Arabian Journey -- loved Petra !

Flew into Petra after spending 7 hours in Doha Qatar, 1/2 of the time @ the airport & the other 1/2 in Doha where I checked out the National Museum (not much to see, except that it's one of the older buildings still left around due to Doha's mad attempt to modernize which has turned the city into a giant construction site), Souq Waqif (the oldest traditional market), & ate @ the new 4 seasons hotel.

The 2 days spent in Petra were the highlights of this trip, the 1 day in Wadi Rum was memorable, the trip from Wadi Rum back to Amman was ok except the taxi driver was really creeping me out ...

Landed in Petra almost 24 hours after leaving Hong Kong, went to see "Petra by night"-- a nice introduction. This was the only group tour that I joined, around 20 of us met up at the Petra visitors' center, then walked through the Siq to see the Treasury.

Maybe because I was so tired from the travels, the two hours there felt more like a sleepwalking experience. Walking through the 1 mile winding Siq, I felt like an ant walking through two bowling pins (the Siq is a very narrow 1 mile corridor with two towering cliffs [650'] on each side). At the same time, because only a very narrow stripe of sky was visible, the stars that I could see in the narrow strip felt exaggerated somehow in their brilliance.

The entire route was visible only from the starlight & the candles on the ground, just when I thought there was no end to the Siq (even though it was not scary at all since there were others there), ended up coming face to face with the famous "Treasury", looking especially mysterious through the hundreds of candles in front of it.

The night begun with a man wearing traditional clothes playing soulful haunting music on the rababa. The rababa is a little fiddle looking instrument except that it is made out of goat skin & wood, & has only one string made of horsehair. After that a man walked out of the Treasury playing the flute, & the guide that walked us down the Siq, talked a little about history & what to see & etc.

By the time I was back at the hotel, it was already 4:30 a.m. in HK but only 10:30 pm there (I never adjusted to the local time during this trip).

While I had dinner my 1st night at Movenpick which is excellent in terms of location (so is the Crowne Plaza & Petra Moon Hotel), I chose Taybet Zaman despite its distance from Petra (10 minutes away). Taybet is a real bedouin style 19th century Jordanian village, that alone made it worth trying.

~~ first full day at Petra ~~

Woke up around 6 am & was down @ the Siq by 7 a.m. Took a horse up to the Siq then walked through it. I felt like a kid walking down the Siq & felt as happy as a kid coz other than a couple of locals that were cleaning & dusting, I had the Siq & the carvings in the Siq all to myself. When I had that first glimpse of the Treasury again, I truly felt breathless for a second-- unlike the night before where I was there with 20 other tourists, here I was at the end of the Siq facing THE treasury -- & all by myself, it really felt very very special, as I never imagined that such a famous site would be so empty in the morning!

It really is NOT very easy to get lost walking around Petra, from the Treasury you next pass by the street of facades which leads to the 7000 seat theater that leads past the 3 level Palace tombs to the Colonnaded Street, the Crusaders' castle and then the route up to the Monastery.

It was around the Palace Tomb/Urns Tomb area that I met Awdeh (pronounced Audi) & his friend on their donkeys. Thank God that I was only in Petra for two days coz I ended up having quite a holiday (therefore harmless) crush.

So by this time in the morning there were a few more donkeys & bedouins looking for tourists to guide through the sites, by the time Awdeh & his friend approached me, I had already said no a few times, proudly declaring that I would walk up to the Monastery myself & not need a donkey for the hike/trek.

Awdeh told me later that when he 1st saw me, his friend told him not to approach me, coz any lady traveling by herself is not going to want any company (I think they found me to be strange), but he approached me anyway coz I had a smile on my face from the very beginning (going back to the feeling like a kid sensation), & while I also told them no, I took a photo of the two, along with a little local boy with a very big bright smile.

Moments later, as I started wandering the direction of the Monastery, Awdeh came up again, & instead of offering the donkey, he asked in a very non threatening way if it was ok to just walk along, which I found agreeable since I could always ditch him if he turned out to be an irritating companion.

So we walked from Petra church (nextdoor to the temple of the Winged Lions, where each side aisles is paved with 70 sq metre of remarkably preserved mosaics) up to the Monastery. With his donkey leading the way, the two of us chatted & most of the time I huffed & puffed on the processional road up to the cliffs, passed more incredible scenery, monuments, carvings (i.e. of crosses at the Hermitage), local Bedouin kids & their very covered up moms selling souvenirs.

An hour & 800 steps later, we ended up @ the Monastery aka as the "Al Deir" (the largest tomb facade in Petra, 50 m x 45 m high, also built as a tomb monument & with crosses inscribed inside), the place was so huge & the ledge on the doorway so high that I could barely see inside.

Awdeh made himself comfortable @ the tea tent immediately in front of the Monastery where we hung out with him & his friends. I think it was somewhere here at the tea tent/shop that I started having a crush on him.

While Awdeh's family stays at the Bedouin village (a gov't resettlement to get them out of the caves in Petra), he prefers staying @ the tea tent which has the million dollar view & more open space. At the teashop we were just hanging out, he was smoking his hookah/shisha pipe & singing with his friends. Awdeh always had his pipe with him, I had a go puffing its scented smoke, the long bubbling draft was surprisingly smooth & mild.

We also visited his cousin that was near by the Monastery at a site with great views of Israel's Negev desert, hung out with his cousin (that was lying down on his side--cleopatra style) with the soft winter sun on our faces, with the view of the desert & Israel to our left & chit chatted about life (cousin does not approve of the resettlement as he believes it destroys the traditional way of life). While Awdeh is quite outgoing & chit chatty too, whenever he's around others (ie his cousin, his friends, his other family members) he just listens, guess that's the thing to do when you are in a family of 14 kids.

Afterwards we went to the spring lower down the hills & surrounded by fig trees, where they had more Nabataean carvings on the cliffs, & where the water was surprisingly warm. We then hiked up to the High Place of Sacrifice, except we did the hike backwards. Instead of starting from the theater, we went through Wadi Farasa, (the high place has great views of Petra & is called the place of Sacrifice coz it has a main alter for the sacrifice of animals, where the blood from the animals dripped down to the Lion Fountain), passed by the Garden Tomb (with a large dam that provided water for an ancient garden), the Roman Soldiers Tomb ( so named because of the soldier statues above the entrance ), rocks with beautiful & rich hues, & other antiquated tombs.

About 4 to 5 pm we came back down from the High Place as the sun started setting, promised to meet the next morning at 7 am, & I skipped my way back down the siq (albeit sore legs, with a smile on my face).

~~ 2nd full day at Petra ~~

Waited for Awdeh in the morning around the Palace Tombs... felt like a teenage girl going on a date. Awdeh rented a mule from his friend-- a beautiful Bedouin with Kohl rimmed eyes sparkling like black gemstones under his heavy eyebrows. With the mule we got a ride to the bottom of Umm Al Biyara (a steep & high rocky mountain, often identified as the Sela of the bible-- where according to the old testament, a battle took place from the heights of this mountain). Unlike the day before, the weather this day was cold & raining (around 3 celsius). While I struggled with exhaustion, we made it up to see the old Edomites village (which dates from 600-700 BC), hung out in a couple of caves during the worst downpours, 1 of them was especially beautifully decorated & impossible to get to (Awdeh found it as a kid while herding sheeps & goats).

The next trek was to Aaron's tomb (1350 metres above sea level--where Moses' brother Aaron/Haroun died & was buried) & took a while longer as we needed to pass some canyons & was way beyond the local sites most usually visited. While this was a mule assisted hike, the paths were so bad that we had to scramble up ourselves in case the mule slipped.

By the time we got to the top, I was very wet, cold & miserable. We hung out in an area that partially shielded us from the rain, this was where Awdeh started hammering stumps out of the ground with a rock (everything else was wet) to start a fire, & like a magician, pulled a chicken, spices/seasoning, bread & vegetables out of his bag, & BBQed the best chicken I've had in years).

On the way back down I was still cold & miserable (& definitely looked ...as we say in Cantonese, a chicken dunked in soup; while Awdeh still looked handsome, sang the whole way & sported his full hair -- a riot of curls that he had to keep tieing down either with a rubber band or a black turban), so we stopped by a Bedouin tent & had a few cups of tea (where I saw 2 Bedouin kids, their beauty camouflaged with ratty clothes & unkept hair to keep away the evil eye) & then stopped again by a cave dwelling where we met a family from his tribe ( Awdeh tells me there are plenty of Bedouins that still prefer the tents and caves, the settlement he said, for many-- would be like fish out of water). The cave was nice warm & cozy, the heat from the fire outside the cave drifted in, while we had a few more cups of tea, the man of the house entertained us by playing on his rababa.

After being warmed up (sort of) we headed back to where his family lives (Um Sayhoun) where a welcoming fire was blazing in the courtyard. Got to meet his real mom, his other mom, & the rest of the family except for his dad (his 70 year dad has 4 wives, ... they say the Bedouins, when they have money, they either buy more Arab stallions, or wives, or rifles)

I was not impressed with the resettlement homes even though Awdeh liked them. The units all look the same, homes made out of red brick, all the rooms have concrete floors, flat concrete slabs for roofs, & solid metal doors. The house felt bare, there was a TV (w/50 channels thanks to satellite TV) & a photo of his handsome dad in army uniform, + a pile of mattresses on the floor.

On our way to his family's house we met up with 1 of his best friends Haroun, a Bedouin that not only speaks fluent English (actually Awdeh speaks fluent English, French, Spanish, & Italian even though he never went to school, he can read arabic but nothing else) but could also read & write. Haroun told me that he prefers the settlement because of the hot water & showers-- kind of sad but I prefer the tents / caves.

We went back to his family's place so that his brother can drive me back to Wadi Musa so that I would not have to walk through the Siq in the dark. While the family invited me to stay for dinner & I got to see what was cooking in the kitchen, still I felt that I was intruding on them & they were inviting me to stay only because of their famous Bedouin hospitality, so I insisted on going back to Taybet Zaman.

~~ 3rd day: @ Wadi Rum ~~

Started the day with an early drive to Wadi Rum, ended up @ Bait Ali camp, next to Rum Horses where the Bedouin owner has over 20 magnificent Arabian horses. The owner wanted to try out his new, spirited and defiant Arabian stallion, while I got "auntie Zellda" for my lack of riding skills.

After a couple hours in Wadi Rum, (the biblical adventure desert where most of Lawrence of Arabia was filmed), when he realized I was competent only on a horse that walks, & occasionally canters (very occasionally), we went back to the stables to hop into a 4x4 up & headed into Barra Canyon (an awe inspiring crack splitting 1 of the steep rockfaces in the valley).

Rum is just 1 giant sandy history museum. Nearly every valley, mountainside & watering hole has a relic of the past: Thamudic, Safaitic, Nabataean, Greek & Arabic graffiti litter the cliff faces, rich repertoire of rock art with hunting scenes adorn cave walls, rudimentary stone age shelters scatter throughout the gorges & they even have an ancient Nabataean temple!

The desert itself is a sandy, shrubby floor periodically interrupted by weird & wonderful sandstone formations.

The moonscape surface, echoing rocky canyons & deafening silence of the desert (other than moi & the guide, I counted 8 other homo sapiens during the entire day out here) were so intoxicating, we hung out until the sun started setting & the entire place turned into a red, orange & gold playground of sanddunes & mountains.

Dinner @ Bait Ali was myself & 2 couples from Holland around a campfire. Bait Ali consists of several tents with bedouin blankets, but at night the desert wind & air was so cold I moved from my tent into a little concrete room, much less atmospheric but at least warmer.

~~ last day in Jordan ~~

The route back to Amman passed by Aqaba (the red sea-- where Jordanians go for water sports & winter warmth, & where Moses parted the sea during the escape). Got to see (from afar) Ellat, Israel (the coastal city on the red sea), Wadi Araba (tons of wandering camels & where Awdeh said I should go next time), the Dead Sea (saltiest expanse of water on earth), Wadi Mujib (a spectacular canyon located in the mountainous landscape to the east of the Dead Sea), Mount Nebo (where Moses saw the Promised Land denied him), Madaba (where there's a mosaic map from the 6th century on the floor of a church, showing biblical sites known in the Byzantine period).

It took about 5-6 hours & the drive would have been more enjoyable except the driver Fares (a 42 old looking 20 years older, with 1 wife & 6 kids) was really creeping me out (he was the driver the hotel Taybet sent-- & the same guy that picked me up the 1st day from the airport & drove me to & from Taybet daily) He was just a little bit too touchy feely. He was also irritating me with his singing (gave me goosebumps) & the way he kept on asking me if I was enjoying Jordan (felt like telling him, yes, enjoyed every second, except the being in a car with him part)... he also took me to a tourist shop where I bought a waterpipe that cost twice the normal price.

At about 1-2 pm, got dropped off @ the Amman airport, paid Fares his fare (which I thought was too much but just relieved to get rid of him ), @ headed home to Hong Kong.

In sum, Jordan is a precious treasure to visit, full of majesty monuments, warmth reflected in the open smiles & friendly greetings of the locals (except for the driver Fares), middle of the middle east, but definitely worth seeing!