought would never end, then flying down the other side at 50-60km/hr, singing some crazy song from highschool & feeling that you might just lift off the ground.

FIVE
biking gets you where you need to be
ok, so biking is not as fast as driving. but why does everything have to go so dreadfully fast? (i am very much aware of a contradiction here... i tend to be the worst offender of squeezing too many things into too little time, & rushing is thereby guaranteed... but we all need something to work on...) back to the point: with a bike you can get to most places, in fact, in some cases it can be quicker than the public transport due to traffic & all (tried & tested in gothenburg for 5 years, & madrid for 2 weeks). plus, as with walking, you are much more likely to notice the little details of life as you roll along: breathe in the smells, the wind, the birdsong. & the weather is only as big a deal as you make it. we have a saying in sweden: there is no bad weather, only bad clothing. sure, you'll need another layer to deal comfortably with rain & snow, but riding with raindrops in your face, spraying through puddles or taking a tumble in a pile of snow can be very invigorating! (although i have to say, a strong headwind is not my favourite.... but who said life was perfect?)

SIX
biking does not (generally) kill
sure there are accidents, but i'll bet anything most of them are associated with crazy drivers not used to or willing to share the road. deaths in traffic are so unnecessary, & could be virtually eliminated by more people biking!!

SEVEN
biking is the way forward.

the end.

el camino con azadi

the following are a few details from
my trip with azadi across northerna spain
from roncesvalles to santiago de compostela.





cathedral in puente la reina






cathedral in burgos






cathedral in frómista (complete with storks)




cathedral in leon


cathedral in rabanal del camino


altitude: 1270m


...& the cathedral in santiago...




NB azadi means freedom in urdu,
& i can't think of a better name for my bright red two-wheeler.

daily bread

no afghan meal is complete without the freshly made nan, & i feel compelled to dedicate an entry to this central feature of the afghan culinary culture: it is eaten for breakfast, with tea & maybe cream or jam to dip in, and for lunch & dinner, soaked in soup or used as an eating utensil to scoop up the food.

this nan, which comes in regional variations, is made in tandoors (big ovens) sunk in the ground, with their sooty gaping mouth at the top. a fire at the bottom heats the claysides of the tandoor, on which the nan is baked. this breadmaking is a highly collaborate effort!

one man forms little balls of dough;
one man rolls them out to thin pancakes;
one man is responsible for slapping these flats onto the sides of the oven.

before baking, a sprinkling of sia dana (black onion seeds) &/or khash khash (poppy seeds) adds the finishing touch. the steaming results are then displayed & sold a little differently depending on where you are: in large baskets wrapped up in layers of cloth to keep the heat, or hanging up in the nan-e wayis (bakeries).





the most common bread is an elongated large bread which can easily for used as a eating utensil. it is also made as a round, & for some reason it tastes better in this shape... the best bread (according to my opinion!) is found in mazar, where they are baked as thicker smaller rounds. & better still is the mazary bread that is made in the homes, nan-e khanagi; this is a treat every time i go to mazar!



nan is treated particularly. it is carried & served right side up, the handling conveys a sense of importance. after a meal, the remaining bread is wrapped in the tablecloth & kept; no nan is thrown away. dry nan is dipped in soup or tea. also, piles of dried scraps of nan can be seen on the street: old dried nan is used for feeding animals.

the word nan can also synonymously be used for food. i made this mistake the first time i was here, asking for only some nan-e afghani, meaning a simple piece of afghan bread & being presented with a fullfledged afghan meal...

variations of nan:
nan-e khushk: literally dry bread, which you ask for if you will not eat anything else, just bread.
nan-e khanagi: the nan which is made in homes, usually with coarser wholewheattype flour, giving an amazing fragrant brownbread. a definite favourite!!
nan-e bazaari, nan-e tandoori: nan from the market
nan-e roghani: breakfast nan where they knead in some ghee (fat) into the dough before rolling it out & baking it.
nan-e gird: round nan
nan-e panja kashi: large, elongated nan
nan-e tawagi: thin bread made on a tawa (like chapatti in pakistan); can also be called nan-e chapatti
kulchi-e tandoori: sweeter bread, made with milk & sugar

nan-e wayi – bakery
nan-e way – baker (men make the bread in the nan-buis, while women make the bread in the homes)
bui-e nan – aroma of nan

this steamingnanaroma compells to nibbling on the way home from the nan-e wayi, mm-hmm!
one of little luxuries of the multifaceted life here.