PetraPetraPetra. What a wonderful place.

Let me recount how we arived and we shall go from there methinks.

On Monday we headed extra early (8am) to Samariyyeh station in Damascus and managed to get a coach for I think 500 lira to Amman. This was a good means of transport - air conditioned, spatious and free juice and water and sweet. They certainly know how to keep their customers happy. I listened to Messiaen on the way to the border, don't really know why, though it does sound pleasingly pretentious. Once again we passed the 911 Target! centre, still wondering whether it was created before or after and which one would be more disturbing. The border was a little drawn out, but not too bad, though we did have to pay departure tax and then the visa of 10JD into Jordan itself. If it is any compensation though, the visa is quite cool. Actually, that really isn't much compensation, seeing as that was about 8 quid shelled out in a country I am spending about 6 days in before I even get beyond the border. such is life.

We had the pleasure of having what can only be described as a Syrian Chav on our bus. He was wearing a grey fake label tracksuit with haircut, trainers and bling to match. There were some fashions I though would never leave Britain. I was wrong.

Amman was much nicer than I thought it was going to be, though we did only spend a couple of hours there trying to find food after the coach dropped us off at an unidentified spot in town. Miraculously I found an ATM that took my natwest card. Had I known it would be the only atm that would accept any of my cards for the rest of the week, I would have withdrawn substantially more than I did. That kind of thing does seem to be completely the luck of the draw out here...

The most wonderful thing about amman is that all the taxis have meters, thereby making the entire journey incredibly stress free as there is no need to haggle or indeed even question the presence of the meter in the car. Monarchy is a wonderful thing.

Speaking of monarchy it was a lovely change of scenery to have king hussein and abdullah smiling benevolently down at us as opposed to the Asads. Different kind of benign dictatorship I suppose.

Anyways, we headed to wahadat bus station and got the microbus to Petra for 5JD. We later found out that apparently it was supposed to be 3JD, so watch out fellow travellers, never shell out before you get in the bus and work out what the locals are paying. Still, for a 3 and a half hour drive it wasny too bad. Indeed, transport was the only thing in Jordan not hideously expensive.

So, we arrived in Petra in the early eve and got inundated with punters vying for our custom at their respective hotels. Whoever said that accomodation in Wadi Musa was problematic was obviously there in a different era. Despite the competition we made the erroneous choice of trying the wadi musa springs hotel where we got a thre bed room with shared bathroom for 4JD a night. This included sticky sheets, suspect blankets and a soviet style metal cupboard which could have easily contained a few corpses. Needless to say we only stayed a night. the next place we stayed was a strange one where we were given a room in the 3 star Sela hotel for 10JD each a night. Very nice mirror panelled wardrobe this time, but rubbish cold shower. Plus something dodgy seemed to be going on, since everyone else was obviously paying a lot more than us, and then they made it perfectly clear in the morning that they didn't want us there, after offering 3JD for half and hour internet and trying to charge us for taking a bottle of water and two cokes from the empty minibar in our room...our final port of call was a small hotel whose name I cannot remember, but for the same price it was not nearly so nice, though to be honest we realised how fortunate we had been the night before, so resigned ourselves to our fate. That was our accommodation trial and to be honest, I wouldn't really recommend any of the places we stayed at - none of them were that great for what they were.

We spent two most epic days in Petra. The first day we rose at dawn and rode in the back of a truck in the early morning light to get down to the siq for the morning sun which is supposedly the best time to see it. There is a long walk along a windy path past old stone caves and a few facades. Along one side of you is the horse track where bedouins offer you rides for a few dinar. I was vaguely tempted, though I wasny sure how well the horses were kept, plus anyone else who wasn't dressed like an arab looked ridiculous to me once on horseback. I think here I would want at least a kaffir…still we made our way down following a random Jordanian soldier sporting what is considered to be the most attractive military uniform in the world. I must say it is rather dignified, though I never think that khaki does much for anyone's complexion. Now if I were to design a uniform…

The siq itself was an amazing introduction to the rest of Petra - effectively a narrow way through rocks that towered above you and fortunately made enough shade for it to be cool for a lot of the day. We started as we meant to go on, with a cautious foray into one of the caves up sandy rock in flip flops. Since this met with success we resolved that Petra was more than possible in what is classed as unsuitable footwear and we strove to prove this throughout the two days - never a trainer or sensible sandal in sight.

Of course the famous sight of the treasury though the narrow path of rock was exciting enough to merit many many photos on both days, as if suddenly the view would improve with 24hours. Once in the open you are struck by the full thing which is just as impressive as Indiana Jones makes it out to be. The only difference is what is actually inside the treasury. When they talk about the facades, that is pretty much all there is. There are a couple of buildings that have a little ornamentation on the inside, but on the whole it's an exterior thing. I cannot complain, the entirety of Petra is just beyond belief. The rock was sometimes really streaky in different colours, and other times it looked as if it was melting, a bit like lemon drizzle cake. Mmm tasty goodness. It reminded me of the Dali paintings of rock landscapes, so if you need a metaphorical rather than factual image of petra, just look at a little of our favourite surrealist's work - it wasn't as surreal as you might think.

We decided to climb to the high place, which apparently was also the decision of a large group of French tourists as well. The walk at that time of the day (10.30 ish) was already very hot and most of it in direct sunlight. I wondered as I toiled up whether there would be a better time of the day to do it, however being already half way up there seemed little point in giving up. At the top, almost expired India, Emlyn and I sat on a rock and admired the view and appreciated the breeze. We were joined by a little boy called Abdullah who kept us company for the rest of the time we were at the top. When he was not being shouted at by his mother who was half way down the other side of the mountain, he liked taking pictures with my camera of us. He and his sister were very sweet indeed.

Well, the high place itself was good, but it was the walk down on the other side of the mountain that really made it. Apparently no one else seems to do it, so it was peaceful and much less stressful than the way up. We also got to see the lion fountain, the garden temple and the soldier's tomb which had the torso of a Roman soldier on the front of it. The Naboteans seemed a really cool bunch of guys, basically making their wealth through trading on the extension of the silk road and caravans and being very open to other cultural influences, hence the bizarre mix of ancient nabotean and classical facades that could have been lifted straight from Athens. I liked going inside the empty tombs as there were often still holes in the ground where I presume the bodies were placed. Plus it was a much more pleasant temperature, if not an entirely fragrant odour.

The only other people with us was a small group of Italians, one of whom had a prosthetic leg and his wife who didn't appear that agile either. It was rather amusing in a cruel way to see how they were neglected by the guide who strode on, chatting on his mobile while these poor people slowly expired trying not to slip on the rocks. I think Petra is better done when young and full of energy, when the blistering heat doesn't quite make you faint quite as quickly. One French lady had passed out, and all her friends were suggesting were, "café? Biscuits?" No water then…

Get food outside Petra if you can bear to carry it. The food inside is extortionate and not very substantial. After our morning in the sun we were all nearly dead and resigned ourselves to a 2JD can of coke and some hysterically expensive bananas. We were spoken to by an old Bedouin man who possessed the strangest cockney, south African English accent I have ever heard. He seemed to take a liking to us and we talked with him and then all his friends and extended family for the rest of the day as the tourists came and went. It was very interesting to hear what they had to say, and also to hear that nomatter how poor they look, these guys have absolutely no cash flow problems at all. They make a killing out of Petra, and apparently also made a lot of money selling their land at an inflated price to Iraqis (I think) who were then forced to give the land back because they did not have residency or something. Either way, they are loaded. It made them generous to us at least as we drank a lot of sugary minty tea which made my hands shake as I had had nothing else substantial to eat all day.

That evening, we hung out with two of the Bedouins, Attulah and Qeseb who took us to their home in Bedouin village where most of them live since being forced out of Petra. Our mode of transport was camel followed by flashy landrover. They then drove us out that evening to the desert to drink yet more tea, watch the stars and then try and hit on me and India in the presence of Emlyn. Slightly awkward, but I think they got the hint fairly quickly that neither of us were interested. Hmm I say that, but Atullah has been texting India fairly persistently since then. I think it is one of those tragic situations where local culture really has been corrupted by the West. The impression I got is that we were certainly not the first girls and we definitely won't be the last. It's strange because both of us had thought that having a guy with us would alleviate problems like that, but evidently we were mistaken. The party they invited us to the night after looked increasingly less attractive. Genuine Bedouin hospitality? I think not. Tough as the desert, soft as the sand, swift as the wind! It kind of depresses me what sort of girls would actually think that that kind of thing would be acceptable, especially with the cultural and religious differences. It does nothing to improve the image of the west when you see "bedouins" who apparently think it normal that western girls do that. Och well, apart from that, it was a most splendid day, and the stars that night were the clearest I have ever seen I think. If tomorrow was even half as good I would be bouncing off the walls, which didn't seem too unlikely considering the vast amount of sugary salty snacks we had consumed…

Food for the day: 2 manky "sandwiches" of flat bread and soft cheese, lots of water, 2 bananas, 1 can of coke, biscuits, crisps and several cups of tea, Oh, and a falafel. Must eat more tomorrow. Seriously.