Impressive Petra!

Sep 222011
 
The Monastery in Petra / Jordan

The Monastery in Petra / Jordan

Petra is impressive – established sometime in the 6th century BC as the capital city of the Nabataeans – they carved the entire city out of the rock. They didn’t build columns – they kept carving the rock until they had columns. Given the back-story, it’s some of the most impressive architecture I’ve seen.  I highly recommend.

The Monastery is massive - Petra, Jordan

The Monastery in Petra, Jordan

 

The Monastery (above) and The Treasury (3rd & 4th photos) were my favorite two.

The Monastery, Petra’s largest monument, dates from the 1st century BC. It was dedicated to Obodas I and is believed to be the symposium of Obodas the god. This information is inscribed on the ruins of the Monastery. [wikipedia]

The Siq - in front of Al Khazneh ("The Treasury") in Petra, Jordan

The Siq is the narrow passageway to Al Khazneh ("The Treasury") in Petra, Jordan

 

in front of Al Khazneh ("The Treasury")
Al Khazneh (“The Treasury”)

Petra looks like it's falling (on me!) but it's quite solid, even after all of these years

Al Khazneh ("The Treasury") - carved out of rock.

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From the desert to the sea — hello KL

Mar 122011
 

Goodbye Jordan. I loved my week there, with so many rich experiences. After Jordan I was off to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, the biggest city I had been in since Hong Kong.

[note -- I'm clearly a bit behind on posting on my blog -- I hope to catch up over the next few days]

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Jordanians – the most helpful people you’ll meet?

Mar 122011
 

I’ve met great people in every country but Jordan really sticks out for how far the Jordanians went to help us. They were friendly in Indonesia, but Jordanians, random strangers, kept going that extra mile beyond reasonable expectations.  Often they’d tried to help us but most spoke very limited English, so there was certainly some effort on their part.

For example, a waiter actually invited us to stay with him at his home the “next” time we visit. We’ve gone through the conversation multiple times and can’t quite figure out how it came to that, but the invitation was incredibly generous nevertheless.

On that previous driving in the fog adventure story, a guy we met along the way invited us into his house, called someone he knew that spoke marginally better English, to help direct us for this missing road.  Read more... (406 words, 10 images, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

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Road to Petra – Getting Lost Driving in Jordan

Mar 102011
 

Note: if you have trust issues, particularly with strangers in foreign lands, reading most of this post may not help. Spoiler alert – we lived!  But it was an adventure.

This is the story of our attempts to drive from the Dead Sea to Petra, one of the wonders of the world. We were on a travelers high, having just floated in the Dead Sea, witnessed an amazing Dead Sea sunset, and had a modeling photoshoot. As we drove down the Dead Sea highway, we looked at the rather poorly marked map and noticed that the directions to drive from the Dead Sea to Petra had us driving on a road that wasn’t on our map, which presented some obvious challenges as the sun was going down.  How could that be?

Petra and the Dead Sea might be Jordans two biggest tourist attractions and they’re almost directly across from each other, but all the books and websites said the way to get there is to go back up to Amman and then go down, or go down to Aqaba (the Red Sea), and then back up. That seemed rather inefficient, given how close Petra is to where we were in along the Dead Sea highway, so we decided get in touch with our inner Lewis & Clark and start exploring.  Read more... (1599 words, 10 images, estimated 6:24 mins reading time)

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They LOVE the King

Mar 082011
 
Lobby of our hotel in Amman, Jordan. Every hotel has an area with photos of the Jordanian King and Queen.

Every hotel and most restaurants had framed photos of their beloved king and queen. One restaurant had an entire wall of photos of them. This was our hotel in Amman, the capital of Jordan

Lobby of our hotel in Amman, Jordan. Every hotel has an area with photos of the Jordanian King and Queen.

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Jordanian Dinars

Mar 082011
 
Jordanian Dinars. It doesn't list the amount (in english) on both sides of each bill. Challenges...
Jordanian Dinars. It doesn't list the amount (in english) on both sides of each bill. Challenges...

Jordanian Dinars. It doesn't list the amount (in english) on both sides of each bill. Challenges...

The money in Jordan would be so much easier to work with if they used standard english numbers on both sides of the dinars. Every country has their own language, but as someone that can’t read Arabic, I found this aspect of Jordanian currency to be challenging.

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Wadi Rum views

Mar 062011
 
Wadi Rum Jordan-3

Wadi Rum, Jordan — We went hiking and camping in the desert of Wadi Rum in Jordan – I never thought a desert could be beautiful until visiting Wadi Rum. Here’s a small sampling of the breathtaking views and scenery:

It’s a desert valley cut into the sandstone and granite rock in southern Jordan

Lawrence of Arabia – David Lean filmed much of this 1962 film on location in Wadi Rum.The village of Wadi Rum consists of several hundred Bedouin inhabitants. Mohammad was our guide.

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