Jordan

Edit: I have amended this post to add a few more photos :-)

Jordan was an amazing experience. I knew very little about it to start with. Having had zero-religious education or even any interest in Christianity (I consider myself an atheist), the role it played in history came as a big surprise to me. I have to admit that the significance of some of the historical places we visited (eg, the place on the Jordan river where Jesus was baptized and Mt Nebo where Moses saw the holy land for the first time, died & is apparently buried) were completely lost on me. But in other respects I was completly blown away - for example, I had no idea about the extent of Roman ruins that exist in Jordan.

It is apparently one of the safest countries in the middle east but tourism is terribly affected whenever there is a problem in one of its neigbouring countries (Israel & the West Bank, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia & Egypt). I felt incredibly safe, even when I walked to the shops by myself at night. The people & country are beautiful & the food is sensational - even better than the food in Egypt if you ask me! If you haven't been there, do yourself a favour & go!

Jordan is everything that Egypt is not - clean, organised, orderly & white!


Jordanian bagpipers (yes, you read that correctly) in a Roman ruin in the city of Amman, the capital of Jordan. Strange but true. It's a long story-


Like any Roman ruins, it had an amphitheatre-


..and lots of magnificant columns-


We visited a church in Madaba, a town about 20mins outside Amman. Under the floor of a church in Madaba has been found a mosiac which is believed to be the earliest map of the holy land, dating from around the 6th century-


And then there is Petra. What can I say? My dad considered it to be one of the highlights of the whole trip to Egypt & Jordan. What he said when he first saw the famous 'Treasury' building in Petra cannot be repeated here ;-) To get to the ancient city, you walk through a magnificant canyon (and, if you are a fame of Indiana Jones movies, you probably recognise it)-








And then suddenly you get a sneak peak of Petra's most famous building (the 'Treasury')-


A few more steps and you are there-




Petra was much larger than I had anticipated & full of magnificant buildings carved out of the colourful sandstone walls-


But the biggest surprise was that the 'Treasury' building wasn't the most impressive building. After walking up 1000 steps to the top of the canyon, Dad & I discovered the simply astounding 'Monastery' building-




After our climb, we were also rewarded by discovering the end of the world ;-)
Actually it could have been the end of the world given the noise which sounded remarkably like bombs going off down in Israel-


No visit to Petra is complete without a visit to....


What the?


From there, we headed 'downhill'. First to sea level....


And then further down to the lowest point on earth - the Dead Sea






Given that I have now been to the lowest point on earth, I suppose there is no reason not to go to the highest point on earth, is there? ;-)

Next up, Tanzania :-)