Amman Transport

There are *at least* three types of taxis and two types of buses. The first type of taxi is a private taxi. Now, this private taxi comes in various flavours. First, there is the taxi that is specially licensed to only pick up passengers from the airport and take them to their destinations for a fixed rate depending on the area of Amman or Jordan (19JD to the further part of Amman and 109JD to get to the border of Iraq). The second type is the normal yellow taxi that you hail on the street. To get anywhere within the city of Amman during normal times costs 2.5JD or less – providing the meter is turned on and the driver realizes that you know the meter is turned on. (In “Survival Amiyya,” we learned the very important phrase of turn on the meter, please – sgharreh al-saddat, lao samaht.) There is also an ordered private taxi, “Taxi Moumayez” that is a privately run fleet that can print out receipts, although the meter runs at a higher rate and advances more quickly. It wants to be the best taxi company, and even prints out receipts, but there are instances where the drivers have been very late or early. Biseer – it can happen. The next type of taxi is called as “servees” – it is a shared taxi and runs on a fixed route, going in circles. However, this route is not published anywhere, so I don’t know how people actually figure out how to use them. Again these are cheaper – but until my Arabic consists of a little more than 50 words or so, I will have to wait, I think.

Then are the buses….oh, the buses. The first kind are the most well established and prevalent. They are privately owned and do not have a fixed schedule, but run as soon as they are full. The routes, too, are apparently confusing – I do not think I will try to figure out how to get to the university with them until I can at least read Arabic enough to sound out the destinations. However, they are very cheap. Then there are the publicly owned buses – these are newer and rarer. There are also buses one can rent for touring destinations, though I don’t think I will be using them any time soon!

There is also the option of walking about; however, this has many problems. In the first place, there is the matter of the sidewalks. They exist in some places, but any description will fail to do justice to their narrowness or their sudden stops and starts or their charming unpredictability. I must charitably note, however, in some places the sidewalks or store front pavements are quite attractive, being made of colored tile and carefully decorated with Islamic art or shapes or words.