It was, again, a very early start, as we needed to get to breakfast and be waiting at the hotel reception for a guide at 7.30 ready for our Petra tour. This time it wasn't Achmed, but a man called Khamal, who's obviously used to the British grasp of names and languages and was keen to stress that his name isn't Camel. We have been making some effort with Arabic, although those efforts have, so far, only stretched to "Salam" ("hello"), "Sabah El Khair" ("good morning") and "Shikran" ("thank you"). Khamal also introduced us to "Yalla Yalla", which means "get a move on". We were a bit dismayed to see all the coaches parked outside the Petra entrance. It's clearly going to be busy in there! Something that was also parked outside was the tourist police,
... read more