Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
chure about Umm Qais from the ticket office.
Umm Qais: Gadara of the Decapolis
(JD3),
published by Al-Kutba, is ideal for anyone who wants further information. Guides (JD10)
are available from the ticket office.
There are toilets at the Umm Qais Resthouse. The tourist police are along the lane
between the museum and the Resthouse.
Getting There & Away
Umm Qais village, and the ruins 200m to the west, are about 25km northwest of Irbid, and
about 110km north of Amman. Minibuses leave Irbid's North bus station (800 fils, 45
minutes) on a regular basis. There's no direct transport from Amman.
With a car you can descend to the Jordan Valley road via the village of Adasiyyeh. The
occasional minibus runs down this road to Shuneh ash-Shamaliyyeh but if you are relying
on public transport to get to Pella from here, it's easier to backtrack via Irbid.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT IN THE JORDAN VALLEY
This is border country, historically disputed land, where the names alone (Golan Heights, West Bank) cast a long
shadow over the fields of onions and tomatoes. Mr Abu Eiad, in this year of drought, casts an eye up to the cloud-
less sky and pronounces with profound stoicism, 'It's God's will'. He is happy, he says. With two wives, four sons
and two daughters, why shouldn't he be? It also transpires that he has something else to smile about. Hidden
between the limes and lemons of his family plot, water gushes into a beautiful vale of emerald green. It's a far cry
from the plastic-sheeted fields of corporate neighbours, some dry-baked like old leather, others artificially green un-
der their polythene coating.
The spring is diverted by stones into the orchard one day and the potato fields the next, the excess siphoned off to
help neighbours. Abu Eiad's wife wants help for new technologies to develop their enterprise. Casting a look at the
Garden of Eden in front of us, with its plump, organic fruit and glossy aubergines, it's hard to imagine that anything
could improve on their winning formula.
'Take a picture!' Abu Eiad insists, as he stands in waving distance of the Jordan River - and the armed border
guard who thankfully is looking the other way. But it isn't the border that's the focus of the shot: the focus is on two
farmers, either side of the thin ribbon of reeds, plucking weeds from their onion beds, just as other
fellaheen
(sub-
sistence farmers) have been doing in the Jordan Valley for centuries.
