Blogs from Dead Sea, West, Jordan, Middle East - page 2

An extremely cold and windy day. We left our hotel for the journey to the Dead Sea. Along the way we took photos of the snow on the side of the road. We stopped at Shobak Castle built during the crusades in 1115 built on a conical mountain overlooking the caravan and pilgrimage routes. This allowed King Baldwin, Jerusalem’s first titled king to control the areas commerce. It is a huge site which was surrounded by agricultural land to feed the people of the site. It was blowing so hard the we were almost blown off the castle top. We stopped for a photo op of the smallest hotel in the world - a VW bug fitted out with cushions and blankets on the side of the road. We reached our hotel at the Dead Sea ... read more

1er octobre 2015 - Jour 8 Nous avons un long trajet de 4h ce matin pour remonter ver le nord et rejoindre notre dernier arrêt, la Mer Morte. La route longe la frontière avec Israël qu'on peut apercevoir avec sa barrière de barbelés. De nombreux postes de contrôles militaires sont situés le long de cette route et nous arrêtent régulièrement pour contrôler nos passeports et le permis de notre chauffeur. Durant le trajet, Ehab nous remet à jour nos connaissances d'histoire biblique sur le parcours de Moïse et le baptême de Jésus dans le Jourdain. D'ailleurs ces événements sont également cités dans le Coran puisqu'ils sont tous deux considérés comme des Prophètes. Lorsque nous atteignons la Mer Morte, nous constatons à quel point le niveau de l'eau a baissé ces dernières années car on voit clairement ... read more

Despite the stress of the previous day, our hotel room and especially the bed, was very comfortable. I say comfortable. Certainly to lie on. However, this morning we both agreed it wasn't the best night's sleep we'd had. The mattress of the bed was memory foam but we think it had been still remembering someone else's body!! At breakfast we met a young couple from Dubai. We explained our predicament about not being able to find the hotel yesterday. They said that they had GPS in their car and they even had problems. GPS identified the road ok but failed to pin point the location of the hotel. It didn't also take in to account the temporary road closures. Today, the last full day of our trip, we are heading to the Dead Sea, a journey ... read more

October 15, 2013 After wandering the ancient streets of Jerash it was on to the other place we were visiting that day, the Dead Sea...truly a mythical place, the lowest point on Earth and somewhere I had always wanted to visit so was really looking forward to it... After a nice drive through the Jordan Valley we caught our first glimpse of it in the distance...excellent! We opted to hit the public beach, it is significantly cheaper than paying admission to one of the luxury hotels lining the Sea, all for the privilege of using their beach...pfft...think it cost us 15 JD's each, still enough but again not as bad as other places... Good facilities, had a really nice pool as well but eating options are limited to an expensive buffet at the one restaurant...it was ... read more

8/6/13 hongkong my clock on the ipad says 2.45am so im guessing thats sunday morning in nz wow I've been up for a while! But i got to watch django on the plane which I've wanted to see for ages. I'm at the ymca which i just found out stands for young women's christian association, so its ywca Lochlan didn't mention that bit. Rooms pretty basic and a shared bathroom. Missing brent, my dreams keep drifitng to that horrible night, maybe its effected me more than i thought. I'm glad i got a shuttle from the airport, its a while away and theres heaps of people and crazy drivers, also its raining. I'm not to far from some main shopping streets by the looks of it, i'll check it out tomorrow, along with my awsome new ... read more