Into Jordan I go! After spending a horrid night sleeping in the castle in Bosra, waking up to a bed full of hair particles and god knows what else, I was paranoid about fleas (after the trauma in of all places - shitty backpackers in Europe!) and yes ghost. I seem to be the only one in this castle, and during that night every creak scared the hell out of me! Upon leaving Bosra I found it fascinating to see all many houses around the area were built partly out of ancient Roman ruins, while others used it for decoration.

Anyway, getting into Jordan was easier then I thought. I caught a taxi to Derla, followed by another taxi to Ramtha, before yet another taxi to the capital Amman. But once at the outskirts of Amman I had to catch another 2 buses and 1 taxi before getting to the down town area. How frustrating! I lost my cool and curse, in English of course!

I thought Amman is a boring city compare to Damascus, despite it's ancient history and it being one of the oldest continuous inhabited place on Earth. The city is surrounded by many hills, populated by a series of ugly square boxes, with the odd minaret (and it's erie green glow at night) breaking up this monotony.

The following day I visited Jeresh, a well preserved Roman city. Again highly recommended, as it gave me a feel for what a Roman city looks and feel like. It being a well plan city, came complete with arches, hippodrome, city walls, temples, theater, colonnaded street (cardo) and an ornamental fountain (nymphaeum). Seriously, for those interested in Roman/Byzantine era ruins, ignore Europe and look instead towards the Middle East, from Turkey, Syria, Israel to Jordan as they are all so bloody well preserved! My theory is these sites are far from human settlements and the region is still under develop compare to it's Europe neighbors, therefore much are left undisturbed.

The following day I entered Israel via the King Hussain's friendship pass. For those who want to visit Israel without getting a stamp in their passport stamp this is the only option. But you must tell the soldiers at the checkpoint that, and they will stamp it on a piece of paper (which they collect on your way back) instead of your passport.

After returning from Israel I headed south to Wadi Musa. I came here for the most fantastic ancient site of them all. The sandstone city of Petra. This is one of the most enchanting and amazing place I have visited. Especially at the beginning when I had to walk the 1.2k gorge known as the Siq. This narrow gorge climatically ends at the Treasury, this building has to be seen to be believed. Carved out of a solid, iron-laden sandstone with a facade showing it's Gods and other important figures.

The rest of the site are just as impressive, with many tombs, a theater and Colonnaded street. After which is a climb up an ancient rock-cut path of more then 800 steps towards another impressive building, the Monastery, design similar to the treasury but much larger and partly free standing. I met some friendly Beduin people while visiting the sites, including one (Batman was his name!) whom took me on a hike towards a local spring. He wanted me to hang out in the ruins with him and his mates, but the deal was I needed to score him some foreign chicks. I politely decline and took off on my own exploration. As evening roll on I foolishly climb up the hills above the Royal tomb, wanting to get a different angle to look at the Treasury, check out the photo below! I was looking for another way down the rocks but had to stop when I reach the cliff edge, so it was a scary and lonely climb back up the route, and only just making out of this place as darkness set.

I stayed at Valentine's in Petra and watch the obligatory "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" as part of it was filmed here. This place used to be called Twaissi Inn Hotel but Twaissi is in jail for raping a Canadian backpacker last year!

The following day we all got up early to see first light breaking across the desert, this was followed by a pretty sun rise across the rocks from where we sat. After breakfast Zedan took us to watch an annual camel race. It was both exhilarating and exciting stuff, it felt like something out of the National Geographic! There was a huge crowd of locals watching this, and the race was unbelievably fast! These camels can sprint... We followed their progress on Zedan's Pickup, which almost got into an accident halfway through, when a car tried to overtake us, but ended up flipping on it's side, thankfully nobody was hurt. The race ended with a boring price giving. I thought it was interesting that no women were present at this race, instead they were all watching intently from the roof and balcony of their house. Guess this is a man's thing.