Jordan's Assets ; Charlotte Eagar Left the New Ruins of Baghdad for the Old Ruins of Petra and the Sound of Gunfire for the Joys of Aromatherapy at the Amman Four Seasons
Evening Standard - London › October 08, 2004
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Summary
One of the best things about a really good hotel is coming from somewhere worse. I arrived at the Four Seasons in Amman straight from Baghdad. I'm not blaming the Baghdad Al-Hamra Suite Hotel; it did very well under the circumstances.
There was running water, and you could always buy wine. The hotel can't help the machine guns rattling in the street, or the occasional thud of a suicide bomb. The air conditioning did work most of the time and there was a notice in the lift saying that when the power cut out (which it did, at least once an hour) the management would stage a rescue in under two minutes: I used the stairs. And I can quite see why they can't be bothered to mend the swimming-pool steps the place could be blown up at any moment. So one was really only grateful for the concrete chicanes and checkpoints at the entrance, and the Kalashnikov-toting guards in the lobby; especially since several Westerners in Baghdad had recently been kidnapped from their homes.See the full content of this document
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Jordan's Assets ; Charlotte Eagar Left the New Ruins of Baghdad for the Old Ruins of Petra and the Sound of Gunfire for the Joys of Aromatherapy at the Amman Four Seasons
It was also much better than the hotel of death next door whose journalist guests kept being kidnapped just after they checked out.
If there were armed men in the Four Seasons (and there must have been, because breakfast was full of the kind of men who make deals in countries that border a war zone) they were much more discreet. And none ...See the full content of this document
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