Blogs from Jordan, Middle East - page 115

Hello eveyone.. I arrived in the seaside resort town of Aqaba a few days ago. The weather is fantastic here and the beach is beautiful.. across the straight of Aqaba is the city of Eilat, Israel, you can clearly see the buildings of the city, its amazing and that close. I never thought I would ever be this close to Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia in my life. Its really cool, but a little scary as well. I wandered down to the ruins of the old castle, they were OK, really just an old looking medieval type castle. The guy who took my ticket then took it upon himself to give me a personal tour. It was interesting and he did have a lot of information on the castle, however he addressed most of his info to ... read more

Hi all I arrived in Amman very early in the morning and took a taxi to the bus 'station' as I wanted to leave Amman quickly... haha The bus station was just a huge parking lot with buses, vans, and taxis in it, no ticket booth or signs in English.. it was 6 degrees outside and 6 AM.. I had just left India and I was freezing. A couple of nice bus drivers let me sit on their bus till the Petra bus arrived and they even bought me some tea. The Petra bus was to leave at 7, then 7:30, at 8:30 they told us it doesn't leave till the bus is full. Hmm. There was an older Swedish couple on the bus as well so the 3 of us decided to share a cab ... read more

I arrived in Jordan on the 4th, and then went straight over to Israel. But was back in time to experience the country's response to the latest bewildering move by Al Qaeda. A handful of terrorists had blown themselves up in the lobbies of three western hotels. Even though the hotels were western, the biggest impact was on an Arab wedding party. This action did not go over well with the local population. Due to enhanced security procedures (checkpoints all over the place), my trip to the Dead Sea was canceled and I ended up not seeing anything outside of Amman. Therefore, for this trip, most of my sightseeing in the region was in Israel. However, it was most interesting being in Jordan and seeing first hand the patriotic response of the Jordanian people to the ... read more

Jordan: September 3: Arrived in Madaba about eleven at night. We stayed in a very friendly hotel with very questionable wiring. The power went out in the whole building for about five minutes P tried to turn on a lamp. The owner advised us not to drink the water, but didn't have any water for sale. We went out to try to find an open shop, and passed a few cafes with some guys hanging around drinking tea. We passed a group of teenage boys who were in the street doing teenage boy things like shouting at each other, throwing rocks at each other while riding bicycles, and staring at us. On our way back from the shop where we bought some water, they all got very quiet as we were about to pass them again, ... read more

Arrghhh i hardly got time to catch up with my travel reports and the things im seeing every day. This report today is gonna be a bit shorter. 2 days ago I visited Petra which was AMAZING. The entrance fee was quite high (21 JD which is similar to euros). They offered discounts for students who own a students card and unfortunately i left mine at home (i somehow always forget things when going travelling) After trying my luck without a students card i was informed that i had to pay the 21 jordanian denars... I paid the amount but then the guy gave me 10JD back winking with his eye. People here are so lovely, open and kind. It is so so so amazing. Egyptians are very lovely too but at the markets they constantly ... read more