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Read my Travel Diary and other articles from a six week trip to Syria, Jordan & Egypt during October and November 1998

The Middle East

Si_lad
2004-03-26 20:27:02

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other Aussie sharing our room, snored like a wild bear. I confronted him about it and he said "Me – snore – I never snore". When Peter and Nick confirmed his snoring he gave us explicit instructions to throw something at him if he started again.

3rd November 1998

We made another early start and again, we were pretty much the first people into Petra. We climbed to the High Places of Sacrifice and spent the morning scrambling around and viewing the other parts of Petra, which we hadn’t seen yesterday. Very enjoyable and well worth the early start to avoid the crowds, which seem to start arriving after 10:00.

We left the Siq at around 12:30 again, and went back to Pizza Hut (again) and then went back to the Hotel and couched watching videos (again)!

I can definitely recommend spending at least two days in Petra, as one day just isn’t enough, and although we felt quite knackered at the end of day 2, it’s definitely worth getting up really early and getting in at 6:00 when the gates open. The only fault with Petra is the adjoining town of Wadi Musa – where everything is expensive and it seems like everyone wants to rip you off. I would have liked to visit Petra a few decades ago to see how it was before the hotels and tourists arrived, and when the Bedouin still lived in the caves. Still – I have to be thankful that I had the chance to visit such a marvellous place.

Later in the afternoon we visited the Internet Café (which was twice as expensive as in Amman), and then I had a quick kick around at football with some kids, until put their ball on a roof, at which point I quickly left.

It’s quite sociable at the Twaissi Inn, and in the evening we sat around watching videos and chatting. There were some funny characters there. One strange looking German lad, who constantly scrounged everyone’s cigarettes, was nicknamed "The Bulldog", ...