Different countries are different*

We spent a day in Amman, the capital of Jordan and a city of 2 million people. Some highlights included a trip to the Citadel on a hilltop overlooking the city and a Roman amphitheater still almost entirely intact that could seat 3,000 people, just on a random street in the middle of the city surrounded by shops, restaurants and city folk going about their normal lives. We also met up with two other classmates who are traveling in the region at a really cool nightclub that had fresh all you can eat sushi.

We also went to two really interesting sets of Roman ruins at Jerash and Umm Qais. Both were built around the 3rd century BC. Not only were they huge and largely still intact (desert air good for protection - many of the stone streets still have the wheel indentations from where Roman chariots wore them down still visible) but they also have so much history. An area might have a wall built by the Greeks protecting a Roman fountain that had a Byzantine church built on it that was turned into an Islamic mosque that became an Ottoman fort.

Jordan seems very different than Oman.

First, it is noticeably poorer. Jordan does not have any significant oil, so it is forced to rely on tourism and standard trade and industry to sustain the economy. And tourism has been slow over the last 6 years as the conflict in the middle east has worsened and after there were a few bombings in Amman a few years ago.

Secondly, the refugee situation in Jordan is much more immediately visible. Jordan has ~6 million Jordanian residents. It also has ~2 million Palestinian refugees and ~500k Iraqi refugees. While Jordan is one of only a few Arab countries who recognize Israel, the number of refugees we have met who refer to their home as being in territory occupied by Israel is a little unsettling. The two countries do have generally peaceful relations though.

Third, while both countries have a generally arid landscape, Oman has a large stretch of coastline where most of the people live. Jordan has only a few dozen kilometers of sea access, and most of the population lives inland along the north-south stretch running along the Jordanian Valley down to the Dead Sea, then south along the border with Israel to the coast. The need to secure water and lack of good land for farming are clearly evident.

Jordan, maybe more than any other place I have been, has an incredibly dense past. Jordan was controlled at various times by Mongols, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Byzantines, Jews, Christian crusaders, Islamic caliphates, Ottomans and the British before finally becoming its own kingdom in 1948.

We went to lunch by one of he historical sights in Umm Qais. We had an incredibly beautiful panorama from our table. Not only that, it hammered home how close together everything is. Sitting in Jordan, we could also see the West Bank (Palestinian territory), Israel, the Golon Heights (Israel / Syria dispute), Lebanon, and Syria. Our guide then showed us the border in 1948, the path the Israeli tanks took through Jordan to Syria in the 1967 war, and the current borders. It really hammered home how Israeli/Palestinian conflict is such a common fact of day to day life here. In Dubai and Oman, it felt much more removed, even though those countries do
not even officially recognize Israel as a country. Looking around the intersection of all these countries, you can start to see why...


Actual bullet point on key takeaways slide in global business class at Stanford