10 August 2013
Transfer to airport and in terminal building without being kidnapped. Yay. Queue for passport control. It. Takes. Ages. The officer is taking his time. Sloooowwww ggggooooiiinng. My turn and he wants to know where the pink exit slip is. I have no pink exit slip. He points in the direction of table yonder full of pink exit slips. Sod it. Fill in form and queue again. It. Takes. Ages. Two families of parents, grandparents, children each with passports and pink slips to check. It. Takes. Ages. Come on hurry up. One bloke behind me is tutting away. He’s impatient and jumps in front of a queue to my right to the disgust of those queuing for that booth. Cheeky sod.
Eventually. My passport is checked. Every. Single. Page. The Santa stamp comes in for extra scrutiny but nothing compared to the scrutiny of the North Cape sticker. It’s nothing official. Merely a silver sticker used by the souvenir shop to seal paper bags of souvenirs. It says, “This product is bought at the North Cape”. Stuck it in passport as a souvenir sticker. He brushes it with his fingers, admiringly, saying, “Is this an entry stamp?”……Er…….er……..ponder……..yes. “It’s really nice” admiring it again that fraction of a second too long and stroking it with his fingers again to suggest an entry stamp fetish. He’s weird.
Board flight and there’s a secondary bag search on the air bridge by Jordanian security who is the spitting image of the gay nurse off Corrie (you know….Sean’s boyfriend…..well he was the last time I watched). There are two air marshalls on board. My day sack is searched but he fails to spot the rather large holdall behind my back.
Incidentally, a bottle of water doesn’t pose a threat that I’ve brought in from landside……but it does in the UK and elsewhere. The last time I was on a Royal Jordanian flight the air marshalls signed in/out a firearm for the flight but I see no such thing today.
Take off and assume it’ll be a quick 30min hop over Syria. Oh no. We go from A to B – or should that be B(eirut) to A(mman) – via C, D, E, F & G. It takes an hour and a half avoiding Syrian and Israeli airspace. Fly down the coast to Sinai and turn over the Red Sea before travelling north to Amman. Green cedars of Lebanon morphing into brown, dusty, desert.
Obtain visa at the border and passport is stamped with “Contact the nearest police station within one month”. Ask if I really need to do this as I’m only here a few days. Am told no – only if here for longer than one month.
Then why doesn’t it say that? Remember having this problem when working here in 2002. A colleague was fined on exit for not having a police stamp in her passport. Had to promptly pop down the local police station for a stamp and entered a hell hole full of scallywags. Clearly there for something other than murder, rape or buggery, the Sergeant sat me down in his office (after all the scallywags were told to make way for the white man) and started saying “Beekam…..beekam…..” Thinking this was Arabic for something I shrugged away. He actually meant Beckham who had just broken his foot before the World Cup. Oh yes, I could write a brand new blog about my time in Jordan….the country….not the model…..obviously.
Am in Amman to meet a man. WAMC is joining me on the Jordan and Egypt sector. We’d met on the Trans Siberian a few years ago and has just flown in from Jo’burg. His wife’s not fancying this much of an adventure so shall see her when I reach Jo’burg.
Inshallah.