I slept quite well, last night although there were continuous noises coming from the kitchen below. Alison of course being a light sleeper was awake at 1330hrs till the early hours of the morning when I woke up. Adrian and Alison ad our own cereal for breakfast while I ordered meat slices on and a glass of cay.

At 0940hrs we heft the hotel and was cleared of the Syrian border by 1040hrs after much hassle over the exit tax that we had to pay. No one told us that we had to pay but on finding out we didn’t know where to pay it. Eventually I was shown a makeshift building in between two new complexes and the guy behind the counter just asked how many people and when I responded gave me 3 receipts and took 1500 SPnds from me, not knowing that Adrian who is under 12 years did not have to pay.

When we got to the Jordanian border it was fairly simple procedure and no touts to hassle me. But I had to pay 20 Dinars for tax and 30 for 30 days insurance. If I had taken insurance for one week only it would have cost me 20 Dinars.

After clearing into Jordan we made our way towards Jerash. There is a new highway between the border and Amman and we had to leave it to go towards Jerash. Part of the road to Jerash was dual carriageway but on nearing it the road turned two way and we could see the ruins from the top of the hill covering a large area. The entrance to the ruins was by Hadrian’s Gate furthest point form the rest of the ruins and I could see there was a lot of walking to do. I bought myself a Kufieh , the Arab head gear in preparation for it.

It would take some time if we were to cover the whole area and a lot of energy too! And both Adrian and I don’t have too much of the latter. It would have ended up Adrian asking Alison to carry him. We managed to get to the crossroads of the western colonnades, passing the oval and I thought that was enough walking for the day.

Jerash owes it importance to its location lying at the centre of a basin ca 150km2. Whilst the river Chrysorhoas (river of gold) provides water for cultivation, its valley forms the ort-South axis of communication and divides the terrain into 2 zones: to the west lies the height of Ajlun rich in springs and Mediterranean type of cultivation; to the east is the steppe-like landscape where only the bottom of the valley is suitable for agriculture.

The Jerash basin had attracted settled life from at least 7^th millennium BCE. In the historical period Jerash was first mentioned as “Garshu” in a Nabataean inscription, which no doubt became the Hellenistic name Gerasa. But the move of  the earlier Umayyad capital from Damascus to Baghdad by the next Abbasid dynasty, bypassed Jerash with its new communication routes which led to its economic decline.

The next stop was Amman and coming into it was not a problem.